Tired, Let's Rest

However, their legs were on their own bodies. Hinata had no standing to dictate their thoughts, so if they wanted to follow, let them.

Using strips of cloth torn from the Puppet Corpses to wrap her hands, Hinata looked up at the dense rows of Puppet Corpses standing on the second-floor corridor.

Hinata suspected they had gathered all the Puppet Corpses in Konoha at the Ninja Academy.

When Sakura ran into the teaching building, she saw everyone vomiting profusely.

"You guys... uh..."

Sakura vomited too.

The entire teaching building's floor was covered in mangled limbs and rotten flesh. Decayed internal organs lay scattered everywhere. It felt like stepping on something sticky and liquid, the black fluid that flowed from the decaying bodies.

A stench of rotting corpses permeated the entire teaching building, making everyone's stomach churn and their insides come out. Now they were all retching.

"Alright, let's hurry and catch up. We don't want these Puppet Corpses to reassemble," said Shino Aburame, who was feeling slightly better.

Fortunately, the three years of training hadn't been in vain. They quickly adapted to their surroundings and continued towards the rooftop.

However, Sakura, who had just arrived, was still in the process of expelling the sour contents of her stomach. It looked like it would take some time for her to catch up...

With the rooftop as their goal, the group saw only scattered limbs of Puppet Corpses along the way, with no sign of Hinata.

Yet, this only made them more awestruck by Hinata's strength.

This was no longer the strength expected of an eight-year-old child.

Enduring the scattered limbs and bloody remains, they finally reached the rooftop.

"Hinata, Hinata... where are you, Hinata!" Naruto shouted anxiously upon reaching the rooftop and not seeing Hinata.

"Stop shouting, I'm here."

Everyone looked up and saw Hinata sitting on the roof.

For some reason, the men looking up felt a faint sense of disappointment.

It was because Hinata wasn't wearing a skirt today.

"Hinata, why are you sitting there?"

"Tired, taking a break."

Everyone: "..."

But how can I not see that you're tired at all!

"Huff... huff... huff, you guys... huff... didn't wait... huff... for me."

Just then, Sakura finally arrived, trailing behind.

Hinata looked at the assembled group and then down at the students fighting a small number of Puppet Corpses on the training grounds below.

"According to the usual pattern, this is when the main boss should appear."

As soon as Hinata finished speaking, the surrounding light dimmed. Looking up, they saw that the sun had vanished without them knowing how.

"Wait, where did our classmates who were just lying here go?" Neji, observing their surroundings, noticed that the classmates who had been lying down had disappeared.

"No... no way..."

Sakura looked at the vanished classmates, as if thinking of something, and ran to the edge of the rooftop, looking down at the training grounds. There wasn't a single person on the grounds either.

"Sakura, what did you discover?"

"This... could this be an Alternate Dimension created by an Oni!"

"What! That's impossible!"

"No..." Shino Aburame's hand trembled as he pushed up his glasses. "It might be, just as Sakura said, an Alternate Dimension, because..."

"...I feel my Chakra disappearing!"

Upon hearing this, everyone carefully sensed their Chakra. Indeed, it was beginning to leak away, though the rate was so slow that without Shino Aburame's reminder, they might not have noticed.

Sasuke's face was pale because, among them, only he, having used Ninjutsu, would find the loss of Chakra more fatal!

"Chakra disappearing? Really? I don't feel anything?" Naruto scratched his head in confusion.

The others ignored him.

"Be careful. Normally, the enemy could appear at any moment."

As soon as he finished speaking, a skeletal hand stretched out from the rooftop floor, followed by an arm, then a head, a body, and legs.

The entire figure crawled out of the floor: a small Skeleton Giant covered in bone armor.

This Skeleton Giant was two meters forty tall and wielded a bone greatsword that was nearly two meters long.

The armor on its entire body indicated formidable defense, and the bone greatsword clearly suggested immense destructive power.

It hurts just to brush against it, and it cripples you just to graze it. It's not just talk.

"No, it's not wearing armor. Its entire body is made of white bones, which is why it looks like it's wearing armor at first glance."

Neji suddenly spoke up.

"Doesn't that make it even worse! If its whole body is made of bones, isn't it even tougher!"

"Roar~"

The Skeleton Giant roared, a sound no human could make.

A faint sense of fear welled up in everyone's hearts.

Bang bang bang~

With every step the Skeleton Giant took, a loud sound echoed.

Suddenly, before it had even taken two steps, the Skeleton Giant stumbled and fell flat on its face.

Everyone: "Uh..."

When the Skeleton Giant got back up, they noticed a black line at the joint of its left leg. Below this black line, its entire left leg had fallen off.

The giant tried to reattach its lower leg, but with the black line there, it couldn't reattach it no matter what.

"Insects?"

Neji, with his sharp eyes, identified the source of the black line.

Shino Aburame: "That's right, it's my insects."

Naruto: "Then release more insects and take down this big guy!"

"Unfortunately, I can't."

"Why not!" Naruto yelled.

"To dislodge its joints and limbs, only the hardest insects have a chance. I don't have that many of them. Crippling it was already my limit."

"Then what do we do!"

Even with one leg missing, the Skeleton Giant still limped towards them, using the giant sword in its hand as a crutch.

"You just said its joints were the most vulnerable, right?"

At this moment, Sasuke stepped forward.

"That's what I meant..." Shino Aburame adjusted his glasses.

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

A wave of heat erupted from Sasuke's mouth in the form of a fireball, striking the right arm joint of the Skeleton Giant.

When the flames dissipated, the giant's right arm had been blown off to the side.

Bang bang bang~

Under the horrified gazes of everyone present, the right arm, which still clutched the giant bone sword even after being blown off, twisted and began to crawl back towards the main body.

If it really managed to crawl back and reattach itself, Sasuke's Great Fireball would have been wasted!

But now, Shino Aburame didn't have any more sufficiently hard insects to stop it from reattaching its right arm. Moreover, he had one more thing to say: the vitality of the insects he had placed in the Skeleton Giant's left leg joint was rapidly disappearing. It was likely that his insects would die soon, and then...

"You're not getting back on!"

Naruto yelled and lunged forward, throwing himself onto the Skeleton Giant's right arm, pinning the entire limb beneath him.

At that moment, he didn't consider what would happen if this arm, holding its giant sword, swung down at him.