Chapter 185: Tracking
Boom~ Boom~ Boom~ Boom~
After a series of dense and continuous explosions, only lingering smoke and dust remained in the area.
After a while longer, when the smoke and dust finally dispersed, the field was riddled with craters. Ishiro was long gone. Even the Earth-Style Wall Ishiro had cast had long since lost its original shape, leaving only a pile of rubble.
Looking at the empty explosion site, Jinpachi Munashi let out a light "Huh?": "Where's the person? Could they have been blasted to smithereens?"
"Idiot, the person definitely escaped." Raiga Kurosuki cursed, "This person knows Earth Release. It's very likely they escaped underground. However, underground lurking type ninjutsu aren't very fast. Let's split up and search."
Meanwhile, Ishiro, during the time Jinpachi Munashi and Raiga were waiting for the smoke to clear, had already stealthily moved into a nearby forest. He then activated the Light/Heavy Rock Technique and made a rapid relocation.
Neither Jinpachi Munashi nor Raiga Kurosuki were ninjas skilled in sensing. After searching the surroundings and finding no traces, the two could only curse Ishiro a few times resentfully before leaving the area together.
The commotion from the battle just now was too great and might attract a large Konoha contingent. The two did not want to cause further complications at this moment.
After disengaging from the battle, Ishiro didn't go too far. After flying close to the ground for about 2 kilometers, Ishiro activated the sensory ninjutsu he hadn't used in a long time.
While keeping an eye on the whereabouts of Jinpachi Munashi and Raiga Kurosuki, Ishiro reflected on the mistakes he had made in this battle.
Relying on his intelligence advantage, Ishiro's responses upon encountering the enemy were good. Not wanting to get overly entangled, the methods Ishiro adopted were all geared towards disengaging from battle as quickly as possible. This was understandable.
Overall, Ishiro's performance was good, but there was one very critical point.
That was, Ishiro had completely failed to anticipate Raiga Kurosuki's sudden appearance, even though the intelligence had mentioned that the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist often operated in groups of two or three during this period.
Ishiro should have considered at that time that Jinpachi Munashi might have backup.
Judging from Raiga Kurosuki's position earlier, he probably hadn't been lying in ambush there beforehand but had just rushed over.
If Raiga Kurosuki had been ambushing him in advance, it would not have been easy for Ishiro to dodge that wave of attacks. And if the ambusher had been Kushimaru Kuriarare, the one among the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist most skilled in sneak attacks, Ishiro estimated that he probably wouldn't have been able to leave today without leaving something behind.
The reason Ishiro had been so careless was entirely due to the S-rank ninjutsu, "Mind's Eye." Ishiro's trust in this S-rank ninjutsu was too blind. He clearly hadn't fully mastered this ninjutsu yet, but in battle, he had subconsciously placed too much hope in it.
Originally, Ishiro, with the "Mind's Eye" sixth sense at his disposal, should have been impossible to ambush, yet reality had nearly tripped him up.
"It seems I still need to train this 'Mind's Eye' ability more. Before I can use it well, I should just pretend this ninjutsu doesn't exist," Ishiro secretly admonished himself.
"Hmm? They left?" At this moment, in Ishiro's perception, the chakra sources belonging to Jinpachi Munashi and Raiga Kurosuki left the area of the previous battle together.
"I wonder if they're going to cause trouble for the Hyūga main family." Ishiro didn't rush to follow. To silently track two Elite Jōnin, Ishiro knew he couldn't be hasty.
Ishiro's current maximum perception range was very long. Even if he tailed them from a great distance, he wasn't afraid of losing them. So, Ishiro only slowly followed from another direction after the two had gone far.
With the Light/Heavy Rock Technique for ground-hugging flight, plus the Camouflage Jutsu to interfere with vision, Ishiro wasn't worried about alerting Jinpachi Munashi and the others.
After Ishiro and the two swordsmen left, squads of Konoha ninjas arrived nearby one after another. Looking at the scene filled with explosion marks, an Elite Jōnin from the Hyūga family said, "This level of explosion is undoubtedly from the Blast Sword, Shibuki. I just don't know who Jinpachi Munashi was fighting."
After thinking for a moment, this Elite Jōnin asked a patrol ninja beside him, "Kakuei, is this area within your patrol unit's patrol zone?"
"Lord Hyūga Yūsuke, this area is quite far from the camp and is not within the patrol range of our regular patrol units." Regular patrol units referred to those composed of non-Hyūga clan members. Their patrol routes were managed by another Elite Jōnin from a Hyūga branch family, a matter not under Hyūga Yūsuke's jurisdiction, hence the question.
Hyūga Yūsuke nodded, but he became even more puzzled. If it wasn't a regular patrol unit, could it be that the one fighting Jinpachi Munashi was a Hyūga Jōnin or Elite Jōnin? But he hadn't heard of anyone scheduled to be active in this area today.
However, asking these lower-ranking members about such matters was useless. He could only report the situation to the main family and let them make a judgment. After all, the main family had the detailed mission arrangements for all ninjas in the camp; who would appear here today could be found out by checking the records.
Hyūga Yūsuke carefully searched the vicinity again but still didn't find many combat traces related to Jinpachi Munashi's opponent. There was only a dilapidated Earth-Style Wall. He did, however, discover two marks made by Kiba, the Lightning Swords.
"Could it be that the person fighting Jinpachi Munashi was Raiga Kurosuki? An internal conflict among the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist?" Hyūga Yūsuke shook his head, feeling it was unlikely.
With a trace of doubt, Hyūga Yūsuke returned to the camp. Unfortunately, Hyūga Yūsuke returned a bit too late. The Hyūga main family member he wanted to see, Hyūga Tokuhiro, the current patriarch of the Hyūga clan, had left the camp just half an hour earlier.
Hyūga Tokuhiro didn't leave the camp for a leisurely stroll. On the contrary, Hyūga Tokuhiro had come out this time for the sake of the Land of Fire, for Konoha, and of course, most importantly, for his Hyūga clan and for himself.
When Hiruzen Sarutobi proposed deciding the future Fourth Hokage based on war merits to persuade the Uchiha and Hyūga to dispatch troops, Hyūga Tokuhiro had been contemplating how to acquire sufficient war merits for the Hyūga clan.
The individual combat strength of the Hyūga clan was outstanding, and winning war merits on the battlefield was indeed a good method, but Hyūga Tokuhiro felt it wasn't enough. Because in this aspect, the Uchiha clan would not be weaker than the Hyūga clan, perhaps even stronger.
Although Hyūga Tokuhiro was not convinced, he also knew his own limits. If it were purely based on war merits, he estimated he would lose to the Uchiha clan. So Hyūga Tokuhiro came up with an unconventional strategy: to utilize the network of contacts accumulated throughout the Hyūga clan's long history.
This time, in the Land of Whirlpools, the Hyūga clan had established contact with the current rulers of the Land of Whirlpools. And thanks to the destruction caused by Kirigakure's offensive, the Hyūga clan's activities had made significant progress. The current higher-ups of the Land of Whirlpools had already agreed to be incorporated into the Land of Fire after the war.
Today, Hyūga Tokuhiro was personally going to meet with the higher-ups of the Land of Whirlpools. In Hyūga Tokuhiro's view, this was to show his sincerity and also to clearly claim the credit for himself.
With the merit of expanding the territory for the Land of Fire, Hyūga Tokuhiro felt his chances of becoming Hokage would greatly increase.
Since the Hyūga clan's camp was separate from the Uchiha clan's, the Uchiha clan was unaware of Hyūga Tokuhiro's actions.
This was also normal; no one in the ninja world could monitor the Hyūga.
It was precisely because of his confidence in the Byakugan that Hyūga Tokuhiro had always believed his movements were very secret.
Unfortunately, what Hyūga Tokuhiro didn't know was that his whereabouts had been leaked by a Hyūga branch family Jōnin who had died in battle a while ago.
The strict hierarchical system of the Hyūga clan made the main family never consider that a branch family member would betray them.
In fact, that branch family Jōnin had no basis for betrayal, because the Caged Bird seal was a curse mark capable of remote killing. If that branch family Jōnin betrayed the village or the Hyūga clan, Hyūga Tokuhiro could easily eliminate him.
However, the problem was that the branch family Jōnin had been ambushed by Kushimaru Kuriarare at the time, suffered fatal injuries, and was already in a state of certain death. Hyūga Tokuhiro's threat of death was no longer a threat to him.
So, when Kushimaru Kuriarare, formerly of the Anbu, interrogated him with a "just trying" attitude, he very readily revealed Hyūga Tokuhiro's whereabouts.
At that time, Kushimaru Kuriarare's first reaction was disbelief. A Hyūga branch family Jōnin, knowing he was about to die, how could his backbone be so soft?
But later, after investigating based on the obtained intelligence, Kushimaru Kuriarare found that the authenticity of this intelligence was surprisingly high. Thus, the strategic deployment of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist was adjusted, and a plan specifically targeting Hyūga Tokuhiro was formulated.
Hyūga Yūsuke didn't know he had lost the last chance to warn Hyūga Tokuhiro. After all, given Hyūga Tokuhiro's caution, if he knew there were uncontrollable factors around the camp, he might have changed his itinerary.
Of course, if Hyūga Yūsuke truly knew that this information could potentially save Hyūga Tokuhiro's life, it wasn't certain whether he would immediately go to remind Hyūga Tokuhiro. Perhaps, when it really came to that moment, he too, like the deceased branch family Jōnin, would ultimately choose to let Hyūga Tokuhiro die.
Jinpachi Munashi and Raiga Kurosuki didn't know their plan had almost been ruined by the fight just now. They were currently rushing to their designated rendezvous point.
Ishiro also didn't know he had almost blundered. He was currently tailing Jinpachi Munashi and Raiga Kurosuki at an unhurried pace.
After tracking them for a while, Ishiro knew he hadn't missed the battle where the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist targeted the Hyūga main family. Because the route Jinpachi Munashi and Raiga Kurosuki were taking was very strange; they had deviated from the Kirigakure camp long ago, but they weren't heading towards the Hyūga or Uchiha camps either.
Ishiro opened the map of the Land of Whirlpools and looked at it carefully, finally making a guess: "Falling Star Valley."
Jinpachi Munashi and Raiga Kurosuki had initially been moving in a winding, roundabout way. Later, probably after confirming there were no trackers, they finally proceeded in a fixed direction.
Following their current direction of advance, Ishiro discovered Falling Star Valley. This valley had nothing special about it, but Ishiro discovered one of its uses: it could be used to lay an ambush while evading the Byakugan.
Falling Star Valley was actually a fault line in a small mountain range. Although this small mountain range wasn't large and couldn't stop ninjas, with Falling Star Valley as an option, ninjas wouldn't be foolish enough to climb the mountains. That would be time-consuming and laborious, not to mention making them look disheveled.
And if Hyūga Tokuhiro's party passed through Falling Star Valley, the Byakugan's penetrative vision would be insufficient to see through the thick mountains to the ninjas ambushing within.
With this deduction, Ishiro became even less anxious. He decisively increased the tracking distance. Originally, Ishiro's tracking distance was exactly at the limit of his sensory ninjutsu.
Now, Ishiro simply widened the distance between them significantly, as long as he periodically confirmed that the tracks left by Jinpachi Munashi and Raiga Kurosuki were still there.
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