"Even his armor has built-in mechanisms? This guy's got tricks."
Tōji thought of the chainmail he was wearing… "This thing's nowhere near as fancy as his."
The puppeteer's line of sight was blocked by his armor for only two or three seconds—but that was enough for Raicho to sever the puppet's remaining arm and both legs.
The puppeteer retracted his armor, his eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly…
Boom! Shing-shing-shing-shing-shing! The puppet suddenly exploded—a cloud of pale purple poison gas billowed out, along with a hail of poisoned senbon flying in all directions!
Raicho, who'd been too close to the puppet… had probably already inhaled some of the gas—and he was stuck with at least twenty or thirty senbon all over his body!
It was brutal.
"Raicho-sensei!" Natchi and Tōji cried out in alarm.
Tōji's heart clenched. "Oh crap! The squad leader's going down! There goes my safety net!"
If Natchi hadn't been nearby and still alive, Tōji would've bolted on the spot. But with someone watching, he didn't dare play deserter.
Sure, the puppet was destroyed—but who knew what other nasty tricks the puppeteer had up his sleeve? The guy was at least a jōnin. Two genuine genin were no match for him.
A couple of genin taking down a jōnin—that only happened to the chosen ones!
But—thankfully!
Raicho, despite turning into a human porcupine, hadn't collapsed yet. He was still standing…
"Natchi, Tōji—together!" Raicho's voice already sounded off—probably because a few senbon had punctured his lungs.
Truth was, Raicho had stopped moving entirely. He was only forcing himself to stay upright to keep some psychological pressure on the puppeteer. His skin was already visibly starting to turn purple…
Tōji had imagined plenty of dangerous scenarios—but he never thought that on his very first mission, less than an afternoon in, his squad would be staring down a total wipeout…
"Raicho-san… are you even a real jōnin?"
Maybe he'd been misled by watching too many fights involving Kakashi and Gai in the original story…
Anyway, this tokubetsu jōnin was pretty special—special in that he burned out way too fast.
No choice now. Tōji looked over at Natchi, hoping he had some kind of plan.
But Natchi said nothing. And he'd stopped guarding Akane—who hadn't moved a muscle and might already be dead—and started repositioning.
"Got it. First rule of Konoha shinobi code: abandon teammates who've become dead weight when necessary."
That was the guiding principle Tōji took from this moment.
"So… let Natchi go first? If this puppeteer has no other ranged attacks, then as long as I don't rush in, I should be safe!"
"Whoever goes in first is definitely toast!"
Any ninja without backing who got captured in wartime would either be tortured and killed, or tortured, ransomed back to the village, and then killed anyway… that's right—even if they got ransomed back, they'd disappear soon enough.
So this puppeteer was definitely fighting to the death!
The puppeteer kept scanning left and right, watching both directions. Despite his immobile leg, his ten fingers were still twitching slightly—manipulating chakra threads…
That was when Natchi nodded at Tōji.
"What??"
"What was that nod supposed to mean—'attack together' or 'let me handle it'?"
"Alright, I'll take a guess—Natchi wants to go solo, and I'm supposed to stay on the sidelines as backup!"
"Great. We'll go with that."
Natchi, having just nodded to Tōji, pulled up his hood. He crouched down quickly, fastening a cat-tail accessory to the base of his spine, while pulling a scroll from his pack and unrolling it on the ground…
He pressed his hand to the scroll—over the character for "Mike"…
"[Ninja Art: Cat Cloak]!"
The character "Mike" flashed with a green light!
In an instant, a pair of cat-ear-shaped chakra constructs appeared on Natchi's head. His tail accessory was enveloped in chakra as well—and his nails grew long and sharp, rapidly. His face, shadowed beneath his hood, seemed to merge into darkness—and his cat-like pupils glowed with an eerie light!
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Author's Note:
Up until Chapter 20, I'll be posting five chapters a day. After that, it'll probably be around two chapters per day.
I'm glad that someone has found this book.