Chapter 124: Sasuke's Grievous Wounds
They moved fast across the snowfield.
Kiba carried Yugito. Sakura carried Sasuke. Shino kept his insects spread wide, monitoring everything within range.
And clearly, Kumogakure had lost its mind.
Their jinchūriki had vanished mid-battle. No enemy bodies left behind. Anyone with half a brain could work out what that meant.
Yugito Nii — the Two-Tails jinchūriki — had been taken.
The whole operation had been designed to use an intelligence gap as bait and land something significant. They'd landed something, all right. They'd gone fishing for a big catch and hooked a great white shark.
Even their perfect jinchūriki had been beaten and hauled off.
Inside Kumogakure's field command tent —
Darui was on one knee, cold sweat running freely, carefully walking through the sequence of events.
There was good news and bad news.
Good news: the logistics resources used as bait had survived.
Bad news: the perfect jinchūriki had been knocked out and taken.
"WHAT."
The man at the head of the table heard Darui out and exploded. His fist came down on the desk. The desk did not survive.
Even Dodai — the actual commander of this theater — said nothing. He simply stood to one side.
Because the man in the room was the Fourth Raikage, A.
Set against recovering a jinchūriki, the logistics stockpile barely registered. Logistics could be restocked. The Two-Tails was an inheritance — lose it, and the loss compounded over generations. That was why the Raikage's fury was what it was.
They'd bought the Two-Tails from Hashirama Senju. Paid in good faith.
Konoha takes our property back, and somehow that's acceptable?
The Raikage didn't spend time on right or wrong. His framework was simpler.
What's mine is mine. What's yours is also mine.
"Can we pinpoint their location?"
He pulled himself back to cold calculation and looked to Dodai.
"Their team has strong sensory capability. Best estimate is they're moving through the Land of Frost toward Konoha's lines, but we can't get more precise than that."
"Then send the main force. Surround and destroy."
"We cannot."
Dodai spoke immediately.
The Raikage looked at him, visibly throttling his temper.
"The main force is currently facing off against Konoha. Our movements over the past few days have already put them on alert." Dodai's voice was measured and quiet. "A large-scale troop redeployment cannot be concealed. Konoha will see it. Whether they choose to press the advantage on our weakened front or dispatch their own intercept force — either outcome is unacceptable risk."
"And whoever defeated Yugito in her tailed beast form... the strength required to stop that with bodies alone would be staggering."
The Raikage listened, muscles taut, and then stood up anyway.
"Then I'll go myself."
"Shi! Darui!"
"We move!"
He was out of the tent before anyone could object.
"Ah — sorry about this, Uncle Dodai."
A blond-haired young man with a complexion like fresh cream shot Dodai an apologetic look and hurried after the Raikage.
Darui, still half-kneeling, rose and followed at a quick step.
Dodai watched all three of them go without any particular expression.
This was exactly what he'd wanted.
With the main force unable to move, the only option was an elite intercept team. And in Kumogakure right now, only two people had any business pursuing someone who could beat Yugito in tailed beast form.
One was Killer Bee.
The other was the Raikage himself.
As a subordinate, he couldn't exactly tell his commanding officer to go handle it personally. So he'd let the man's legendary temper do the work for him.
Snow again.
The sun had appeared for a brief, unfamiliar moment — and then disappeared, and the snow started back up as though it had never stopped. Sakura found herself increasingly irritated by this place.
She was beginning to actively dislike it.
Four figures pushing through the white expanse, the weather pressing down on all of them.
"Sakura..."
The voice from her back was barely there. Sasuke.
"I'm listening."
She adjusted her grip, making sure he was secure.
She'd treated the wounds as best she could in the field. The bleeding had stopped — which meant he'd pulled back from the immediate edge. But without proper care soon, two days was optimistic.
Darui's blade had come close to the lung. If Sakura's medical skills had been any less, Sasuke would already be on his way to the Pure Land to find Uchiha Mikoto.
Which was probably also why Darui hadn't finished him off. He hadn't counted on a field medic of Tsunade's caliber being in this squad.
"Leave me here."
"I'm only slowing everyone down."
Sasuke wasn't wrong about the math. He was dead weight right now, and he knew it. Without him on her back, their pace would increase significantly. They were still inside enemy territory.
"Are you joking right now."
A thread of genuine irritation ran through Sakura's voice.
Do you have any idea how much work I've put into keeping you alive? And you want me to leave you in the snow?
Everything I've done for you — completely wasted.
The Sage of Six Paths would climb out of the Pure Land personally just to strangle me.
Sasuke said nothing.
Again.
He hated his own weakness. Hated his own uselessness.
After that night — the night Itachi destroyed everything — he'd been able to tell himself he was six years old, that being helpless was unavoidable.
Seven years had passed. And he'd been beaten by some unnamed Kumo ninja and dragged the entire team down with him.
He wanted strength.
Strength to protect. Real strength. Not excuses.
Something slid from the corner of his eye — gone before it reached his cheek, caught and scattered by the wind.
"Don't think about it. Think about what comes after."
"You're supposed to rebuild the Uchiha clan. If you die out here in the snow, that's it — the Uchiha are finished."
Silence from the boy on her back. Sakura was still trying to draw something out of him — a spark, anything — when she stopped walking entirely.
She stood still.
"Sasuke."
Her voice shifted — a tone she used to settle anxious patients, gentle and deliberate.
"Can Shino carry you for a while?"
"I think I'm going to need both hands free."
She was already looking at something ahead.
(Chapter End)
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