Lost Fingers

Kaedeji stood beside Yakushi Nonō, not looking at her even once. He simply held out his hand at once, demanding the intelligence.

Yakushi Nonō did not hesitate. She immediately handed the bloodstained scroll to Kaedeji.

"Konohagakure scum, hand over the intelligence!!"

"No need to specifically recover the intelligence. Just kill every last one of them!"

Sunagakure Ninja continuously rushed at them. Morino Ise and the other two retreated again and again, yielding space in succession to hinder the enemies' attacks as much as possible. The wounds on their bodies gradually increased as well.

Frankly speaking, Kaedeji, the newly promoted Chunin, was the weakest member of this squad. Even Morino Ise, a Medical Ninja, possessed the strength of a Special Jonin.

"Now that you have the intelligence, you'll become every enemy's primary target. You know that, don't you?" Yakushi Nonō instinctively reached out to place a hand on Kaedeji and heal him, but immediately stopped—Kaedeji was practically uninjured.

The weakest person had suffered the fewest injuries. In a sense, that was also an ability.

Kaedeji summoned three Chunin zombies and stuffed the intelligence into one zombie's mouth, making it swallow the scroll before saying quickly, "Even if I hadn't done this, I'd still be the enemy's primary target."

There was something else Kaedeji did not say. Once he had the intelligence, he would also become Terai and the others' primary protection target. That would instead improve his chances of survival.

Never overestimate the moral standards of Root ninjas. They simply did not possess such a luxury.

"Retreat."

Terai issued the command. He cast Kaedeji a cold glance without showing any emotion, numb as an iceberg as he covered Kaedeji's escape.

One Root ninja stayed behind and threw large amounts of smoke bombs on the spot. In the raging sands, they could at most buy a few seconds. As for himself, he remained behind to fight the Sunagakure Ninja to the death.

Everyone else began protecting Kaedeji as the center of their formation, covering his escape.

The process was far from easy. Sunagakure's ninjas unleashed all kinds of ninjutsu. Even with their vision obstructed, they continued launching fierce attacks.

Kaedeji was the focus of their attacks. Even after he sent two zombies on suicidal assaults and detonated them, fearless Sunagakure Ninja still closed in through the gap created by the explosions. One thrust a kunai straight at Kaedeji's neck.

"You're not afraid of your corpses dying, but what about yourself? What will happen when you become a corpse? Or can you use that Space-Time Ninjutsu to escape again?"

The Sunagakure Ninja's face was full of cruelty. He no longer cared about the order to capture Kaedeji alive. He would rather kill Kaedeji and bring the corpse back for the village's intelligence ninjas to study. Perhaps they could obtain some valuable intelligence!

Anyone could see that something was wrong with Kaedeji's physical condition. His heavy breathing showed that his stamina was dropping rapidly. He did not have much Chakra left, and using Space-Time Ninjutsu would certainly place a tremendous burden on him.

"Watch out!"

Yakushi Nonō's expression changed as she cried out.

Kaedeji calmly raised his hand. In that split-second moment, there was extremely little he could do. He was bound to be hit, and his other companions had no time to support him.

Then... he would just take the hit.

Squelch!

Half of his palm was severed on the spot. It flew through the air with its momentum, picking up large amounts of sand before falling to the ground in a spray of glaring blood.

But he had successfully avoided the vital point at his neck. That was enough.

Terai immediately killed the Sunagakure Ninja and secured Kaedeji's back.

With the help of the zombie that had swallowed the intelligence scroll, Kaedeji began fleeing rapidly.

"Can you still use that movement technique from earlier to escape? If not, then your body cannot sustain a retreat like this for long. You might as well give the intelligence to me."

Another Root ninja, Tora, was already drenched in blood, yet he spoke without the slightest courtesy.

Kaedeji looked at his half-left hand, missing nearly half its palm and left with only three fingers, then said in a deep voice, "You needn't worry about that. It isn't the first or second time I've used zombies to assist my rapid advance. What do you think I was preparing for when I did all that before?"

Tora fell silent. Seeing more enemies catch up, he immediately gripped his tachi and looked back.

"Tora, stop them."

Terai gave the order. He was in the best condition among them. As long as he did not engage Sandstorm Araki in a life-or-death battle, he had the greatest chance of escaping.

Tora did not hesitate. He acted at once, willing to risk his life to buy them more time.

Waves of wind and sand continuously swept toward them, trying to obstruct their vision and ruin their sense of direction.

"They're like ghosts that won't go away. We still need to find a way to deal with Sandstorm Araki. A ninja like him, capable of creating area attacks, is far too disadvantageous for us," Morino Ise said gravely. He was beginning to feel anxious.

If another person had to sacrifice themselves to buy time, Morino Ise felt that he would be next.

Until the final moment, Terai, the strongest fighter among them, would not allow Kaedeji, who carried the intelligence, to leave his sight.

Terai glanced at Morino Ise and was about to speak, but Kaedeji interrupted him. "I have a way."

"You have a way?"

"Yes. There's no need for you, Captain, to sacrifice yourself and stay behind to risk your life holding off the enemy. I won't abandon you." Carried on the back of a zombie ninja, Kaedeji spoke solemnly.

Terai fell silent for a moment. That was not what he had been thinking, but this cunning fellow had deliberately used such simple words to block him.

Kaedeji used his right hand to pull open the scroll at his waist. The instant he released it, his right palm had already slapped down on it.

A cloud of white smoke dispersed. The zombies stored within the Summoning Scroll had been exhausted, and the scroll itself was discarded. Several zombies of different appearances were now following behind Kaedeji.

"You may have forgotten that I am a Medical Ninja—a Medical Ninja who has mastered the Dead Soul Technique. Altering a corpse's appearance and disguising it as a living person to draw the enemy's attention is the Dead Soul Technique's original use."

Kaedeji said, "We lost two companions, so the corpses prepared for those two are no longer needed. For everyone else, I prepared corresponding modified corpses."

A shocked expression appeared on Morino Ise's face. Yakushi Nonō seemed as though she wanted to say something, but ultimately let out a long sigh.

Terai fell silent again. He recalled the two subordinates he had sent to their deaths, then looked at another lifelike version of himself following behind Kaedeji.

"Tora and Sheep's sacrifices were necessary. Without them holding off the enemy, we could not have widened the distance between us. Without that, we could not have escaped the enemy's sight and used the Dead Soul Technique."

Terai said this, feeling that he had made a major mistake—he had completely separated Kaedeji's Dead Soul Technique from the original Dead Soul Technique, to the point that he had overlooked an escape tactic that used corpses as disguises.