Escaping the Mist Ninja starts with backstabbing your teacher.

"Corpse Bone Pulse. Spear!"

As Izumi fell from the sky, his arm, covered in bones, was slightly clenched and transformed into a palm blade.

His eyes, veins bulging, rolled back as he opened a 360-degree field of vision centered on himself, quickly locking onto everyone's positions.

【optimization】!

The actions are quickly optimized in the mind, and the afterimage trajectory of the self appears. By acting accordingly, the best solution for the current battle can be achieved.

His superpowers have a wide range of applications, but require strong mental strength to support them. The stronger the mental strength, the greater the extent to which he can achieve them.

It's like having a super AI to help with the calculations, and it can even skip steps to get the answer directly.

"First of all, the very first one!"

The small mound below was the location of the earth-style ninja. The powerful explosion caused his defenses to collapse, forcing him to hide underground.

His Byakugan's insight and the patterns of his chakra revealed his condition and location.

With a calm gaze, Izumi raised the bone-covered hand blade and, using the momentum of his fall, sank his entire arm into the ground.

The bone hand pierced through the opponent's flesh and shattered their heart. The clear feel confirmed it wasn't a clone. Izumi withdrew his arm and flicked the blood off his palm.

The next moment, his figure disappeared from the ground, and the burst of chakra beneath his feet propelled him to move at high speed, heading straight for the puppeteer.

The two scorpion puppets were now in a terrible state, their pincers broken and cracked all over, as if they would fall apart at any moment.

This caused the Sand Ninja's puppeteers great distress, as a puppeteer's strength lies entirely in their puppets, and both modification and repair require a large amount of money.

Now that the two puppets have suffered such severe damage, it's still a question whether they can be repaired, but thankfully they've survived...!

boom!

Just as the puppeteer was feeling relieved, two huge white bones rose from the ground and pierced through the other two scorpion puppets.

This made his pupils shrink, and he saw a figure with a finger pointing at him!

"Corpse Bone Pulse. Ten Fingers Pierced by Bullets!"

A series of muffled sounds rang out. Without puppets to control for defense, the puppeteers, whose strength lay not in physical combat, were instantly pierced by five finger bones.

Two heads, three hearts—even the King of Hell would shake his head.

After killing the puppeteer, Izumikawa didn't linger; he turned around and plunged his hands into the ground.

"The Corpse Bone Pulse. The Dance of Early Death!"

One after another, white bones suddenly pierced through the ground, spreading outwards from the center of Izumi River like shockwaves.

One lap, two laps... By the sixth lap, it had spread to a range of nearly a hundred meters. Under such pressure, a figure flew out from the ground, which was none other than Yashamaru and his companion who had previously hidden inside.

The cloth that wrapped the two people was stained with blood. The cloth was cut into several layers and spread out, revealing the two figures inside.

Yashamaru supported the Sand Ninja who was using cloth; a deep gash had been cut on the Ninja's shoulder, and blood was flowing from it.

There was no time for Yashamaru to receive medical treatment, because the enemy attacking them was still locked on to them.

The secret technique ninja directly injected chakra into the cloth on his back, and the flying strips of cloth wrapped his wounds like bandages.

The two landed directly on the ground, their gazes fixed on the location of the skeleton's core. The figure there also slowly stood up, calmly looking at them.

This made Yashamaru and his companion look around at the two destroyed puppets, the puppeteer's corpse, and the ground stained red with a large amount of blood. Their expressions were extremely grim.

"The Shikotsumyaku bloodline... this guy is Taketori Izumi, who betrayed Kirigakure!"

"That Yekura guy really betrayed the village and cooperated with this person!"

The secret ninja revealed his anger. He had actually believed what Yekura said to be true, and had even wavered a bit in his faith in the village, questioning its legitimacy.

In retrospect, the village was right. Yekura betrayed the village and had a long-standing relationship with this person, all in an attempt to sabotage the peace treaty signed by both sides.

Yashamaru sighed inwardly. It seemed the village was right after all. Yekura! You have disappointed me. You have truly betrayed the village.

"Your injuries are too severe, don't push yourself. The other two have already been killed; the other side acted very decisively."

"Furthermore, with the Byakugan's assistance, it's very difficult for us to escape their lock-on."

This prompted the secret ninja to ask, "Where's Captain Maki?"

The explosion of the Scorching Release technique revealed the answer to them: Yekura, standing on the puppet dog Bruce, was chasing after Maki.

Fireballs flew out continuously from his hands, but Maki's Wind Release: Wind Blade was also neutralized by the puppet dog beneath him, which swung its claws to block them.

This forced him to flee in a sorry state, leaving him no time to support the two of them.

"We're afraid we have to retreat. You go first, I'll stay behind to cover the rear!" Yashamaru said to him, while taking out a kunai again.

Despite the pain in his chest, the secret ninja grabbed Yashamaru's shoulder, pulled him back, and then slammed the cloth roll down in front of him.

"Stop talking nonsense. With my injuries, I have no hope of escaping. You should leave!"

Yashamaru was clearly unwilling, and the two argued for a while. But the moment Izumikawa made his move, both of them instantly switched to battle mode and faced forward.

The opponent resembled a white monster, its entire body covered in stark white bone armor, its face masked in a pale hue, like the Grim Reaper, and it was advancing step by step.

Without any hesitation, Yashamaru crossed his hands and flicked them, sending several kunai flying out. Under his control of the blades, their trajectories were extremely unpredictable.

The clanging sounds rang out, but Izumi didn't even bother to observe. With the Byakugan's vision, he didn't need to care about the process; the only thing the other party wanted was him.

Then the kunai will come over on its own, and once it enters his perception range, defense is very simple for him, who possesses the Corpse Bone Pulse.

He raised his palm and gently tapped the kunai that was being shot at him. The kunai touched the bone armor and made a crisp sound before bouncing off.

"Hmph, you really underestimate me!" Yashamaru snorted coldly, and with a slight movement of his hand, the delicate and tough silk threads transformed into an encircling net.

The kunai that bounced off were exactly what he expected; his real killing move was these threads.

"Grind it up!"

Suddenly pulling on the silk thread in his hand, it instantly wrapped around Izumi Kawa tightly, binding his entire body. The slender and tough silk thread cut deeply into his bones, tightening continuously.

With a series of cracking sounds, Yashamaru saw that the bones on his opponent's body were gradually cracking, but he did not relax. Instead, he suddenly exerted force again.

Bones flew everywhere, smoke rose, and silk threads sank deep into a skeleton.

Behind him, a corpse was thrown out and landed in front of him, causing Yashamaru's pupils to shrink and him to look back sharply.

However, the shadow of a large, skeletal hand had already blocked his entire vision.

"optimization!"

Izumi grabbed Yashamaru's head and instantly refined it, his spiritual power penetrating the opponent's mind, causing him to immediately lose the ability to fight back.

The intense mental force caused Yashamaru's eyes to roll back, the threads in his hands to lose their strength and fall down, and his body to begin to convulse.