Chapter 108: Speculations

After parting ways with Kamijo Hiroshi, Seimei began to search for the three Sunagakure Chunin in the direction he had indicated. Thanks to his familiarity with the terrain and the powerful insight of the Sharingan, he quickly found relevant clues. Following these clues, he finally caught up with them half an hour later. At this time, these people were still heading towards the E12 area. Combined with the words of the squad leader, Tashiro Ukyo, and his ninja dog, Kiva - "There are many enemies in the E12 area", Seimei figured out that the E12 area was the focus of this Sunagakure attack. "But why are there so many Sunagakure ninja suddenly appearing?" Seimei couldn't figure out the answer to this question. You know, whether it's the neighboring E12 area, their E11 area, or even the entire surrounding area, strictly speaking, they all belong to the second line. It's understandable that some infiltration units occasionally appear, but it's basically impossible for the enemy to invade on a large scale like now. Unless... "The front line has collapsed!" Seimei was startled by the thought that suddenly popped into his head, but he quickly calmed down. If the entire line collapsed, then the enemies appearing here wouldn't be just these. At that time, let alone the E12 area, I'm afraid the entire area they were defending would be impacted. But he hasn't seen any signs of that yet. In other words, the front line has not completely collapsed. But the number of enemies did exceed the scale that an infiltration unit should have. So, there is only one explanation, that is, several strongholds on the front line were breached, resulting in a gap in the defense line, and some Sunagakure ninja took advantage of the opportunity to launch a surprise attack. "Hmm, that should be it!" Although he hadn't received any definite news yet, Seimei felt that his guess should be correct. If that's the case, then these Sunagakure ninja can't stay for long. After all, as long as the entire line doesn't collapse, Konoha still has the ability to recapture those strongholds. At that time, it will be like closing the door and beating the dog. If these Sunagakure ninja don't want to be left here, they must retreat before Konoha retakes those strongholds. After figuring this out, Seimei felt the haze in his heart dissipate, and the expression on his face couldn't help but relax a bit. For him, maintaining stability was the best outcome, because time was on his side. As long as he dragged on long enough, his strength would continue to grow. Various thoughts flashed through his mind. Looking at the three figures below, Seimei suddenly raised his hands and completed the hand seals for the 'Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique' at an extremely fast speed. Then he opened his mouth and spewed out a large amount of high-temperature flames. These flames almost turned into dozens or hundreds of fireballs the moment they appeared. Obviously, as the proficiency of the 'Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique' continued to improve, the time for the flames to differentiate into fireballs was rapidly shortening. Now, there was almost no gap between them, as if the flames had turned into fireballs as soon as they left his mouth. This seemed similar to when he first learned the 'Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique'. But don't forget that when he first learned the 'Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique', those fireballs appeared one by one. And now, his enemies had to face the siege of dozens or hundreds of fireballs at the same time. Don't underestimate this small difference, the difficulty for the enemy to dodge has increased exponentially. Just like now, if the three Sunagakure Chunin were facing a sneak attack from the 'Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique' before lv2, they might still be able to dodge safely. Now... They couldn't avoid Seimei's attack without paying some price. Sensing the danger, the three Sunagakure ninja immediately became alert: "Who?" However, before they could find Seimei's trace, hundreds of fireballs had already smashed towards them. The speed was so fast, and the angle was so tricky that they had no choice but to dodge. But their movements, in Seimei's eyes, were full of flaws. Seimei didn't even think about it and controlled the fireballs to surround the three of them. The first one to be hit was the seventeen or eighteen-year-old Taijutsu ninja. Although he was fast, he wasn't fast enough. In the end, his retreat was blocked by more than a dozen fireballs, and he was forced to endure the attacks of two fireballs, his chest and right arm were scorched black. He fell to the ground on the spot and lost his combat ability. The second one to be hit was the female ninja in her early twenties who was good at sound wave genjutsu. However, she used the Body Replacement Technique at the critical moment and escaped. As for the puppeteer... He was taken care of by Seimei. Even with the protection of the puppet, he was still hit by a fireball and suffered serious injuries. Even the puppet was bombarded and its body was damaged. A few breaths later, the fireballs disappeared, and the field fell silent again. The female ninja and the puppeteer stood side by side, looking in the direction where the fireballs had come from, but they saw nothing. This made their faces quite ugly. After a moment of silence, the female ninja suddenly nodded at the puppeteer, seemingly hinting at something. Seeing this, the puppeteer immediately returned a knowing look, then quickly took out two earplugs and plugged his ears. The next moment, the female ninja raised her hands and quickly formed hand seals. At the same time, her mouth opened slightly, clearly preparing to cast some kind of sound wave genjutsu, attempting to force the attacker in the dark to reveal himself in this way. However, before she could finish casting, a figure suddenly appeared in front of her, followed by a pair of blood-red Sharingan that occupied her entire vision. 'Sharingan? Genjutsu?' Otoha was terrified and immediately tried to dispel the genjutsu. But as soon as she moved, she felt the chakra in her body rapidly drain away, then the back of her neck ached, and she fainted. The person who made the move was none other than Seimei, who had been watching in the dark for a long time. Because he didn't know how much resistance the Sharingan had to sound wave genjutsu, he took the initiative to attack before the opponent made a move. The process went very smoothly. With the perfect 'Body Flicker Technique' and superb concealment skills, he arrived in front of the opponent in the blink of an eye. Because she was distracted by casting genjutsu, she had no time to react and was directly controlled by his 'Genjutsu: Sharingan'. Then he extracted her chakra, knocked her unconscious, and took her away in one go. During this time, the puppeteer only cared about escaping and had no intention of stopping him. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but he didn't dare. He had already recognized Seimei's identity and knew his strength, so he didn't dare to linger. Unfortunately, he didn't want to provoke Seimei, but it didn't mean that Seimei would let him go. After dealing with Otoha, Seimei did the same, extracting all the chakra from the Taijutsu ninja and knocking him unconscious, then immediately chased after the puppeteer. The process needn't be elaborated. Even though the opponent had a trick up his sleeve and suddenly summoned a decent puppet, he still couldn't hold on for long in Seimei's hands and soon followed in the footsteps of his two teammates. Seimei looked at the three unconscious people on the ground and knew that the main reason why these people performed so poorly in front of him was that his preemptive sneak attack was successful. If he hadn't caught them off guard at the beginning, these three wouldn't have been defeated so quickly and so thoroughly. Of course, there was also the reason that they had just fought fiercely with three Konoha ninja and their strength was not at its peak. But in general, it was still because Seimei's strength far exceeded theirs, which made them unable to even put up a decent struggle. However, they were enemies, and Seimei wouldn't pity them. (End of this chapter)