Only one front remained to be examined.
The Kumo forces led by Dodai that had chased the retreating Uzumaki while their Raikage remained behind to duel the First Elder.
Mysteriously though, they had dropped their pursuit.
But why had they done this??
Well, their second strongest combatant, behind only the Raikage himself, the Nigh-Perfect Jinchuriki of the Two Tails, had disappeared without anyone noticing.
'When did it happen . . . ?' Dodai was in utter disbelief.
It seemed like ever since he encountered the malicious brat that still haunted his nightmares, ever since that first meeting, everything just went wrong.
He was the right hand of the Third Raikage, his Kekkei Genkai was a variant of Lava Release not only unique in Kumogakure, but unique in the whole world.
He had risen to Elite Jonin before he even hit his mid twenties, marking as an all-round shinobi prodigy rather than a mere specialist overreliant on his one special ability.
Trust from the village, personal power and authority, resources, even comradery and friendship . . . apart from a slightly lacking love life, Dodai could consider himself as a man who had it all.
But, after meeting this menace known as Ryumon Shiki, everything started going downhill.
The Raikage was still willing to give his right hand opportunities for redemption but trust from the remainder of the village's higherups was becoming scarce and even a Kage could not outright ignore that.
Dodai noticed a marked decrease in the quantity and importance of the tasks he was assigned, the resources made available to him were noticeably scarcer and some elders had even dared to push candidates to replace him in his higher roles.
Yet, each time there was an opportunity for redemption, a mission significant enough to wash away the stain of his failure with an even greater success, like an omen of disaster, Shiki was there.
Either the mission was directly related to the brat, or he just appeared there somehow like the whole debacle with his Raikage's teenage son.
And now, in the smack middle of a war, not only did the evil brat humiliate the forces of three hidden villages with a massive ambush, even if their core forces remained mostly unharmed, Kumo's greatest deployed fighting force excepting the Raikage himself, had vanished.
Reason told Dodai that, no matter how insidious that brat was, making a Nigh-Perfect Jinchuriki vanish without alerting anyone was utterly impossible for him.
History however, told the man that his misfortune and failures always seemed to tie back to the white haired devil, Ryumon Shiki.
In a way, depending on how you saw it, he was not wrong.
The one responsible for the Two Tailed Jinchuriki's disappearance was not Shiki directly no, however, it had been someone who was only on this battlefield to support the boy specifically.
Someone with absolutely no stake or interest in the battle beyond helping her adopted brother and savior.
Ryumon Maiko, formerly Onikuma Maiko, a mere thirteen year old girl.
She looked harmless enough even if her usual expressionless and general vibes were rather off putting.
In fact, even after all the medical treatment, special medicine and tailored meal and exercise plans, the fragile looking little girl was physically weaker than an average civilian of similar build, much less a shinobi.
It was simple really, her overwhelming Yin Power suppressed her Yang so thoroughly that her body could barely sustain itself.
Not only was she physically weak as a consequence, Maiko was also prone to illness and very likely not to live very long.
Trying to use her powerful Yin based abilities would significantly shorten her already short life expectancy.
Shiki however, as was his way, figured out a sort of solution.
More like a stopgap measure that did not really fix the root problem but alleviated the majority of the symptoms.
The boy tapped into his Nirvana Seal and extracted a small piece of Gelel Ore from the Vein sealed within it, refining said ore into a Gelel Stone.
By then infusing what was basically a crystallization of pure life force into the girl's body, her issues could be offset.
At the time, Shiki had believed that, with the miraculous Gelel Energy that could even render a being ageless while granting them great vitality and power, Maiko's problem would be completely solved.
He had, however, underestimated the true extent of her Yin Power.
You see, despite all the physical issues that plagued Maiko due to her overwhelming spiritual strength, she was in fact, subconsciously restraining the majority of her Yin Power in self preservation.
Once Shiki gave her boy the means to recover and build up some vitality, this restrained spiritual might started to be automatically excavated which increased the girl's physical burden.
As a result, her usual physical abilities remained those of a civilian, though she did not keel over for no reason any longer.
Her illness prone constitution improved a great deal and her short lifespan seemed to be maintained while she was fused to the stone.
In other words, while the stone's power could usually extend a person's lifespan, enough so that even if removed later, that individual could still live a long while, for Maiko, after using the Gelel Stone to surpass her expected lifespan, removing it from her body was equivalent to a death sentence.
In spite of all of this the girl could now use and abuse her Yin based abilities, her Kekkei Genkai Genjutsu, as much as she pleased without any backlash.
This . . . this was really, really frightening.
It did not matter how resistant one is to genjutsu, unless one was outright immune even a true Perfect Jinchuriki or a Magekyo Sharingan wielder would be in for a lot of pain.
Maybe they would not be outright defeated, maybe they could hold out for very long but ultimately, Shiki did not see how anyone without his complete genjutsu immunity could win against Maiko.
Then again, the boy had already been burned for underestimating the shinobi world and its experts so who knew . . .
But back to the matter at hand.
The Maiko "abducted" the Two Tailed Jinchuriki, if anyone had been able to notice, was truly disturbing.
Not because it was a weird or gruesome thought.
No, it was because of how easy and casual it all looked if one could perceive reality clearly.
*
Before the disappearance of the Jinchuriki . . .
The Kumo forces who had been pursuing the retreating Uzumaki forces were being delayed by a large number of traps.
Dismantling them would not be very hard but it would take enough time that it would allow their enemies to reestablish their defenses, greatly diminishing their forces' advantage.
Knowing this, Shoka, the dirty blonde haired woman who held the Two Tails, Matatabi, within her body, ran her hand through her shoulder length bob and decided to suggest using her jinchuriki abilities to blow all the traps away using brute force.
Just as she was about to move and approach Dodai however, her cold, sharp brown eyes widened in disbelief before narrowing.
A girl . . .
A little girl of weak, thin build with straight black hair so long it almost dragged on the ground, expressionlessly walked through the Kumo army, heading in her direction.
The shinobi around her seemed utterly oblivious to her existence, running about, checking their weapons or searching for traps to disarm like she was not even there . . .
+++++
Hey, Author here!
To promote the novel I will be releasing BONUS CHAPTERS on SUNDAYS based on the previous week's power stone count.
100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
500 Power Stones = 2 Bonus Chapters
1000 Power Stones = 3 Bonus Chapters
Every earned BONUS CHAPTER on Webnovel will also be posted on Scribble.
Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.
I'm trying to become a full time Author now and I'm not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.
Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -