What appeared before Team Yagen was a hellish scene painted in blood.
The originally lush forest clearing was now a complete mess.
Broken trees, wreckage of kunai and shuriken scattered everywhere, and... mutilated corpses.
The smell of blood mixed with the dampness of the rain formed a nauseating stench that stimulated everyone's nerves.
In the center of the clearing, a brutal slaughter was taking place.
Just as they had analyzed before, the combatants were ninja from Sunagakure and Amegakure.
But the battle situation was even more one-sided than they had imagined.
Five ninja wearing Amegakure uniforms were forming a standard attack formation, besieging the only two remaining Sunagakure ninja in the field.
One of the Sunagakure ninja looked heavily injured. His left arm was twisted at a strange angle, obviously broken, and blood was constantly seeping from his abdomen.
He could only support his body by leaning on a kunai, gasping for breath, his eyes filled with despair.
The other Sunagakure ninja was a puppet master.
His situation was equally bleak.
His young face was filled with anxiety and madness, his ten fingers dancing frantically, controlling the puppet in front of him.
The hideous scorpion-shaped puppet, with its tail needle glinting coldly, constantly tried to stab the enemy, but several of its legs had been broken, making its movements sluggish.
"Water Release: Muddy Water Binding!"
An Amegakure ninja formed hand seals, and the accumulated water on the ground mixed with mud and sand, instantly transforming into several muddy water snakes, tightly binding the joints of the scorpion puppet, rendering it completely immobile.
"Damn it!"
The young Sunagakure puppet master let out an unwilling roar.
This was the first time he had led his own squad on an infiltration mission.
He had thought that with his proud puppet techniques and the exquisite cooperation of his teammates, it would be enough to complete the mission.
But he never expected to be so unlucky as to run headfirst into a full squad of elite Amegakure ninja.
From the very beginning, the battle had fallen into a desperate situation.
Two of his three teammates had already died tragically under the endless stream of strange Water Release techniques from the Rain ninja.
"Captain! Go! I'll hold them off!"
The heavily injured Sunagakure ninja, seeing his captain in crisis, had a flash of determination in his eyes.
He roared, ignoring his injuries, and actually charged at the five Amegakure ninja on his own initiative, the kunai in his hand flashing with a final cold light.
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique!"
He wanted to use his last strength to create an opportunity for his captain to escape.
However, what greeted him was the ruthless mockery of the Rain ninja.
"Overestimating yourself."
The captain of the Rain ninja squad, a man who looked to be about thirty with cold eyes, merely snorted with disdain.
He didn't even form hand seals. With just a flick of his wrist, several poisoned senbon, like the fangs of a venomous snake, struck first, accurately hitting the Sunagakure ninja's wrist and knee.
"Ah!"
The Sunagakure ninja screamed, his body went limp, and he fell to the ground.
Immediately after, another Rain ninja appeared behind him like a ghost, the short sword in his hand mercilessly slit his throat.
Pfft—
A spray of warm blood gushed out, staining the mud underfoot red.
The Sunagakure ninja's eyes widened, his body twitched twice, and then he was completely lifeless.
"No—!!"
The young puppet master, watching his last teammate die tragically before his eyes, let out a desperate roar.
His eyes instantly turned blood red.
The four members of Team Yagen, hidden behind the bushes, watching this bloody and cruel scene, all felt their states of mind change differently.
Tachibana Shiorin's face showed some emotion. Although she was a medical ninja and had dissected corpses, this was the first time she had witnessed a living life being killed right in front of her from such a close distance.
But a steady and powerful hand patted her shoulder, stabilizing her mood considerably.
It was Uchiha Yagen.
He seemed to understand the value of this genjutsu's existence.
That single-tomoe Sharingan was locked firmly on the center of the battlefield, firmly memorizing every movement of the Rain ninja, every hand seal of their ninjutsu.
This was war.
Cruel, yet real.
On the battlefield, the young puppet master, after experiencing the huge shock of his teammates' tragic deaths, seemed to have gone completely mad.
"I want you... to be buried with me!!"
Regardless of everything, he poured all his chakra into the only remaining puppet.
The already battered spider puppet suddenly opened its eight legs, and a dangerous, blinding red light began to flash in the hole in its abdomen.
A violent fluctuation erupted from the puppet's body.
"Not good!"
The Rain ninja captain's face changed instantly. Experienced as he was, he immediately realized what the other party intended to do.
"It's explosive tags! He stuffed the puppet full of explosive tags!"
"Retreat!!"
Hearing this, the expressions of the other four Rain ninja changed drastically. Without thinking, they used all their strength to retreat frantically to the rear.
And the young Sunagakure puppet master, watching the panicked look of the enemy, revealed a mournful and crazy smile.
"For the glory of Sunagakure... explode!"
Using his last bit of chakra, he detonated all the explosive tags inside the scorpion puppet.
BOOM—!!!
A deafeningly loud explosion blasted open in the drizzly forest.
A huge fireball, mixed with countless poisoned metal parts and broken wood chips, swept frantically in all directions with the spider puppet as the center.
The violent shockwave knocked down trees in patches, and a layer of the ground was lifted.
The four members of Team Yagen, hidden on the high ground a hundred meters away, also felt their blood surge from the powerful sound.
"Holy shit... this power... is too fierce!"
Shimura Sota looked at the flames and black smoke shooting into the sky, saying with lingering fear.
If they had been any closer, they would probably have been affected too.
The dust and smoke gradually dissipated.
At the center of the explosion, a huge scorched black crater with a diameter of over ten meters was left.
The young Sunagakure puppet master, along with his scorpion puppet, had no bones left.
And although the five Rain ninja retreated in time, two of them were still injured by the aftermath of the explosion and the flying poisoned parts because they were too close. They were now lying on the ground, groaning in pain.
The Rain ninja captain's face was so gloomy it looked like water could drip from it.
He hadn't expected his elite squad to be forced into such a sorry state.
Not only did they lose a member, but two more were injured.
"Damn Sunagakure lunatic!"
"Alright, don't just stand there! Quick, treat the wounded!"
The Rain ninja captain shouted to his subordinates.
"Yes!"
The two surviving Rain ninja immediately ran over.
One of them crouched down and began to simply bandage the two companions affected by the explosion.
The other was responsible for guarding the surroundings.
But everyone's face showed a relaxed expression of surviving a disaster.
And all of this was seen clearly by Uchiha Yagen, who was hidden in the dark, taking in the entire battlefield with his Sharingan.
Now!
A sharp glint flashed in Yagen's eyes.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.
Now, it was their turn, the oriole, to make an appearance.
Uchiha Yagen made a judgment instantly in his heart.
Without the slightest hesitation, he made a tactical hand signal to his three team members, a signal they were extremely familiar with.
A signal that meant "prepare to attack."
The eyes of Shimura Sota, Sarutobi Hasumi, and Tachibana Shiorin instantly became sharp.
They had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
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