Kaede Tsukasa stood beside Yakushi, never once glancing at her, immediately extending his hand to receive the intelligence.
Yakushi didn't hesitate and handed over the blood-stained scroll at once.
"Konoha scum! Give me the intelligence!!"
"No need to chase them deliberately—kill them all!"
Sunagakure ninjas kept charging forward. Morino Isuke and the other two retreated continuously, giving ground to slow the enemy's attack frequency, while their wounds steadily increased.
Frankly, the weakest member of this team was Kaede Tsukasa, the newly promoted chūnin. The others—medical ninja Morino Isuke included—were effectively at elite jōnin level.
"You've obtained the intelligence, which will make you the top target for every enemy. You understand that, right?" Yakushi instinctively reached to place a hand on Kaede Tsukasa to heal him, but immediately stopped—he had almost no injuries.
The weakest member remaining relatively unscathed was, in a way, a demonstration of ability.
Kaede Tsukasa summoned three chūnin-level zombies, placed the intelligence inside the mouth of one to swallow it, and quickly said, "Even if I didn't do this, I'd still be the primary target of the enemy."
There was one thing Kaede Tsukasa didn't say: after acquiring the intelligence, he would also become the top protection priority for Terai and the others, which actually improved his chances of survival.
Never overestimate the moral standards of Root ninjas—they don't have the luxury of such considerations.
"Retreat."
Terai gave the order, casting a cold, emotionless glance at Kaede Tsukasa, like an unmoving iceberg, covering his escape.
One Root ninja stayed behind, throwing a large number of smoke bombs. In the raging sandstorm, they would only buy a few seconds. He stayed to fight the Sunagakure ninjas to the death.
The rest of the team focused on Kaede Tsukasa, protecting him as he retreated.
It wasn't easy. Sunagakure ninjas unleashed all sorts of jutsu, attacking fiercely even with limited visibility.
Kaede Tsukasa was the center of the attacks. Even though he sent two zombies on suicide missions to explode, enemy ninjas fearless of death approached through the gaps, one kunai aiming straight for his neck.
"You're not afraid of corpses dying, but what about yourself? What happens if you become a corpse? Or will you use your space-time ninjutsu to escape again?"
The Sunagakure ninja's face was cruel. He had already abandoned any order to capture Kaede Tsukasa alive, preferring to kill him and bring the body back for the village's intelligence ninjas to study—maybe they'd gain some valuable information.
Anyone could see Kaede Tsukasa's body was in trouble. His heavy breathing showed extreme fatigue, very little chakra remaining, and using space-time ninjutsu would be a severe burden.
"Watch out!"
Yakushi's face changed as she shouted.
Kaede Tsukasa calmly raised his hand. In that split second, his options were extremely limited. He was bound to be attacked, and no allies could intervene in time.
…Then so be it—he would take the hit.
Puchi!
Nearly half of Kaede Tsukasa's palm was sliced off on the spot. It flew through the air along its momentum, coated in sand, and spattered the ground with bright blood.
But he had successfully avoided the vital area at his neck—that was enough.
Terai immediately killed the Sunagakure ninja, securing Kaede Tsukasa's back.
With the help of the zombie that had swallowed the intelligence scroll, Kaede Tsukasa began a rapid escape.
"Can you still use that movement technique from before to escape? If not, it means your body can't sustain such a long retreat. You might as well give me the intelligence."
Another Root ninja, Tora, speaking with no hesitation despite being covered in blood, said this bluntly.
Kaede Tsukasa looked at his left hand, now reduced to just three fingers, and said in a low voice, "Don't worry about that. Using zombies to assist my sprint isn't something I've only done once or twice. Did you think I was preparing for something before?"
Tora fell silent. Seeing more enemies approaching, he immediately grabbed his katana and glanced back.
"Tora, block them."
Terai ordered. His condition was the best—if he didn't engage in a life-or-death fight with Araki of the Sandstorm, he had the highest chance to escape.
Without hesitation, Tora acted, risking his life to buy more time.
Continuous gusts of wind and sand swept over them, trying to obscure their vision and disrupt their sense of direction.
"They just won't go away. We still need to deal with Araki of the Sandstorm. A ninja who can create wide-area attacks is too dangerous for us," Morino Isuke said grimly, growing anxious.
If another person had to sacrifice themselves to buy time, Morino Isuke felt it would soon be his turn.
Until the very last moment, the strongest among them, Terai, would never let Kaede Tsukasa, carrying the intelligence, slip out of his sight.
Terai glanced at Morino Isuke, about to speak, but Kaede Tsukasa interrupted, "I have a plan."
"You have a plan?"
"Yes. You don't need to sacrifice yourself, captain. I won't let you risk your life blocking the enemy," Kaede Tsukasa said seriously, carried by a zombie ninja.
Terai fell silent for a moment. In truth, he knew this cunning boy was deliberately using simple words to trap him.
Kaede Tsukasa unrolled the scroll at his waist with his right hand. The moment he released it, his right palm was already slapping down.
A puff of white smoke dissipated. The zombies stored in the summoning scroll were exhausted, and the scroll itself was discarded. Several newly transformed zombies, each with different forms, now followed behind Kaede Tsukasa.
"You may have forgotten—I am a medical ninja, a medical ninja skilled in the Zombie Release. Altering a corpse's appearance to disguise it as a living person to distract the enemy is the original purpose of Zombie Release," Kaede Tsukasa said.
"We lost two comrades, so the bodies prepared for them are useless. For the rest of us, I've prepared the corresponding modified corpses."
Morino Isuke's face showed surprise; Yakushi hesitated, then let out a long sigh.
Terai fell silent again, thinking of the two subordinates he had sent to their deaths, and now looking at the vividly alive zombies following Kaede Tsukasa, essentially another version of him.
"The sacrifices of Tora and Hitsu were necessary. Without them blocking the enemy, we couldn't have created distance from the enemy and used Zombie Release under cover," Terai said.
He realized he had made a serious mistake—he had completely separated Kaede Tsukasa's use of Zombie Release from its original application, neglecting the escape tactics using corpse disguises.