Swish!
Another strike connected.
A shallow cut opened across the Amegakure ninja's leg—not deep enough to be immediately fatal, but precise. Surgical.
The Rain ninja should have been able to dodge that attack. His reflexes were sharp, his combat experience extensive. He'd faced down dozens of enemies in his career and survived them all.
But for some reason, at the crucial moment, his limbs had locked up. Stiffened. Refused to obey his commands.
"That kid's blade..." The Rain ninja narrowed his eyes, staring at the weapon in Yubi's hand.
The scalpel was extremely thin—easy to conceal in the palm or between fingers—yet unnaturally sharp. Sharper than any kunai he'd encountered. It had sliced through his leg like he was made of paper.
Being wounded by a mere genin—twice—made the Amegakure ninja's face flush with rage and humiliation.
But Yubi didn't press his advantage.
Instead, he immediately disengaged, turning and leaping toward Kenta's prone form about forty feet away. In a blur of movement, he scooped up his injured comrade and kept moving, putting distance between himself and the enemy.
"What...?" The Rain ninja started to pursue, then stumbled.
Something was wrong.
The stiff, numb feeling in his body was spreading. Getting worse with each passing second. His legs felt like dead weight. His arms were sluggish, unresponsive.
"Poison..." The Rain ninja's pupils contracted in realization.
Of course. The Hidden Sand Village.
Throughout the entire shinobi world, Sunagakure was generally acknowledged as the village most skilled in the use of toxins. Sure, Hanzo of the Hidden Rain was also an expert—his techniques using the Black Salamander were legendary, potent enough to bring even Konoha's Three Legendary Sannin to their knees. But Hanzo was one exceptional individual.
Sunagakure, by contrast, had an entire culture built around poison.
Their puppet masters constantly researched new toxins and delivery mechanisms to make their techniques more effective. Poison wasn't just a weapon for them—it was an art form.
The Hidden Sand's poisons weren't necessarily the strongest in raw potency, but they were the most sophisticated. The most cunningly applied.
Still, the Rain ninja thought, forcing himself to focus through the spreading numbness, this isn't a major problem. I can handle this.
He was one of Hanzo's personally trained soldiers. They all had built up resistance to common toxins through years of controlled exposure. He just needed time for his body to metabolize the poison.
While he still had some feeling in his limbs, he pushed off hard, launching himself backward to create more distance between himself and Yubi.
He'd stall. Wait it out. The poison would pass, and then he'd finish this arrogant little brat.
"Stop wasting your time," Yubi said, his voice flat and clinical. He didn't even look at the Rain ninja as he adjusted his grip on Kenta. "You're already dead."
"Arrogant little shit!" the Amegakure ninja snarled through gritted teeth.
But even as the words left his mouth, a wave of dizziness crashed over him.
Weakness. Exhaustion. The world tilting sideways.
This... this isn't poison, he realized with sudden, horrifying clarity.
He looked down at the shallow cut on his leg—the one the kid had inflicted just moments ago. It looked minor. Superficial.
But blood was pouring from it. Not dripping. Pouring. The rate of blood loss was catastrophic, and it had happened so fast that he hadn't even noticed until now.
The cut had been perfectly placed to sever a major artery while avoiding muscle and bone. Maximum blood loss, minimum visible damage.
Thud.
The Rain ninja collapsed face-first onto the stone, his vision going dark at the edges.
I actually... lost to a wet-behind-the-ears genin?
That was his last thought before consciousness left him entirely.
Whoosh.
Yubi carried Kenta across the battlefield, leaping from rock to rock up the canyon wall. He moved with the sure-footedness of someone who'd spent his entire childhood training in terrain like this.
Finally, he stopped on a high ledge jutting out from the cliff face. From here, he could overlook the entire battlefield while remaining at a relatively safe distance.
He laid Kenta down carefully and assessed the damage with a clinical eye.
The boy's face was badly burned, the skin blistered and peeling. One eye was clearly destroyed—unsalvageable. Shrapnel from the explosive tag had torn through his left arm and leg. He'd lost a lot of blood.
"I'm sorry... Yubi..." Kenta's remaining eye rolled toward him, the pupil dilated with shock and pain. His voice was barely a whisper. "I've caused you so much trouble. Don't... don't worry about me. You're a medical ninja. You should leave first. Get the intelligence back to the village."
"It's fine," Yubi said quietly, already pulling medical supplies from his pouch. His hands moved with practiced efficiency, cleaning wounds, applying salves, wrapping bandages. "The enemy numbers aren't that large. Senior Endo is holding them off for now."
But even as he spoke, the corner of his eye tracked the situation unfolding below.
It's not fine. It's not fine at all.
Three more Amegakure ninja were converging on what remained of their squad.
And only Endo was left standing.
The other genin—Akira—was already dead. So was the injured chunin from the cave. Both had died within the first minute of the ambush.
From the moment they'd been attacked until now, barely five minutes had passed.
That's how it works with small-scale ninja combat, Yubi thought grimly. No drawn-out battles. Life and death decided in moments.
According to the medical ninja rules he'd memorized at the academy, he should prioritize his own survival above all else. Retreat. Get the intel back to the village. Let the others handle the fighting.
But the current situation had made those rules obsolete.
There was no one left to protect him. No one left to prioritize his safety.
He was the last medical ninja standing, and Endo was about to be overwhelmed.
"You rest here," Yubi said, finishing the bandage work. "I'll be back."
Before Kenta could protest, Yubi had already turned and launched himself back toward the battlefield.
"Hm?"
One of the three Amegakure ninja noticed movement on the cliff face. His head snapped up.
"There's still one of those Sand brats alive?"
"Did that bastard Aoki actually die?" another one said, disbelief coloring his voice.
"Failed to handle a single genin," the third spat. "What a piece of trash."
Down below, Endo saw Yubi descending toward the battle. His eyes went wide with horror.
"RUN!" he screamed, desperation cracking his voice. "Get out of here!"
Yubi ignored him completely.
I've observed long enough, he thought, his mind cold and analytical even as adrenaline surged through his system. The data is sufficient.
As he charged toward the three enemies, his eyes darted between them, analyzing movement patterns, weapon placements, stance distributions. Finally, his gaze locked onto one specific target—the one whose breathing was slightly more labored, whose stance favored his right side, whose earlier movements had shown a minor limp.
Weakness identified. Attack vector determined.
As a transmigrator, Yubi had one massive advantage: he was intimately familiar with this world. He understood the various ninjutsu techniques, the fighting styles of different villages, the strengths and limitations of different ninja specializations.
It was like having a database in his mind.
Not complete—there were gaps in his knowledge, things that hadn't been shown or explained in the source material. But it was still a significant edge.
But that wasn't his real trump card.
His true advantage came from the system—specifically, from the knowledge he'd gained through Kageman's Medical Notes.
Those notes had given him an extraordinarily deep understanding of human anatomy. How the body moved. How it could be damaged. Where the weak points were.
He'd taken that knowledge and applied it to himself first, using his own body as a testing ground. Since before he'd even entered the Ninja Academy, he'd been training obsessively—pushing himself to the absolute limit, then using his medical knowledge to recover faster than should be possible.
Extreme training. Rapid recovery. Repeat.
He'd maintained that cycle for years.
And his advantage as a doctor meant he could look at an opponent's movements and determine their physical capabilities with frightening accuracy. He could spot weaknesses, hidden injuries, limitations in their range of motion.
Combine that analytical ability with a body he'd honed to peak efficiency, add in the combat data he'd accumulated from his transmigrator knowledge...
The result was what he called "Data Taijutsu."
A fighting style built on observation, analysis, and surgical precision.
It wasn't flashy. It wasn't overwhelming. But at his current level of development, it was more than sufficient.
And the toxins he used? Those were his own mixtures—carefully calibrated formulas designed for specific effects.
Yubi raised his scalpel as he closed the distance to the three Rain ninja, his mind already calculating optimal strike paths.
But before he could engage—
Several puppets descended from the sky.
There was absolutely no warning. One moment, the air was empty. The next, three intricate humanoid constructs had materialized directly beside the Amegakure ninja, as if they'd simply appeared there.
The puppet on the left opened its mouth, and a razor-sharp spike shot out. Mid-flight, it curved impossibly, adjusting its trajectory with mechanical precision before punching straight through one enemy's skull. The Rain ninja didn't even have time to scream.
The puppet on the right carried a circular blade that spun at high velocity, the metal blurring into a disc of death. It sliced horizontally through the second ninja's torso at waist height, bisecting him so cleanly that for a moment, the upper half of his body just sat there on top of the lower half before sliding off.
The third puppet looked different from the others—more animalistic, built like a large lizard. It scuttled forward on articulated legs, and when it reached its target, panels along its back opened with a series of mechanical clicks.
A spray of poisoned senbon needles erupted from the openings, thousands of them filling the air like a metal rainstorm.
The last Amegakure ninja was shredded instantly, his body jerking and spasming as the needles punched through flesh and bone.
Yubi's charge came to an abrupt halt.
Three enemies, eliminated in less than two seconds.
Their squad's desperate struggle—ended just like that. In a flash.
In the distance, a figure landed with barely a sound.
Footsteps. Calm. Measured. Approaching slowly.
A face equally young emerged from the shadows, illuminated by the moonlight filtering through the canyon. Red hair. Dark eyes. Chakra threads extending from his fingers like spider silk, connecting to the three puppets that now stood motionless around the corpses.
Sasori.
This, Yubi thought, slowly lowering his scalpel, is what a true monstrous genius looks like.
He wasn't surprised. Not really.
Sure, these Amegakure ninja weren't elite by the standards of major villages. In the grand scope of the war, they were essentially cannon fodder—expendable pieces on a massive chessboard.
But for a squad of genin and low-level chunin, they'd been a nightmare. Nearly insurmountable.
And Sasori had just casually erased them from existence like they were nothing.
Age eight might seem young to most people. But in this world, some individuals were already showing their brilliance at that age.
And they were completely unstoppable.
In front of geniuses like this, Yubi reflected, the efforts of ordinary people throughout their entire lives are merely the starting point.
Sasori walked forward calmly, his fingers moving in small, precise gestures as he retrieved his puppets. The constructs folded in on themselves with mechanical precision, collapsing into compact forms before disappearing into storage scrolls.
He completely ignored Endo, who stood nearby, still breathing hard from his own fight.
Instead, Sasori's dark eyes fixed on Yubi.
"I thought..." Sasori said, his voice flat and emotionless, "with you here, nothing would go wrong."
The words hung in the air between them.
Yubi let out a long breath and returned his scalpel to his medical pouch. "You think too highly of me."
Sasori didn't respond immediately. He just stared at Yubi, his gaze intense and unreadable.
It felt like he was trying to see straight through Yubi's skull. Into his thoughts. His secrets.
The silence stretched uncomfortably long.
He knows something, Yubi realized. Or suspects something. But how much?
The wind whistled through the canyon, carrying the smell of blood and burned flesh.
Somewhere in the distance, another battle was still raging.
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