The battle between Amegakure and Sunagakure lasted an entire night.
And there was no sign of the fighting dying down. Instead, more and more people appeared in the canyon.
The situation grew increasingly grim.
This instinctively led Yubi to suspect that Amegakure had launched a large-scale war, using its initially scattered advance troops to tear open Sunagakure's defensive line at the border... then seizing the opportunity to escalate the battle.
Yubi had expected Hanzō to start a war, but not this soon!
The defensive outposts on the very front line of the border must already have been thoroughly scouted by Amegakure, but here in the rear... the enemy probably hasn't obtained the exact routes and intelligence yet. Hanzō was likely afraid Sunagakure would prepare and wanted to catch us off guard.
As Yubi and the others moved through the windblown sand, he looked toward a nearby slope where an Explosive Tag had blasted up thick smoke and thought to himself.
"Yubi, over here!"
Just then, the other medical ninja on their team found someone wounded and called out to him.
Yubi immediately darted over to examine the wounded ninja.
"This one... can't be saved."
After just one glance, Yubi spoke in a low voice.
The Sunagakure Chunin's injuries were far too severe. Though he was still breathing... there was no point wasting antibiotics and nutrient solution.
Before setting out on this mission, Yubi had thought it would merely be an ordinary border patrol, so he had not brought many medical supplies. He had originally prepared for a mission lasting several months, but he had never expected the fighting to become so severe. In just one night, his reserves had been almost depleted.
Thus, Yubi was decisive. He could not waste vital medical resources; he had to use his supplies on comrades who could benefit from them.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
Just then, several Kunai came flying toward them.
They were about to hit the two of them.
At the critical moment, the Chunin assigned to protect them immediately stepped forward and knocked the projectiles away.
"Go, now."
The captain turned back and spoke to Yubi and the other medical ninja.
Several Amegakure ninja had already appeared ahead.
Sasori isn't here.
Yubi looked around and discovered that Sasori was already nowhere to be seen.
More enemies entering the area behind the border meant their numbers were also increasing sharply. Moving around as easily as before was now virtually impossible.
They encountered enemies almost every few minutes. Under these circumstances, even someone as powerful as Sasori could not look after them.
The escalation of the fighting was a test for everyone.
Yubi and the other medical ninja immediately turned and sprinted away, breaking off from the battle.
But naturally, the Amegakure ninja would not let them have their way.
The Chunin leading them was only one man, after all, while there were several Amegakure ninja confronting them.
After one Amegakure ninja tied up the captain, the others immediately charged toward Yubi and his companion.
His fingertips flicked, and the spinning scalpel instantly settled into Yubi's grip.
He immediately stopped running, turned, and took a fighting stance.
"You go."
Yubi spoke to his fellow medical ninja.
The latter hesitated briefly before quickly leaving.
"A little brat like this managed to survive... not bad."
In the blink of an eye, three Amegakure ninja surrounded Yubi in a triangle.
The Amegakure ninja directly in front of Yubi stared at the boy with a surprised expression.
After all, more than ten hours had passed since Amegakure's surprise attack on the area behind the border... and their numbers were still increasing.
In other words, this battle was no longer one in which novices could survive.
"A medical ninja, huh..."
Another Amegakure ninja sneered.
In his view, medical ninja were relatively weak in combat. It was not that they were incapable, but that their abilities were not focused on direct combat.
"Hee-hee."
With a shrill laugh, the Amegakure ninja flicked his hand, sending several Shuriken flying.
Yubi quickly dodged.
But the instant he moved, an Amegakure ninja flashed behind him.
Yubi immediately slashed backward.
It was as though he had anticipated his opponent's movement.
Yet the scalpel's sharp blade was blocked by the armored ninja glove the enemy wore.
"Pretty quick reflexes..."
The man was just about to offer a word of praise.
The next second, his eyes bulged.
Yubi's seemingly small fist slammed into the Amegakure ninja's abdomen, inflicting pain so intense he could barely endure it.
"How?"
As he lost his balance, the Amegakure ninja could not understand how such a tiny brat possessed this kind of strength.
No... it wasn't explosive strength!
The Amegakure ninja belatedly realized that the boy's punch had struck a vulnerable point in his abdomen, a spot sensitive with nerves.
Immediately afterward, before the man could respond, Yubi retreated and opened up some distance.
The Amegakure ninja who had closed in behind Yubi tried to pursue him, only to discover that he had already lost all feeling in his lower body.
He could only watch helplessly as the boy escaped.
Looking down, the Amegakure ninja finally discovered a bloody hole in the hollow of his lower back, stabbed there by that scalpel.
An injury there seemed to have affected his control over his limbs.
"Such a fast blade..."
The terrifying thing was that he had thought only the boy's fist had hit him. He had felt absolutely nothing when the blade stabbed him.
The blade was too small to notice easily, and its edge was thin and light. Even when struck, it was difficult to react in that brief instant.
"Damn it!"
The Amegakure ninja cursed, vaguely realizing something.
Then his legs gave way, and he collapsed.
A pool of blood soon spread beneath him.
"Miura!"
The two remaining Amegakure ninja looked shocked.
All they had seen was the boy punch their teammate... so why had their teammate suddenly fallen?
"After him!"
Gritting their teeth with vicious expressions, the pair immediately gave chase when they saw Yubi trying to flee.
"Watch out!"
But after they had pursued him for only about a hundred meters, one Amegakure ninja's pupils contracted, and he hurriedly shouted a warning.
It was already too late.
The other had stepped into a small trap Yubi had set beforehand under cover of the windblown sand.
Overhead, an Explosive Tag blasted a large mass of rubble from the cliff face, sending it crashing down amid sand and dust.
The remaining Amegakure ninja watched his companion disappear beneath the falling rocks and dust, then made to continue pursuing the boy. In his mind, that Explosive Tag planted beforehand was merely the boy's means of escape.
Little did he know that, concealed by the drifting dust, a nimble, ghostlike figure had already closed in without a sound.
Yubi had guessed the blind spot in his opponent's thinking and done the opposite.
Whoosh!
Yubi flashed past the Amegakure ninja and landed in a crouch.
The Amegakure ninja's pupils widened. He raised a hand to feel his neck, but there was not the slightest wound, much less any blood.
Only after several full seconds did a bloody slit appear, followed by a spray of blood...
"You..."
The Amegakure ninja forced out a single word before falling onto his back.
The three of them had actually fallen to a wet-behind-the-ears brat...
After killing them, Yubi stood and immediately leaped away without so much as glancing at the corpse.
The Amegakure ninja apparently haven't adapted to the Land of Wind's weather and terrain yet... especially in a canyon like this, where strong winds sometimes whip yellow sand into the air, affecting visibility. There are also plenty of cracks in the jutting cliffs on either side... places to hide and launch attacks from. But my greatest advantage is my age, which makes enemies instinctively underestimate me. Likewise, my small build makes it easier to hide in the rock walls without being discovered... an adult would have a hard time doing that.
Yubi followed the route back toward the nearby outpost.
These three Amegakure ninja were nowhere near as strong as the one he had fought last night... they were not Amegakure's elite.
Amegakure has come in force... Sunagakure's reinforcements are most likely still on the road. In other words, the Sunagakure ninja behind the border have to find a way to hold out until the village's main force arrives.
The situation was very unfavorable for Sunagakure.
Hanzō's surprise attack had achieved some results after all.
The fighting behind the border was already this severe... one could only imagine how fierce the battle on the border's front line was now.
Still...
Yubi brought up the system interface, his eyes showing satisfaction at the sight of his soaring experience points.
His positive experience points, those gained from treatment, had now risen from 126 to 307.
His negative experience points, those gained from killing, had risen from 0 to 54.
During his hospital internship, he had generally earned only one or two experience points at a time. Now, with the battlefield buff active, the more severe the injury, the more experience he earned.
Likewise, the negative experience points awarded for killing were quite substantial.
The two different kinds of experience points could be exchanged for different types of abilities and items.
The medical supplies I brought have almost run out in a single night. If I want to keep saving people for experience, I'll have to rely purely on surgery... and Medical Ninjutsu. At that thought, Yubi willed the system interface to change.
He searched through it.
He found the abilities he wanted to redeem.
They were also Medical Ninjutsu... that he could afford with his current experience points.
Mystical Palm Technique: A-rank Medical Ninjutsu. Activates all cells at the wound, with remarkable effects in healing external injuries. Yin Healing Wound Destruction: A-rank Medical Ninjutsu. Before an opponent's attack lands, the user must correctly determine where they will be hit and rapidly concentrate a certain amount of chakra at that location; after the hit, the wound will heal automatically. Delicate Illness Extraction Technique: B-rank Medical Ninjutsu. A highly sophisticated technique capable of extracting poison and removing or transplanting organs. Healing Resuscitation Regeneration Technique: A-rank Medical Ninjutsu...
A cursory look revealed a considerable number of Medical Ninjutsu in the system, including Tsunade's original ninjutsu, the Strength of a Hundred Technique, as well as the S-rank Dragon Life Reincarnation, a Kusagakure kekkei genkai ability that appeared in a movie, and others.
There was also One's Own Life Reincarnation, which Granny Chiyo had used to save Gaara...
But they cost a great many experience points, and he could not afford them yet.
I'll redeem Chakra Scalpel and Mystical Palm Technique first... I have just enough experience points, and both techniques are relatively important.
Yubi looked them over and confirmed his choice.