chapter 91 part 3
A, his temper exceptionally irritable, slammed a punch onto Terai in front of him, and once again, Terai precisely blocked it with his blade.
Terai didn't clash techniques with A; he dodged whenever possible, and dragged it out whenever possible.
A's initial judgment was that Tsukasa Kaede couldn't last long, as it was impossible to make so many corpses exert powerful combat power. But gradually, his thought wavered. Although the corpse horde's overall strength declined due to the decreasing number of corpses, the average combat power each corpse could exert quietly increased! Their movements became more precise, their attack angles more insidious, and the power of the same ninjutsu they launched subtly increased.
The fewer the corpses, the more attention Tsukasa Kaede could allocate to each one, allowing him to control them to unleash even more of their strength from when they were alive?!
The key was that he couldn't see Tsukasa Kaede showing any signs of excessive consumption, as if Tsukasa Kaede would never get tired, and always had inexhaustible Chakra. But how was that possible? What the hell kind of Secret Technique was this? How could there be such a person in this world, who developed such a troublesome forbidden jutsu!
"Toying with the dead, desecrating living beings—a person like you will not come to a good end. Sooner or later, you'll be shattered to pieces!"
A punched Terai away. While angrily cursing, he watched with his own eyes as a zombie, which had previously emerged from a summoning scroll, immediately performed that strange jutsu formula, and at the cost of turning itself into a mummified corpse, quickly repaired the injuries on Terai's body.
Terai, whose body had been damaged from overexertion, once again became full of vigor, his blade tip pointed directly at him, and charged over again.
For the first time, A felt that a one-on-one battle was such a troublesome matter, especially when it was against a corpse.
This time, Tsukasa Kaede appeared less than ten meters from A, strolling casually, and said faintly, "I'm already playing with corpses, and you're telling me I won't come to a good end? At worst, I'll become one of them in the future. I've long since prepared myself for that psychologically. Do you have anything else to say?"
"Damn it, utterly devoid of moral burden. The Hidden Leaf Village actually produced a guy like this." A cursed under his breath, feeling Terai was as annoying as a fly, and turned to look at Troy on the other side.
Compared to A, Troy's destructive power seemed more than a notch inferior. During this exchange, he was constantly throwing various ninja tools, his expression exceptionally grim.
"This type, Troy, is indeed not good at entangling with these corpses." A frowned.
Troy's Magnet Release was to attach magnetic force to thrown ninja tools, and then throw the ninja tools to attack enemies.
Once an enemy subconsciously used a kunai to knock away these ninja tools, then it was done: it meant their body was completely covered with magnetic force. At this point, Troy would seize the opportunity to throw his unique weapon—the card shuriken, a type of large shuriken.
The card shuriken would then automatically be attracted by the magnetic force on the enemy's body, automatically tracking them, and its speed would get faster and faster, chasing the enemy to death.
The best way to deal with Troy was actually not to block his thrown shuriken, but to dodge them directly, so as not to get covered in magnetic force. However, to achieve that level of countering, it would mean Troy's intel had been leaked, allowing for such targeted arrangements.
But precisely now they were dealing with zombies! The corpses had absolutely no concept of "pulling out a kunai to block enemy ninja tools." They would take any attack they could with their bodies, rather risking getting riddled with holes to gain an opportunity to approach the Kumogakure ninja.
Although some of the zombies were eventually too severely injured, with broken bones, and could only lunge forward for a fierce bite, doing nothing else, such injuries were utterly insignificant.
Furthermore, Araki of the Sand was furiously unleashing his full power, constantly stirring up Sandstorm jutsu, obscuring vision, weakening the Kumogakure ninja's combat power, and carrying out endless harassment.
"Damn it, maybe I should go deal with that Terai? But that guy has Chakra attached to his weapon, so my magnetic force can't affect him." Troy fought with extreme frustration.
Troy, biting a half-unrolled summoning scroll in his mouth, constantly summoned and threw various sizes of card shuriken. Compared to the many fierce Kumogakure warriors passionately charging the corpse horde and sending zombies tumbling, the already scrawny Troy completely became an emotionless ninja tool-throwing machine.
The zombies simply didn't engage with his attacks; they charged forward relentlessly, one after another, rather risking being shattered to pieces than not trying to destabilize the Hidden Cloud Village's defense line.
Not afraid of injury, not afraid of death, preferring to trade blows—killing these already dead enemies, no matter how many, brought no sense of accomplishment... Troy was thoroughly annoyed.
He then stared at Araki of the Sand, constantly throwing card shuriken. But as luck would have it, Araki of the Sand was also very skilled at long-range combat, constantly stirring up Sandstorm jutsu to disrupt the card shuriken's trajectory.
Tsukasa Kaede had also always kept an eye on Troy.
To put it bluntly, compared to A, Troy was his primary target. Tonight, no matter how many zombies were lost, as long as Araki of the Sand and Terai, these two Elite Jonin, weren't smashed to pieces beyond repair, Tsukasa Kaede didn't care about the loss of other zombies. Capturing Troy would be the biggest victory.
Tsukasa Kaede had also considered making A stay here permanently, but he probably couldn't do it. A's speed was too fast, and with his offense and defense in one, if he truly wanted to escape, Tsukasa Kaede really couldn't stop him.
Moreover, even if he set aside all objective factors and miraculously killed A, obtaining A's corpse, he would immediately face a great war between the Hidden Cloud Village and the Hidden Leaf Village.
The Third Raikage would definitely not accept such an outcome. His inability to accept his son's death was one aspect, but his absolute intolerance of Tsukasa Kaede toying with his son's corpse was another.
"War, what a captivating word. But for now, I still need to restrain myself a bit. Everything can wait until Orochimaru cultivates the body I desire," Tsukasa Kaede said, reluctantly withdrawing his gaze from A and closely watching Troy.
He had always suspected that Troy, too, had actually been kidnapped back by the Hidden Cloud Village from the Land of Wind when he was young.
The Hidden Cloud Village seemed to have always been doing this kind of thing: kidnapping Kushina, kidnapping Hinata. There was no reason for them to only target people from the Hidden Leaf Village; it was probable they were frantically kidnapping people from all hidden villages. So, kidnapping someone from the Land of Wind, which was already abundant in Magnet Release ninja, was perfectly normal.
Troy's physique, compared to the muscular strongmen of the Hidden Cloud Village, also appeared incredibly thin and small. Was this perhaps another piece of evidence that he wasn't a native of the Hidden Cloud Village?
"No matter your origin, from now on, you will become my private property, forever." Tsukasa Kaede approached Troy's vicinity again, openly scrutinizing him.
"Is he treating me as prey? What terrible eyes."
Troy coldly snorted. However, this was precisely what he wanted; he had thought of a tactic that could directly kill Tsukasa Kaede.
Once Tsukasa Kaede, this Corpse Release ninja, died, all the corpses should lose their combat capability. Letting a person like Tsukasa Kaede live posed too great a threat to the Hidden Cloud Village.