The battle was over. Konoha had emerged victorious, with three of the four Suna-nin dead and one taken prisoner.
However, it was a pyrrhic victory. Across the three squads involved, eleven shinobi had entered the fray. The result: three dead, two heavily wounded, and everyone else sustaining minor injuries. The casualty rate was staggering.
In Squad Ueno, Nakahiro Fushi had been struck in the chest by a kunai. Because the blade pierced a major artery, the poison coated on it spread directly to his heart; he succumbed in mere seconds.
Might Duy had broken several ribs during his struggle with the Jonin, and a Wind Style: Gale Blade had sliced open his abdomen. Fortunately, the wound wasn't deep enough to damage his internal organs.
Captain Tomita fared much worse. He had been caught in the center of the Suna Jonin's Wind Style: Gale Force and was torn to pieces on the spot.
The Genin swallowed by the puppet was confirmed dead as well, having been shredded by the internal mechanisms.
The sole survivor of Squad Tomita had been struck by over a dozen senbon. The toxins had severely damaged his internal organs; he would require at least six months of convalescence before he could even think about returning to duty.
With their Captain dead and the rest of the members incapacitated or deceased, Squad Tomita was effectively wiped off the roster.
Aburame Shige released his Kikaichu to sweep the Suna-nin's corpses, systematically neutralizing traps like hidden poisons, venomous insects, explosive tags, and senbon launchers.
Unlike most Aburame, Shige's swarm looked like clouds of black mist. This was because his Kikaichu were microscopic—too small to trigger most mechanical or chakra-based traps, making them ideal for bomb disposal and forensic sweeps. For instance, the Suna Jonin had a tattoo on his chest that likely housed a Sealing Jutsu; had a normal-sized insect from Tetsumaru crawled over it, the weight or chakra signature might have triggered a final "dead man's switch."
Once the field was clear, the survivors gathered the bodies and the prisoner to return to camp. With every squad suffering losses, they were in no condition to continue their patrol.
They handed the Suna corpses and the prisoner over to Intelligence, the wounded and their fallen comrades to the Medical Corps, and checked themselves in for treatment of minor injuries.
The Aburame "brothers"—one suffering only a scratch and the other a few bruises—didn't need to waste precious medical resources. They shared a brief conversation outside the medical tent before Shige led his elite team away.
Watching his cousin disappear into the bustle of the camp, Tetsumaru felt a pang of melancholy. It made him worry for his father.
Tetsumaru had already adapted to the Land of Rain. He wasn't particularly worried about his own safety; unlike the already famous Shige, Tetsumaru was still just a "mediocre" Genin. He had no legendary feats to his name, and his "uniqueness" was known only to his teammates and a few close relatives.
A plain Genin, a plain squad, and a plain Chunin Captain—this was Tetsumaru's greatest camouflage.
Over the next few days, Squad Ueno was placed on standby for recovery. No new missions would be assigned unless there was a massive offensive or the camp itself came under attack.
Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey! Tetsumaru quickly spat at the ground to ward off the bad luck. He needed to stop "setting flags" for himself; it was a bad habit that needed curing.
Two days later, the Intelligence Department finished squeezing every drop of information from the Suna prisoner and the corpses. The rewards were officially distributed, and the mission was classified as A-rank.
Normally, when three squads dogpile a single Jonin—especially with a friendly Jonin present—the support squads would see a downgrade in their mission evaluation. However, the Suna Jonin they had eliminated was the renowned "Kama-itachi" Asasuna, and the puppeteer was "Three-Body" Fuyu. Because both were high-value targets, all three squads were credited with an A-rank mission.
For Konoha, trading two Chunin and four Genin to take out two specialists of that caliber was a net win, and the village was generous with the payout.
Tetsumaru was thrilled with his reward: 200,000 Ryo in prize money and the authority to learn one C-rank ninjutsu. He immediately redeemed the scroll for Puppetry.
Tetsumaru wasn't actually interested in controlling puppets; he only wanted the Chakra Threads. He believed they held the key to solving his biggest bottleneck.
When an Aburame masters the Kikaichu, they typically choose a specialized path. Shige chose miniaturization, aiming for nano-scale swarms. Shibi followed the traditional route of population diversification, splitting his colony into medical, detox, and offensive strains.
Tetsumaru had chosen "Supportive Insects." He treated them as precision tools, using hybridization and mutation to create specialized "Summoning Insects" like the Camouflage Butterfly, the Eye of Truth Snail, the Flight-Locust, and the Scent-Moth.
However, these were still based on ordinary insect stock. By inserting Kikaichu genes, he had created "First Generation Ninja Insects" that could consume chakra to enhance themselves.
The problem was twofold: first, their compatibility with Aburame Secret Techniques was low compared to standard Kikaichu; second, they had to be carried close to the body. Tetsumaru had plenty of chakra, but because these insects were large, only a few could stay in contact with him to "charge." Those that couldn't feed on his chakra were significantly weaker in combat.
Tetsumaru's "Swarm Plan" had great potential, but the issues of poor controllability and limited "charged" units remained. To most Aburame, his insects were just clever toys, not a viable new style. Only through his massive chakra reserves, microwave-signal manipulation, and pheromone aids could he make them combat-ready—and even then, the system was flawed.
He had long wanted to adapt the puppeteer's control methods to bridge this gap. Now, with the scroll in hand, he could finally begin.
"Incredible... truly remarkable, Second Kazekage."
Tetsumaru stared at a snapped iron rod and couldn't help but marvel.
He had just performed a stress test on a Chakra Thread. He had heated a small iron rod, fixed one end to a steel frame, and tied the other to a thread. As the rod cooled and contracted, the immense force was unable to snap three braided Chakra Threads. Instead, the iron rod itself eventually deformed and broke. In terms of tensile strength, these threads completely outclassed steel wire.
Chakra Threads were the foundation of Puppetry. Suna puppets had no internal power source; they relied entirely on the puppeteer's physical tugging through these lines. Thus, the strength of the thread was paramount—it had to pull heavy puppets and trigger complex internal mechanisms.
A puppeteer's skill was measured by the strength and flexibility of their threads. The stronger and more flexible the line, the fewer threads were needed to move a single puppet. This allowed the master to control more puppets simultaneously.
A mediocre puppeteer might need six or seven lines for one puppet; a master used three; an elite used only one. Since a human has ten fingers, an elite could theoretically control ten puppets—making one person as effective as two and a half squads.
The strength of the threads far exceeded Tetsumaru's needs.
My bugs are alive, he thought. They can hop, fly, and crawl on their own. I don't need to physically pull them; I just need to supply chakra and transmit orders.
He decided to deconstruct the Chakra Thread from the ground up.
Using Insight, he peered into the thread's internal geometry. The precision of the structure confirmed his suspicion that the Second Kazekage was a ninjutsu-researching monster on par with the Second Hokage.
A single visible Chakra Thread was actually a three-tiered structure. The core consisted of six fine filaments twisted together like hemp rope. The middle layer was a single, ultra-long filament wrapped tightly around the core. The outer layer was a mesh of eight threads woven into a protective sheath.
This complexity was what gave the thread its absurd strength.
Tetsumaru only needed those six core filaments. By using these simplified lines to link himself to his insects, he could transmit chakra and command signals.
With a constant supply of chakra, the insects could maintain peak combat power. Once a command was given, the insect would execute it autonomously, and the thread could even be disconnected afterward. In modern terms, this was "Fire-and-Forget" technology.
Hehehe...
Twelve days later, Tetsumaru sat in a clearing, happily directing over a hundred Flight-Locusts. They flew in complex formations, launching coordinated, multi-layered strikes. The visual was every bit as impressive as the A-rank Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu.
It had taken him only two hours to deconstruct the threads, but reality had once again mocked his lackluster multitasking talent.
The "Neural Silks"—his deconstructed threads—were fragile but had a negligible chakra cost. Given his reserves and control precision, he could maintain over three hundred lines at once.
However, once he linked to three hundred bugs, his brain hit a wall. He simply couldn't micro-manage them all. He wanted to "Attack-Move" a group of units, but he didn't have an "F2" key to select all.
The result was a massive black cloud of insects that, under his clumsy manual direction, could only attack in tiny, inefficient trickles of three or five at a time. It was actually less efficient than standard Aburame techniques.
What the hell? he cursed. All that effort for this?
It was ridiculous. He needed an upgrade. He needed a "Select All" button.
Driven by a burst of "scientific passion" (and sheer frustration), Tetsumaru spent ten days in the crude frontline camp upgrading the Third Generation Eye of Truth.
He transformed it into a "Snail with a Brain."
By using the snail's neural cluster as a relay station, he could finally "lasso" a group of insects and issue unified commands. It also solved the problem of his insects flying off and never coming back.
Standard Kikaichu responded to Aburame secret arts up to four hundred meters away. His larger, specialized insects, however, had a response range of only fifty meters; if they flew further than that, they became feral. After executing their last command, they would revert to instinct—crawling into dark crevices or tree hollows, making them nearly impossible to recover. In the last month alone, Tetsumaru had lost hundreds of expensive, high-value insects.
Now, his new "Neural Silks" could extend up to 1,800 meters. He could guarantee effective command within a full kilometer. Even his longest-ranged Flight-Locusts rarely engaged targets beyond 500 meters, meaning they would stay firmly under his thumb.
Satisfied with the result, Tetsumaru dubbed the new technique Summoning Silk.
With Summoning Silk linking every bug and the 3rd Gen Eye of Truth acting as the central processor, Tetsumaru rapidly developed a nascent tactical system.
A "Tactical System" was a rarity among ninjas, usually reserved for the elite among Jonin. These shinobi built a core around a single, overwhelming advantage and supplemented it with various jutsu to ensure they always engaged the enemy on their own terms.
For example, Hatake Sakumo used his unstoppable swordsmanship as his core, supported by elite Body Flicker techniques and cold tactical logic to score instant kills. His efficiency was so terrifying that Suna issued an order allowing their shinobi to abandon missions if they encountered the "White Fang."
The Third Hokage built his core around massive, multi-elemental combinations and thousands of mastered jutsu, using Enma the Monkey King as a defensive pivot. He would pin an enemy down and systematically dismantle them with elemental counters.
Danzo Shimura, on the other hand... well, Danzo didn't really have a system. His Vacuum-style Wind Release was strong but not decisive, and he lacked the means to effectively lock down enemies or protect himself. When he was ahead, he couldn't guarantee a kill; when he was behind, he couldn't endure. This was why he obsessed over "cheats" like Hashirama cells and the Sharingan. His future track record would prove he was a strong contender for the "Weakest Kage" title, dying to Sasuke despite having a literal "infinite lives" cheat—all because his combat power never formed a cohesive system.
Tetsumaru, however, now had a system.
With thousands of multi-functional insects as his foundation and Summoning Silk providing both power buffs and centralized command, he could deploy a "Swarm Zone" with a radius of one kilometer. He could coordinate over three hundred insects for simultaneous harassment and assassination.
He never had to show his face. Any retaliation from the enemy would be directed at the insects—which were expendable and easily replaced.
Tetsumaru estimated that with his current swarm, he could ignore Genin and effortlessly wipe out Chunin. He could even trade blows with a Jonin or force one without large-scale AOE techniques to retreat.
Of course, Jonin with massive AOE jutsu were still his "natural predators." A single high-level spell could clear hundreds of bugs. In that scenario, Tetsumaru would be in a bind: replenishing the swarm would reveal his location, but failing to replenish would leave him defenseless.
And then there were the "God-tier" shinobi who could wipe out a two-kilometer radius in one go. Against them, all he could do was pray.
But excluding those few outliers, this "Beyond-Visual-Range" tactical system allowed him, a mere Genin, to survive against Jonin. As long as he had enough bugs, the enemy would never even see his face.
He couldn't be happier.