Chapter 11: Catch Up
The retreat wasn't tactical—it was survival instinct kicking in. The elder chunin had orders that went beyond the mission: keep Maki alive. The boy was the grandson of a village elder, and some bloodlines were worth more than victory. So when the killing started going wrong, he chose the living over the dead.
Inoichi limped back to them, blood seeping through tears in his uniform but nothing that would kill him. Shiranui wasn't so lucky—a kunai had punched straight through the tendons in his right arm, leaving it hanging useless at his side.
Rei felt something unclench in his chest when he saw they were all breathing. He dug through his pack for antidote pills, forcing them between Wada Yu's gritted teeth. The poison would fade, but the fear in the kid's eyes might linger longer.
"We move to Land of the Birds," Inoichi wheezed. "Rest when we're across the border."
That's when the math became ugly. Wada Yu could barely stand, let alone run. Shiranui's arm was dead weight. Hanazuki was small and already exhausted. Inoichi needed to stay combat-ready in case they got jumped again.
Everyone looked at Rei. Of course they did.
"Wonderful," he muttered, but he was already crouching down. "Climb on, Yu. Try not to bleed on my shirt."
"You're ninety pounds soaking wet," Wada Yu protested weakly as Rei hoisted him up. "I'm at least one-forty."
"Yeah, well, arithmetic was never my strong suit." Rei grunted under the weight, his knees already screaming. "Just don't die on me, alright? I'd hate to carry a corpse all the way to Land of the Birds."
The words were meant to be light, but Wada Yu heard something else underneath—the kind of loyalty that would drag you bleeding through hell if that's what it took. Tears leaked from the corner of his eyes, mixing gratitude with shame.
"I won't forget this," he whispered.
"Better not," Rei shot back, but his voice was gentler now. "Otherwise I'll tell everyone about that time you cried during the Academy graduation ceremony."
They moved in exhausted silence after that. Rei's legs burned with each step, his chakra reserves scraping bottom. A day and night of running, two firefights, and now this. His body was writing checks his willpower might not be able to cash.
But stopping meant dying, and dying meant failing, and failure wasn't an option when people were counting on you to keep moving.
The forest line appeared like salvation on the horizon.
"Finally," Inoichi announced, and the words tasted like freedom.
Rei let Wada Yu slide off his back, both of them gasping. Twenty kilometers deeper into the woods, they finally collapsed into something resembling a defensive position. Hanazuki's hands were steady as she worked on Wada Yu's leg, cleaning the senbon wounds with practiced efficiency.
"I'll set perimeter traps," Wada Yu offered. The guilt of being carried was eating at him.
"Take these." Rei tossed him the explosive tags they'd looted from the Sand ninja corpses. "Make them count."
While Wada Yu rigged his surprises, the rest of them tried to catch fragments of sleep. Rei was unconscious before his head hit the ground, exhaustion finally claiming its due.
The explosions woke them three hours later.
**Boom. Boom.**
"They found us," Inoichi said, and his perception jutsu was already painting the tactical picture. "Nine signatures. Close."
Wada Yu came sprinting back through the trees. "We're surrounded!"
"Course we are," Rei muttered, scrubbing sleep from his eyes. The brief rest had helped, but his chakra still felt thin. "Can't make anything easy, can they?"
Pakura had done the smart thing—rallied the survivors and used Maki's battlefield intuition to backtrack their route. The kid had gambled his life on a hunch that the Konoha team wouldn't run far with wounded. Smart money said he was right.
Two days and nights of non-stop pursuit had brought them here. Now nine Sand ninja formed a loose circle around five exhausted Konoha operatives, and the math wasn't promising.
"Been chasing you for quite a while," Pakura called out, blood crusted around a gash near her left eye. "Getting tired of running?"
"Funny," Inoichi replied. "I was just thinking the same thing about you."
The banter was thin cover for tactical assessment. Three hours of rest had helped, but they were still running on fumes. On the other hand, the enemy looked just as ragged.
Pakura rushed forward, probably intending to end this with overwhelming force. Inoichi moved to meet her—
And suddenly Rei was there instead, his sword drawing a silver line toward her throat.
*Clang.*
An elite chunin's broken blade caught Rei's strike, but not cleanly. Steel parted hair and skin, opening a red line from Pakura's eyebrow to her scalp. Blood painted her vision crimson.
"Was aiming for her neck," Rei said conversationally, his Sharingan spinning in eyes that had gone cold as winter. "You really shouldn't have interfered."
The chunin's face went white. This wasn't some academy student—this was an Uchiha who'd nearly decapitated a jōnin with a single draw cut. The kind of killing intent that made veterans reconsider their career choices.
They traded a few more strikes. Rei's shoulder opened up in a thin line, the chunin's superior experience telling. But the kid was learning fast, his Sharingan reading patterns and stealing techniques with every clash.
"Uchiha," Pakura breathed, wiping blood from her eyes. Maki's report suddenly carried a lot more weight.
"Just a disappointment to the clan," Rei said with a shrug, falling back to his team's formation. "Nothing to worry about."
"Surrender," one of the other jōnin demanded. "You're outnumbered."
"Are we?" Inoichi smiled, and it wasn't the expression of a man facing death.
The perception ninja's head snapped up. "Four chakra signatures approaching. Konoha."
Pakura's face twisted with frustration. The perfect moment—gone. Now it would be nine on nine, and her people were just as tired as the enemy.
"Retreat," she spat, the word tasting like ashes.
"Lord Pakura—" one of her subordinates started.
"I said retreat!" The Scorch Release user's chakra flared, and the air around her shimmered with heat. "We missed our chance."
As they melted back into the forest, young Maki cast one last look at the Uchiha who'd carved a permanent scar across his face and mind. Next time would be different. Next time, he'd be ready.
"Finally," Inoichi breathed, letting himself collapse. "Saved."
The word carried more weight than he'd intended. They'd all been closer to death than any of them wanted to admit.
*********************
Support me on Patreon for more chapters
10 Advanced chapters of Konoha : Blazing Legend
35 Advanced chapters & 5 Bonus chapters of Corpse Collector of Konoha
patre*n*com/IchigoTL