The moment Yuji moved, it was like a lightning strike.
He operated alone, using his vision to scan and search for hidden Konoha combat personnel throughout the area.
The purpose was to prevent any intelligence from being transmitted back to the village. He did everything possible to eliminate every remaining soldier he could find.
For the Sand Village, the longer Konoha remained unaware of the border situation, the better.
Within his field of vision, many Konoha ninja were cut down by the sweeping crimson light one after another, their lives harvested before they could respond.
However, some reacted on pure instinct. A few threw themselves forward as human shields within moments, not even having time to form hand seals, sacrificing themselves to buy their comrades a window to escape.
That kind of fighting spirit and willpower was genuinely admirable.
And it was not just this group. The Leaf Village ninja positioned along the Land of Fire's border, when facing the Sand Village's overwhelming and sudden assault, had done something that most other villages would have failed to accomplish in such limited time.
Rather than scattering in confusion, the outpost squads had spontaneously consolidated, forming coordinated forces capable of posing real obstacles to the Sand Village's advance, all to create opportunities for their rear-guard personnel to retreat safely.
The Sand Village's attack had been sudden and relentless, conquering its way to this point without pause. Given how little time the Leaf Village had to react, this kind of organized response from the opposing side was clearly not improvised in the moment or born of temporary compromise.
It was collective instinct, a deeply ingrained habit of choosing the most correct response under pressure. The product of years of training and battlefield experience within Konoha's system.
Even he, in the middle of cutting them down, could not help but feel genuine respect. These were the people who had won the previous two Great Ninja Wars. That fact was not meaningless.
Blood Release: Blood Blade.
Although the Konoha ninja had provided cover for their comrades, their effectiveness was limited, because Blood Release carried destructive power and speed that was difficult to screen against at close range.
Only the last two Konoha ninja managed to slip through the swirling blood and flee into the depths of the forest.
Without a second thought, he identified them. Intelligence runners, without question.
Blood surged from his hands and shaped instantly into two dagger-like blades. He stomped down, the gushing blood from his feet propelling him forward, small wings of compressed blood materializing behind him simultaneously.
His entire body, like a crimson bolt, pierced the distance between himself and the two targets in an instant and landed firmly on the ground.
As he bent forward slightly, the heads of the two Leaf Village ninja behind him were simultaneously flung into the air.
Their bodies, still carrying the momentum of their forward sprint, crashed to the ground.
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh
Just as the battle ended, a Sand Village squad arrived on the scene. Looking at the ground covered in corpses, their expressions were ones of visible shock.
This headquarters was clearly not a standard Konoha outpost. The number of personnel had been much larger than typical. Tents were erected throughout the area and supplies were displayed and stored around the camp.
But these several dozen people had all been dealt with by a single person smaller than any one of them. Judging from the state of the scene, these people had not even had time to struggle or mount any meaningful resistance.
"Lord Yuji." The Sand Village squad leader swallowed, looking at Yuji, whose usual easy smile had disappeared, replaced by a composed and serious expression.
"I'm leaving this to you." Yuji's unique red and gold eyes were slightly narrowed, and several of the Sand Village soldiers around him stared involuntarily. "Check the supplies. Take everything usable. Also collect some of the corpses."
The soldiers stood frozen for a moment.
Yuji glanced around the pitch-black forest, determined a direction, and vanished without another word.
"Yes," the squad leader said, pulling himself together.
On a battlefield, supplies were extremely important, particularly in a protracted war. The reason for collecting the bodies was to cross-reference identity information against Leaf Village personnel records and to see what useful intelligence could be extracted from them, as well as to maintain a proper record of the engagement.
Compared to operating with a squad, his solo speed provided absolute safety guarantees. His mobility was such that even if someone attempted to escape, he could run them down. And with his eyes active, he could see clearly and sense across a relatively wide range.
No one in the Konoha camp was hiding. Even if they had attempted to use special concealment jutsu or illusions, they would not have been able to escape his field of detection.
His eyes could see through obstructions and observe chakra movement directly, locking onto a living body with precision regardless of what technique was concealing it.
Half an hour later, he stood atop a tree and looked up at the night sky.
He swallowed. His body was stained with the blood of his enemies. Tonight there were no stars visible, the clouds hanging thick and low. No matter how intense the fighting on the ground became, the sky above remained untouched. The sky was a blind spot.
Blood surged from his feet with increasing intensity as he activated the Blood Release further, the force propelling his body straight upward.
In an instant he rose dozens of meters into the air. He could not fly, but the Blood Release ability allowed him to achieve brief periods of suspension and controlled gliding. Below him, within the black curtain of the night, things were happening.
A dark shape was moving away rapidly through the night sky, nearly impossible to catch with the naked eye.
But in his eyes, he saw it clearly. A Konoha ninja crouching on the back of a large bird, expression tight with worry, moving fast away from the combat zone.
A summoning beast.
He frowned.
This was genuinely difficult to guard against. He had instructed his sensory ninja troops after the battle to watch every direction carefully, checking for any special communication birds and for any individuals skilled in space-time ninjutsu. These were the priority threats to monitor.
A single oversight could result in Konoha receiving intelligence earlier than planned, and that would cost the Sand Village the initiative it had worked so carefully to secure.
Space-time ninjutsu was not easy to master. The difficulty was enormous, and in the original story there had not been many Konoha ninja with that capability. But he could not afford to be careless.
The information stored in his memory was not absolutely complete. It was based primarily on the original source material and consisted mostly of documented character scenarios.
In reality, a village's combat power structure was complex and diverse, and it was impossible to know with certainty every technique each individual ninja possessed. The Sand Village itself was a clear example of that. Konoha, as the number one ninja village, was even more so.
He had to ensure there were no gaps. Even if he could not guarantee it completely, he had to do everything possible to delay the moment Konoha received word of what was happening.
He had not expected there to be someone who had formed a contract with a flying type summoning beast. Fortunately, he had spotted it.
Slowly, he raised both hands and drew them apart in the gesture of pulling a bowstring taut. Several shimmering, near-transparent blood arrows formed in the air between his fingers, catching no light.
He released.
Whoosh.
Several arrows simultaneously cut through the night sky.
In the distance, the Konoha ninja crouching on the summoning beast's back, who had been repeatedly glancing behind him with a worried expression, was struck by a blood arrow in the same instant the beast beneath him was also hit. Man and bird fell from the sky one after the other.
Seeing that the summoning beast had not immediately dissolved into smoke, he landed and moved toward where the man had fallen.
Half a day later, he located the severely injured ninja.
He used his hypnotic ability and put the man under while a sliver of consciousness remained. He asked a brief series of questions, confirmed that no information had been transmitted outward, and allowed himself a quiet breath of relief.
His blood carried a potent poison. A single drop was sufficient. Even a strike to a non-vital area would eventually produce a fatal outcome. There was no recovery from it.
After handling this situation, he moved on again.
As one of the commanders, he had to maintain maximum pressure on the enemy without pause. He could not give Konoha any moment to catch its breath and reorganize, because any small mistake now could translate into far greater losses of Sand Village fighting power later in the campaign.
He owed that level of effort to every Sand Village member who had been willing to lay down their life for the village.
Of course, some people were exceptions.