Just as Sasuke was about to relax after disabling his enemy and wait for Tachibana and Sakura to return his instincts warned him of danger and forced him to duck at a seemingly random time.
But Sasuke listened to his instincts and ducked almost immediately.
However, the bad posture and timing forced him to either defend himself or the shinobi he'd just captured.
Sasuke chose the former and jumped away from the shinobi. His eyes immediately turned scarlet in colour to transform into sharingan as he quickly scanned around for the danger.
What he saw left him a little shocked and surprised.
Tachibana was about to steal the exploding tags on his enemy's body before he heard a sharp *swish* that he quickly dodged by teleporting to a random ember that stayed lit up on the ground.
Tachibana instantly armed himself with kunai and scanned around the area for his enemy.
'An albino lion? Are there even normal lions in this wor-'
'No! These are Sai's creations.'
Tachibana's grip on his kunai tightened.
'Damn…I can't trace them with my spirit vision…'
'Is it because they aren't really alive and have no souls?'
'Has he been staring at us all and collecting intel on us throughout our fights?'
'Why is he here?'
'To recapture his 'comrades'?'
'No…the ROOT doesn't care if they live or die. The cursed tongue eradication seal is proof enough of that.'
'So he's here for the Aburame shinobi whose body might reveal that Konoha was behind this attack and not Sunagakure?'
Tachibana frowned. He wasn't about to let his plan go to waste.
It wasn't for no reason that Tachibana wanted to let Sasuke fight the Aburame shinobi. It was precisely because Sasuke with his Sharingan had the highest chance of noticing the bugs scattered around the forest that Tachibana did it.
He didn't do it himself since he didn't know if the Aburame shinobi had bugs hidden inside his body or not. But with Sasuke's help, he was sure that even a single bug that the Aburame shinobi might use wouldn't go unnoticed, especially since they were in a forest where bugs were pretty common.
'What do I do?'
'I can't make it obvious that I know about their plan to rescue the Aburame clan shinoboi.'
'Then how…'
Tachibana looked around the area and spotted Sakura looking at an ink panther in front of her.
A frown appeared on his face for a second before it vanished.
"Sakura!!! Don't fight with them!! Retreat to Sasuke! We need to regroup to help each other learn more about this new enemy instead of carelessly attacking them all!"
Sakura nodded and before the ink animals could react, Tachibana and Sakura both used the body flicker jutsu and vanished from where they were standing.
Thick ink vines suddenly grew out of the ground to lash at Sakura and Tachibana and capture them by entangling their legs but Tachibana easily diverted them by flicking his finger to form the concentration seal.
As soon as Tachibana was finished with his seal-
*BOOOOM* *BOOOOOOMMMMMMM* *BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM*
-multiple short explosions occurred in the forest. The explosive seals that Tachibana had planted earlier as a precaution exploded the base of a few tall trees causing them to topple and fall over as soon as they lost support.
It helped since the ink creatures that were chasing them stopped for a few seconds but that still wasn't enough since as soon as the leaf canopy cover fell down Sakura noticed several flying ink creatures swooping in to attack them.
Tachibana scowled as he heard the *squeal* of a hawk that was on its dive to grab either Sakura or him with its claws.
Sakura pulled out a few kunai from her shinobi pouch and flicked them ahead at the trees that were surrounding them, creating a quick wire trap for the hawk to fly into.
'Why does she have so many wire kunai prepared?' Tachibana wondered but before he could think further he looked behind and saw the hawk that was diving towards them exploding into a shower of ink when it was sliced away by Sakura's sharp wires.
Sakura noted the fragility of the ink creatures and continued to follow Tachibana to go to Sasuke.
Moments later, Sasuke and Sakura arrived at their earlier location and found him combating a few creatures on his own.
Sasuke was in a taijutsu match with a monkey and simultaneously deflecting attacks from a crane and a snake that were both trying to either constrict him with their moves to make an opening for the monkey to land a blow or-
-trying to directly take advantage of the openings that Sasuke was forced to show since he was fighting multiple enemies.
As soon as Tachibana arrived at the spot the first thing he did was flick four shuriken at once towards the ink creatures that were carrying away the Aburame Shinobi.
The ink creatures all exploded and dropped the Aburame shinobi but Tachibana didn't stop there.
"Sasuke-kun? Are you alright?" Sakura asked as soon as she joined to fight with him.
Tachibana on the other hand quickly moved towards Naruto's cage and kicked open the cage door after breaking the lock.
Naruto pretended to be asleep for a second even when Tachibana dragged him out but quickly stood up when Tachibana said, "Naruto!!! We need you!!!!"
Naruto immediately stood up and performed his trade mark jutsu as soon as he heard Tachibana shout.
"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!!!"
Tens of Naruto clones immediately spawned and immediately began to fight back the weak ink creatures that were trying to take away the single Aburame shinobi that was left behind.
Naruto's clones were super effective.
Tachibana and the rest of Team Seven stayed vigilant and kept guard on their prisoner of 'war'.
"Keep guard on him. Our enemy doesn't want us to get our hands on him." Tachibana shouted over the noise of ink creatures and Naruto's clones popping.
Sakura nodded while Tachibana gave Sasuke another command.
"Sasuke-kun, can you find where our enemy is!?"
Tachibana relying on spirit vision didn't see Sai anywhere near them. Not even in the sky on a flying ink creature, but he wasn't hell-bent of finding him since in the show Sai was shown to be able to send his creatures on long scouting missions.
Yet, Tachibana didn't stop there when a simple but brilliant idea emerged in his head.
'Why don't I do that!'
Tachibana quickly picked up the disabled Aburame shinobi by his collar and put a kunai at his neck.
"If you don't stop, I'll stab him!" Tachibana shouted out loud.
The assault of the ink creatures didn't reduce but only became more frantic but Tachibana did exactly as he'd said.
Even though the Aburame shinobi rebelled in his hand by kicking his legs, Tachibana quickly stabbed the kunai in his hands into the Aburame Shinobi's shoulder, causing the shinobi to squirm in pain as blood suddenly poured out of his body.
Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke were shocked, not just because of the brutality with which Tachibana had acted, but because of his decision.
In their case, since they didn't know who their enemy was or even his level, it was rather risky to aggravate their enemy further by killing off his team mates.
But that wasn't all Tachibana did.
As soon as Tachibana saw that the Aburame shinobi was still trying to resist his assault and preventing the insects in his body from escaping, Tachibana twisted the kunai inside his shoulder.
The sudden egregious assault of pain caused the shinobi to nearly pass out but that was enough.
Insects immediately buzzed out of the shinobi's body as they poured out in hoards to attack Tachibana who was attacking their host.
'Got you!'
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A/N : Sorry for the rushed chapter!!