An elite squad from Sunagakure had ambushed Konoha's transport convoy.
Led by several Jōnin, with the rest all Chunin, they numbered only a little over twenty, but they were formidable.
Konoha's transport convoy numbered over three hundred, but apart from the positions held by the few Jōnin, its defensive line was as flimsy as tofu, crumbling at the Sand Ninja's first assault.
Bieshu Feifan's area was relatively close to the front, and a Jōnin and several Chunin nearby had tied down the attacking Sunagakure ninja.
There hadn't been many Sunagakure ninja to begin with. Apart from those tied down, only two had stayed to intercept Genin like Bieshu Feifan, while the rest had gone after the convoy's supplies to destroy them.
Over thirty Genin had gathered on Bieshu Feifan's side. Throwing their shuriken together, they managed to put up a fairly imposing barrage and actually held off one of Sunagakure's Chunin for the moment.
By then, Bieshu Feifan had dragged Hyūga Shupi into the crowd. He bandaged Hyūga Shupi's wound while checking whether any of their nearby teammates were watching them.
"Hiss... that hurts. Bieshu Feifan, you dared to sell me out back there. Once I get up, you're my next meat shield."
Hyūga Shupi looked at his blackening wound, then glared hatefully at Bieshu Feifan.
If he could have gotten up, he would have liked nothing better than to beat Bieshu Feifan to death right then.
"Captain, you're hurt too badly. I'm afraid you won't make it through tonight."
Bieshu Feifan replied indifferently as he carelessly bandaged Hyūga Shupi.
All the while, his eyes scanned their surroundings.
Hyūga Shupi gritted his teeth in fury.
"Bullshit, brat! You even dare curse me? Once I get up, I'll show you that a commoner like you can't afford to offend the Hyuga Clan."
Now. It's dark, and no one's looking this way.
Just as Hyūga Shupi kept prattling on, imagining how he would take revenge on Bieshu Feifan later, a pair of hands suddenly clamped around his neck, cutting off his breath.
"Urgh..."
Hyūga Shupi struggled desperately, but he was too badly injured to muster much strength.
"Captain, hang in there! Lord Hokage will come save us soon!"
Bieshu Feifan squeezed Hyūga Shupi's windpipe hard and shook him vigorously, loudly reassuring him all the while.
Then, just as Hyūga Shupi gradually stopped struggling, Bieshu Feifan reached his fingers toward the eyes that remained open in death.
Bieshu Feifan's heart was pounding. His cheat ability was finally getting its first use.
"Captain, hang in there!"
As he shouted, Bieshu Feifan's fingers touched Hyūga Shupi's eyes.
Innate Divine Ability, activate.
Special chakra, absorb.
As Bieshu Feifan activated the Innate Divine Ability he had brought with him when he transmigrated, the ocular power of Hyūga Shupi's Byakugan instantly surged into his body.
At once, Bieshu Feifan felt a wondrous warmth nourish his body. It was like waking naturally on a bright, sunny morning after twelve hours of sleep, his whole body brimming with vitality, especially his eyes.
Bieshu Feifan's cheat had only one ability-absorbing special chakra.
However, it only worked if his fingers touched the target's body or a specific body part.
That was all Bieshu Feifan currently knew about this innate ability.
As Hyūga Shupi's ocular chakra poured into him, Bieshu Feifan immediately felt much more alert.
But the battlefield was in chaos, and Bieshu Feifan had no time to test what the newly absorbed special chakra could do.
"Captain, oh, captain."
Holding Hyūga Shupi, whom he had strangled to death himself, Bieshu Feifan wailed at the top of his lungs while laughing wildly.
"I've thrown all my shuriken!"
Just then, someone shouted.
Others immediately chimed in.
"I'm out too!"
"I still have two explosive tags."
Several nearby explosions followed, their flames briefly lighting up this small patch of ground.
Bieshu Feifan noticed that the two Sunagakure ninja had already fought their way over.
The instant the firelight died, a series of clacking sounds came from puppets, and the sounds of flesh being sliced suddenly rang out among the Genin squad on Bieshu Feifan's side, followed by screams.
"Run!"
Someone reacted immediately and took off.
"Head for the Jōnin!"
Using the illumination from a Fire Release technique, someone spotted their Jōnin's position and ran desperately in that direction.
By then, quite a few supply carts had been set alight, and quite a few others had been blown to pieces.
By the firelight, Bieshu Feifan assessed the situation on the battlefield.
Then he turned and ran toward the outskirts, where the most Genin were gathered.
The Jōnin on both sides were fighting fiercely. Running over there would make it easy to get caught in the crossfire. The supply carts were out of the question too, since those were what the Sunagakure ninja were targeting for destruction.
Only the crowded outskirts were safest.
It wasn't that Genin weren't worth killing, but the Sand Ninja were few in number and had a clear objective: destroying the supplies in transit. They most likely wouldn't have time to slaughter weakling Genin.
Although Bieshu Feifan had absorbed Hyūga Shupi's ocular power, he was still fundamentally cannon fodder forced to graduate early. His fighting strength hadn't increased.
"Don't attack! I'm on your side!"
Stumbling and scrambling, Bieshu Feifan reached a Genin squad holding its ground while awaiting reinforcements. They were all youngsters fresh out of the academy.
Faced with the battlefield of flying flesh and blood, enemies who appeared and vanished without a trace, and companions lying on the ground wailing, these dozen or so Genin were already scared out of their wits. They crouched back-to-back at the edge of the battlefield, not daring to attack at all.
Some of Bieshu Feifan's classmates in the group recognized him, so he smoothly joined this squad of Genin clinging to survival.
"What do we do? Are we going to die?"
One girl, on the verge of a breakdown, asked in a trembling voice.
Bieshu Feifan immediately encouraged them:
"Don't worry. As long as we stand firm, there'll be a way."
"But I can't see the enemy. Why don't we run?"
Bieshu Feifan immediately cut off that line of talk.
"We absolutely can't run. If we run now, we'll be rogue ninja, and we won't live long. Besides, staying doesn't necessarily mean we'll die. Once our Jōnin counterattack, everything will get better."
Although Bieshu Feifan wanted to run too, rogue ninja without Jōnin-level strength could hardly survive. Once the war ended, they would immediately be hunted down and wiped out.
Taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention to their group of Genin for the moment, Bieshu Feifan hurriedly circulated his chakra, directing the special chakra he had just absorbed from Hyūga Shupi into his eyes.
His vision immediately brightened, and the darkness of night became clear in an instant.
So this is the Byakugan's ability. It really is a great reconnaissance tool. It just uses a bit too much chakra.
Bieshu Feifan touched his eyes. The corners weren't bloodshot, and no veins bulged around them.
Good.
His cheat really was reliable. If using the Byakugan's special chakra meant having to look like a Hyūga in the future, it really wouldn't be much use to Bieshu Feifan.
Using this brief window of enhanced vision, Bieshu Feifan examined the battlefield in detail. He discovered that quite a few Sand Ninja had already died. Only five or six remained alive, and they were retreating.
But all five or six were Jōnin, whose fighting caused a great commotion, and they were retreating separately. That was why it still sounded as though fighting was taking place everywhere on the battlefield. In fact, in most places, puppets were intercepting the pursuing Konoha ninja.
At present, Bieshu Feifan was only at sub-Genin level. After maintaining the Byakugan for just a dozen or so seconds, he began to pant.
Deactivating the Byakugan, Bieshu Feifan immediately roared:
"Brothers, protect the supplies!"
The fighting was essentially over by then, and Bieshu Feifan didn't mind acting a little braver. Shouting a few slogans cost nothing, after all.
Bieshu Feifan certainly didn't want the Jōnin thinking he was slacking off.
After that shout, Bieshu Feifan immediately ran toward an unattended transport cart and began putting out the fire.
Although the supplies on this cart had already been largely destroyed, the fire was still burning, and Bieshu Feifan hurried to fight it alongside the nearby Genin.
Seeing that no Sand Ninja were attacking the people fighting the fires, the quicker-witted ones had already caught on. Shouting for people to put out the fires, they immediately ran toward the supply carts.
Once the Konoha ninja destroyed the few puppets left behind to cover the retreat and killed a Sunagakure Jōnin, the encounter came to an end.
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