At the mouth of the river valley, Kitahara Kaede stood perched on a slope of loose shale.
Behind him stood a containnt line ford by thirty Hidden Leaf ninja. Across from them, a swarm of puppets had already advanced to within a hundred ters.
Their formation was ticulously layered.
At the vanguard were heavy-armored lee puppets. Their wooden joints clattered under the pull of chakra threads, and several cold steel spikes snapped out from their arms.
Hiding in the rear were the long-range puppets. Their concealed weapon slots were half-open, needles glinting with a sinister light; so had already begun to seep purple poisonous mist from their mouths.
*Here they co.*
Kitahara Kaede ford a series of hand signs.
His Shadow Clones surged forward, spreading across the front. Fire Style engulfed the valley path in a wall of flas. Simultaneously, Chidori Sharp Spears struck with surgical precision, dismantling the first three lee puppets.
Before the exploding splinters had even hit the ground, a second wave pressed forward.
The density was far higher than the intelligence reports had suggested. Chiyo was raising the stakes, attempting to grind down the Hidden Leaf's defenses with these expendable lee puppets before using the poison puppets in the rear to harvest the survivors.
As Kaede tore through the puppets, he used the glare of the fires to observe the trajectory of the chakra threads in the sky.
She was moving.
The frontal clash lasted nearly twenty minutes. Shadow Clones were detonated four tis over, and the valley was scorched black by Fire Style. The ground was littered with puppet wreckage.
Suddenly, the chakra threads connecting to the vanguard snapped without warning. Every puppet charging forward lost control simultaneously, collapsing in a chaotic heap of wood and tal.
However, the rear line didn't budge.
A dozen nearly invisible chakra threads snapped backward with violent force. The long-range puppets, laden with needles and raw venom, were closer to Chiyo; she yanked them directly back into her retreat route, disappearing into the shadows.
Kitahara Kaede frowned.
She had retreated.
Half an hour later, Sakumo Hatake returned from the direction of the ridgeline. His expression was blank, but Kaede could tell he was displeased.
"The camp was already empty by the ti I arrived," Sakumo said, his tone flat. "I checked the retreat tracks. It's been less than ten minutes. She slipped away early."
Kaede chid in from the side. "Your route was correct, and the timing was spot on. How did she know?"
"Hard to say," Kaede mused. "Either a sensory subordinate warned her in advance, or the pressure I applied at the front was too intense to be mistaken for a simple containnt effort."
Chiyo had lived most of her life on the battlefield; her instincts were sharper than anyone's.
Sakumo didn't say another word. Failing to capture the enemy commander made the entire operation a waste of ti.
"What about next ti?" Sakumo asked.
"Next ti, we change the strategy," Kaede replied, turning around. "Let's go back and check the casualties first."
***
At the field hospital, Kitahara Kaede paused the mont he pushed aside the curtain.
The situation was worse than yesterday. Straw mats lined the corridors and spilled out into the open air. Newly arrived wounded patients couldn't even get a mat; they were simply lying scattered across the dirt.
He pushed through the crowd toward the largest main tent.
Tsunade stood before a dicine cabinet. A dozen petri dishes were laid out on the table, filled with liquids of various murky colors. Beside them lay a stack of notes, the pages covered in frantic, scratched-out ink.
She picked up a dish, held it up to the oil lamp, and frowned. She put it down and picked up another. Then another.
"No... this one isn't right either."
Tsunade didn't even look up as Kaede approached, her voice a low mutter.
Kaede stopped beside her.
Still without looking up, Tsunade spoke, "I wasn't wrong about the base of the Erosion Scorpion Venom, but Chiyo mixed at least three rare components into it. I've just tried eleven different combination formulas, and all of them failed."
Kaede glanced at her. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her lips were cracked and dry.
"Where are you stuck?" Kaede asked.
"The samples." Tsunade's slender finger pointed to the center of her notes. "Everything I have was extracted from the bodies of poisoned ninja. The toxins have already been altered by blood tabolism; the structure is incomplete."
She pressed both hands onto the table. "To crack the formula, I need the original toxin—the raw liquid Chiyo coats directly onto the puppet weapons. Without the raw sample, I'm just guessing one formula at a ti."
Just as she finished speaking, the tent curtain was pushed aside, and the dical team carried in another stretcher.
A system notification rang in Kaede's ear.
[Side Quest Triggered: Assist Tsunade in Cracking Chiyo's Poison]
[Objective: Obtain a sample of the original toxin from Chiyo's puppet weapons and deliver it to Tsunade for analysis]
[Evaluation Criteria: Completion speed, sample integrity, performance during the process]
[Reward: Based on final evaluation]
Kaede glanced at the quest panel and dismissed it.
"Raw liquid, huh?"
"Yes."
"Fine. I'll get it."
Tsunade's hand stopped mid-air as she was sorting bottles. She turned her head. "What did you say?"
"The raw toxin from Chiyo's puppets. I'll go get it."
Tsunade stared at him. She let out a sharp, incredulous laugh, her voice rising. "You'll get it? Chiyo is the supre commander of Sunagakure! She has the Ten-Man Squad at her disposal and possesses strength nearing Kage-level!"
"I'm not planning to flatten her camp. I'm just getting a sample and leaving."
"Do you think Chiyo is stupid enough to leave poisoned puppets on the side of the road for you to scrape? She pulled every single poison puppet back from the front lines! Not a single drop was left behind!"
Kaede didn't argue.
Tsunade turned away, her fingertips digging into the lab reports on the table. "I'll find another way."
"How long will that take?"
Tsunade froze.
Kaede looked outside the tent. Another body covered in a white sheet was being wheeled out, and a dical ninja was recording the na.
"Every hour that passes is another na carved into the morial Stone," Kaede said tonelessly.
Tsunade's lips pressed into a thin line.
"Eleven formulas failed, not because you aren't good enough, but because you don't have the original."
The two of them stood barely half a step apart. The only sound in the tent was the faint, ragged breathing of the wounded.
Kaede looked into her eyes, his composure transmitting directly to her. Slowly, the tension in Tsunade's jaw relaxed.
She turned around and pulled open the bottom drawer of the dicine cabinet, searching quickly. She found three sealed tal canisters the size of a finger, a specialized dical scraper, and a pair of long-handled silver tweezers.
She swept the items into a waterproof black cloth bag and walked back to Kaede, pressing it into his hand.
"I need the coating from the inside of the puppet's core joints," she said quickly, her professional deanor as a chief physician returning. "Ignore the external weapons. Only the toxin inside the joints hasn't been exposed to the air; it will be the most intact."
"Use tal tools for the entire collection process. Do not let a single drop touch your skin."
Kaede wrapped the bag and tucked it into the innermost pocket of his ninja tool pouch. "Got it."
Tsunade watched him intently. "Co back without a single hair missing."
Kaede reached into his inner pocket and pulled out the blue amulet with its crooked stitching. He dangled it by the strap, swinging it slightly in the air.
"With your charm on , just wait for the good news."
The corners of Tsunade's mouth, which had been tight for hours, finally twitched upward.
"Go quickly. Co back quickly."
Kaede turned and left. As the curtain opened, the night wind swept away so of the dicinal sll lingering in the tent. Outside, another team with a stretcher was already pushing their way in.
Tsunade turned back, grabbed a pen from the table, and flipped to a fresh, blank page in her notebook.
"Move them to Open Area Three," she commanded the incoming dical team.
"Protect the heart and primary ridians first to block the toxin's spread! Move, now!"
The interior of the tent descended into a chaotic flurry of activity once again.
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