“Magnificent.” Standing on the back of the enormous beast, Zansul looked down on the fleeing prisoners and snorted with laughter. Jiji was there beside him. “What a glorious feeling. The plan we spent so much time on has at last come to fruition.”
“That it has,” Jiji agreed, looking down on the miserable spectacle with cold, hard eyes.
The orniths made liberal use of their unbelievably powerful rear legs, each of which was about double the height of a person, and kicked up dust as they chased the prisoners down. Covered in brown feathers, the creatures looked exactly like ostriches.
They mowed everything down with their back legs. Prisoners struck directly were ripped open like water balloons filled with blood and transformed into mere clumps of flesh in the blink of an eye. Zansul watched as sharp talons caught one man in his side and then sliced open his back, leaving him to writhe in agony on the ground covered in blood.
“How unsightly.” Zansul frowned. “Jiji, give him peace.”
Without a word, Jiji looked down at the massive beast they rode on, and the snake-like dragon raised a leg as thick as the trunk of an ancient tree. Thud, thud. It stepped forward and casually crushed the suffering man. Orniths kicked the bodies of prisoners dozens of meters into the air, killing other prisoners when they were crushed under the falling corpses.
Zansul stared enraptured at the blood spurting up on the dry earth.
“What wonderful warriors. I’m certain the prime minister will also be pleased,” he said and tilted his head back to look at the colossal creatures far above them. “Once we slaughter all the prisoners, we’ll head for the capital and join up with him.”
“That’s all well and good, but don’t forget your promise to me,” Jiji reminded him.
“Of course not. Once we kill Nanara and the others, we’ll go to Nagare and look for the body of your girlfriend. I do not forget a favor. It’s thanks to you being able to use chakra and implement this reanimation jutsu that we have obtained all this battle power.”
On the ground, an ornith was dragging its long neck along the earth, sniffing intently. It picked up a scent and trotted toward a pile of stone from the collapsed wall. It bent the talons of its front legs and deftly shoved aside the rubble to reveal Ganno crouched down there, shaking.
“Oh my. I believe he was your cellmate, yes?” Zansul turned happy eyes on Jiji, and he nodded wordlessly as he crossed his arms and looked down on Ganno.
“St-stay back!” Ganno’s legs gave out under him, and he scooted himself backwards. His right foot was bare—maybe he had lost his shoe in the chaos. The bright red that adorned the nails on the toes of his hairy, wrinkled feet seemed to belong to another time and place.
The ornith slowly lifted its leg and brought it down toward Ganno’s skinny body.
“Aaaaaaaa—”
His shriek was abruptly cut off.
Fresh blood dripped.
After a moment’s silence, the ornith’s foot left its leg and tumbled to the ground.
“What?” Zansul frowned.
Meno stood between Ganno and the ornith. He sprang at the chest of the bird-dragon as it lost its balance with the loss of its foot and bit into it.
“Graw!”
Letting out a shriek and toppling over, the ornith writhed and tried to throw Meno off. The lizard sank his fangs into the long, flailing neck.
Hearing the cries of its fellow, another ornith flew at Meno’s back. But just as the ornith was about to strike him, Meno dodged, and the creature slammed into its wounded comrade. The two orniths tumbled over and rolled fifty yards, crashing through a number of people unfortunate enough to be in the way. They finally stopped when they smashed into the wrecked remains of the residential building.
“Jiji, what’s going on?” Zansul cried. “Why is Meno taking the side of the prisoners?!”
Jiji checked the state of the reanimation jutsu he had cast himself and finally noticed the abnormality. “The control over Meno’s been released.”
“Sasuke?”
“Probably.”
While the ornith was occupied by Meno, Ganno ran.
Zansul suppressed the urge to click his tongue in annoyance and quickly recovered his good mood. “Well, fine. They can’t hurt us merely by taking Meno.”
“I hope not,” Jiji said.
Meno waged fierce battle with the ornith, ignoring the fact that it was several times larger. Slipping past its kicks, Meno leaped at the ornith boldly and bought time for the prisoners to flee. However, when at first it was one against one, it soon became two against one, and then three against one, until finally Meno was surrounded by five orniths.
Meno had nowhere left to run. An ornith closed in, swinging its leg out to kick.
Chak!
Sasuke’s scabbard stopped the descending leg. He pushed back with the sheath, and the ornith somersaulted backward with one foot still up in the air.
“Good work buying time.” Meno grunted happily at Sasuke’s praise.
Sasuke took up position to guard Meno’s back from the orniths and asked quietly, “What do you think, Meno? If it’s too much for you, I can take care of these birds.”
Meno pawed at the ground as if to say, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Sasuke smiled slightly and said, “I’m right behind you.”
The two of them kicked at the ground together, and in the next instant, the ornith’s talons raked through the air.
“It’s not effective to face them squarely. Get some distance and let the enemy come to you.”
The orniths had one-track minds, and they charged at Meno. When Meno pulled back, their movements were simple and easy to read.
Meno watched for the right moment, as instructed by Sasuke, and sank down low. The talons that came at Meno sliced through empty air above his head. The force of the empty strike knocked the ornith off balance.
“Now!”
Meno stepped in close to the enemy and ripped out its throat. Everything from the neck up was freed from the torso, and the ornith threw out its legs and dropped to the ground. But dust quickly collected around the wound, and it began to heal. Sasuke stabbed the creature with his long sword to pin the head and body to the ground.
Before Meno had a chance to breathe, a mass of reddish brown came flying at him from the side.
A tyranno, the most powerful and malevolent of the dragons whose fossils were found in this region.
Held down by its incredible strength, Meno flailed and writhed. But the size difference between them was too great, and Meno couldn’t break free.
Seeing the tyranno holding Meno down below him, Zansul narrowed his eyes, pleased. “A battle between members of the same species, but it doesn’t look like it will get too heated, hm?”
“Same species?” Jiji asked, surprised. “Meno and the tyranno?”
“Yes, Meno is also a tyranno. Still a juvenile though.”
When Jiji looked at the two with this new knowledge, he could see that their skeletons were actually very similar. The tyranno looked reddish brown because it had been showered in blood splatter, but its actual skin appeared to be the same grey as Meno’s.
Jiji didn’t know anything about ancient creatures. He had been chosen as Zansul’s accomplice because of his abilities as a shinobi. Put another way, Zansul was utterly unfamiliar with the ways of the shinobi.
“It’s a cruel thing to pit Meno against a fully grown animal. Or perhaps Sasuke isn’t strong enough to assist him.”
“Nah,” Jiji said. “It’s probably the tyranno that’s at a disadvantage.”
Zansul frowned, baffled. “What do you mean?”
Up against the muscular tyranno, Meno looked very tiny. Given that they were creatures of the same species, with a big difference in size, it seemed like the contest had been decided before the battle even started.
However …
With a roar, Meno pushed the tyranno back.
“What?!”
The tyranno was overcome and flipped over.
Before Zansul’s surprised eyes, Meno bit into the stomach of the tyranno as hard as he could. The larger dragon writhed, rolling this way and that to try and shake Meno off, but Meno only dug his sharp fangs in deeper.
“Absurd,” Zansul gasped. “Meno pushed it over?”
“When they’re summoned, Kuchiyose creatures receive a supply of chakra from the summoner,” Jiji explained coolly. “Meno made a contract with Sasuke and is receiving chakra from him. It’s only natural that he’d be stronger than the other dragons.”
Kuchiyose summoning built a mutually beneficial relationship between summoner and summoned; it wasn’t a unilateral jutsu where one side got all the help. The summoner lent the summoned power, and by gaining the power of chakra, the summoned became even stronger.
“Sasuke’s power is an unknown variable,” Jiji said. “I don’t think we can win unless we throw all of them at him.”
“You should have said that sooner.” Zansul glared at Jiji and then heard a shout from the direction of the observatory.
“Oh yeeeah!!”
Followed by boom! The sound of rock shattering.
The barely standing western wall crumbled thunderously, and that was the end of the wall that had once surrounded the observatory.
“It seems there’s another rat,” Zansul snarled. “Leave this to me. You go handle that.”
“Right. This time, I’ll finish her off for sure.” Jiji turned his gaze up toward the sky, and a ptera flew down and scooped him up. They flew after Sakura as she fled past the ruined wall.
“So this is what you call biting the hand that feeds you,” Zansul muttered, disgusted, and glared at Meno.
Blood dripping from his fangs, the small dragon stared with cold yellow eyes at the man he used to submit to. Behind him was prisoner number 487—Sasuke.
“I’ll make you regret switching masters.” Zansul raised his right hand.
At his signal, all of the dragons pivoted. The titan reared with a roar. The pteras circled, pulled their wings in, and dove. Even the orniths that had been pecking at the prisoners’ corpses turned toward Meno.
Every single dragon began to stampede toward Meno and Sasuke.