Suspicious Traces

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, the man caught Zabuza's blade in one hand and said incredulously, "How is this possible? How could I die at the hands of you three brats!"

Pfft!

Another muffled thud rang out.

He suddenly felt a sharp pain in his waist. The other little boy had taken advantage of his attention being fixed on the blade in his chest and stabbed a kunai into his left side.

"Anything is possible on the battlefield!" Qishuang shoved the kunai a few inches deeper and replied coldly.

"No... I refuse to accept this!"

Blood spilled from the man's mouth. He glared viciously at the three of them as if he wanted to devour them alive, then shouted, "I'll take you with me!"

Qishuang immediately noticed that the man's other hand was now holding a stack of burning explosive tags.

"This is bad! Zabuza, retreat!"

He cried out, released the kunai in his hand, and grabbed the little boy beside him, trying to pull him back.

Before he could finish speaking, another tender female voice rang out beside his ear.

"You can go to hell alone!"

Immediately afterward, Qishuang saw Terumi Mei kick the Konoha shinobi in the chest from midair. Zabuza's blade slid out of the man's chest, and he flew away like an arrow released from its bow.

Boom!

Flames soared into the sky, followed closely by a curtain of smoke and the shockwave of the explosion.

Although Terumi Mei's kick had sent the man flying away, the three of them were still more than three meters from the explosion's center. The scorching blast hurled them into the ruins beside them.

"No—"

Elsewhere, seeing his last companion swallowed by the flames, the Hyuga shinobi's eyes immediately reddened.

Yet no matter how heart-wrenchingly he shouted, time could not be reversed.

Those who had died could never come back to life.

At that moment, all he could do was take advantage of the three brats being blasted away and hurry to escape.

If he waited any longer, he might not be able to leave either!

The war would not stop because a few of them had died.

He still had to preserve his useful life and make one final contribution to Konoha and the Hyuga clan, rather than die here for nothing.

Thinking this, he suppressed the grief in his heart and fearlessly exposed an opening. At a distance extremely close to Ao, he assumed the opening stance.

"Trying to use a special technique against me from this range? You're simply courting death!" Seeing his opponent's defenses wide open, Ao raised his kunai and stabbed it toward the man's throat.

"Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Palm Revolving Heaven!"

Just as Ao's kunai was about to pierce the Konoha shinobi's throat, his vision suddenly blurred. A pale-blue radiance filled his sight, followed by a gale striking his face and an immense force hurling him away.

A moment later, intense pain shot through his back.

He knew that he had landed.

Only then did he clearly see that the thing which had sent him flying was a pale-blue rotating sphere of light two meters in diameter.

"Ptui!"

He quickly climbed to his feet and spat out the dust he had inhaled when he landed. He said gloomily, "Why is it this technique again!"

He had seen his opponent use it once before. Even a close-range explosion of explosive tags had been unable to shake it in the slightest. Its formidable defensive power was the strongest he had ever witnessed.

Faced with this technique, he could do absolutely nothing.

"Huh?"

Just as Ao prepared to face the opponent's next assault, he saw the man quickly interrupt the technique after sending him flying, then flee without even looking back.

In the time it took to blink a few times, he disappeared among the numerous ruins.

"What..." Ao was dumbfounded.

He had assumed that the man was a tough-as-nails fighter like the one who had just blown himself up in an attempt to take everyone with him. He had never expected things to turn out like this.

But after thinking it over, he felt relieved.

The opponent's four-man squad had already lost three members, while everyone on their side was unharmed.

With him holding the front line and the three little ones assisting from the side, their chances of victory were as high as ninety percent.

There was no point in the Hyuga shinobi staying behind and stubbornly fighting to the death. It would only be a pointless sacrifice.

Thus, the opponent's escape was not so difficult to understand.

Just then, a rustling sound came from the ruins beside them.

A moment later, he saw three familiar little figures dart out of the ruins.

"Are you three all right?" he asked with concern.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

Terumi Mei patted the dust from her clothes and coughed several times. With an unhappy expression, she said, "How could I be all right?"

"Look at my clothes. They're filthy! This was my last clean outfit!"

Hearing this, the corners of Qishuang and the other two boys' mouths twitched.

It turned out that she cared more about whether her clothes were clean than about her own health.

Still, Terumi Mei's unconcerned attitude proved that she was completely fine.

Otherwise, she would not have had the energy to worry about her clothes.

Ao then looked toward his other two little subordinates and asked seriously, "What about you two?"

"I'm fine!"

Zabuza shook his head and slowly wiped his short blade.

The bloodstains on it had not yet completely dried.

"I'm fine too. Nothing serious, just a dull ache all over. It'll probably be gone after a while!" Qishuang rubbed his shoulder and replied through a grimace.

"Good. Since none of you are seriously hurt, we'll keep moving!" Ao glanced toward the direction where explosions and battle cries were most concentrated and spoke slowly.

He then barely managed to find a small path through the ruins and immediately led his three little subordinates into it.

After all, the farther in they went, the denser the fighting became.

If they leaped directly over the ruins, they would likely be ambushed by enemies below.

For the sake of safety, he chose to run along the ground.

They had not gone far when another squad of shinobi emerged from the corner ahead, startling all four of them.

On closer inspection, they turned out to be their own people from the Hidden Mist Village.

"Hey, you guys over there!"

Ao waved to the companions across from him and called loudly, "Have you found any trace of that man?"

Naturally, he was referring to the current head of the Hyuga clan's main family.

Seeing him call out loudly, the opposing squad slowly walked over. The man in front said helplessly, "Not yet!"

"We've searched the entire Hyuga compound, but we haven't even seen that man's shadow!"

Seeing that all three men across from them were covered in wounds and had clearly been through numerous battles, Qishuang could not help feeling fortunate.

They had arrived a little later and happened to miss Konoha's most violent initial counterattack.

As a result, they had not encountered any particularly fierce battles along the way. Only their recent clash with that Konoha squad had truly been hair-raising.

"That really is a shame!" Ao sighed.

Just then, a huge red smoke signal rose in the southwest.

Qishuang recognized it at a glance as a signal flare from their Hidden Mist Village.

Clearly, someone had discovered something over there.

"Judging from the signal flare's location, it's already outside Konoha's main camp, isn't it? Why would anyone send a signal from there?" The leader of the opposing squad rubbed his chin and muttered to himself.

"Could it be... someone found that guy's trail?" Qishuang casually interjected.