章節 53: Chapter 53: Borrowed Time
On the front with Kumo
Minato had been at war for a few months now, and things weren't going well. His intel from Konoha reported that Suna had joined the war against them, and they would have, at least for the moment, significant decrease in their manpower. The strain on him was already pretty high, but now he might reach the breaking point. He hadn't managed to send a letter back to Kushina in the last week or so due to his workload, and he was having to put in more hours on the line. When Orochimaru came with reinforcements, it was a godsend. He was able to spend more time with his team and the line and less time in the war tents.
His proficiency with the Flying Thunder God had also reached a level even he didn't think possible. All those years ago when he first read the scroll detailing the secrets of Flying Raijin, he thanked Senju Tobirama from the bottom of his heart; his mind exploded at the thought of its applications. Now that he actually got to apply the jutsu in a wartime context, his enthusiasm was dwindling. Flying Raijin was good--too good. It made him a machine, and with his calculative capabilities, he won every fight within moments. The only times he slowed it down was when he was with his team.
His team had grown up a little since the war began. Kakashi was well on his way to becoming a jonin, Rin was becoming quite the formidable medical shinobi, and Obito's prowess with his fire jutsu and kunai were sharpening at a rate visible to the naked eye. Every time they went on a mission, he felt like he was back in Konoha on the training field giving them their bell test.
But not every mission was with his team. Just recently he was on a recon mission where he almost met his match in speed. While he was with a few other jonin, he encountered a Kumo team consisting of the Raikage's son, A, and his friend, the 8-Tails jinchuriki. He managed to fight them to a stalemate with the help of Flying Thunder God, but seeing A's speed firsthand was a wakeup call. He always thought himself the fastest shinobi in the world, and thankfully he still was, but the margin between him and second place was smaller than he would have liked.
A few weeks later, he received another report on the goings on in regards to the Suna incursion.
'It seems the young Kannin was reassigned.' Minato thought, "I hope he's doing okay through all this. Though with Shin as his team leader, he's in good hands.'
He hadn't heard tell of the disaster at Kannabi Bridge yet, so he had no idea what fate befell Shin. He nonetheless kept reading his intel for the day. He wouldn't have another mission with the kids for a few days, and figured he should write a letter to Kushina while he had the time.
A few weeks after that, he received another report that the Suna campaign had been a disaster on the part of Suna. He read that a trap of theirs failed and got a significant portion of their force either killed or captured. He even saw that Kannin was at the front of that endeavor. He smiled to see the kid he almost killed in the forest doing so well. That was way back when he was still getting the hang of the Flying Raijin jutsu.
'The good old times, huh?' He thought with a dry smile
Since the Suna front went so terribly for them, they retreated with haste. This freed up much of Konoha's man power to relieve the Iwa and Kumo fronts. With all hope, he should be receiving substantial reinforcements in a few weeks.
-
What Minato didn't know, was that as the Suna shinobi were retreating back to their village, they encountered a strange puppeteer. He called himself Sasori, a name familiar to most, and especially to Rasa, who himself watched his parents die at the hands of Hatake Sakumo in the last war. This ninja, however, didn't look anything like the boy in Rasa's memory.
When the came upon him, Sasori panicked, still a fairly fresh missing-nin, and paranoid that they knew he was the one behind the Third Kazekage's disappearance. He took them by surprise, and with his recently perfected poison, any who were even just grazed by his weapons fell over dead or dying.
'What the hell is this...' Chiyo wondered at the sight, 'Could it really be little Sasori?'
Looking over at the puppeteer claiming to be Sasori, she saw a grotesque, hunched over creature, with a long black cloak covering its bulbous, squat body. Needles were flying out of his mouth, which opened like a trapdoor, and a segmented tail sprouted from his behind, impaling dozens of shinobi at a time. He wasn't even using a puppet.
'If that is my little Sasori,' Chiyo thought, 'he must have some prosthesis on. He doesn't have my Sasori's hair or eyes.'
She watched as hundreds and hundreds of shinobi fell--and it seemed like the poison on his blades had some sort of anti-coagulant or blood thinner, since the black-red blood from all those unfortunate souls poured out like a flood upon the sand, their cries ringing all at once, and then subsiding in just a few moments, the light leaving their eyes.
By the time Rasa ordered a retreat from him, nearly half his force was dead or dying. From that day on, due to the crimson desert left in his wake, he was called Sasori of the Red Sand, who trailed blood wherever he went. It was a dark time for Sunagakure.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票