With the Gobi away from the battlefield, Ryo killed a few of the Hidden Rock’s Ninjas, before using [Summoning] to bring Gamahiro to the battlefield.

With the warrior toad on their side, the Sand Ninjas who already had the advantage of the battlefield found themselves having a great edge over their opponents, and soon, the Rock Ninjas were defeated.

There was another battle however, one taking place in midair between the Rasa and Onoki. Like everytime, the Kazekage was the one losing, but Onoki’s face showed some pain. Rasa did manage to take him off guard at some point, and he could hit his vulnerable back this time around.

Upon looking down, Onoki’s face showed even more pain at the sight of his troops being crushed! Looking around, he did not find the Gobi. When noticing that, he was shocked, and ordered his troops to retreat.

…………..

In the Rock’s camp, Onoki’s face was gloomy, as he had just received news from his troops about the Gobi being frozen by Ryo and sent somewhere unknown.

“How come Ryo Yamanaka is here? How about the Hidden Cloud? Did we get no news from them?” Onoki was in rage!

“Tsuchikage sama, I think we have been deceived by the Hidden Cloud, and that they left us on our own, not informing us of their defeat. I believe they would want us to suffer more loses just like they did at the hands of Konoha!” said a Rock Jonin.

“Those bastards! We’ve lost this time, and we could only retreat!” said Onoki helplessly.

“But, Tsuchikage sama, what should we do about Han?”

“We’ll send a few tracking Ninjas around to try to locate him. But for now, we must retreat. Otherwise, if the rest of Konoha follows Ryo Yamanaka, we might not walk out of this battlefield alive.”

“Yes, Tsuchikage sama. I will immediately inform the troops.”

After the Jonin left, Onoki sat on the ground and sighed: “It seems that I have really gotten too old!”

In the afternoon, the Hidden Rock began to retreat. Upon receiving the news, Ryo promised Rasa of giving the Sand a part of the Cloud’s compensations as expression of Konoha’s gratitude.

Now that all threats were gone, the Sand had no more reasons to stay in the desert. The next morning, Rasa took his troops back to the Sand Village.

Pakura however, joined Ryo, along with the 1,000 Ninjas platoon and his medical team that arrived late to the battlefield. All went back to Konoha, and she was with them as representative of the Sand to receive their share of the compensations.

After reaching the village, Ryo took her with him to directly meet Sakumo. There, he immediately proposed to give the Sand a share, and Sakumo, who was already glad that the village came out of this ordeal relatively unscathed, agreed immediately. Ryo proposal was to actually benefit Konoha, as it would solidify its relationship with the hidden Sand.

When hearing Sakumo’s response, Pakura was also overjoyed, as this should greatly benefit her village as well.

Over the course of the next few days, Ryo took Pakura around the Fire Country to have some good fun until the reception of the Cloud’s compensations was completed.

The fun came to an end however, when Sakumo finished dividing the compensations, and dispatched a small Anbu team to accompany Pakura to the Sand and deliver their share to Rasa.

This whole deal took over half a month, and Ryo did not sense the time passing. By now, Orochimaru should have already completed making Yahiko’s clone.

Upon remembering this, Ryo teleported to the Sound Country. When he entered the lab, he saw Yahiko lying on a bed.

“Ryo kun, you came right in time! I’ve just finished making this clone!”

Upon examining the clone, Ryo was very satisfied.

“Ryo kun, if I remember correctly, this kid should be the one from the Rain Country, one of that idiot’s three disciples he had there!”

“It is him indeed! I didn’t expect that you would remember him after so many years Orochi san!”

“I just felt he was familiar. Well, Ryo kun, we should start experimenting!”

Ryo nodded, and his consciousness entered the Ice World.

Yahiko had been sleeping in his igloo for over four years now. After Ryo awakened his soul, he found that his last memories were of the day on which he fell asleep.

After giving Yahiko a brief explanation of the situation, Ryo taught him the secret of Orochimaru’s [Living Corpse Reincarnation].

The technique, while hard to come up with, wasn’t complicated in concept. However, it required a great level of control over one’s soul. Nevertheless, with Yahiko remaining in soul state for so long, this was no problem for him.

Therefore, he quickly mastered this technique.

The next step was the most important: Yahiko had to use Living Corpse Reincarnation to control his soul into his new body.

Yahiko was already dead; his soul could be preserved in the Ice World, but Ryo feared that something might happen to it as soon as he went outside.

Therefore, he specially reminded him of using the technique as soon as he reached the outside world. Seeing the serious expression on Ryo’s face, Yahiko solemnly nodded.

After taking a deep breath, Ryo took Yahiko’s soul out of the Ice World.

When out, Ryo lent some of his Chakra to Yahiko, which allowed him to use Living Corpse Reincarnation, and control his soul into the clone safely.

The clone was identical to Yahiko’s original body, which made it have an affinity to his soul. Very quickly his soul was merged with the new body, and the clone which had its eyes closed was finally awakened!

However, just like Ryo feared, there was something wrong! Although Yahiko’s soul was integrated with his new body, he couldn’t control it at all. Besides opening and closing his eyes, he couldn’t even move a finger.

Immediately, Ryo began to examine Yahiko with his Mangekyo, just to find nothing wrong with his body’s neural system.

Ryo then established a telepathic link with him and asked: “Yahiko, how do you feel now?”

“I can feel my body, but I can’t control it!”

After some though, Ryo condensed an Ice Scalpel saying: “Yahiko, I’ll be conducting some experiments on you, and you tell me how you feel!”

After finishing his words, Ryo proceeded to cutting the skin on Yahiko’s hand!

“It hurts! Ryo, you’re cutting too deep!” Yahiko immediately complained.

“Too much! Sorry, sorry!” Ryo turned the Ice Scalpel into a small ice hammer and very gently tapped Yahiko’s knee.

“I feel no pain!” As he said that, Yahiko kicked forward.

Ryo stopped the experiment and he frowned. Yahiko’s senses and reflexes were normal. Why wouldn’t he be able to control his body?

“Ryo, could it be that this body is too old for my soul?”

“Too old? What do you mean?” Ryo asked.

“Well, yeah! I have been dead for four years, and this body seems to be over 20 years old. I wasn’t that old when I died. Could that be the reason?”

Yahiko’s words made Ryo realize: Yahiko’s soul’s age, or in other words, his spiritual power, was not enough.

He had been relying on Ryo’s Ice World to maintain his existence for so long. Perhaps the whole deal was lack in Spiritual Power.

Ryo called Korin, and the two together supplemented Yahiko’s soul with Spiritual Power.

Obviously, she was somewhat dissatisfied with this, as her power was being harvested by one person after the other, and she grew uncomfortable with giving it away.

However, looking at the anxious look on Ryo’s face, she could only cooperate with him.

With their help, Yahiko’s Spiritual Power gradually grew, and he slowly became able of controlling his body.

After his hands and feet became flexible, Ryo and Korin stopped the process…

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