Chapter 100: Escort

Chapter 100: Chapter 100: Escort

"A four-man squad, huh?"

After learning that the ones tailing them were a four-man squad from Sunagakure, Hyuga Kagami rubbed his chin and thought it over for a moment. In the end, he decided to personally deal with the problem.

After all, the caravan of Roran survivors was still two or three days away from the Land of Rain. If their whereabouts were exposed now, there would be no end to the trouble that followed.

A ninja’s speed, after all, far surpassed that of a caravan.

Having made up his mind, Kagami instructed the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, "Go follow the caravan."

"Yes!"

The Third Kazekage Human Puppet answered, then vanished from Kagami’s sight with a flicker.

Kagami’s lips twitched. "Did this guy really need to use the Body Flicker Technique...?"

All of a sudden, Kagami felt that he needed to lay down some rules for the Third Kazekage Human Puppet.

At this rate of wasteful extravagance, even as the Dragon Vein’s jinchūriki, Kagami was starting to feel the sting.

Besides, converting the Dragon Vein’s chakra into Tenseigan chakra was no easy task. He himself had been working his ass off and had barely even gotten the chance to use any of that chakra, yet the Third Kazekage Human Puppet certainly wasn’t holding back.

After activating his Byakugan and confirming the location of the four-man Sunagakure squad, Kagami flickered forward and rushed toward them.

After several rapid leaps, he arrived directly in front of the four-man squad.

The Sunagakure shinobi took one look at Kagami—dressed entirely in a black robe with a demon mask covering his face—and practically saw the word "suspicious" written all over him.

Without wasting any words, they immediately scattered and surrounded him while simultaneously firing a signal into the distance.

Kagami made no attempt to stop them, simply allowing the distress signal to go out.

Sunagakure was clearly conducting a comprehensive search divided into separate areas. If he killed this four-man squad here, it would essentially be the same as telling Sunagakure that there was something suspicious in this particular direction.

So what he really needed to do wasn’t eliminate a single four-man squad.

He needed to disrupt Sunagakure’s entire search operation and throw them off the caravan’s trail.

A short while later, another two four-man Sunagakure squads arrived.

The Sunagakure jōnin leading them remained on guard as he sternly demanded, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Seeing that he had successfully drawn in the nearby Sunagakure shinobi, Kagami wasted no more time.

He immediately turned and ran.

In the blink of an eye, he had already crossed several sand dunes.

With Kagami acting this suspiciously, there was naturally no way the Sunagakure shinobi were going to let him escape.

And so, the situation quickly turned into Kagami sprinting ahead while a large group of Sunagakure shinobi chased after him.

And the longer the chase went on...

the more Sunagakure shinobi gathered behind him.

Kagami glanced back at the growing crowd of pursuers.

A faint smile appeared beneath his mask.

Kagami’s intentions were obvious—he was deliberately mobilizing Sunagakure’s search teams.

He was certain there had to be at least a few sharp-minded shinobi among his pursuers who had already realized what he was doing.

But with such a suspicious figure suddenly appearing in the middle of their search operation, even if the Sunagakure shinobi understood his true objective, they couldn’t possibly just ignore him.

For the next several hours, Kagami and the Sunagakure shinobi engaged in a high-speed chase across the desert.

By the end of it, the number of Sunagakure shinobi pursuing him had grown to nearly forty or fifty.

"If each four-man squad is responsible for one search area, then I should’ve pulled away the search teams from at least ten different sectors by now."

As he raced across the desert, Kagami periodically glanced back at his pursuers while rapidly analyzing the situation.

If the search teams from ten different sectors had all abandoned their assigned areas and become tangled together in one chaotic mess, then figuring out exactly which sector and which direction had actually been compromised would take Sunagakure quite some time.

Seeing that his objective had been achieved, Kagami had no intention of wasting any more time playing with them.

He immediately combined the Body Flicker Technique with Wheel of Will.

His figure transformed into a blur and rapidly disappeared into the swirling wind and sand.

"Where’d he go?!"

"How the hell did he disappear in the blink of an eye?!"

"I saw him! He suddenly sped up and flew away!"

"What nonsense are you talking about?! How could he possibly fly?!"

Having completely lost their target, the gathered Sunagakure shinobi immediately descended into chaos.

The Sunagakure shinobi responsible for casting the wide search net weren’t particularly strong.

Even the ones leading the squads were only ordinary jōnin, while the rest were mostly chūnin and genin.

Their strength was more than enough to track down a caravan of Roran survivors made up entirely of civilians.

But if they wanted to catch Hyuga Kagami?

That was nothing more than a pipe dream.

Meanwhile, Kagami raced alone through the desert, recklessly pouring out chakra.

In the past, he had always needed to carefully ration every bit of chakra he used. Whenever he could conserve it, he did.

But this was the first time he had ever been able to use chakra with such complete abandon.

What should have merely been a high-speed sprint became almost indistinguishable from actual flight under the combined effects of the Body Flicker Technique and Wheel of Will.

In the blink of an eye, he had completely left the pursuing Sunagakure shinobi behind.

Only after traveling some distance did Kagami finally stop, bending over as he gasped heavily for breath.

Burning through chakra like that had certainly felt exhilarating, but it had also consumed nearly all the Dragon Vein chakra he had previously converted.

And after repeatedly using the Body Flicker Technique, even his body was beginning to struggle under the strain.

"Heh. Looks like I still can’t go completely crazy with it."

After catching his breath, Kagami remotely sensed the location of the Third Kazekage Human Puppet.

He then made a wide detour before heading back toward the Roran survivors’ caravan.

Two days quickly passed.

After traveling at full speed for the past several days, the caravan of Roran survivors finally made it safely out of the Land of Wind’s vast desert and entered the gobi, where the terrain was relatively easier to traverse.

Trailing behind the Roran survivors’ caravan, Kagami spread a map out on the ground and carefully studied it.

"As long as they cross this stretch of gobi and enter the canyon, they’ll have officially crossed into the Land of Rain."

Once he escorted the Roran survivors into the Land of Rain, Kagami had no intention of involving himself any further.

By that point, he would have already done more than enough for them.

As for how Sara and the Roran survivors would make a living in the Land of Rain, Kagami neither had the ability nor the interest to interfere.

Just then, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, who had been responsible for reconnaissance, returned and reported, "The Sunagakure shinobi have caught up again!"

Kagami turned around, his gaze turning cold.

His earlier disruption had successfully thrown Sunagakure’s entire search operation into chaos.

However, as time passed and Sunagakure’s higher-ups gathered enough intelligence, they quickly realized that the Roran survivors’ caravan was attempting to flee into the Land of Rain.

With their destination identified, the pursuing Sunagakure forces finally had a clear direction.

And now, they were all converging on this location.

Watching the Sunagakure shinobi draw closer and closer, Kagami calmly said,

"Since you’re all in such a hurry to die, I suppose I’ll have to oblige you."

Originally, he hadn’t wanted to go on a killing spree here.

Not only would doing so serve little purpose, it could also expose information about his own abilities.

But things had reached the point where Sunagakure had essentially locked onto the caravan’s escape route.

Simple misdirection was no longer going to accomplish anything.

So this time...

Kagami could only kill them all.