Bloodshed

Yuhara lay face-down in the mud. Even with his entire body covered in muck and water, it still couldn't block the heat radiating from him. No one knew how well-done his right arm had been roasted.

The intense impact nearly knocked Yuhara unconscious. The flames had magnified his sense of pain infinitely. After instinctively struggling a few times, he barely managed to prop himself up.

As if separated by a veil of water, the sounds of rain, battle, and shouting reached Yuhara's ears in a horribly distorted manner... Who am I? Where am I? What happened?

All right, it wasn't quite that dramatic. Yuhara simply couldn't understand why the enemy had launched a suicide attack without hesitation—and why he had been the target.

The battle had only just begun. Why had a perfectly healthy person suddenly blown himself up? Even ninjas shouldn't treat their own lives with such disregard.

However, the enemy hadn't randomly picked someone to use the mutual-destruction technique on. Judging from the combat power Yuhara had displayed since the battle began, the enemy had decided that trading his life for Yuhara's was worthwhile.

The enemy believed Yuhara was a formidable opponent.

This battle was rather similar to the first time Yuhara had set foot on a battlefield. The absurd part was that this time, Yuhara and the others were the "formidable enemies of the Hidden Cloud," while the Rain Ninja were actually closer to "Squad Z."

For the weak to challenge the strong, they inevitably had to pay a sacrifice beyond imagination. Every Rain Ninja who marched onto the battlefield had already accepted the possibility of death. Since they could accept death itself, they wouldn't hesitate when choosing a path that led to it.

Of course, Rain Ninja like these could be said to possess extraordinary willpower—or to have been maliciously brainwashed... Either way, this was simply the world they lived in.

"Hiss..."

Yuhara exhaled slowly, then drew a deep breath and held it. An iron barrier gradually spread across his right arm, replacing his severely burned skin and protecting the tissues beneath it.

The enemy who had attacked him naturally met an even worse end. In terms of spirit, that person could be called heroic, but in reality, he had merely become a lump of Indian curry.

The explosion from detonating dozens of Explosive Tags at once hadn't killed Yuhara, which was somewhat unexpected. But the last surviving enemy of the four-man squad noticed Yuhara climbing out of the mud and immediately launched another attack.

The enemy rapidly flipped his wrist, then stopped. A massive fireball shot straight toward Yuhara.

Yuhara wasn't particularly good at dealing with wide-area damage techniques like Fire Release. But in the next instant, his figure vanished from where he stood. The curtain of rain was cleaved straight down the middle, and the burning fireball was sliced in half. The sound of something cutting through the air rang out, then stopped. The enemy discovered that a silver longsword had already pierced his heart.

An icy chill spread through his chest. Without suffering much pain at all, his bodily functions ceased.

"Your courage in resisting the enemy is worthy of respect. I don't understand the meaning of this war, but I at least understand that the powerful nations' bullying of the weak nations is nothing more than undisguised aggression. However... I'm sorry, but I have no intention of dying here."

Yuhara dispersed the silver sword in his hand. Then two bow limbs extended from his left wrist. He straightened his arm, and the bowstring drew itself back. A black "ribbon" spread from behind him. Once its tip reached the bow, it instantly formed an iron arrow... Yuhara didn't need to use either hand to draw the bow.

He climbed to a higher position and began supporting his other teammates.

"Retreat! Don't stop moving! Retreat through the opening Yuhara created!"

Jian Dong instantly grasped the change in the battlefield and shouted the order to her subordinates.

By then, the Rain Ninja who had arrived far outnumbered the Konoha Ninja. Stopping to fight now was meaningless; it would amount to slow suicide.

Only by running was there a sliver of hope.

Jian Dong's order naturally had a positive effect, but it also revealed her identity to the enemy. As a result, most of the enemies immediately charged toward her.

Against such numbers, Yuhara's one-arrow-at-a-time support was practically meaningless, so he could only fire another Mercury Lamp... This wasn't the time to be stingy with his Chakra reserves.

Silver light flashed. The Konoha Ninja slipped out through the gap in the enemy encirclement that Yuhara had opened. Combined with the instantaneous damage and obstruction from Mercury Lamp, the Konoha side actually managed to break contact with the enemy for a brief moment.

Not all twelve of them escaped.

But there was no need for Yuhara and the others to wait for or assist those who hadn't made it out.

Their goal was to flee, so at that moment, "black lines" no thicker than a finger began climbing over Yuhara's torso and limbs. Then lightning began surging along the predetermined paths.

Self-Retribution Cursed Binding Chidori Stream was Yuhara's original—actually, plagiarized and pieced-together—Lightning Release Nintaijutsu. This method of using Lightning Release aimed to preserve its strengthening effect on the body while suppressing Chakra consumption to the lowest possible level... Strictly speaking, however, this technique was less like Chidori Stream and more like an externally powered exoskeleton.

But the enemy couldn't be shaken off so easily. After being obstructed for only an instant, they caught up again.

The Konoha Ninja fought as they retreated. Their numbers gradually dwindled, and every survivor was wounded.

Yuhara's Chakra was also gradually running dry. But as he fought, he suddenly noticed something strange... The anomaly lay in the enemies' forehead protectors. They had originally been wearing Rain Village forehead protectors, but now the Rain Village symbol on many of them had an extra horizontal line.

Missing-nin?

In other words, the enemies attacking Yuhara and the others were gradually changing from Rain Ninja into Akatsuki ninja.

Just then, the Konoha Ninja behind them suddenly came to a stop.

"The enemy is right on our heels. Escaping together is impossible. Yuhara, we can see your strength. You should be able to protect the captain and Tigo and get them to the Konoha camp... We'll hold the enemy back," one of the leading ninjas said.

"Kujo..."

A team like Squad Z had been formed in such a way that its members were relatively distant from one another. Aside from Tigo and Jian Dong, Yuhara knew the others only by name. He hadn't expected them to volunteer to stay behind and stop the enemy.

Everyone knew what staying behind meant.

"Rather than having the entire army wiped out, it's better to let those who can survive live. In Konoha, not many people are willing to treat us as equals, so... Go, quickly, before we change our minds."

Both sides could only be called real men.

But...

Hard men dying on the battlefield—whether for better or worse—was a "fate" that had existed since time immemorial.