Chapter 489: Cutting the Connection  

Meanwhile, Hinata just finished setting up a small temporary base with a small group of fellow shinobi. They were about ten people, but Hinata only knew Sai and Kankuro personally. This small group was supposed to ambush the enemy’s troops; however, she could already feel trouble brewing.

Since she felt something was off, she carefully scanned her surroundings, and moments later, she found what she was looking for. A few dozen meters away from the camp, a single shinobi slowly dragged his body to their position.

“I found a wounded ally. I’ll take a look.”

Kankuro, the team’s leader, simply nodded his head while slowly following after Hinata in case this was a trick. Hinata scanned the wounded person with her eyes, causing her to frown.

‘He can’t be saved. He will be dead within a few minutes. Additionally…’

Before Kankuro and the rest of the team could come to close, she secretly gave them a sign to stand back, which they did.

As soon as Hinata was within an arms-reach of the wounded person, she heard a faint clicking sound, and moments later, the person in front of her exploded into a shower of gore and deadly needles. Dozen of needles hit Hinata’s body, sending her flying away, resulting in her breaking through multiple trees.

“Shit, HINATA!!!”

Cold sweat poured down Kakuro’s back as his whole body trembled in fear.

‘D-Did Hinata just die under my command? W-Won’t Yuna hunt me down as soon as she hears about this? *Gulp* Will Suna be alright? No, calm down, Kankuro. There is no way one of her people would die from such a silly trap. This has to be a trick.’

Satisfied with his conclusion, Kakuro’s gaze landed on the person who had just arrived here. It was a young man with red hair, and Kankuro immediately knew his identity.

“Sasori of the Red Sand.”

“Oh? Aren’t you that brat from Suna? It seems like both of our teams are supposed to ambush the other army, huh? What an interesting meeting.”Around a dozen more people appeared; all of them had the typical black eyes all reanimated people had. There was a grave expression on Kakuro’s face as he realized that the winner of this battle might even tilt their side towards victory. Sasori could only chuckle when he saw Kankuro’s expression.

“There is no point in resisting, brat. After all, we can’t d…”

Just when Sasori was about to say the word “die”, a thin water blade stabbed into his back, through his heart, and finally came out of his chest.

“You didn’t really think such an insignificant trick would get me, did you?”

Kankuro sighed in relief when he noticed that Hinata seemed to be unhurt and was only setting up a chance for an ambush. However, now wasn’t the time to be relieved; he needed to act.

“Quickly, seal him away before he can regenerate!”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Hinata pulled her weapon out of Sasori’s body, and to everyone’s surprise, he fell over while the Edo Tensei stopped supporting his current form, turning him back to the person who was sacrificed for the jutsu. Somehow, the Edo Tensei stopped.

“What was it again? I believe it was: ‘There is nothing I can not cut.’ Something like that, right?”

Although it looked like Hinata only pierced through Sasori’s body, she actually severed the connection the caster of the jutsu had with the person being reanimated.

“Well, shall we clean up the rest?”

Kankuro couldn’t help but shiver a little when he heard how easily she said that.

‘So this is what Yuna’s people are like, huh? How terrifying. It’s good that they are on our side.’

Meanwhile, a snake-like man looked up in confusion in a well-hidden cave.“I lost the connection to one of my reanimated people? How is that possible?”

He quickly manipulated the Edo Tensei to share his sense with one of the reanimated people that were close to the one whose connection was cut. However, after doing so, all he could see was a pair of white eyes before the connection was cut again.

“What the hell?”

The snake-like man, Orochimarum, frowned deeply as he tried again. This time, the link wasn’t cut instantly, so he had some time to look around. It was a common battlefield with about 20 shinobi fighting each other. Nothing special.

However, before Orochimaru could fully understand the situation, a blur appeared behind one of the people fighting, and at that exact moment, Orochimaru felt another connection getting cut.

‘Shit, this person’s eyes aren’t good enough to see what happened. He surveyed the battlefield and quickly noticed a reanimated Hyuga. A smirk appeared on his face as he quickly switched people.

‘With the Byakugan, there is no way I wouldn’t notice what is going on.’

Orochimaru couldn’t help but smirk as he concentrated his full power on his eyes to make sure he didn’t miss anything and then… got his connection cut before he could do or see anything.

“What the hell!? What is going on!?”

Orochimaru hated it when he couldn’t understand something. He needed to know what was happening but had no way to do so. He hated it.

He took a deep breath to suppress his annoyance and started thinking about the situation properly.

‘They clearly came up with a method to counter the Edo Tensei, but how are they doing it? Is it a jutsu? Maybe a seal? I think a seal is very possible. Or maybe, this is just a shinobi that had found a weapon that could counter the Edo Tensei? I can’t really claim that to be impossible.’

Orochimaru got up from his cross-legged position and casually dusted away some dust from his clothes.

‘I wanted to save this for later, but I guess it is time to take them out. That unknown method to cut the connection aside, I’m losing significantly more people than I initially anticipated.’

With that thought in mind, Orochimaru went through a few hand signs and then slapped his hands on the ground.

“[Edo Tensei]”

Two coffins rose, and when Orochimaru saw who was in them, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“KUFUFU, WITH THESE TWO UNDER MY CONTROL, NOTHING CAN STOP ME!!!”