Seeing that Kari had vanished, Seimei was about to search for him when his teammate suddenly let out a painful scream.
Turning towards the sound, Seimei saw that his teammate's left arm below the elbow had completely disappeared, and he was struggling to dodge the attacks from the enemy.
Seimei hesitated for a moment but decided to give up the search for Kari. With a swift Body Flicker Technique, he appeared next to his injured teammate.
Clang, clang, clang!
Seimei swung his kunai, skillfully deflecting the attacks from several Iwa shinobi surrounding them. At the same time, he cast a Genjutsu: Sharingan, immediately controlling the nearest enemy.
Meanwhile, he quickly pulled out an explosive tag from his tool pouch and, with lightning speed, stuck it to the immobilized Iwa shinobi.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle...
The explosive tag started to burn, emitting a faint crackling sound.
"Watch out!" one of the Iwa shinobi shouted, noticing Seimei's move and warning his comrades.
The other Iwa shinobi, realizing the danger, scattered like startled birds.
Seizing the opportunity, Seimei grabbed his teammate by the arm, kicked off the ground, and leaped several meters away from the immobilized Iwa shinobi.
Boom!
A violent explosion erupted, and a ball of fire flashed brightly. Amidst the chaos, the sound of anguished screams could be heard, lingering for a few moments before gradually fading away.
"Damn it!" cursed one of the Iwa jonin, seeing what had happened. He looked at Seimei, who was retreating, and yelled, "Chase them!"
Hearing the command, the group of Iwa shinobi immediately began to pursue Seimei.
Carrying his injured teammate, Seimei couldn't run very fast. He quickly stopped, turned around, and used his Genjutsu: Sharingan to control one of the pursuing Iwa shinobi while his hands flew through hand seals.
Seeing this, the Iwa jonin shouted, "Be careful!" and began to form hand seals of his own, seemingly preparing to counter with ninjutsu.
However, Seimei's speed was unmatched. In the blink of an eye, he finished his hand seals and released a massive fireball from his mouth.
The incoming fireball left the Iwa jonin with no choice but to abandon his jutsu and dodge along with the others.
Boom!
The fireball exploded, sending shockwaves and intense heat in all directions, igniting a large section of the forest and further scattering the Iwa shinobi.
Without pausing, Seimei formed more hand seals, unleashing another fire-style jutsu—Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!
Tiny fireballs spewed from his mouth, like scattered seeds from a flower, raining down on the Iwa shinobi with deadly precision.
Caught off guard, some of the Iwa shinobi were struck by the fireballs. Soon, screams of agony filled the battlefield.
First one, then a second, and a third fell.
Seeing how swiftly Seimei had injured so many of their comrades, the Iwa jonin could no longer stay idle and began counterattacking with their own jutsu.
But Seimei, calm and unhurried, easily dodged their attacks thanks to the enhanced perception from his Sharingan. After using Wind Style: Great Breakthrough to create more distance between them, he swiftly retreated with his injured teammate.
As the fierce wind subsided, the Iwa jonin attempted to rally their forces for another chase. However, at that moment, Kari suddenly emerged from the ground and said, "Stop the pursuit."
"Captain!" the Iwa shinobi exclaimed, greeting Kari as they turned to him. One of them, clearly frustrated, asked, "Captain, are we really just going to let them go?"
"Let them go? No," Kari replied, shaking his head. "We're just sparing their lives for now."
"But..." someone started to protest, but before they could finish, Kari interrupted.
He said, "With our current strength, we can't take down both of them—especially not Uchiha Seimei. His abilities are far from simple. Continuing to chase them will only result in unnecessary casualties."
Kari paused, casting a glance into the distance before continuing, "If my calculations are correct, the village should already have cut off their escape routes. All we need to do now is provide intelligence on Konoha's movements and wait for the village's encirclement to complete. When the time comes, we'll trap them easily. There's no need to sacrifice more lives right now."
The other jonin thought for a moment and, realizing the logic in Kari's words, chose to remain silent.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield...
After several minutes of desperate running, Seimei and his teammate finally made it back to their base camp. However, the atmosphere here wasn't what they had expected.
Before they could even get close, they were stopped and thoroughly checked before being allowed to approach the main force.
Seimei exchanged a glance with his fellow Konoha jonin, both of them sensing the gravity of the situation.
With such heightened security measures, something was definitely wrong. And considering that not long ago, their team had encountered an Iwa shinobi squad, the two were beginning to piece things together.
"Could it be...?" Seimei thought, a heavy feeling settling in his chest.
If his suspicions were correct, the path ahead would be treacherous.
As Seimei pondered, Nara Sui and a few other jonin arrived. They noticed Seimei without his primary weapon and his teammate missing half an arm, and asked, "Did you run into the enemy as well?"
"'As well?'" Seimei immediately caught the key phrase and suspected that his intuition was right. Without hesitation, he asked, "Did other squads encounter enemies too?"
"Yes," Nara Sui nodded solemnly. "Three other squads returned before you, all reporting contact with small Iwa units. And two squads have completely lost contact. We suspect they've been killed in action. You're the fourth team to return."
"I see..." Seimei murmured before recounting their encounter with the Iwa shinobi, including Kari's formidable strength.
Upon hearing this, the others gasped, relieved that Seimei had been sent in that direction. Otherwise, they might have lost two more people.
After gathering all the information, they concluded that Iwa had them in their sights for some time now—and that this was no spur-of-the-moment action. Iwa had clearly prepared in advance, placing their forces along the routes they knew the Konoha squads would take.
At first, they had been relieved that Iwa hadn't launched an attack the previous night. But now they realized their relief had been premature.
It seemed Iwa hadn't attacked because their base was in a strategically significant location and was heavily fortified. A reckless assault would have risked alerting the other Konoha outposts and could have led to a counterattack or even an ambush.
So instead, Iwa had opted for a different approach. Now that battles had broken out at other outposts, Iwa's forces had shifted their attention to this one.
It was clear that Iwa was preparing for something big, and once their preparations were complete, Konoha would be in grave danger.
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