Time drifted by, and in the blink of an eye, a week had passed.
Over the course of that week, Qian gradually familiarized himself with the entire Forward Base, then began leading his squad on missions in the nearby waters.
At first, he had thought he would run into Mist Ninja again very soon.
After all, the situation here was not exactly good. Otherwise, they would not have needed to transfer people from the Rain Country Battlefield to reinforce them.
But what Qian had not expected was that after several days, he had not even seen the shadow of a single Mist Ninja. It was as if all the Mist Ninja had turtled up.
However, on second thought, that really was possible.
This time, because Danzo had tipped them off, their support squad had been ambushed. Their losses had indeed been severe, but likewise, the Mist Ninja's losses had not been small either.
Having buried so many elite ninja, even Kirigakure would be hurting for quite some time.
In particular, the deaths of Raiga Kurosuki and Biwa Juzo, two of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, had left a gap in their high-end combat strength.
In that case, temporarily holing up was understandable.
And Qian was more than happy to see things turn out this way.
"Pull back!"
The Land of Waves.
The southeastern waters.
On a small boat, Qian glanced at the setting sun on the horizon and spoke directly.
Hearing this, several Leaf ninja answered in agreement one after another, then began steering the small boat toward the Forward Base.
As they neared the coast, Qian jumped off the boat. Chakra abruptly gathered beneath his feet, and in the end, he stood steadily on the surface of the sea.
Qian turned back to look at a young Uchiha ninja