Chapter 49 – Ambush Part 3

After hearing Sango, Hinata activated her Byakugan. As Sango watched Hinata looking around her surroundings, Kurenai began giving instruction to Ino and Sakura.

Sakura proceeded to immobilise the unconscious man despite him being completely helpless, then Ino approached the man too. Ino placed her hands on top of his head as Kurenai keep close to guard her. Shortly, a purple aura began surfacing from her hands as she began focusing on her task.

Sango had to admire her secret technique, the Psycho Mind Transmission enabling her to probe into people’s minds and learn their secrets was something he wanted to research. Looking at her, he was satisfied seeing her ability being much stronger than it was at this time in the anime, he has seen the effort she put into her own training.

“I found the villagers!” As he was observing their work, a voice came from beside him.

“What is their status?” Turning towards Hinata he asked.

“They don’t look harmed, but they are unconscious.” She replied promptly.

“That is good to hear…” Those were good news, but he didn’t believe that they were kidnapped only to serve as bait, it wasn’t necessary to kidnap every villager for that.

“And what about our hosts?” He asked next.

After a short pause, she replied, “Three are coming this way, three are staying in a room further back together with the villagers.”

That made seven enemies counting the one already defeated. Truthfully, that wasn’t good, or that would have been the case if they came all at once. In that case he would have insisted on retreating and return with reinforcements, but since they came separatedly Sango only had to defeat them before the other three came to support.

“Time of arrival?”

“One minute.”

“Very well, good job Hinata.” He said while caressing her head. Her face began to visibly flush in embarrassment, but a smile formed on her lips.

“T-Thanks!” She brightly responded to his praise.

“Let’s go inform the others.” With his words the duo moved towards the rest of their group.

“How is it going?” He asked Kurenai.

Turning towards him she smiled, “Not good, we need more time.” She said as her expression cooled.

“We don’t have time.” After his words, Sango began telling them the information he got from Hinata.

Realizing that there wasn’t much time, Ino and Sakura left the man and joined the group in preparing for the incoming battle.

Sango swiftly retrieved his knifes and placed them in a better position and added more of them so that the strings would interconnect in places, enabling him to teleport at will between them while only touching one.

All of that was done in under a minute, before the time ran out the team was already done with their preparations, not that there was much preparing that could be done.

They already decided on what formation to use on contact with the enemy. Ino, Sakura and Hinata would fight one and Sango with Kurenai will fight one each. That didn’t mean the enemy would agree to follow the team’s will, but they could be forced to do so. It all depended on the strength of the enemy.

“They’re here!” Kurenai spoke, with her words the tension surged.

Not even a breath later, three shadows flew through the tunnel into the room.

Now Sango wondered if they would start to monologue or posture, but he doubted that, although he believed it would be fun to see, no such thing happened in a real battle, the three shadows didn’t stop or slow, they charged towards Sango and his group without hesitation.

Sango and Kurenai also didn’t stay put, they too charged straight towards the two that looked the strongest of the three, leaving the weakest to the three inexperienced girls.

Time wasn’t on his part, Sango knew that. They must get rid of the three enemies before the other three made their way there.

The first to meet his opponent was Sango, he didn’t use his teleportation ability for now, wanting to keep it to use in a key moment to reap the most gains.

Drawing two knives, he maintained a lower running posture, keeping his guard up. Now that he was closer to his enemy, he spared an instant to memorize his appearance. Apart from his crossed forehead protector indicating he was a runaway from The Land of Mist, nothing else stood out about him. He had standard gear and standard body build. The lower part of his face was covered and only a pair of cold eyes were visible.

As they approached each other, the man formed seals with his hands and mist surged from his surroundings, shortly enveloping the whole cave.

Sango smiled, that technique was child’s play in his eyes. In his mind there was no use blocking only the sight of an opponent, one only had to rely on his other senses to fight it.

As Sango thought that, something peculiar happened to him. His eyes felt tired, then itchy and then the mist was almost gone.

No, he realized that it wasn’t the mist that was gone, after shortly observing the behaviour of the girls he understood that it was only him that could see through. Even his enemy was trying to rely on his hearing to find his whereabouts.

Sango covered his left eye with his hand, after not seeing anything for a short second his hand began to become transparent to his sight. That confirmed it, somehow he had developed an ability similar to Byakugan, although he couldn’t tell to what extent that was.

He would have liked to take a break and examine himself as well understand why that happened, but there wasn’t time. His enemy stopped in his tracks after using Hiding in Mist jutsu, that was true for his companions too. It seemed that they weren’t going to charge recklessly and that was more bothersome for Sango.

On the other hand, they didn’t know that the mist had no effect on him, so that would be their downfall.

It was time to move, having placed strings even along the ceiling and walls he had many directions he could attack from. The mist also served to hide many of them that he expected to be cut by his enemies. He smiled at the thought that the first jutsu they used served to put him at a huge advantage while obstructing themselves, but there was no medicine for regret.

With his index finger on one of the strings, he disappeared from that place only to reappear above his enemy, but he didn’t fall as he had his finger hooked around the string. Then he placed his foots on the ceiling and used his chakra to stick to it.