"So the Sky Ninja attacked because of you?" Ruri looked at the Tsuchigumo ninja kneeling in a row, her expression complicated. Their clan head, Tsuchigumo Rihei, had already died from excessive chakra extraction. Of the once-mighty Tsuchigumo Clan, only these seventeen people remained. It was a miserable sight.
Tsuchigumo Jubei was Rihei's younger brother and the strongest member of the Tsuchigumo Clan apart from Rihei, but his legs had been broken, leaving less than a tenth of his Jonin-level strength.
The other Tsuchigumo ninja were wounded as well. The luckier ones had merely exhausted their chakra, while the less fortunate had all their limbs severed, reduced to human sticks with only a breath left in them.
Even with broken legs, Jubei still had a sharp mind. He knew that even if the crippled Tsuchigumo Clan escaped, they would never survive in the Shinobi World. Countless people coveted the forbidden and secret techniques in their possession. Any Elite Jonin could potentially wipe them out. The only way to preserve the clan was to join a force, such as Takigakure.
To earn Ruri's trust, Jubei revealed everything. Several months ago, after Tsuchigumo Rihei failed in his attack on Takigakure and fled with his clansmen, he sought out the Sky Ninja, intending to use their strength to wash away his humiliation. To persuade them to attack Takigakure, they told them everything they had learned from Kubi Ichiro about Takigakure's Hero Water. After a brief investigation, the Sky Ninja, who desperately needed vast amounts of chakra to revive the Zero-Tails, agreed to the plan to attack Takigakure.
Rihei had thought he could use the Sky Ninja to destroy Takigakure. After all, the Sky Ninja's Chakra Energy Cannon combined with the Tsuchigumo Clan's forbidden techniques was practically invincible in an assault on a village. They