"This guy's alright. Has some loyalty. Otherwise, I would've used that Decapitation Technique just now to run." Tōji thought to himself.
Even though two teammates had died, he didn't feel particularly close to them. Yet somehow, his eyes felt warm and his chest felt heavy.
Anyway—"Better them than me." If he'd put on a show of charging in to die, and Natchi hadn't saved him, his last move wouldn't have been toward the puppeteer at all.
But in the end, he'd repaid Natchi at the critical moment. So he didn't owe anything.
Shing shing shing… The sound of several people approaching.
"What's going on here?" Four figures arrived—a full squad, by the looks of it. Their leader, seeing that the fighting was over, spoke up first.
"I fired the signal flare. One of our squad members—" Tōji gestured toward Akane, whose skin had turned purple, "—found a Suna puppeteer. Then two of them were hit by the puppet's projectiles in the fight. Severe poisoning. Not sure if they're alive or dead."
After briefly summarizing the situation, Tōji asked, "Is there still a chance to save Raicho-sensei and Akane-chan?"
Because the four arriving reinforcements hadn't moved an inch—clearly, none of them were medical-nin.
"That poison's too potent. It's already spread to their skin in this short time…" One of the new arrivals, a bespectacled young man, frowned. "Probably won't even make it back to camp. And it doesn't look like they're breathing anymore…"
Generally speaking, battlefield poisons came in two types: fast-acting but easy to cure, or hard to neutralize but giving you some time to work with.
In truth, everyone present could tell that Raicho and Akane were already gone. They were all just being diplomatic. No one wanted to be the one to say "give up."
But someone always had to step up. "I can't feel any life signs from them. They've… fallen in the line of duty."
It was the leader of the support squad—the most senior shinobi present—who spoke.
Everyone lowered their heads…
"Alright. You two, continue your mission. Leave this to the collection squad." The veteran broke the brief silence. "We've got other things to handle."
With that, the support squad left.
Everyone was pretty rational, huh.
Two people dead, and all they got was a few sentences. Then a tag, and the "collection squad" that followed the "search squads" would handle the rest.
But it was understandable. Not only had years of war numbed people's hearts—the support squad had to report back after Tōji's flare, and they really did have things to do…
Natchi patted Tōji's shoulder, then forced a strained smile.
"His goofy grin was way more natural than that."
"So… continue the mission?" Natchi asked.
"Let's stick together. Safer that way." Tōji didn't want his shinobi file to show only a single mission entry for the rest of his career.
Normally, they should have returned to camp for reassignment—but that wasn't happening right now. Maybe Orochimaru figured even if there was danger, not many would die… or maybe he just didn't care about losing a few unlucky souls.
"Yeah… sounds good." Natchi didn't bother questioning Orochimaru's arrangements either. He was scared too.
"This guy was holding back before. His secret technique really is something…" Tōji sized up his only remaining teammate as they resumed their sweep.
Which made sense. Anyone would panic in that situation. Especially someone raised by Konoha.