Chapter 29: The Corpse will be Guarded by Me
After cleaning up the bone fragments scattered around like the world's most morbid confetti, Qifeng collapsed onto the ground with all the grace of a dropped sack of potatoes.
Moving was officially off the table.
As for Doishi's body—well, that presented a problem. The Iwagakure jonin was currently sporting more bone spikes than a medieval torture device, which would raise some uncomfortable questions if Orochimaru found him.
Better to have no evidence than to have very incriminating evidence, Qifeng decided, and made the corpse disappear into his storage space.
Sure, a missing body might make Orochimaru suspicious, but it was better than having to explain why he'd turned an enemy jonin into a very deadly pincushion.
This victory had been pure, dumb luck. But at least the combat experience had given him a more realistic assessment of his capabilities.
The system rated him as a senior chunin, but Qi Feng figured he was more like an elite chunin on a good day. With his incomplete Dead Bone Pulse and single-tomoe Sharingan fully activated, he could probably pass for a special jonin—specifically, the kind that specialized in making people very dead very quickly.
Catching a real jonin off-guard? Doable, apparently.
What impressed him most was the defensive capabilities of his bone armor. As long as his opponent wasn't fast enough to turn his Sharingan into expensive decoration, the Dead Bone Pulse's protection was genuinely impressive.
Defense is everything, he thought drowsily, Can't collect corpses if you become one.
With Doishi eliminated, the Torimori checkpoint should be safe for now. But he was the only one left standing, and exhaustion was hitting him like a freight train carrying anvils.
He forced himself to stay awake, staring at the ceiling and trying to ignore the various aches and pains that kept reminding him of his recent near-death experience.
The occasional shooting pain actually helped—hard to fall asleep when your body was sending regular updates about its structural damage.
Dawn. Finally.
It wasn't until the sun was well up in the sky that he heard movement outside the checkpoint again.
During the long night, he'd used up his daily corpse-touching quota to pass the time. Fortunately, dead chunin were in abundant supply, so it wasn't a waste.
The results were typical: six successes out of nine attempts, gaining four attribute bonuses split between chakra and chakra control, plus one mildly useless ninjutsu. The rest were standard ninja tools and random junk.
Still, it was better than his usual morgue haul.
Risk versus reward, he mused. In the morgue, I get steady but small gains. Out here, I get more stuff but significantly higher chances of becoming someone else's experience points.
Both approaches had their merits, but honestly? His system seemed designed for battlefield conditions. More corpses meant more opportunities.
Too bad he wasn't designed for battlefield conditions.
As a 21st-century keyboard warrior and proud member of the "indoor kid" demographic, his ideal life involved carbonated beverages and a routine so stable it could be used as a geological time marker. Being thrust into the ninja world hadn't magically transformed him into an adrenaline junkie.
"I just want to be a peaceful corpse collector," he muttered, reaffirming his life goals.
Is that too much to ask? Apparently.
The sound of approaching footsteps made him look up from his position among the bodies. He looked appropriately terrible—exhausted, bloodstained, and generally like someone who'd been through a blender.
Perfect.
Orochimaru and the survivors walked into the command room, their expressions suggesting the other battle hadn't gone much better.
They'd left with eleven people. Five had returned.
More importantly, Kenta Nakamura—one of their three jonin—was nowhere to be seen. The math wasn't encouraging.
Gekko Naoki helped support a wounded comrade, but his eyes swept over the scene with something approaching admiration. The command room was a disaster zone, but the area around the bodies was relatively clean and undamaged.
The contrast between the neat corpses and Qifeng's disheveled appearance painted a pretty clear picture.
"Not only do we protect the living people of Konoha," Naoki said solemnly, "but we also protect our fallen heroes. Well done, Maruyama Qifeng!"
Ah, the power of visual storytelling, Qifeng thought, Start with a scene, let people fill in the details.
He raised his head with carefully calculated difficulty, wincing as he clutched his chest. "The bodies of Konoha..." he said in his most dramatically hoarse voice, "will be guarded by me!"
"Hoh."
Orochimaru's soft chuckle made Qi Feng's blood temperature drop several degrees. Those snake-like eyes were studying him with the intensity of a scientist examining a particularly interesting specimen.
Please don't dissect me, Qi Feng thought desperately. I'm not that interesting, I promise.
"Pack up," Orochimaru said simply. "We're going back."
"Yes, sir!"
---
**Inside Konoha Village**
The conference room on the top floor of the Hokage building had all the cheerful atmosphere of a funeral during tax season. Sarutobi Hiruzen sat at the head of the table, pipe in hand, while Danzo occupied his usual spot at the leader's left.
"The Rock, Sand, and Mist villages have all been conducting 'tests' of increasing intensity," Hiruzen said, his eyes glinting in the pipe smoke. "Over the past week, they've escalated significantly. I'm open to suggestions."
The assembled elite jonin exchanged glances. They all knew what "tests" meant in diplomatic speak: acts of war that everyone pretended weren't acts of war until someone got tired of pretending.
The war was coming whether anyone wanted it or not.
"We can't be the aggressors," one elite jonin said firmly. "That goes against everything Konoha stands for."
Konoha had built its reputation on being the "peaceful" hidden village. For decades, they'd maintained the moral high ground through a combination of genuine idealism and excellent public relations. The first lesson at the ninja academy was literally about peace.
You couldn't just throw away that kind of institutional identity, especially when it was what kept everyone united.
Hiruzen nodded approvingly. Good. Unity through shared values is more important than tactical advantage.
He glanced at Danzo, who represented the more... pragmatic faction within Konoha's leadership. But radicals were always the minority.
In any choice between the few and the many, the math was simple.
"However," Nara Shikaku interjected, his voice carrying the weight of someone who'd thought this through, "we cannot appear weak. The more weakness we show, the bolder they'll become. We need to respond with enough strength to make them think twice about full-scale war."
Shikaku was the Nara clan head, an elite jonin, and one of the Hokage's most trusted advisors. More importantly, he understood the bigger picture.
"The longer we can delay actual war, the better our position becomes," he continued. "Konoha's advantages are built on our fertile lands and stable resources. Every day of peace makes us relatively stronger compared to the impoverished Wind, Earth, and Water countries."
"Continue, Shikaku," Hiruzen said with approval. This is why I keep smart people around.
The office door opened, and the room's temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
Orochimaru had arrived.
Despite everything, Hiruzen smiled. Whatever else you could say about his student, the man delivered results.
"Orochimaru. Welcome back."
The snake Sannin simply nodded, pulled up a chair in the corner, and handed over a mission scroll with minimal ceremony.
"Mission summary."
Hiruzen unrolled the document, his expression growing serious before gradually relaxing as he read further.
"In this engagement, Konoha lost one jonin and seven chunin," he announced to the room. "Combined with the original checkpoint guards, total casualties are four jonin and sixteen chunin."
The atmosphere in the conference room grew heavy enough to cut with a kunai.
Jonin were Konoha's elite strike force. Chunin were the backbone of their military structure. These weren't numbers you could easily replace.
Nobody spoke. Danzo, the clan heads, and department leaders all wore expressions that could have been carved from stone as they waited for the rest of the report.
War is coming, they all thought. And it's going to be expensive.
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