Now that reinforcements had arrived,
Ishiki Kujo had no intention of playing hero.
He planned to strictly follow the Three Great Principles of a medical-nin:
stay at the rear, heal the wounded, and above all, survive to heal more.
Mirinae, already used to his attitude after working with him for over a month,
was no longer surprised.
She understood one thing clearly:
Ishiki's pride lay in his medical ninjutsu.
No matter the mission,
no matter the chaos,
he never forgot he was a healer first and foremost.
And he religiously obeyed the three principles.
Mirinae had mixed feelings about it.
On one hand, Ishiki was the most reliable safety net.
On the other,
he often seemed like a lazy bystander in the heat of battle.
She finally understood why Kawahara Junji had kicked Ishiki out of his original team.
If she hadn't personally witnessed his strength,
even she would've hesitated to have such a "pampered lord" on her squad.
After all, in missions, not every moment needed healing.
And when there were no injuries,
Ishiki looked exactly like someone slacking off.
Especially since he liked multitasking —
always reading, researching —
as if training during missions was perfectly normal.
Today, five squads moved out toward the battlefield —
counting Ishiki and Mirinae's hastily formed team.
But Ishiki wasn't optimistic.
Against a Jinchūriki like Yugito, five squads were still nothing.
Drag out the fight?
Maybe for a few minutes, tops.
But again —
he was a healer.
His job was simple:
follow the captain, and keep Mirinae alive.
When they returned to the previous battleground,
the squad leader realized that the two Konoha squads had split.
Thus, the five reinforcement squads also divided accordingly.
Ishiki didn't think that was a great idea —
especially when he and Mirinae were assigned to follow the squad tracking a trail of burning footprints.
Clearly, Yugito's.
If you observed closely,
you could see the ground and trees seared into the shape of clawed footprints,
traces left behind after Yugito partially Tailed-Beast Transformed.
Her control was still rough.
But that made sense —
the main story arc was still a decade away.
Yugito was powerful, but not perfect yet.
And in that imperfection, Ishiki saw opportunity.
Not to defeat her.
But to stall her.
Whispering something briefly to Mirinae,
he quickly followed the two squads ahead.
The burning trails made tracking easy,
and the terrain showed signs of struggle —
meaning Junji's squad was fighting back.
Ishiki knew Junji's trap mastery firsthand —
the man was a genuine genius at setting lethal ambushes.
Dead Kumo shinobi littered the path,
a silent testament to his skill.
Yet none of the traps had bijū chakra residue,
proving that Junji deliberately avoided using techniques that would attract Yugito's attention.
Instead, he selectively ambushed weaker pursuers.
But this tactic had its price:
Yugito was getting closer.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions erupted ahead, jolting Ishiki from his thoughts.
The leading Jōnin captain immediately signaled for stealth dispersal.
They were close now —
probably within striking distance.
The plan was to sneak in and ambush.
Ishiki fully agreed.
But he didn't have high hopes.
The Kumo shinobi weren't amateurs.
They knew they were deep in enemy territory.
They would absolutely be prepared.
Sure enough —
before the Konoha teams even got close to the explosion site —
traps detonated all around them.
Explosive tags — planted beforehand!
The ambushers had been ambushed.
Ishiki didn't activate his Sharingan.
But ever since learning to refine Sage Chakra,
his sensory abilities had grown sharp.
The instant the tags exploded,
he sensed several hostile chakra signatures rushing toward him.
Two kunai whistled through the air,
aiming for his throat and spine.
They struck empty air.
With a puff of smoke, Ishiki's body vanished —
a substitution jutsu.
"Shit!"
The enemy shinobi cursed, already weaving seals for his own substitution.
But before he could finish,
he felt a light tap on his back.
A featherlight touch —
yet it paralyzed him instantly.
His chakra flow turned chaotic,
jamming the jutsu halfway.
A Hyūga?
The enemy thought in panic.
No—
Before he could finish the thought,
a kunai drove cleanly into his heart.
As life faded,
he glimpsed not the blank eyes of a Byakugan wielder,
but a boy in dark glasses flashing him a cool, detached smile.
Not Hyūga.
That was his last realization before death.
Ishiki, ignoring the corpse, melted into the shadows once more.
A ghost among ghosts.
A hunter in the burning forest.