Soon, with chakra-enhanced strength driving the oars, the wooden boats sped out of the area shrouded in white mist.
Only then did everyone let out a small breath of relief.
"Don't relax! The enemy definitely isn't just one person! If you're out of strength, switch rowers!"
With Yūhi Kurenai absent, Bai Xing naturally took over as the acting commander of both squads.
At that moment, Bai Xing stared at the vast expanse of white mist ahead, his pupils tightening slightly.
"Such a massive ninjutsu range…"
"At minimum, it would take four or five ninja at chūnin level or above working together to pull this off!"
Hearing Bai Xing's words, Yūhi Yugao—who had just passed the oar to Shiranui Kumo—instinctively trembled.
"Four or five chūnin…?! Then Uncle Kurenai, he—"
Her already reddened eyes brimmed with tears once again.
Before taking the oar, Shiranui Kumo patted Yugao's shoulder and said in a strained voice, holding back his grief,
"Believe in Teacher Kurenai."
"That's all we can do right now."
"What?! Two jōnin?!"
Hōzuki Tōru's water clone nodded.
"To be precise, besides the jōnin we left behind, there's also a younger Konoha jōnin. He's working together with one chūnin and three genin, attempting to leave the range of our ninjutsu."
"At this point…"
"They should already be out."
"Damn it! If that's the case, our mission will have gaps!"
"It's all the same," the water clone replied calmly. "Killing one jōnin is even more beneficial for Kirigakure."
"You don't know a damn thing! Enough—Sattō, Chōta, you two come with me!"
"You two keep maintaining the jutsu!"
"Yes!" ×2
Before long, two young Kirigakure chūnin emerged from the sea.
"This is my first time fighting a Konoha jōnin. This kind of battle is seriously exciting!" Kurotsuchi Chōta clenched his fists.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Chōta," Hōzuki Sattō said calmly. "At best, our level is enough to prevent him from escaping if he's heavily wounded. Facing a Konoha jōnin at full strength would still be difficult."
"As expected, Sattō understands my intentions," the Kirigakure jōnin said with a nod. He glanced at the water clone as it dispersed on its own and stepped forward.
"Kirigakure Team Seven—move out."
"Yes!" ×2
White mist brushed against skin as sweat and blood dripped into the sea.
The faint stench of blood mixed with the damp chill of the fog.
Exhaustion, pain, and a fear crawling straight up from the abyss of death stabbed relentlessly at Yūhi Kurenai's mind.
"How pathetic~"
"So this is a Konoha jōnin? That's all there is to you~"
In the fog where visibility was near zero, voices came from all directions, like the surround sound of a modern cinema.
"Hah… huff… if you've got the guts, then come out and fight me head-on!"
Kurenai's breathing was ragged. The once-confident young jōnin was now covered head to toe in slashes and wounds.
There was even a shuriken lodged deep in his left shoulder.
In battle, there was no time or space to deal with injuries.
And pulling out a blade meant digging out bandages to stop the bleeding—otherwise the blood loss would only worsen.
"Then allow me, a Kirigakure ANBU, to take the head of a Konoha jōnin!"
"Die!"
At that moment, with fewer people sustaining the mist from outside, Kurenai faintly saw a blurred figure charging toward him through the fog.
"Got you!"
"Genjutsu: Triple Severing Sakura!"
"Not good!"
On the surface of the water, Hōzuki Tōru's body stiffened slightly.
The Konoha jōnin who had been standing on the water, seemingly at death's door, vanished—in his place, countless cherry blossom petals drifted out from the white mist.
Compared to Yugao's Cherry Blossom Season, which obscured incoming attacks by trapping the target in an illusion, Kurenai's Triple Severing Sakura filled Tōru's entire field of vision with swirling petals.
In the instant Tōru froze, the pink petals rushed toward him.
"Heh, I see now."
Tōru instantly recognized it as a mental genjutsu attack that used petals to induce suffocation.
Just as he tried to evade, large piles of pink petals appeared beneath his feet as well, binding his movement.
"Damn it! So that's how it is?!"
"You used the airborne petals to draw my attention, then caught me off guard and restrained my movement!"
"As expected of… a Konoha jōnin!"
Normally, to break genjutsu, one needed a relatively safe state within the illusion to disrupt their chakra flow.
For a high-level illusionary deception like this, that requirement was even stricter.
Tōru's final sounds were smothered by the flood of pink petals, his entire body covered in them—making him look like a man obsessed with garish pink.
In reality, Hōzuki Tōru clawed at his own throat, his body trembling violently, until he finally choked himself unconscious.
Splash—splash—
Two sounds fell almost simultaneously.
The first was Yūhi Kurenai, collapsing to one knee on the water, blood loss and injuries draining his strength.
The second was the Kirigakure ANBU, having knocked himself out, his body floating lifelessly on the sea's surface.
"Huff… huff… huff…"
Kurenai rested for a long moment before forcing himself upright again and walking toward the fallen Kirigakure ANBU.
The pain from his wounds was dulled slightly by the victory before his eyes.
"At least…"
"Before I die—"
Kurenai suddenly accelerated, kunai clenched tight, determined to truly finish off the Kirigakure jōnin.
"Take down one Kirigakure jōnin!"
"Unfortunately, if you had acted immediately, you might've succeeded."
A man suddenly appeared on the water ahead of him—wearing Kirigakure chūnin battle armor, a headband shaped like flowing water, his mature face expressionless.
He sidestepped Kurenai's attack with ease, then drove a single kick into Kurenai's chest, sending the already heavily injured jōnin flying.
Splash—splash—splash—
The young man tumbled across the water's surface, waves rippling outward like playful splashes.
"It's over."
The Kirigakure jōnin gazed calmly at the Konoha jōnin who could no longer rise.
"I truly didn't expect that, even after nearly losing all five senses, you could still use genjutsu and take down one of our village's outstanding jōnin."
"Konoha really is a village overflowing with prodigies."
"Kana."
At his signal, the other two chūnin charged in from opposite directions toward the fallen Kurenai.
"ROOM!"
At that moment, an extremely soft voice rose from the surface of the sea.
Before the Kirigakure ninja could react, a faint blue hemispherical barrier suddenly appeared, flashing through the vision of the three Kirigakure shinobi and expanding past them in an instant—encompassing all three within its range.
"Damn it! Konoha reinforcements?! They're here already?!"
Seeing the chance to execute a jōnin, Kurotsuchi Chōta didn't slow down at all, charging forward alongside Hōzuki Sattō.
"Ignore it! Kill that Konoha jōnin first!!"
Beneath the water's surface, inside a ROOM space that pushed the seawater aside like a bubble, a black-haired boy raised one finger.
His other hand gripped the hilt of the ninja blade at his waist, drawing it slightly from its sheath.
"ROOM: Slaughterhouse."
Rip—
An invisible slash tore through the sea itself, appearing directly in front of Hōzuki Sattō and Kurotsuchi Chōta.
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