Chapter 305: Where Are They?
The messenger swallowed the blood in his mouth, his voice distorted by urgency.
"Western sector... the Two-Tails suddenly fired a Tailed Beast Bomb. We couldn’t stop it!"
He struggled for breath, half his body shaking.
"The defensive line was torn open! The wall has a breach... dozens of meters wide!"
The air around them went silent.
Kaede stopped moving.
The worst possibility had happened.
Mei and Pakura...
Were they hurt?
The thought surfaced in his mind.
Kaede forcibly suppressed it.
He hadn’t seen anything himself. He couldn’t lose his composure.
He looked to the side.
"Medical team."
Two medical shinobi immediately stepped forward and caught the messenger, who was nearly unconscious.
Kaede turned toward Onoki and then Ay.
"There’s a breach in the west. The enemy may concentrate everything and pour through it."
Onoki caught the trace of urgency in Kaede’s voice.
"You’re going over there?"
"I have to close the breach."
Kaede didn’t explain any further.
He pointed toward the forest outside.
"You two hold the north. If things develop the way I expect, I’ll send word for you to regroup."
Onoki looked at him and nodded heavily.
Ay stepped forward.
"Go."
"As long as I’m still breathing, not even an insect gets through the north."
Kaede said nothing more.
His body flickered, leaving only an afterimage scattered by the wind.
He was already dozens of meters away, moving toward the west at full speed.
...
In the forest beyond the northern battlefield, a gray-white body pushed from the ground.
A White Zetsu clone grinned at Black Zetsu in the tree above.
"The western defenses were blasted open by a Tailed Beast Bomb."
The tension on Black Zetsu’s face twisted into a vicious smile.
It turned toward Fu.
"The breach is open."
Fu remained expressionless.
Black Zetsu’s voice became sharp and excited.
"Immediately abandon the diversion on the other three fronts."
It raised a black arm and pointed directly west.
"Move every Tailed Beast to the western sector!"
"Concentrate all forces and crush straight through that opening into Konoha!"
Fu silently nodded and began controlling them.
...
Kaede reached the western camp.
He stopped at the edge of the ruins.
Everything before him was scorched earth.
The hundred-meter wooden wall he had raised had been torn apart in the center.
A massive hole dozens of meters across cut straight through the defensive line.
The giant timber around the edges still burned.
Dark purplish flames clung to the wood and produced an unpleasant crackling hiss.
Many allied shinobi lay on the ground.
Some were struggling.
Some no longer moved at all.
Kaede entered the wreckage.
His gaze moved rapidly across blackened craters and burning debris.
Pale blue.
He was searching for Mei’s pale-blue dress.
And Pakura.
He stepped over a collapsed command tower and kicked aside a burning log.
Nothing.
Nothing anywhere.
The rationality that normally operated without flaw became strangely sluggish.
His hands moved faster.
They couldn’t be hurt.
They couldn’t simply die here.
The wind cleared some of the thick smoke.
Behind the collapsed command tower came faint footsteps.
A figure moved in the shadows.
Kaede froze and locked his eyes on the position.
Pakura stepped out from the ruins.
Her normally smooth black hair was completely disheveled and stuck to her cheeks.
Her clothes were torn.
Her shoulders, arms, and thighs were covered in bloody scrapes from rubble and heat.
She moved slowly.
Every step made her body sway violently.
Because another person was hanging heavily across her shoulders.
Mei.
Kaede finally saw that pale-blue color.
But now the dress barely retained its original shade.
From the waist downward, the fabric was saturated with blood and had turned a shocking dark red.
A terrible penetrating wound ran diagonally from her side across her lower abdomen.
Blood dripped down her leg and fell to the ground one drop at a time.
Her head hung weakly against Pakura’s neck.
Her eyes were tightly closed.
Only Pakura’s desperate grip around her waist kept her from sliding to the ground.
For Kaede, every surrounding sound suddenly disappeared.
He crossed the remaining distance with Body Flicker and appeared directly in front of them.
Both hands reached out.
He caught Mei as she began slipping downward.
The instant he touched her, his hands were met with warmth and stickiness.
Blood.
Pakura sensed someone taking the weight.
The tension holding her upright finally vanished, and she collapsed forward.
Kaede braced Pakura with his shoulder while lifting Mei into his arms.
He looked down at Mei’s deathly pale face.
The calm that normally defined his voice vanished completely.
Panic and fury entered it before even he noticed.
"How did she get this badly hurt?"
Pakura leaned against his shoulder and took several gasping breaths before managing to answer.
"When the Tailed Beast Bomb came down... we could have avoided it."
"But she looked back at the casualty camp. She said if we retreated, everyone inside would die."
Kaede’s arms tightened slightly around Mei.
Pakura’s voice grew quieter.
"She told me to use Scorch Release to clear a path. Then she stayed in front and used Lava Style to forcefully dissolve part of the Tailed Beast Bomb’s power."
"The shockwave threw her away. A piece of debris punched through her side."
Pakura’s voice trembled, and her eyes reddened.
"I barely managed to dig her out of the burned ground."
Kaede lowered his gaze.
Mei had no color in her face.
The eyes that were normally filled with schemes and teasing were now tightly closed, long lashes covered in dust.
Pain tightened Kaede’s chest.
This woman was usually so clever. Why had she chosen now to play the hero?
"What an idiot."
He cursed her, but his voice had gone hoarse.
Kaede forced himself to regain focus and looked quickly around the devastated battlefield.
"Any messenger still alive?!"
A young Genin immediately stumbled from behind a broken wall.
Dragging a bleeding left leg, he snapped to attention before Kaede.
"Sir!"
Kaede gave instructions rapidly.
"Go to the central medical area and find Tsunade-sama. Find out what condition she’s in."
"If she isn’t occupied, have her bring personnel here immediately. Tell her Mei—"
His sentence was cut off.
Heavy explosions sounded one after another across the distant plain.
Boom.
Boom. Boom.
Kaede turned sharply.
Beyond the enormous breach in the western wall, seven Tailed Beasts stood in a row several hundred meters away.
By the glow of their chakra, the ground beneath them could be seen rolling violently.
Thousands upon thousands of White Zetsu crawled from underground, their pale bodies covering the entire visible plain in moments.
The young messenger’s face became even whiter than Mei’s.
Veins rose across the back of Kaede’s hand where he held her.
He looked down once at the woman in his arms, then up at the seven enormous figures in the distance.