Chapter 311: The Moth

Kaede slammed his palms together before his chest.

The ground beneath him cracked.

Dozens of thigh-thick vines erupted from the earth, their surfaces covered in hooked thorns, and twisted toward Fu.

Fu didn’t move a single step.

He completed his own hand seals at the same time.

A mass of black roots burst upward.

Thick dark chakra flowed over their surfaces, making them twist like living things as they charged forward.

Green vines and black roots collided violently in midair.

The sound of splintering wood drowned out the surrounding battle.

The thorns of the green vines buried deep into the black wood, while the dark roots pierced directly through the vines’ trunks.

Wood chips filled the sky.

Broken branches sprouted new shoots before they even hit the ground.

The shoots expanded into thick trunks in seconds and immediately rejoined the brutal entanglement.

The surrounding soil was ripped apart, chunks of earth and stone flying everywhere.

Several allied shinobi positioned nearby scrambled away.

One who moved too slowly was clipped in the shoulder by a broken branch and thrown face-first into the ground.

Dozens of White Zetsu attempting to flank from the side didn’t even have time to scream before they were swallowed between the vines and roots and ground into pale pulp.

Kaede stared at the black figure hidden beyond the clash of Wood Release.

His hands remained together.

Chakra poured from his body like water through an opened floodgate.

At this level of sustained output, the battle would be decided by whose reserves and body could endure longer.

Kaede soon noticed a change.

The black roots were regenerating more slowly.

The new growth that had once been as thick as barrels was now noticeably thinner.

The strain was beginning to show in Fu’s body.

Kaede’s eyes lifted slightly.

His left hand maintained control over the vines while his right rapidly formed one-handed seals.

The air in his chest heated instantly as scorching chakra surged toward his throat.

He opened his mouth and expelled a crimson fireball more than two meters across.

It shot through the openings in the Wood Release directly toward Fu’s face.

Fu didn’t even attempt to dodge.

The fireball touched his body.

There was no explosion.

No burst of flame.

The destructive fire collapsed and vanished once again.

Kaede had never expected it to cause damage.

All he needed was the fraction of a second during which the fire blocked Fu’s vision.

By the time the fireball left his mouth, Kaede had already disappeared.

He reappeared at Fu’s rear-right side, a perfect defensive blind spot.

Kaede’s right hand shot toward the mask.

But Fu’s body reacted as though it had eyes on its back.

His left arm moved backward at an impossible angle and accurately blocked Kaede’s wrist.

At the same time, a black rod slid from Fu’s right sleeve.

He twisted his wrist and stabbed upward toward Kaede’s lower abdomen from a vicious angle.

Kaede planted his left leg and swept his right foot sideways like lightning.

His instep slammed into Fu’s wrist.

The black rod was knocked off course and passed close along Kaede’s waist.

Using the momentum, Kaede flipped backward and landed five meters away.

But the instant his heels touched the ground, before he had even completely recovered his balance, the soil beneath him split silently.

Two arms burst upward.

Ten fingers clamped around his ankles like iron restraints and crawled upward to lock his calves.

Kaede’s body dropped slightly.

The backward momentum was violently cut off.

He looked down.

A half-black, half-white face slowly rose from the soil.

“Hehehe.”

Fu did not hesitate.

The same instant Kaede was restrained, Fu burst into a charge.

A black rod was held before his chest, its point aimed directly at Kaede’s heart.

…

Far away on the wooden wall, Pakura had been checking the movements of the White Zetsu along the flank.

When she looked back toward Kaede, the sight made her entire body go cold.

Kaede was fixed in place.

The masked enemy was driving a weapon toward his vital point.

“Kaede!”

Pakura shouted instinctively and turned toward Mei.

The words died in her throat.

The person who should have been resting against the wooden wall was gone.

Pakura looked around, her mind blank for an instant.

At the edge of the battlefield, Mei had been leaning against the wall.

Although Tsunade had pulled her back from death, she was still so weak that standing was difficult.

Yet the instincts of a Mizukage remained sharp.

She had been watching the battle between Kaede and the masked man.

She could see how dangerous it was.

The masked man’s movements were becoming faster—or rather, he was becoming increasingly familiar with Kaede’s attack rhythm.

Kaede’s taijutsu was not weak, yet he was being restrained at every turn.

The opponent moved like a shadow that already knew where every attack would land.

Kaede couldn’t keep fighting alone.

She needed to help him.

But she couldn’t tell Pakura.

That stubborn woman would absolutely hold her down, perhaps even knock her unconscious to stop her from throwing her life away.

So Mei made her breathing as quiet as possible.

The instant Pakura’s attention shifted toward the White Zetsu on the flank, Mei slid silently down the edge of the wall.

The moment her feet touched the ground, it felt as though blunt knives were cutting through her abdomen.

Tsunade’s medical ninjutsu was flawless and had forcibly dragged her back from death.

The penetrating wound had been closed and was no longer bleeding.

But the internal shock caused by the Tailed Beast Bomb’s impact could not heal so quickly.

Cold sweat soaked Mei’s back with the very first step.

She leaned against the wall, bit open her lower lip, and swallowed the pain.

Then she left cover and moved toward the battlefield.

After several steps, she suddenly stopped.

Her lower position and different angle allowed her to see something abnormal among the rubble and dust near where Kaede would land.

An inconspicuous black shadow was sliding silently through a crack in the ground toward that exact position.

What was that thing?

What was it trying to do?

Mei’s mind stopped analyzing.

All tactical judgment and battlefield calculation vanished.

She squeezed out the last trace of chakra remaining in her body and drove all of it into the pathways of her legs.

Body Flicker Technique.

At the center of the battlefield, the tip of the black rod drew closer to Kaede’s chest.

Three meters.

Two.

Suddenly, a pale-blue blur crashed in from the side and rear.

A person used nothing but her own body, staggering yet utterly determined, to place herself in the path of the killing blow.

The world seemed to slow in Kaede’s eyes.

He saw the pale-blue figure step in front of him.

Saw reddish-brown hair flying wildly in the air.

For that instant, he felt the terror of his heart stopping.

“MEI!”