"They sure ran fast."
Fuyuki left the badly damaged Black Lock Sphere and looked out over the hospital garden, now completely deserted, as he grumbled.
The Mini-Tailed Beast Bomb didn't have a very large radius of destruction—just over 130 meters in diameter. Unlike a Tailed Beast, Fuyuki couldn't swallow the bomb and detonate it inside his stomach. Instead, he had to fire it off as a devastating beam of light.
In plain terms, the casting speed was too slow. Aside from the leader and the three Jonin elders standing near the front, the rest of the Kusa Ninja had already used Earth Release to run off somewhere.
Fuyuki thought he was beginning to understand how Iwagakure had managed to recruit Kusagakure, that fence-sitter, during the Third Shinobi World War.
What's more, in his earlier fights with other ninja, Fuyuki had seen some of them use the Great Fireball Technique. The Great Fireball series of techniques were all Uchiha Fire Release Ninjutsu. When the Uchiha joined Konoha, they had shared the lower-level techniques from the series so other Konoha Ninja could learn them.
Kusagakure sure was sneaky. They'd learned techniques from Konoha, then picked up a whole bunch of Earth Release techniques from Iwagakure.
A fence-sitter worthy of contempt.
"Karin, let's go!"
Fuyuki didn't want to stay in Kusagakure any longer. More than half of the Kusagakure higher-ups who had killed Karin's mother were dead, and many of the hospital's higher-ups and Jonin had been killed as well. He'd helped Karin's mother get her revenge. If Karin still wanted to keep going, all he could do was pat her on the head and tell her that he wasn't her direct relative, and this was as far as he could help her.
If she truly wanted to avenge her mother and wipe out the Kusa Ninja who had bitten her to death while she was still alive, she would have to work hard herself.
He couldn't fulfill her wish for her.
Hmm, if they didn't hurry up and leave, the Yin-Yang Spirit's fusion time would be up.
The Yin-Yang Spirit could remain in the real world for so long only because of the Chakra Candy. Now that the chakra in the candy had run out, Fuyuki could no longer maintain the Yin-Yang Spirit's existence.
The Dance Card trial period was over. Time to log off.
"Mm." Karin nodded. She didn't ask why her fellow clansman and big brother wasn't going to continue. He had risked so much for her, and she was already deeply grateful. She had no right to ask him to do anything else for her.
They were just fellow clansmen, not direct relatives.
Karin was so considerate that it was heartbreaking. She was only a year or two older than Fuyuki, but what she had gone through was beyond the imagining of someone like him, who had lived comfortably. Neither in his past life nor this one had Fuyuki ever suffered much. The worst beatings he'd ever taken had come from Pig Factory games and DNF.
Fuyuki took Karin by the hand and stopped at the gate of Kusagakure. Behind him, the ninja looked at him as if he were a plague god, snarling and baring their teeth, but none dared make a move.
"You were just unlucky, that's all. You ran into me, Uzumaki Yueshi, the second strongest in the Uzumaki Clan. Spread the word for me: within four years, I'll rebuild the Uzumaki Clan!"
"If any Uzumaki clansmen want to join me, or don't want to live under someone else's roof, they can contact me through the black market. I'll restore the Uzumaki Clan's former glory. I'll be the strongest and most reliable shelter for the Uzumaki. My name is Yueshi."
"Spread the word throughout the Ninja World. Let everyone know!"
"Captain, what do we—"
One of the Anbu stepped forward and addressed an Anbu Captain with a curvy figure.
"sigh"
The Anbu Captain took off her mask and pushed back her hood, revealing silvery-white hair and a sorrowful expression.
"Forget it. There's no need to keep wasting our time. We can't beat Uzumaki Yueshi. Put out a wanted notice! He didn't slaughter every ninja he came across. We're already lucky."
After Uzumaki Yueshi's rampage, Kusagakure's reputation was sure to hit rock bottom.
But what could they do? They simply couldn't break through their enemy's defenses. Any ambush from the air or underground would be smashed aside by the black chains and leave them badly injured. If they were weak, they'd likely be killed outright.
Along with her worries about Kusagakure's future, the female Anbu Captain was actually secretly pleased!
The Kusagakure higher-ups Yueshi had killed belonged to the Radical Faction, while she was a member of the Flower Faction!
The powerful Radical Faction had lost six Jonin, while the Flower Faction had suffered almost no losses!
Unfortunately, the female Anbu Captain didn't know that the Moon Worm on the other side, who seemed like a disaster incarnate, was actually a white-haired beauty enthusiast. If she'd taken off her hood sooner, there wouldn't have been any of this nonsense. The Moon Worm had only wanted to kill the hospital higher-ups and the Kusagakure leader!
Though "white-haired beauty enthusiast" wasn't quite right. He was a cultured man, after all!
Fuyuki would always love silver-haired beauties with youthful faces!
Because she hadn't taken off her hood, Kusagakure had lost several tall buildings for no good reason.
Aside from the ninja casualties, Fuyuki hadn't laid a hand on the ordinary people of Kusagakure. He'd even protected them when he could.
This had nothing to do with being a bleeding heart. The rules of the Ninja World were to avoid harming ordinary people who worked in production whenever possible.
Unless it was wartime and the enemy country's ordinary people who worked in production were especially stubborn!
As news of the incident in Kusagakure spread, the Kusa Ninja bullying the Land of Hot Water at the border were stunned.
They'd been throwing their weight around and bullying a weaker ninja village, only to turn around and find their own home had been raided!
Fortunately, the losses hadn't been too severe. Only six Jonin and over twenty Chunin had died. The Genin weren't counted.
Hmm, they'd lost their leader, three elders, and one Jonin from the Lao Clan. That was just about bearable.
That was what the ordinary Kusa Ninja thought, but the medical ninja were scared half to death. They were especially terrified when they learned that the powerful man who had killed his way from one end of the street to the other was surnamed Uzumaki, and was related to the mother and daughter Kusagakure had taken in. They were terrified.
They'd bullied that poor widow and orphan plenty of times. When they heard that all the hospital's higher-ups had been hung from trees, they were relieved—relieved that they'd been stationed at the front lines and avoided the Uzumaki clan member's forceful retaliatory purge of the medical ninja.
"Karin, we might have to part ways."
Six kilometers from Kusagakure, Fuyuki suddenly stopped and spoke to Karin.
"My time is up."
"???"
Karin froze, then panicked. She hurriedly pulled up her sleeve, held out her pale, tender arm, and cried, "Big brother, bite my arm! I can heal you!"
Fuyuki patted Karin on the head.
"No, I'm not hurt."
As he spoke, he took off his mask.
"I mean, my will is about to return to my real body. The one who came to Kusagakure was a Summoned Beast. My real body is in the Land of Fire."
With the mask and gloves off, Karin finally got to see what the big brother who had rescued her from hell looked like.
He had long, dark-green hair, pale green skin, and eyes that radiated a terrifying, ominous aura. What looked like a black robe on his body had actually grown out of him. She could tell from the collar.
"This is my Summoning Scroll. The Summoned Beasts I keep are as strong as Jonin. I trust them to get you safely to the Land of Fire." Fuyuki opened the scroll and held it out in front of Karin. "I'll see you again in the Land of Fire!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the Yin-Yang Spirit's body began to show signs of rejection. Its forcibly fused form split apart, black and white separating once more, Yin returning to Yin and Yang to Yang.
The two High-level Spirits, who had stood over 1.6 meters tall as one, split into two tall beings: the two-meter-tall, muscular High-ranking Dark Spirit and the High-ranking Yang Spirit, who was 1.8 meters tall with a slender build. Her devilishly curvy figure made Karin feel self-conscious.
"Whew, it's much more comfortable being alone. This forced fusion is such a half-finished mess. The two of our minds weren't even fused together." The High-ranking Dark Spirit complained about Fuyuki's unreliable magic, without giving a thought to the summoned beasts' comfort.
"Same here!" The High-ranking Yang Spirit spoke in Zhang Fei's booming voice, giving Karin a fright.
"What're you looking at, brat? Sign the Summoning Scroll already, or I'll beat your butt black and blue!" The High-ranking Dark Spirit flashed Karin a wicked grin as it threatened her.
"Hey, hey, look!" The High-ranking Yang Spirit pointed behind Karin, its face full of uncertainty.
The High-ranking Dark Spirit looked down and saw a finger-thick chakra chain growing from Karin's back. It seemed terrified, cowering against Karin's back and trembling.
"Hell—pfft, I'm made of Yin Release Chakra. I'm a ghost already. Hell, hell, hell—"
"Look at you, scaring the poor child. Come, come, poor thing. Come into my arms and let me comfort you!"
The long-awaited third update. Please vote!
It's Qixi Festival, so a little delay is understandable.
A voice muttered, "I've eaten my fill of dog food. Burp."
Before you continue