Chapter 262: Support

Kabuto waited upon a branch across the pursuit route.

"No farther."

Shikamaru, Neji, Kiba, and Akamaru stopped. Kiba tested the air for traps while Neji searched the trees and ground with Byakugan.

Kabuto smiled.

"Do not worry. I came to stop you, not kill you. Remain where you are and I will not attack."

"Yakushi Kabuto," Shikamaru said. "The Konoha chūnin who served Orochimaru."

He signaled Neji and Kiba behind his back. Intelligence identified Kabuto as a dangerous opponent.

Kiba gathered chakra in all four limbs.

"Big words. Let's see if you can withstand a punch carrying twelve years of strength."

He launched himself forward and struck the trunk where Kabuto had been standing. Wood split around a deep crater. Kabuto already occupied a branch several meters away.

"Reckless."

Neji filled the new position with explosive-tagged kunai. Kiba attacked from the flank while Shikamaru sent his shadow beneath the smoke.

From concealment, Tonbo watched in surprise.

Orochimaru had sent Kabuto. In the future Tonbo remembered, Kimimaro had been the only reinforcement. Sending a jōnin-level spy to stop three young shinobi was like firing a cannon at a mosquito.

The butterfly effect was finally showing itself clearly.

Tonbo did not believe the team could win. Only after entering the jōnin level did the pressure between ranks become obvious. Even Neji, currently the strongest of the three, posed little direct threat to Kabuto. The question was whether their coordination could force him to exert himself.

Kabuto answered every attempt with ease.

Shikamaru changed the angles twice. First he used Akamaru to force Kabuto from the canopy while Neji attacked the landing point. Kabuto caught a branch with one hand, swung beneath the Gentle Fist strike, and answered with a Water Release jet that separated Neji from Kiba. The second plan hid Shikamaru's shadow beneath the water's reflection. Kabuto noticed the missing reflection of a branch and leaped before the line reached him.

Kiba and Akamaru drove him toward Neji. Gentle Fist cut off one route, and Shikamaru's shadow waited upon the other. Kabuto used Water Release to ruin their footing, Earth Release to create a new angle, and Wind Release to throw their own weapons back at them.

He had no intention of killing them. Delay served his purpose.

Kiba lunged once more. Kabuto slipped past his taijutsu and formed a Chakra Scalpel around one hand. The edge sliced through Kiba's thigh tendon.

Kiba grunted and caught the wounded leg.

Kabuto could have cut deeper. The restraint troubled Shikamaru almost as much as his strength.

Neji entered close range and found that Kabuto's medical ninjutsu made every block dangerous. A palm aimed at a tenketsu met a wrist coated in cutting chakra. Kabuto disrupted his balance, struck him aside, and substituted before Shikamaru could complete the binding.

The difference felt like an adult fighting children.

"Why does he refuse to kill us?" Kiba wondered.

The battle continued until all three bore injuries. Kabuto's plain appearance made the result more unsettling. His taijutsu, medical ninjutsu, and three elemental releases flowed together without weakness.

Neji managed one shallow contact near Kabuto's shoulder, but the spy shifted chakra away before the tenketsu closed. Kiba and Akamaru struck from opposite sides and caught only an Earth Clone. Each near success proved that the plan was sound; each failure showed how much faster Kabuto read the same field.

Two figures raced through the forest toward them.

"There," Temari said. "I did not expect our first task to be rescuing Konoha shinobi."

Kankurō grinned. "Let us hope they stay alive until we arrive."

Tonbo sensed the Sand siblings and relaxed.

"Support is here. I do not need to intervene."

He continued watching Kabuto. Years spent infiltrating different countries without discovery had made him an extraordinarily complete shinobi. Few specialists could move as comfortably between close combat, medicine, and Wind, Earth, and Water Release.

Kabuto also concealed the full depth of every skill. He used enough force to defeat the formation, never enough to reveal a finishing technique Tonbo might study. That restraint belonged to a spy who expected every observer to become a future enemy.

Farther east, the barrel lay shattered upon the grass.

Sasuke had emerged from the Cursed Seal ritual and continued toward Orochimaru's base. Kimimaro stood between him and Naruto.

Naruto no longer sent all his clones forward in one mass for Kimimaro to destroy with a single wide attack. He divided them into waves, used smoke bombs to conceal the next approach, and supported them with shuriken from outside the bone spikes' range.

One group attacked the ground to fill the clearing with dust. Another came through the cloud while the real Naruto waited for Kimimaro to commit his bone sword. Kimimaro grew a forest of short spikes around himself and destroyed the first line, but the second forced him to turn away from Sasuke's route.

The Nine-Tails' chakra had begun to leak. Naruto's blue eyes shifted toward orange, and his pupils narrowed.

"Move aside."

Kimimaro answered with another field of bone.

Tonbo prepared to intervene. Sasuke's lead was widening, and the support he expected had not yet appeared.

Then a green figure entered his perception.

"Finally."

Lee crossed the clearing and kicked Kimimaro away from Naruto. Bone grew across Kimimaro's arm just in time to block, but the impact still sent him skipping over the ground.

"Lee!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Leave this opponent to me. Chase Sasuke."

Naruto looked at the teammate he remembered wrapped in bandages.

"But your injuries—"

"My body has completely recovered."

Naruto trusted Lee's strength. He gave Kimimaro one last glance and ran after Sasuke.

A bone spike shot toward his back.

Lee kicked it aside.

"Your opponent is Konoha's Blue Beast, Rock Lee."

He settled into stance. Kimimaro studied him with new seriousness. Symmetrical markings spread across Kimimaro's face, and he drew a bone sword from his shoulder.

The blade emerged clean and white, shaped from bone denser than steel. Lee tested its reach with a feint and felt Kimimaro's counter cut the air before his sleeve. Both recognized that the other specialized in close combat, where a single misread movement could decide the exchange.

"For Orochimaru's plan, you must disappear."

"We will see which of us disappears."

Lee smiled.

"Open Gate. Rest Gate. Life Gate. Open!"

Chakra erupted from his body.

Back at Kabuto's battlefield, Shikamaru launched another coordinated attack. Kabuto slipped toward him, intending to remove the strategist first.

"Wind Release: Great Sickle Weasel!"

A hurricane tore through the clearing and hurled Kabuto away.

He stabilized against a tree and looked toward the newcomer: blond hair, a giant fan, a Sand forehead protector.

Before he could reset, Crow appeared behind him. Its open torso spread wide to trap him.

"Where are you looking?" Kankurō asked.

Kabuto became a log an instant before the puppet closed.

Temari landed beside Shikamaru.

"So the famous strategist can look this miserable."

Her expression remained grave. She and Kankurō had concealed themselves long enough to build the ambush, yet Kabuto escaped it with ease.

"Our coordination is fine," Shikamaru said. "The enemy is simply stronger."

Temari had watched long enough to understand the problem. Shikamaru created openings, Neji saw them, and Kiba exploited them, but Kabuto recovered before any three-stage tactic could close. Her wind and Kankurō's hidden puppet added threats from ranges he had not yet calculated.

Kiba muttered from nearby, "They arrive at the end and steal the best part."

Relief softened the complaint. Kabuto belonged to another level entirely.

Kankurō brought Crow back to his side.

"This is the enemy the Hokage asked us to help stop? He looks harmless."

The bespectacled young man smiled like an approachable older student. Without watching him fight first, Kankurō would never have guessed how dangerous he was.