Teammate A and Enemy B (6)

The Sand Ninja heard the whistle of something slicing through the air behind him. He turned and raised the kunai in his hand to block, knocking down two shuriken crackling with lightning glow.

Yet instead of feeling relieved, he felt a faint unease. He instinctively took a step back, just as a hand blade viciously pierced through the earthen wall he had created with ninjutsu.

If he had not dodged in time, that hand would have plunged into his chest!

But unfortunately for him, his good fortune was the enemy's misfortune. He drove the kunai in his hand straight into that palm, then leaped high from behind the wall!

Wind Style: Wind Cutter!

The wind blade sliced through the enemy's neck. The next moment, the Sand Ninja should have seen the enemy's head roll to the ground!

Yet it did not.

That gratifying scene never happened.

Another voice sounded beside his ear.

Another Hagoromo appeared at his side, holding the longsword he had thrown as a projectile.

His attention was entirely focused on the Hagoromo in front of him, and he had completely failed to notice the attack from his side.

With a light thrust, the longsword pierced his heart.

The Hagoromo struck by his Wind Cutter also went poof, turning into a puff of white smoke and disappearing.

It had been nothing more than a simple Shadow Clone Technique.

The enemy's final thought was, Ah, so it was a clone. Even at the moment of death, the only thing in his eyes was regret, not remorse.

He should have regretted dying at the enemy's hands due to a moment of carelessness, but he did not. In the end, he only regretted failing to kill his enemy.

So the question was, when had Hagoromo used the Shadow Clone Technique?

It was simple. When he had fallen, before using Fire Release, he had also used the Clone Technique and the Transformation Technique. Not only had he created a clone, but he had hidden himself as well, leading to that final fatal strike.

This had been a rather troublesome enemy. Hagoromo had expended a great deal of chakra to take him down. After steadying himself a little, he began to retreat.

He needed to recover some chakra. In a large-scale battle like this, he could not keep charging forward blindly. Once he ran out of chakra, he would become a dead man.

After retreating to Konoha's main force, Hagoromo spent the next stretch of time hiding behind his allies and taking potshots, injuring enemies with long-range throws of shuriken and kunai.

Thanks to his precise throwing skills and calculation ability, he was highly efficient. He kept moving through the rear ranks, picking openings to fire off attacks. With nimble footwork and unexpected strikes, he could take down an enemy with an average of five to seven shuriken.

It continued like this until his ninja tools were nearly depleted, when Konoha's reinforcements finally arrived.

Unlike before, after encountering Konoha's reinforcements, the Sand Ninja not only failed to retreat but attacked with even greater fervor.

Something was wrong—very wrong. At a time like this, knowing when to quit was the correct choice.

After Konoha's reinforcements arrived, the balance of power had already reversed. Konoha now held an overwhelming advantage, yet Sunagakure's forces continued fighting desperately.

As if they did not care about their lives.

A sense of foreboding immediately rose in Hagoromo's heart. Why had Sunagakure chosen this kind of strategy in the first place? They were clearly throwing away their own fighting force... perhaps there was some sort of conspiracy behind it.

With doubts in his heart, although Hagoromo had recovered quite a bit of chakra, he no longer rushed to the very front as he had at the beginning.

He needed to conserve some strength to deal with any sudden situation that might arise.

In terms of individual ninja quality, Konoha's ninja might have been superior. But even if every ninja on both sides had possessed equal strength, Konoha's numerical advantage still gave it overwhelming superiority over the Sand Ninja. Based on the forces initially committed, their numbers now stood at two to one. Before long, Sunagakure's people would be wiped out.

If they truly refused to retreat.

Yet the truth was that even after their casualty rate reached Seventy Percent, Sunagakure's forces still fought to the death without retreating.

By then, Konoha's reinforcements had been there for roughly an hour and a half. Almost every Konoha ninja had realized that something was abnormal about Sunagakure. Why were they committing what amounted to suicide?

Suddenly, Hagoromo heard a faint roaring sound.

Like some kind of monster.

And it was coming from the direction of the Land of Fire.

Hagoromo began to form a vague guess. His unease was about to be confirmed.

He quickly found his captain. Thankfully, the man was alive and well, with all his limbs intact.

"Captain Hyuga, did something happen at headquarters?"

As for this Captain Hyuga, Hagoromo naturally had no idea whether he came from the Main Family or the Branch Family, nor how strong his scouting ability was.

"I don't know. My Byakugan can't see that far. But I can vaguely sense an enormous amount of chakra over there. I've never seen chakra like that before. It's like..."

Captain Hyuga did not finish his sentence, but Hagoromo already knew what he wanted to say.

Like a Tailed Beast.

Even if they had never seen a Tailed Beast, these ninja had at least heard the legends surrounding them.

Then, a huge flash suddenly appeared in the sky above Konoha's headquarters!

This was a special flare Konoha used to transmit information.

Then four more flares rose in quick succession.

The headquarters was urgently calling for reinforcements. There was no doubt about it—Konoha's headquarters had come under attack!

And the situation had already become extremely dire... now, the Sand Ninja's actions made sense. Their goal was to pin down Konoha's main force and prevent these ninja from returning to reinforce headquarters.

Hagoromo and Captain Hyuga exchanged a glance, each seeing the worry in the other's eyes.

"Break away from the fight with Sunagakure and return to reinforce headquarters immediately!"

Hagoromo did not know who was relaying the order across the battlefield, but there was no time to verify it. The moment he heard it, he turned and sprinted toward headquarters.

In truth, even without such an order, he would have run back. There were not many enemies left here, while headquarters was in grave danger. More importantly, Kushina was there.

Konoha's Intelligence Department had made an error. They had not expected the fighting here to be nothing but a feint. Still, the Sand Ninja had paid a heavy price for this attack; they had long been prepared to sacrifice a thousand men.

That meant the enemy force attacking headquarters was undoubtedly unprecedentedly powerful.