Hyuga Kagami didn’t waste any more time tangling with Sasori.
He flew directly above Mitsui Chuichi’s corpse, then without hesitation hurled several kunai wrapped with explosive tags.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
A series of violent explosions erupted, instantly blowing Mitsui Chuichi’s corpse to pieces.
The reason Hyuga Kagami destroyed Mitsui Chuichi’s body was to prevent Sasori from using Mitsui Chuichi’s identity as a lead to trace things back to him.
After all, even Hyuga Kagami didn’t know how long he would have to remain stationed at the border outpost.
If Sasori came looking for him there, he wouldn’t even have anywhere to run.
The village was currently trying every possible way to purge him.
If he abandoned the outpost and fled, the village could simply charge him with desertion in the face of the enemy and execute him with perfect justification.
But with Mitsui Chuichi’s corpse destroyed, it would be much harder for Sasori to figure out Hyuga Kagami’s identity.
No matter how powerful Sasori was, he was still ultimately a rogue ninja.
Without Sunagakure’s support behind him, intelligence gathering was bound to be one of his weaknesses.
Moreover, this cooperation between Konoha and Sunagakure involved purging their own people.
There were bound to be very few people who knew about it, and those who did were almost certainly members of the highest echelons of both villages.
So whether Sasori tried to investigate through Konoha or Sunagakure, it would be extremely difficult for him to obtain the specific list of personnel involved in this purge operation.
One flew through the sky while the other pursued from the ground.
Naturally, the distance between them continued to grow wider and wider.
Glancing back at Sasori, who had fallen far behind and was practically beside himself with rage, Hyuga Kagami laughed in satisfaction.
At this point, Sasori had yet to join the Akatsuki.
Although he already possessed the impressive achievement of killing a Kage-level shinobi, he was still fundamentally a traditional Sunagakure puppeteer.
His methods were rather one-dimensional, he relied too heavily on his puppets, and he lacked experience dealing with all sorts of strange and unconventional powerful opponents.
As a result, after Hyuga Kagami had luckily managed to seize the Third Kazekage Human Puppet from him, Sasori’s overall strength immediately took a massive hit.
And this weakening wasn’t limited to his combat power.
More importantly, it affected his mobility.
Without the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, Sasori had lost the initiative on the battlefield.
Whether to fight or retreat was no longer up to him.
This was also why the Fourth Hokage had been able to surpass the Three Sannin in such a short period of time and make his name resound throughout the shinobi world.
Those who could defeat the Fourth couldn’t catch him, while those who couldn’t defeat him couldn’t escape.
This was the greatest source of helplessness for every enemy who encountered him.
And as the Fourth Hokage grew stronger with each passing day, there gradually came a point where almost no one could defeat him one-on-one.
Thus, the name “Yellow Flash” naturally came to strike awe throughout the shinobi world.
“Right now, Sasori still hasn’t reached the peak of his strength.
Perhaps after he joins the Akatsuki in the near future, sees the Rinnegan, and learns about power that transcends the Kage level, his strength will improve even further.”
With these thoughts in mind, Hyuga Kagami gradually left Sasori behind.
He exited the desert terrain and slipped into the forests within the Land of Rivers.
After repeatedly confirming that he had shaken Sasori off his trail, Hyuga Kagami deliberately took a long detour before finally stopping atop a large tree about 1.5 miles from his own outpost.
If he simply swaggered back to the outpost as he was, Hyuga Kagami would inevitably be questioned over Mitsui Chuichi’s death.
But now that Hyuga Kagami had seized the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, he couldn’t report his encounter with Sasori either.
If he reported it to the village, Konoha would inevitably launch a thorough investigation, and under such scrutiny, it would be extremely difficult for him to keep the Third Kazekage Human Puppet in his possession.
Moreover, once an S-rank rogue ninja was involved, the village would almost certainly send a jonin—or even an elite jonin—to investigate.
That would greatly increase the chances of his Tenseigan being exposed.
Therefore, he needed to put on an act and make Mitsui Chuichi’s death seem perfectly reasonable.
After thinking it over for a moment, Hyuga Kagami sprang into action.
He wrapped all the exposed parts of the Third Kazekage Human Puppet—its head, hands, and the like—in bandages, leaving only a pair of slightly vacant eyes visible.
Then he draped a gray cloak over it.
Since a Human Puppet was made from a corpse in the first place, its physique was almost identical to when the person had still been alive.
On top of that, there were no chakra strings connecting it to Hyuga Kagami.
So after his disguise was complete, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet looked just like a living shinobi.
Hyuga Kagami carefully inspected it once more.
After confirming that there were no obvious flaws in the disguise, he handed the Third Kazekage Human Puppet two kunai and had it slash him with them.
Once everything was ready, Hyuga Kagami began shouting for help as he raced toward the outpost.
At the outpost—
Hearing Hyuga Kagami’s cries for help coming from the distance, Anko, who was still recovering from her injuries, froze for a moment.
She immediately leaped out of her room and landed outside the outpost.
At the same time, the other two squad captains stationed at the outpost also leaped out, staring warily in the direction Hyuga Kagami’s cries for help were coming from.
A moment later, they saw Hyuga Kagami, covered in blood, stumbling desperately toward the outpost.
Behind him, an unfamiliar shinobi wearing a cloak was pursuing him relentlessly.
Including the injured Anko, none of the three Konoha shinobi hesitated.
They immediately rushed forward and engaged the mysterious shinobi chasing Hyuga Kagami. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Even relying solely on taijutsu, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet was considerably stronger than Anko and the others.
To avoid taking the act too far, Hyuga Kagami—who had collapsed to the ground while pretending to be completely exhausted—had the Third Kazekage Human Puppet exchange only a few moves with the three before immediately retreating.
The three didn’t risk pursuing it.
Instead, they returned to Hyuga Kagami’s side and asked,
“What happened?”
Hyuga Kagami shook his head.
“I don’t know either.
Captain Mitsui and I had barely infiltrated the Land of Wind when we were attacked.
The captain was killed on the spot, and that man chased me the entire way.
I barely managed to escape and make it back here.”
Hearing this, Anko’s expression grew even gloomier.
The other two chunin captains exchanged glances, each seeing the same mixture of shock and suspicion in the other’s eyes.
Back inside Hyuga Kagami’s room at the outpost, Anko wrapped his wounds while speaking in a hoarse voice.
“They’re all dead.”
By “they,” Anko meant the other seven members of Orochimaru’s former subordinates who had come here with them—the seven besides Anko and Hyuga Kagami.
Hyuga Kagami’s squad wasn’t the only one that had gone out on a mission that day.
The other two squads at the outpost had also been dispatched.
However, only the two suspicious squad captains had returned safely.
The former subordinates of Orochimaru serving under them had all met with “accidents” and died in action.
Hyuga Kagami said nothing, merely nodding silently.
This was a remote outpost staffed by only twelve people, yet eight of them had died in less than two weeks.
Aside from Mitsui Chuichi, who had unexpectedly been killed by Sasori, the other seven were all former subordinates of Orochimaru.
Anyone who wasn’t blind or stupid could see that something was clearly going on behind the scenes.
A moment later, Hyuga Kagami pointed toward the door and whispered,
“Be careful around them.
I suspect they’re from Root.”
Anko had already noticed that there was something off about the three squad captains who had arrived as replacements, so she nodded.
Then she quietly asked,
“What happened with you two today?”
Hyuga Kagami glanced at Anko and calmly replied,
“Don’t overthink it.
What happened to me today really was an accident.”