"There are too many of them. If they decide to push through, they'll go around you to finish the job." Yuji spoke quickly, eyes already tracking the Iwagakure positions.
"You're a captain, Ito. Your value to this unit is greater than mine. I'll draw them off, take the two of them and go."
Before Ito could respond, Yuji accelerated. As the two injured Sunagakure ninja landed, he passed between them without slowing, bounced off the ground, and drove straight toward the Iwagakure line.
"Yuji!"
Ito's expression broke open. The arrangement had been clear, he covered the rear, Yuji stayed back with the rescued. A Medical Ninja had just stolen his assignment out from under him.
But the opening was already there and he couldn't afford to waste it. He didn't know if Iwagakure had reinforcements moving or other units nearby, and standing still to argue would cost everyone.
He caught the two injured Sunagakure ninja, supported them between himself and the messenger, and moved.
He looked back once at Yuji's retreating figure.
The reasoning behind it had been plain in those few words. Yuji had weighed a captain against a Medical Ninja in front of the whole situation and chosen himself without hesitation or performance.
No arrogance in it, just a clean calculation made from the unit's perspective, in the unit's interest. Shimizu had sent Ito specifically to protect Yuji.
Ito was now the one being protected.
"This kid," he said through his teeth, and kept moving. He would get the three of them to safety and turn back immediately.
Yuji landed on a branch, pressed his palms together, and waited.
The Iwagakure ninja came through the trees and pulled up short when they saw him standing there alone.
"That's him."
The one closest narrowed his eyes, surprise crossing his face, then something sharper and more eager.
The name had been circulating through the Iwagakure force for months, Yuji of Sunagakure, the Medical Ninja, him and the Genius Puppeteer Sasori. According to their intelligence, this was a Medical Ninja.
A Medical Ninja had just stepped into their path alone, deep in their operational territory, with his escorts already gone.
"Kill him."
The excitement in the Ninja's voice was genuine. The Sand had come for a rescue, the others had taken the survivors and run, and now their primary target was standing in front of them without support.
Whatever the reasoning behind it, the opportunity was real.
"That's right," Yuji said. "It's me."
A sphere of blood formed between his pressed palms.
The next instant it launched, a concentrated beam extending into a streak nearly ten meters long, the tip drawn to a razor point, crossing the distance between them at a speed that left no time to read it.
The first Iwagakure Ninja who charged had the beam pass through his abdomen. The hole it left was clean and absolute. The grin on his face, the expression of a man who had already decided this was over, was still there when the light went through him. His eyes registered disbelief and nothing else.
Yuji swung his clasped hands in a wide arc.
The beam swept like a whip across a domain of several tens of meters, tracing a crescent through the air.
The Iwagakure ninja who had been closing in, still mid-leap, were cut apart where they crossed its path.
Trees along the arc came down with them, the sound of splitting wood and falling weight rolling outward through the forest in a low roar.
Dust lifted across the entire area. Blood and wreckage and the shapes of fallen men settled into the silence that followed.
The Iwagakure Ninja who had landed in time, or been positioned high enough to avoid the sweep, stared at what remained.
Their pupils had gone tight.
Six or seven Iwagakure Ninja down in a single sweep.
"Stop him!"
The bloody beam was still moving, churning through the air at a speed that kept them from closing in.
Where it touched the ground the earth split apart like soft material, leaving long cuts across the surface in every direction.
The tree beneath Yuji's feet began to shake. Several Iwagakure Ninja had started forming seals, Earth Release, long-range capable. Enormous earthen spikes erupted from the ground beneath him, driving upward.
Two Iwagakure walls rose simultaneously on his left and right, slamming toward each other to crush the space between them.
Yuji was already off the branch. Two pools of blood beneath his feet held him suspended in the air, and the attacks closed on nothing.
His Blood Release had been interrupted.
He looked down at the remaining Iwagakure Ninja from above.
"Eight left."
Shuriken came up at him. Blood knocked them out of the air before they arrived.
Yuji glanced in the direction Ito and the others had gone, satisfied with the distance, and let out a short laugh. The blood beneath his feet shifted like twin thrusters and launched him forward, carrying him away through the trees at speed.
"After him!"
The Iwagakure Ninja Squad Leader's voice was sharp with urgency. Beyond the men they had already lost, Yuji's value to Sunagakure alone made letting him leave unacceptable.
He sent the intelligence back to bring additional Iwagakure Ninja in fast, then pushed the pursuit.
Once Yuji had enough distance between himself and the chase, he pulled back his ability and let himself run on foot.
He needed to conserve chakra. He could handle these people without difficulty, that was not the point. The point was the lie he was in the process of constructing, and it required the right conditions.
He glanced sideways as he ran, the Iwagakure Ninja's killing intent pressing close behind him.
They still didn't understand what they were dealing with. Their picture of him came from battlefield intelligence and observation, Medical Ninjutsu, decent combat ability, some kind of Blood Release that was difficult to analyze clearly in the chaos of a large engagement.
He had kept it that way deliberately. And this Kekkei Genkai had no precedent in the ninja world, there was nothing in their knowledge base to map it against.
In the past half year, between his medical work and the fighting he had done on the battlefield, he had accumulated a significant amount of negative experience points. Enough to complete the Cursed Womb configuration for both Eso and Choso, and to acquire some of Choso's techniques.
Purchasing the full range of Blood Manipulation techniques still required more than he had saved, the negative experience income from this period had gone almost entirely into Choso's Cursed Womb configuration, which had cost more than the Kekkei Genkai itself.
The price reflected what it was worth. With the Cursed Womb effects applied, his mastery of Blood Release had reached a genuinely different level. The remaining techniques were simply a matter of accumulating enough experience points.
The chase continued. The Iwagakure Ninja showed no intention of breaking off.
Yuji read the surrounding terrain, measured the distance in his head, and decided it was enough.
He stopped. Turned to face the charging squad.
He reached into his pouch and drew out a ninja tool.
The Squad Leader, who had been watching every movement, saw the youth raise a musical instrument to his lips.
Something was wrong.
"Be careful!"