To my dismay, the dark-haired shinobi simply swung his hand at a lone tree that had somehow miraculously survived the bacchanalia of destruction around it, and my projectiles hit the crown of the birch tree that had begun to collapse, blowing it to smithereens but missing their target. Jumping over the trunk that had collapsed to the ground, I squeezed out all possible speed, but still could not reduce the distance gained and even began to lag behind.
All I could do was grind my teeth, because all of my longest-range ninjutsu were useless due to the use of raiton, or had no chance of breaking through Bee's defenses.
Even Bakkhatsu Rasengan (Explosive Spiral Ball) exploded against the shinobi's back and impotently slashed at Raiton no Yoroi with no apparent effect. It only caused the blond to move the girl in front of him, shielding her own body, but that was all.
The dark-haired jonin still managed to reach the edge of the forest untouched by the destruction, and as he ran past, with powerful blows of his free hand he felled the trees behind him, making it difficult for me to pursue him. I even had to veer off to the side a bit and move to the upper paths to avoid ramming into the rubble that had formed.
Of course, I could have tried to break through to chase the future Raikage in a straight line, but at night, in a dark forest, that was just not a practical option - no matter what anyone said, only fully-armored jinchuriki or monsters like Madara or Hashirama could ignore trunks that were twice your width.
Alas, Kushina was trailing far behind, only able to maintain her speed as she unleashed her three tails, but in no way catching up to the fleeing ninja Kumo. Ai was now burning through his chakra reserves very quickly, but he could afford to do so with his impressive reserve.
I - too, except that the blond was retreating directly towards Kumogakure's main forces and sooner or later, he was bound to run into his own. It was easier to get ambushed or to find yourself against a large enemy when you were already up against them.
Such tactics would work against a dozen or two, but against hundreds, they would run out of chakra before they could be slaughtered. Even the shadow clones that could catch up with the fugitive were useless against a target of that caliber.
They worked best against enemies who weren't expecting an attack, but not in direct confrontation, and it wasn't worth losing the surprise of such a tool for the sake of a ghostly chance to finish off the jinchuriki.
Realizing the futility of further pursuit, I slowed down and stopped, looking in the direction where the glow of the raiton flickered among the trees, quickly disappearing from view. The feeling of defeat, which I hadn't experienced in a long time, didn't improve my mood, already not at its best at the moment.
This was practically the first time in recent years that the enemy had not only managed to keep up with me in battle, but had successfully retreated despite my best efforts, depriving me of the tasty prey I had already set my sights on.
I wish I had half an hour to prepare the battlefield and quite possibly the battle would have gone very differently, but what the past war has taught me is the chaotic nature of events. One moment everything is calm, and the next moment there's machinery exploding and people dying. But that's okay, the war's just begun, we'll see you around, Junior Ai.
While I was recovering from the heat of battle and experiencing a personal failure, Kushina arrived, accompanied by a well-spent kage bunshin.
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