Under the night sky, a massive cloud of dust rose across the long stretches of the rocky desert.
Manda, whose body was as colossal as a skyscraper, carried the members of the Surprise Attack Squad toward the border of the Land of Wind, where the red smoke wavered.
"We're nearing the battlefield, Ren. How much more time do you need to knead chakra?" Standing atop Manda's head, Shinichi Uchiha struggled to maintain control over the snake. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead as he glanced back.
There, the boy sat cross-legged, the moonlight and starlight draping over him like a gossamer veil.
"If it's just enough to move, I have enough now," Ren replied, his eyes closed. He was seizing every second. "But to support a real fight... it's far from sufficient."
His Body Resurrection technique was currently incomplete. He couldn't instantly regrow an arm with ease like the future Orochimaru could. To do that now would require either a staggering amount of chakra or the slow, natural mending of his immortal body. Consequently, he had given up on fixing his right arm for now, focusing instead on converting the lingering anxiety of his teammates into dark chakra, which was then processed into regular chakra by his flesh.
The workload was so intense that the "Little Zero-Tails" in his gut was frequently sending him strike warnings. The Zero-Tails wasn't some legendary combat-booster; it was a flawed "pseudo-tailed beast" with many shortcomings, especially its low conversion efficiency.
Despite Ren's ruthless squeezing, he had only managed to recover about a Chunin's worth of chakra—enough for a single Fire Style: Chakra Mode flame blade, and even then, only if he didn't trigger the high-risk Body Resurrection.
Shinichi gritted his teeth. "My ocular power is running low. I can't control Manda much longer! I can carry you on my back; there's no need to control this massive beast! It's too taxing for the battle ahead!"
"Wait! Just a little longer!" Ren gritted his teeth, his eyes still shut. "Trust me! I have a feeling Manda will be of great use in the next move!"
Ryuma Aburame's mission was to destroy supplies, not necessarily to fight to the death. For a master of rinkaichu who excelled in assassination and infiltration, he had many ways to finish a task indirectly. The fact that he had fired the red signal meant he had encountered an extreme anomaly—a variable beyond this team's pay grade.
Just then, Shisui Uchiha's Sharingan widened. "Look there! In the desert... a purple mist!"
Ren snapped his eyes open. Far off in the moonlit dunes, a swirling vortex of purple fog had engulfed a massive area. At its center, a black tornado spun with violent speed. Directly above this violet miasma, the red distress smoke spiraled into the sky.
Beside them, Akamaru suddenly began to bark frantically.
"It's poison!" Akichi Inuzuka shouted, acting as a translator. "That's the poison of Lady Chiyo, the Elder of the Sand!"
The eye of a tornado is usually a calm zone, but that didn't mean it was safe. It wasn't a vacuum, but a funnel of air where the pressure was significantly lower than the outside.
Currently, Ryuma Aburame stood in the center of his own Secret Technique: Insect Tornado, his face pale. As the pressure dropped, he felt dizzy, nauseous, and weak. Yet, this was better than the alternative.
The purple fog outside was the work of Chiyo of the Sand. In all of Konoha, only Lady Tsunade could neutralize such toxins. A single breath would result in a total loss of combat capability, with one's body dissolving into a pile of bones in moments. Even Orochimaru had only given him a vial of adrenaline and told him: "If you encounter this stuff, run for your life."
"My insects are being poisoned faster than I can replace them," Ryuma muttered. "The chakra cost to maintain the tornado is too high... and I don't even know who the enemy is!"
He crouched, pressing his palms into the sand to send out more kikaichu for reconnaissance. But the moment the insects crawled into the toxic mist, they were snuffed out by something incredibly sharp before they could transmit any data.
What was out there? How many people? Who had designed this trap specifically for him? He was in the dark.
He had tried to release a massive batch of mother-insects to create an Insect Swamp for a map-wide AOE attack. But before the insects could hatch, a calm, elderly voice drifted through the wind:
"Sealing Style: Lion's Closing Roar."
In an instant, his connection to the mother-insects was severed.
The voice was intentionally muffled, and the abilities were rare. Ryuma felt a chill. His identity as the Vice-Commander of Root and his solo combat habits had been completely analyzed and countered.
When? When was my intelligence leaked?
In his oxygen-deprived haze, memories flashed by like a revolving lantern... until they stopped at a mission in the Land of Hot Water.
Before that day, Orochimaru—who had returned to Root to design the overall strategy for the Third War—had earnestly requested Ryuma to bring back his student while on the way. The usually stoic Ryuma had been deeply surprised. Then came the battle against Yagura, the defense against the Mist, and meeting that "idiot" subordinate... the boy who shone like the sun.
"Heh. I see. It was that day... the intelligence was gathered then."
Ryuma's eyes sharpened behind his dark glasses. He looked through the insect storm toward the unseen observer.
"An old master who perfectly blends poison, puppetry, and Wind Style... A man who still has countless spies across nations, controlling ninja secrets like a puppet master..."
"The former King of Intelligence, and now the powerhouse Elder of the Sand—"
"Ebizo, the Secret Hand of the Sand!"