A ship lay half-capsized in the seawater.
Sail slowly crawled out from inside the hull.
He wiped his face, only to find his hands and face smeared with blood.
The sacrifice was over. Lord Hidan had personally presided over his ritual, and now he too was a devout follower of the Three Gods Faith.
Sail stared at the blood on his hands, feeling something strange.
It didn't feel like his blood.
His soul had separated from his body. The body was only a vessel for the soul. No matter how badly the body was damaged, he would not die.
In Lord Hidan's words, his soul and blood had already been offered to the great Evil God, and in return, the Evil God had granted him an undying body.
Inside the cabin, Hidan said weakly, "Go, Sail. Go find suitable sacrifices. Go please Lord Evil God.
Don't be afraid of death. After the battle, I'll come look for your corpse. No matter what state you're in, even if a ninja cuts off your head, you still won't die."
Sail nodded heavily and left the tilted cabin.
Hidan felt a little regretful.
He still hadn't had the chance to test the Eight Gates tonight.
Sacrifice took too much time. There was the ritual to prepare, then the self-killing. Each offering took ten minutes at the very least, sometimes much longer.
His eyes slowly closed.
The recovery granted by his undying body was repairing his ruined flesh.
Hidan had long since discovered that the more souls he sacrificed, the faster his wounds healed.
He had sacrificed a total of one hundred offerings so far. That was enough to quickly heal a wound that lost one hundred drops of blood—about five milliliters.
Tonight, though, he had lost more than eight hundred milliliters. That would take the whole night to recover.
Black Sail jumped into the sea. Water rose past his chest as he slowly waded toward shore.
Three corpses drifted toward him. He turned each one over in turn.
Two were dockworkers. One was the old man who sold liquor at the port.
Ninja possessed a technique called Transformation. To prevent enemy shinobi from sneaking in disguised, ninja would often clear the battlefield immediately and kill anyone they saw.
Sail stared at the wine seller's corpse.
That bastard had always cheated on the scale. His father had been swindled by him more than once and had always said he would settle the score someday.
Now his father was dead.
And so was the bastard.
Sail kept moving toward the shore and saw bodies piled thick along the beach.
Dockworkers. Samurai. Ninja.
He pushed aside layer after layer of heavy corpses and finally climbed onto land.
Lord Hidan had only helped him obtain an undying body.
His actual strength was still pitiful. He was still just a sailor who didn't know a single jutsu.
Silently repeating the steps of the sacrifice ritual in his mind, Sail walked toward the battlefield.
The fighting had already spread into the harbor buildings.
The tallest inn—the most luxurious in all of Sabaku Port—had been half-collapsed by Water Release.
The building looked as if it had been sliced open, its cross-section fully exposed.
At one of the broken floors, Sail spotted one of those famous spring mattresses.
He had heard they were unbelievably comfortable, far more than a ship's deck.
He hurried toward the inn's rear courtyard.
There were more than a dozen corpses strewn there.
At first glance, he spotted someone familiar.
He had delivered supplies to the inn's kitchen several times before. Every time, it had been the young kitchen girl who checked the goods.
Back then, he always kept his head lowered, too shy to look directly at the pretty little cook.
Now she was dead.
And dead in an ugly way too, no longer resembling the faintly delicate girl she once was.
He carefully straightened her broken limbs.
For the first time, he looked at her face from so close.
Even with her pupils dilated, even with her skin pale as ice, Sail still thought she was beautiful.
Then he heard a strange sound.
Looking down, he realized the vision in his single eye had already blurred. Tears dripped to the ground with dull little sounds.
This body was so bizarre.
Who would've thought it could still cry?
In the rubble of a ruined building, Yako hid in the shadows, watching from afar the new believer Hidan had recruited.
After only a brief period of grief, the young man picked up a fallen kunai and kept moving deeper into Sabaku Port.
Yako thought to himself that Hidan really was reckless.
He hadn't even taught this young man how to use chakra, and yet he had already sent him off to perform sacrifices.
Sail circled around several collapsed buildings, swam across a great lake formed by Water Release, and finally reached the edge of the battlefield.
Sand ninja and Mist ninja were still fighting furiously, struggling over one building after another.
Screams rang out now and then.
Sail didn't dare step into the main battlefield, but he knew the terrain well.
Before long, he found a trail of blood.
The blood appeared in broken patches, leading toward a basement.
He lay flat and slowly crawled up to the high side window.
There really was an injured ninja inside.
But Sail had underestimated a ninja's reaction speed.
A kunai shot out through the high window and nailed itself straight into the center of his forehead.
Sail hurriedly rolled backward.
A moment later, he realized he wasn't dead.
His brow bone had been pierced through. The pain was real. The blood was real. Yet he hadn't died.
His heart had already died long ago. He felt no fear toward blood or pain anymore.
He crawled on the ground and licked the blood by the basement entrance.
After tasting it, he slipped into the next basement over.
Lowering his head, he let the blood from his forehead drip onto the floor, drawing the Evil God's ritual circle—a triangle within a circle.
Then Sail began the sacrifice.
There was no need to steel himself.
He drove the kunai straight into his own throat.
His body was in agony, but hearing the scream from the ninja next door filled him with delight.
From blood loss, Sail collapsed unconscious.
Yako appeared in a Body Flicker, pressed a hand against Sail's throat, and used Water Healing Technique.
The wound on Sail's neck quickly closed.
These people really were too reckless.
Just because they couldn't die, they kept throwing themselves at death.
A while later, Yako regrouped with Leaf Monkey's squad and went to observe the battle between the Mist and Sand.
In front of the nobles' estate, the Sand ninja were desperately holding back the Mist's assault.
Fewer than fifty Sand ninja remained.
The Mist side still had more than two hundred.
Scorch Release spheres rose and fell through the street, forcing back another Mist advance.
Both Hōzuki Mangetsu and Fuguki Suikazan were extremely powerful.
Yako could already see Pakura's exhaustion.
She was his sixth, and he had important plans for her. She could not die here.
He wanted her to become his spy within Sunagakure.
A kunai slid from his sleeve into his hand.
"We can't let the Mist take Sabaku Port. That doesn't serve Konoha's interests.
Both sides are worn down enough. It's time to move."
Leaf Monkey immediately took out several Sand ANBU masks and handed them around.
Especially for Fox-sama. His fox mask was far too conspicuous. The moment it appeared, everyone would know Konoha's ANBU commander had arrived.
Once they had switched into Sand ANBU masks, the group charged into battle.
Using only taijutsu and kunai, Yako's group began clearing out the Mist from the outskirts.
Like Uchiha Madara plunging into the Allied Shinobi Forces, Yako wasted not a single motion.
Every flick of his hand was precise.
Every strike took a Mist ninja with it.
A few minutes later, Fuguki Suikazan realized something was wrong and shouted, "Retreat!"
At that moment, Hōzuki Mangetsu was still locked in battle with Pakura, wielding Hiramekarei. He had already smashed down the estate wall when he heard Fuguki calling for retreat from the rear.
He had no idea what had happened, but whether he liked it or not, he had no choice but to withdraw.
While retreating, Fuguki looked at Mangetsu and said, "I thought you'd resent me for getting Samehada and disobey my command. Didn't expect you to be this obedient."
Mangetsu replied, "Fuguki, I'm going to become the Fourth Mizukage.
That means I should be the first to obey battlefield command, not cause chaos just because I'm the young master of my clan. Don't you think?"
Fuguki stared blankly for a moment.
This kid was that arrogant?
Kirigakure was already such a mess internally, and yet he dared declare he would become the Fourth Mizukage?
Then Mangetsu asked, "But Fuguki-jōnin, why did you order the retreat?"
Fuguki looked back toward the side of the nobles' estate, lingering fear still in his eyes.
"A few Sand ANBU showed up. One of them was monstrously strong. Just his taijutsu alone was already at Kage level.
He was slaughtering the Mist on the flank with brutal efficiency. I had no choice but to retreat."
"A taijutsu Kage-level ninja?"
Mangetsu's heart stirred in surprise.
Did Sunagakure really have someone like that?