The following day, the rhythm of the Sunagakure offensive suddenly accelerated.
Sakumo Hatake pushed aside the curtain of the command post, his clothes slling of gunpowder and smoke.
"Chiyo has resurfaced."
Sakumo went straight to the sand table, pointing his finger toward the southwest.
"C4 Heights. She used a swarm of chanical puppets to suppress two of our squads. The distance is too great; we can't get close to her."
Kitahara Kaede stared at the contour lines on the sand table, his gaze sliding past C4 Heights toward the rear.
The area around the heights was entirely open ground.
No matter how strong Chiyo's crowd control was, she would eventually have to retreat to the main camp before her chakra ran dry.
A long, narrow, dark gray marking caught his eye.
"Shattered Cloud Canyon," Kaede muttered, rapping his finger heavily on the narrow slit on the map.
This was the only straight shortcut from the heights back to the Sunagakure camp. To bypass it, one would have to spend an extra half hour navigating minefields.
Chiyo was a commander who demanded absolute efficiency; she would never waste ti taking the long way around. Furthermore, she would never imagine that soone would be bold enough to ambush her in the rear.
Without another word, Kitahara Kaede turned and left.
***
Night fell.
Inside Shattered Cloud Canyon, sheer cliffs on both sides pressed in, forming a narrow path where moonlight could not reach. The wind howled incessantly as it ripped through the rock crevices.
Suppressing his presence entirely, Kaede clung to the shaded side of the cliff wall, thirty ters above the ground.
*Shh—* a faint sound of footsteps cut through the wind.
A figure approached from the far end of the canyon.
Her short, grayish-white hair was combed back ticulously. She wore a deep brown vest, and a massive scroll was strapped to her back.
Chiyo.
She was alone.
No guards. For a puppet master of her caliber, bringing foot soldiers was rely a burden. Once she deployed the Ten Puppets of the Chira, she was an army unto herself.
The footsteps ca to a halt directly beneath him. Once she confird that no one was following her, Kaede raised his right hand. Lightning condensed silently in his palm.
Chidori Sharp Spear!
There was no tentative probing. A blinding flash of lightning tore through the darkness, plunging straight down from thirty ters in the air, aid directly at the center of Chiyo's back!
The impact blasted a deep crater into the rocky ground, sending debris flying in all directions.
The instant the lightning struck, a wooden puppet intervened, crossing its blade to intercept the attack. Its entire right arm was instantly lted away by the Lightning Release.
Chiyo leaped back ten ters. She looked up, her gaze locking onto Kaede on the cliff wall.
"Lightning Style, with shape transformation," Chiyo remarked, her fingers spreading slightly as her chakra threads glowed with a ghostly blue light. "The Hidden Leaf brat who dismantled a dozen of my puppets on the front lines yesterday."
"Coming to ambush alone? Do you have a death wish?"
Kaede leaped from the cliff, landing silently. He didn't waste words. Villains died because they talked too much, and although he wasn't the villain here, the principle held.
His hands blurred through signs, and his chest expanded.
"Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!"
A towering sea of flas instantly filled the bottom of the canyon, rolling violently toward Chiyo.
This was a calculated display of pressure. By starting with full power, he wanted to give Chiyo the illusion that he was desperate for a quick kill, forcing her to reveal her trump cards for defense.
"Is this all you've got?" Chiyo asked with a look of contempt.
Her fingers flicked, and the scroll unfurled. Two puppets of different designs were instantly launched forward.
The one on the left crossed its arms, manifesting a blue chakra shield to weather the sea of fire. The one on the right unfolded its chanical chassis, its mouth chanism spewing a massive cloud of purple poisonous gas that surged back against the tongues of fla.
*Now!*
Kaede had never expected the Fire Style to actually cause damage. What he wanted was for Chiyo to deploy that specific poison-spraying puppet!
A smirk tugged at the corner of Kaede's mouth.
Amidst the flas, Chiyo caught that fleeting expression. Her heart skipped a beat.
*Dammit!*
But it was too late to retreat.
Kaede dropped his center of gravity, his speed skyrocketing to its limit. He lunged directly into the edge of the lingering poisonous mist.
Facing him were a dozen poison-coated short blades.
Kaede leaned his body back, sliding past the blades by a hair's breadth. With his right hand fingers pressed together like a blade and wreathed in lightning, he precisely severed the main chakra thread connecting Chiyo to the puppet!
*Crack!*
With a swift strike, he tore the limbs off the poison puppet with his bare hands. Wood chips flew as the puppet's torso, now unsupported, slamd heavily into the ground.
Kaede stomped down, crushing the abdominal panel of the puppet. Inside the core chanism, a complete poison sac that had never touched the air sat quietly in a wooden slot.
He had it.
He ripped out the sac and stuffed it into a waterproof pouch at his waist. Then, he kicked off the cliff wall with his right foot, using the montum to retreat wildly toward the exit on the other side of the canyon.
Chiyo finally realized the truth. This brat hadn't charged in recklessly to kill her—he had co to steal the poison sac!
"Leave your life behind!" Chiyo roared in fury.
Her fingers snapped shut, tightening the chakra threads. The remaining puppet disintegrated in mid-air, and hundreds of poisoned projectiles exploded like a rainstorm, completely sealing off all of Kaede's paths of retreat.
Poison needles above, a poison web below.
Kaede detonated a Chidori in his left hand, forcibly tearing a hole through the network of projectiles. He twisted his body in mid-air to an extre angle, squeezing through a narrow gap.
*Ssh.*
A black kunai grazed his right arm. There was no blood; it had only scraped the outer layer of skin.
Kaede didn't hesitate for a second upon landing, diving headfirst into the woods without looking back.
Chiyo surged forward, pursuing him relentlessly along the trail of snapped branches. Two afterimages chased each other at high speeds through the forest outside the canyon.
After two kiloters, flickering points of light gradually appeared in the darkness ahead. Those were the torches held by the Hidden Leaf's outer periter patrols.
Chiyo stopped abruptly. The area ahead was already under Hidden Leaf control.
She stared at the silhouette vanishing into the night and let out a cold snort before turning back into the darkness.
'Once you're hit by that toxin, the faster you run, the sooner you die.'
The wind whipped past his ears. Kaede was sprinting for his life through the treetops. He was still one and a half kiloters away from the Hidden Leaf rear camp.
To shake off Chiyo, his chakra had been running in overdrive. His blood flow had increased manifold. Using this rapid circulation, the toxin spread geotrically throughout his body.
Three seconds later, his right arm began to go numb.
Ten seconds later, the entire arm swelled, becoming too heavy to lift.
One minute later, terrifying black-purple veins climbed up his arm, over his shoulder, and surged onto his neck.
Kaede's vision began to blur, and the flow of his chakra beca completely chaotic.
Suddenly, his footing gave way. He plumted straight from the tree branch, crashing heavily into the muddy water. Mud mixed with the sll of blood choked his windpipe.
"Cough... cough..."
He vomited a mouthful of black-purple filth.
His vision was failing, and excruciating pain accompanied the paralysis of his respiratory nerves, dragging him inch by inch toward the abyss.
'I can't die here.'
Kaede bit his tongue hard. The sharp pain bought him two seconds of clarity.
Using his left hand, he pressed firmly on the major pressure points around his right shoulder, forcibly sealing his ridians to slow the flow of poisonous blood toward his heart.
A blue omamori with crooked stitching pressed against his chest, separated only by his ninja tool bag.
Kaede crawled up like a dying beast, clinging to his last breath as he stumbled blindly toward the camp.
***
The field hospital was brightly lit.
Tsunade had just finished severing the necrotic nerve of a severely poisoned casualty. She straightened up, her vision darkening as she swayed on her feet.
"Lady Tsunade, please rest for ten minutes. Your chakra—"
"Get out," Tsunade snapped, brushing off the dical chunin's hand and wiping the cold sweat from her forehead.
She looked toward the tent entrance.
Kitahara Kaede had been gone for a day and a night.
There had been no word from him yet.
"Bring the patient from bed nineteen over here. I'm going to try another approach..."
A sudden crash interrupted everyone.
The curtain of the main tent was violently ripped open.
A figure slamd inside, tumbling several ters across the ground.
"Enemy attack!" the guards shouted, reflexively drawing their kunai.
Tsunade whipped around. The mont she saw the figure on the ground, her pupils contracted sharply.
"Kaede?!"
She dropped to her knees instantly.
Kitahara Kaede lay on his side. His right sleeve was shredded into rags, and his entire arm had swollen to a bruised, purplish-black. His breathing was shallow—gasping in, but unable to exhale.
"I got it," Kaede whispered weakly.
His left hand trembled as he tore a wrapped poison pouch from his waist and pushed it gently toward Tsunade. As the last syllable left his lips, his eyes closed.
"Kaede!"
Her scream was shrill, her voice breaking.
Tsunade violently tore open Kitahara Kaede's shirt. The black veins of the toxin had spread to his sternum, only two inches away from his heart.
"Crash cart! Get three doses of high-concentration anti-toxin serum!"
Tsunade snapped her head up, her bloodshot eyes glaring at the stunned dical team. She roared, "MOVE!!!"
Two dical chunin scrambled to push the equipnt forward.
Tsunade's hands were instantly enveloped in dense, green chakra. She unleashed the full power of the Mystical Palm Technique, pressing both palms against Kaede's chest in an attempt to use her chakra to forcibly halt the toxin.
The mont the chakra poured in, it triggered the toxin, causing it to lash back violently. Kaede convulsed, and a mouthful of pitch-black blood surged from between his lips.
The rise and fall of his chest stopped completely.
The dical chunin, clutching the serum syringe, looked at the monitor's needle, his face turning pale.
"Lady... Lady Tsunade..."
"The toxin acted too quickly. His heart has stopped. He's..."
A deathly silence fell over the tent, broken only by the sound of the canvas flapping in the wind.
Tsunade remained frozen, palms pressed down, staring intently at the motionless chest. Her eyes were rimd with red and shot through with blood.
Not a single hair on his head was out of place, yet his life was slipping away.
"Shut up," Tsunade said, her voice freezing.
She swept away the obstructive dical equipnt and poured the rest of her chakra into him without reservation.
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