Chapter 146: Mei Terumī, Missing-nin of the Hidden Mist
BOOM.
The Kumogakure jōnin hit the snow at speed, carving a straight line before a snow pine caught him. The tree's accumulated snow buried him to the waist. Blood from his nose and mouth stained the white around him red.
Lightning crackled across a blade. Sasuke moved through the remaining Kumogakure ninja with the same quiet economy he brought to everything, the Sharingan's red gleam steady behind each cut.
Three or four more down in moments.
On the other side of the formation, Shikamaru — having pushed past whatever paralysis combat first produced — finished the last enemy ninja in coordination with Ino and Choji. He glanced over at Sasuke, who was cleaning his blade on a dead man's jacket with the same indifference he brought to everything else.
He's like this everywhere, isn't he.
Asuma surveyed the field, decided it was clear enough, and gestured for Sakura to bring him the Kumogakure jōnin's body.
Dead men could still talk — especially for the Yamanaka clan. A jōnin carried significant intelligence.
Sakura dragged the body over by its collar, making no effort to be respectful about it.
Ino looked at the blood-covered face with visible distaste, then pressed her hand to the forehead anyway.
Not getting shown up by the red octopus. Not today.
Ino's performance aside, the ambush had cost them. One dead. Five lightly wounded, two seriously.
Sakura didn't linger on the accounting. She grabbed a medical kit from the supply cart and moved to the wounded while Ino worked and the others cleared the field.
She came to the most urgent case first — a chūnin in his early twenties, a blade through the chest at a depth that left him breathing shallowly, more air escaping than entering. If she didn't work quickly, he wasn't going to make it.
She called a nearby ninja over with a look, had him pull the blade clean on her count, and pressed both hands over the wound the instant it was free. Blood sprayed across her cheek.
Green chakra lit in her palms. Mystic Palm Technique — steady, precise. The light spread into the wound.
It was why the convoy hadn't brought a dedicated medical corps. One Sakura was worth a full unit.
She worked. Disinfected, clotted, medicated, wrapped. By the time she tied off the bandage, his breathing had steadied.
A week of rest at the front line, medication on schedule, and standard rehabilitation from the line medics — he'd be fine. That was what timely treatment meant for a wound like this. Even a penetrating injury could be walked away from in a week if a good medic caught it fast enough.
That was Tsunade's entire argument for embedding medical ninja in every team. The casualty rate dropped dramatically when someone was there to act in the first few minutes.
Sakura moved to the second serious case.
Ino opened her eyes.
Asuma looked up expectantly.
Ino pressed her lips together.
"Nothing. Sakura's kick caused a blood rush to the head — he's basically got a brain full of hemorrhage. There's nothing coherent left to read."
Asuma stared at her.
Then looked at the pink-haired girl currently working on the second patient.
"Nothing to be done about that, then."
They resumed the march after the field was cleared and the wounded were stable.
After one attack, nothing else came.
The convoy's composition had clearly been reported — and with Sakura's presence now confirmed, Kumogakure would be recalibrating. White Zetsu's concealment made Sakura's movements impossible to hide from their side. Kushina could detect Kumogakure ninja, but not Zetsu.
Which was fortunate, in a way. Zetsu's combat capability was negligible. And Tenzō's identity needed to stay buried — if it leaked, they'd be looking at tens of thousands of Zetsu clones making this war genuinely unmanageable.
When she got back, she was telling the old man to keep Tenzō in ANBU permanently until the Akatsuki situation was resolved.
Two steady days of travel. The supply convoy reached Konoha's forward lines.
Sakura found Jiraiya and Kakashi.
Both of them looked terrible. Dark circles, absent energy — especially Jiraiya, who usually radiated a kind of irrepressible life. Right now he looked like a plant someone had forgotten to water.
"Look at you, taking styling tips from Kakashi."
Sakura stood in front of him with her arms crossed.
Kakashi, who had been used as the baseline for this comparison, looked mildly offended.
Though he couldn't honestly claim his own condition was much better.
He wasn't the field commander, but he'd been leading the counter-interdiction teams — chasing Kumogakure's guerrilla squads. Day and night operations, seven days a week. Enemy units that evaporated before he could pin them down, reappeared somewhere else, and disappeared again.
The cumulative losses hadn't been catastrophic in any single engagement. Over time, they'd added up.
"Don't remind me," Jiraiya said without much energy. "It's been a nightmare."
"Less talking. Set up a barrier."
"Non-essential personnel out."
That snapped something back into Jiraiya's expression.
Hiruzen's message had mentioned Sakura was bringing a solution to the guerrilla problem. He hadn't said what it was.
"Kushina. Ino. Stay."
Both girls looked up in surprise as they'd started to file out. They glanced at each other, remembered they were rivals, and looked away.
The tent cleared down to Jiraiya, Sakura, Kakashi, Asuma, Kushina, and Ino.
Jiraiya activated a sealing barrier — a habit he'd developed after the last intelligence compromise. He hadn't opened a meeting without one since.
"What's the plan?"
He leaned forward before the barrier had even finished settling.
"Here's what we do about the guerrilla tactics," Sakura said, and laid it out. All of it.
Jiraiya's eyes brightened progressively as she talked. He kept looking at Kushina with an expression he was trying not to show — the red hair was triggering something in his memory. Someone he'd known once, hazily.
Ino looked at Kushina and clicked her tongue internally.
Working with the octopus. Really.
Fine. For Sakura. Just this once.
Kushina saw the look and returned one of equal feeling.
Don't think I want this either.
"I didn't know it could work like that."
Kakashi turned the approach over in his mind. Kushina's Mystic Palm Eye range combined with the Yamanaka clan's mind-linking technique — a real-time tactical network connecting every Konoha ninja in the field, with live position data on every enemy unit Kushina could sense.
It was elegant. It was genuinely new.
He found himself thinking about Minato. If his sensei had been the one naming this — the combination of the Uzumaki's infinite sky and the Yamanaka's linking technique — it would have been something like:
Infinite Sacred Song Flash Light Mind-Turn Body-Shift Link · Phase Two.
He drifted slightly.
"Alright!"
Jiraiya came down on the table with enough force to make it shake.
"That's the plan."
If they could break the guerrilla campaign cleanly, the pressure that had been grinding on him for weeks would lift. He'd been running on empty for too long.
"That said — this only solves the guerrilla problem," Sakura continued. "Kumogakure will notice when it stops working and pull those units back. To actually end this front, we need a decisive engagement. Something that changes the psychological weight of the war."
"Both our fronts are struggling. The village needs a visible win. Something that shows Konoha is still Konoha."
Jiraiya listened, and nodded.
He knew the River Country situation. He'd been briefed.
The village had never in its history needed to wonder whether it would prevail. The question had always been how, and at what cost. If that stopped being true — if the uncertainty crept in — the damage would outlast any battlefield loss.
Ideally, something like Minato's record. One man against fifty Iwa jōnin. A statement.
He looked around the table.
Asuma. Kakashi.
His eyes settled on Sakura.
She'd already made her statement. Captured the Two-Tails alone under compromised intelligence conditions, held the Raikage to buy her team an escape, diverted Kumogakure's main attention and handed Jiraiya a genuine victory on the primary front.
Asuma was good. Genuinely good. But at nearly thirty, he'd probably found his ceiling. Elite jōnin was likely where it ended for him.
Kakashi was a different matter. What a waste that one had been — a twelve-year-old who'd invented an S-rank technique from scratch, promoted to jōnin at that age. Jiraiya had briefly thought he might be looking at the next God of Ninjas.
How many ninja in the history of this world had been what Kakashi was at twelve?
He still thought of him as one of Konoha's pillars.
The decision made, everyone moved.
Kushina and Ino took a brief rest, then started.
Kushina opened the Mystic Palm Eye.
The sensory field expanded outward like a held breath releasing — enveloping the entire Konoha camp, then past it, then past that.
Ino pressed her hand to Kushina's forehead.
The connection opened.
Every Konoha ninja in range felt the same voice appear in their mind simultaneously.
"Ahem — this is Jiraiya. Can everyone hear me?"
Hearing his own voice broadcast through an entire army's heads apparently didn't embarrass him at all.
"Yes sir."
The response came back in unison, like a training drill.
With Ino's permission, Sakura, Jiraiya, and Kakashi received access to Kushina's sensory feed as well — the entire battlefield visible in their minds like a map.
Jiraiya swept it. The camp. The perimeter. Beyond the perimeter.
He stopped.
Seven or eight Kumogakure squads were sitting in the dead angles around the camp.
Waiting. Ready to launch the next wave of harassment.
He looked at Kakashi.
Kakashi and Asuma read his face and nodded simultaneously.
They walked out of the tent without a word.
Sakura and Jiraiya stayed with Kushina and Ino.
The guerrilla campaign's solution was now active — but the moment it showed results, Dodai would adapt. And Zetsu's presence meant Kushina's location couldn't be hidden from Kumogakure regardless.
Kushina was going to be a target.
Until this phase resolved, Sakura and Jiraiya weren't leaving her side.
In a mountain cave somewhere in Frost Country —
A massive hand came down and split the table in half.
"That's the fifth group!"
"Complete annihilation, again!"
"They know our movements — they have to!"
The Raikage's tiger eyes swung toward the figure in the black-and-red cloud robe standing nearby.
"You."
"Did you sell us out to Konoha?!"
"Lord Raikage. You're overthinking this. Zetsu wouldn't do that."
Dodai intervened before White Zetsu could respond. His voice was calm and precise.
Kumogakure's guerrilla campaign had caused significant damage to Konoha's lines. That had been largely due to Zetsu's intelligence work. Right now, Kumogakure needed Zetsu more than Zetsu needed Kumogakure.
Dodai understood the power dynamics. He spoke before the situation could deteriorate.
"Their sensor range has improved."
White Zetsu offered the explanation without any particular investment in the outcome. His presence here had one purpose — to keep the ninja world burning, grinding down the Five Great Nations. Who won or lost was irrelevant to him.
"If you want to continue guerrilla operations, their sensor needs to be eliminated."
Dodai's expression shifted.
"Would Zetsu-san happen to know who it is?"
"The Uzumaki clan's Mystic Palm Eye."
The name hit both of them.
The Uzumaki — the clan that should have disappeared from the world.
Kumogakure had been part of that. During the Second Shinobi World War, while Konoha was stretched thin, Kumogakure had joined forces with Iwagakure and Kirigakure and wiped Uzushiogakure off the map. The goal: eliminate Konoha's most steadfast ally and break their access to the Uzumaki clan's sealing arts.
It had worked. The knowledge gained had accelerated jinchūriki sealing programs across three villages — the Three-Tails, Four-Tails, Five-Tails, Two-Tails, and Eight-Tails hosts had all become perfect jinchūriki in the years following.
And now a remnant of that clan was here.
"An Uzumaki survivor?!"
The Raikage was on his feet.
"I'll kill her myself—"
"She's in Konoha's central command tent."
Zetsu offered this helpfully.
"A night assault might actually reach her."
Dodai looked at Zetsu.
"Someone that important to Konoha's position — the protective arrangements around her will be proportional."
"Who are her guards?"
"Nothing special. Just two people Lord Raikage already knows. One of the Sannin — Jiraiya. And the Hokage's student, Haruno Sakura."
The Raikage sat back down.
Dodai's expression went complicated.
Jiraiya needed no introduction. One of the three Sannin, a proven quantity in direct conflict.
And Sakura had proven herself in the most direct way imaginable.
Difficult.
Unless—
"I've heard Kumogakure's AB Formation is unmatched. Even the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze in his prime, was forced to respect it. You are the A of that combination, Lord Raikage. Where is B?"
"With the AB Formation, Jiraiya and Haruno Sakura would be trivial."
Something moved in Zetsu's eyes under the surface. Something that wasn't quite neutral.
Dodai's head came around fast.
"Absolutely not."
His voice had an edge that wasn't usually there.
"If Killer Bee deploys, this war becomes uncontrollable. Right now the fighting looks fierce, but the Earth Shadow, the Wind Shadow, the One-Tails, Four-Tails, Five-Tails — none of them have committed. Even the Two-Tails was captured away from the main field."
"If we commit the Eight-Tails, we're essentially all-in. Our rear is exposed."
He looked at Zetsu directly.
"And Kirigakure hasn't moved yet."
"Please don't worry about Kirigakure, Lord Dodai. If they do move, their target will be Konoha."
This did not reassure Dodai in the slightest. It alarmed him.
What Zetsu had just implied was that the organization behind him had influence over Kirigakure's internal decisions.
Kirigakure. One of the Five Great Nations.
The Raikage sat with it.
Dodai was right. Zetsu was also right.
Yugito captured. Shi dead by his own hand.
The country's people going hungry.
"Lord Raikage."
"With the AB Formation, Konoha is nothing. Easily handled."
"Minato Namikaze is dead, after all."
"And Kirigakure — I've obtained recent intelligence. They appear to be... eager. Regarding Konoha."
A pause.
"And there's someone you may have forgotten, Lord Raikage. The one who provided Haruno Sakura's intelligence file."
Zetsu's mouth opened in something that was not quite a smile.
The Raikage's expression ran through several things in rapid succession.
Finally it settled.
Minato Namikaze is dead.
Who in this world could stop the AB Formation now?
Jiraiya? Haruno Sakura?
Let Hashirama Senju come out of the ground and try.
He stood.
"Send word immediately."
"Tell Killer Bee to come."
In the forests heading toward the Land of Fire —
Everything has gone insane. Everything.
A slender brown-haired woman was threading through the trees at full speed, a significant number of furious ninja close behind her.
Her name was Mei Terumī.
Today had been the day. The day she'd planned to overthrow the Blood Mist and end the Fourth Mizukage's brutal regime.
She'd failed.
Completely and catastrophically.
The Fourth Mizukage had known everything — every position, every plan. Her forces had been crushed before they'd even formed up. And in the aftermath, the Mizukage had announced Kirigakure's entry into the war, with a side expedition to strike Iwagakure's rear lines while they were committed against Konoha.
An insane plan. Voted through unanimously by Kirigakure's upper council.
She didn't have time to process what that meant. Something had gotten to them — some invisible hand had unified their voices. Every loyal officer she'd ever known had been silenced. Only her people had fought to get her out, and they'd paid for it.
The brown-haired woman looked back at the village ninja following her.
She didn't want to hurt them. They were her countrymen. They were following orders.
When she moved, she moved at scale — her techniques didn't discriminate.
"Missing-nin Mei Terumī! Surrender now and the Mizukage may show leniency!"
The lead ninja called ahead at her retreating back.
Mei rolled her eyes mid-sprint.
Leniency from that man. He'd take his time about it, but she'd end up flayed.
The ninja world was at war. Wind and Lightning on one side. Fire and Earth on the other.
Whoever was pulling strings behind Kirigakure was clearly targeting the Fire-Earth alliance.
The enemy of my enemy.
Mei Terumī set her course toward the Land of Fire and ran.
(Chapter End)
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