Chapter 182
2-in-1-chapter
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Yakushi Nonō's resilience exceeded Bun'ya's expectations. Even when surrounded and attacked by three Jōnin, she managed to hold her ground without being defeated. And that was while Bun'ya and his men maintained constant vigilance nearby, exerting continuous mental pressure on her. Yet even so, it had little effect.
Watching Nonō's tenacious resistance, Bun'ya's instincts told him that this Doctor Shiso was undoubtedly the walking shrine maiden of Konoha. But whether that information was true or not no longer mattered. The only thing that did was capturing her alive.
In truth, however, that task was anything but simple.
Capturing a Jōnin-level spy suspected of mastering medical ninjutsu and skilled in the use of poison—Bun'ya had not ordered his subordinates to swarm her for one reason: he feared that if Nonō saw no chance of escape, she would take her own life. And if she carried a trigger-based sealing jutsu in her mind, even her corpse would be useless.
Thus, he could only take the risk and engage her in a battle of attrition. One side was stalling for time, seeking that near-impossible but not entirely hopeless chance to escape; the other was determined to wear her down, waiting for an opening to capture her alive.
Both sides understood the situation perfectly well.
But the reason a battle of attrition was so dangerous lay in its inevitability—each side knew the other's intent, yet due to circumstance, they were forced to play into it.
In the end, the Iwa shinobi still held the advantage in numbers. For them, a battle of endurance favored their side. Nonō swallowed another of her handmade soldier pills, feeling her chakra replenish once more. But as her chakra pathways began to ache and throb, she understood what that meant.
She was nearing her limit. The soldier pills could not draw out chakra endlessly. No matter how she improved them, they could not violate the laws of this world. Surpassing the limit would not kill her outright, but collapsing into a hospital bed for a month or two would hardly be unexpected.
"Is it over?"
A sense of despair, long suppressed, finally surfaced in Yakushi Nonō's heart. The Iwagakure shinobi outnumbered her and had clearly come prepared. She was no combat-type ninja; the only reason she had managed to hold out this long was that they intended to capture her alive. Otherwise, she would already have been killed.
She had been struggling to endure in the hope that reinforcements from the village would arrive.
But even now, no aid had come.
Her hope faded with every passing moment, replaced by a growing sense of disappointment. She could only mock her own naïveté. No one knew better than she what kind of methods the ANBU and Root operated by. To place her hope in them now was sheer foolishness.
Even though Danzō was dead, there was no guarantee that his successor would be any better.
At least, if Danzō were still alive, he would have ensured she was silenced—he would not have simply left her to die here. Yet now, not even an assassin had appeared.
Just then, Yakushi Nonō suddenly felt her surroundings dim. The light of the setting sun was blotted out as a shadow passed overhead, casting darkness above her.
And that shadow was shaped like a bird.
"Watch out! Konoha reinforcements!"
She heard Bun'ya shout. The man who had been forcing her to divide her focus to guard against him was now looking up. Following his gaze, she saw a flash of blinding lightning fall from the sky, striking the ground barely five meters to her left.
Her instincts tensed immediately.
Who could tell whether this was another trick from the Iwagakure shinobi—an illusion meant to draw her guard down and create an opening for them to capture her?
But wait—why were there Kirigakure headbands?
Yakushi Nonō saw a young kunoichi wearing the Mist symbol, wielding two blades shaped like ceremonial seven-branched swords, drive back one of the Iwagakure jōnin who had been attacking her.
For a moment, everyone froze—Yakushi Nonō and the Iwagakure shinobi alike.
Bun'ya and his squad had assumed she might be holding out in expectation of reinforcements. That was why he had refrained from joining the battle himself, keeping watch for any possible Konoha support. And sure enough, reinforcements had arrived—but the ones who appeared were not Leaf shinobi. They were Mist.
Lightning Style: Chidori!
The sharp, piercing sound—like a thousand birds crying—snapped everyone's attention toward it. A second bolt of searing lightning fell from above. Before anyone could adjust to the blinding flash, one of the Iwagakure jōnin attacking Yakushi Nonō had a hole torn clean through his chest.
The arm that pierced him still crackled with arcs of lightning.
A white-haired Konoha shinobi wearing a mask withdrew his hand as the still-warm body fell heavily to the ground—along with a severed arm that landed beside it. Only then did Yakushi Nonō notice the dark-haired girl standing beside him. She had just cut off the left arm of a third Iwagakure shinobi.
"You…"
Yakushi Nonō kept her guard raised, wanting to confirm the identities of these young shinobi.
"We're here to rescue you."
The black-haired girl turned her head slightly toward her. Those scarlet eyes—Sharingan—seemed for an instant to draw the soul inward. The sight made Yakushi Nonō's tension ease at once. Genuine Sharingan.
They were Konoha's reinforcements.
Of course, she could not yet be sure they hadn't come to silence her instead. But at least, for the moment, she would not need to kill herself to avoid capture by Iwagakure.
"Damn it, they got away."
Ringo Ameyuri glanced at the corpses and the severed arm on the ground, muttering in frustration. She had failed to land a clean hit, falling behind Kakashi and Chihaya right from the start.
"Ameyuri, without you drawing the Iwagakure shinobi's attention, we wouldn't have succeeded so easily."
Kakashi spoke sincerely.
If Ringo Ameyuri's sudden appearance as a Mist shinobi hadn't stunned the Iwagakure troops for that instant, Kakashi would not have been able to strike down a jōnin-level opponent with one blow. The man had been skilled enough in Earth Style: Hardening Jutsu that even Captain Bun'ya might not have been able to kill him in a single strike.
But his misfortune had been to face Kakashi Hatake—the creator of Lightning Style: Chidori.
It was a jutsu that heightened the piercing power of lightning to an extreme level, second only to the Third Raikage's Hell Stab: One-Fingered Assault.
The Chidori's penetrative force was tremendous, and its speed so great that it required the Sharingan's precision to control effectively. In this exchange, Kakashi had achieved an overwhelming victory, killing a jōnin outright.
"Two Uchiha? No… you're Hatake Kakashi, the son of the White Fang of Konoha."
Bun'ya recognized him at once. As the only son of the famed White Fang, Kakashi was a genius who had become a jōnin at the age of twelve and, by chance, had received a Sharingan. Every intelligence network across the nations kept a close eye on him.
He cast only a brief glance at Kakashi and Uchiha Chihaya. Few in the ninja world dared to meet a Sharingan gaze for long.
"All units, attack immediately! Do not let the target escape!"
After averting his eyes from Kakashi and Chihaya, Bun'ya issued his order. The Konoha reinforcements were not ordinary. That Kakashi had appeared was one thing—but why was a Mist kunoichi fighting alongside them?
Bun'ya did not believe that Ringo Ameyuri was some fake Konoha disguise. His eyes were sharp enough to recognize the wielder of the Thunder Blade, Kiba. Normally, Iwagakure and Kirigakure had nothing to do with each other, but since the deaths of the Second Tsuchikage and Second Mizukage, a bitter old hatred had lingered between them.
Ōnoki had never relaxed his intelligence efforts regarding the Mist. Despite Kirigakure's internal purges making espionage difficult, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen were almost public figures, and their distinctive blades were easy to identify from reports and sketches.
Bun'ya's thoughts raced. He tried to figure out why a Mist ninja would be working with Konoha, even as he charged toward Kakashi to attack. This time, he did not conserve chakra or rely on close combat. His hands moved rapidly through a sequence of seals, forming a jutsu.
Earth Style: Rock Iron Cannon.
The burly man, broad as a bear, tilted his head back and spat a walnut-sized stone into the air. As it flew upward, it expanded rapidly to the size of a human head, then shot forward like a cannonball, smashing through the black giant eagle circling overhead. Black ink splattered through the sky.
"Kabachi!"
Bun'ya shouted, "Find the hidden fourth member!"
Despite his rugged appearance, Bun'ya's mind was sharp. He had not let Kakashi, Chihaya, and Ameyuri distract all of his attention. From the beginning, he had noticed the black eagle flying above and deduced from what little information he had that the one controlling it was not among the three in front of him.
"Understood."
Kamimizu Kabachi responded in a low voice.
This cautious man had not joined the assault on Yakushi Nonō; Bun'ya had kept him in reserve as a hidden trump card. Now that both sides had fully revealed their intentions, it was time to play that card. With a resonant buzzing, a swarm of bees rose into the air like thick, yellow-and-black clouds.
At the same time, however, new black clouds appeared in the sky. On closer look, they were countless black insects.
Juri, who had not yet shown herself, murmured quietly, "An insect user? How convenient. I often sparred with Lord Torune. Let's see how your skills compare to his."
She raised her brush and began to paint swiftly across a blank scroll.
A multitude of ink-black insects flew out from the parchment and met the bees head-on. Naturally, her drawn insects were not as strong as the specially bred species of the Kamimizu clan, but after many training sessions with Aburame Ryōma, Juri had developed her own methods for countering insect-based techniques. She had no intention of defeating the bees directly.
Instead, she guided her ink insects into self-detonation.
The splattering ink drenched the bees' wings, slowing their flight dramatically. A few drops of ink meant little to humans, but for creatures that small, the added weight was enough to hinder their movement.
Then, as the bees faltered in the air, the relentless swarm of black insects descended upon them and began to devour them without hesitation.
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