"I never expected Konoha would bring the Uchiha into this," Rasa said, his voice cutting across the tense quiet between the two armies. He stood at the head of the Sunagakure formation, facing his counterpart. "But do you truly believe that will be enough to defeat us, Orochimaru?"
The two sides had just clashed, and now a temporary, simmering stalemate held. Rasa postured, trading barbs with the Sannin to maintain his army's morale. He was completely unaware that, far behind his lines, one man and one cat were already dismantling his base of operations.
Orochimaru was more than happy to let him talk. Why fight when words would do? The only difficult part for him was to stop himself from bursting out laughing.
A faint, knowing smile touched his lips. "The battlefield is ever-changing. Who can say for certain what will happen? We held the Uchiha back because of pressure from the Eastern border. Now that they are here... I'm sure you understand the implications."
"Hmph. Tsunade?" Rasa scoffed, though a knot of apprehension tightened in his gut. "Hah! she would first have to be capable of setting foot on a battlefield. I've heard she took no part in the fighting in the east. That hardly sounds like the Tsunade I remember."
He had to project confidence. No matter how much his mind reeled, his face had to remain a mask of calm composure. If the Kazekage himself flinched at a few words, Sunagakure's spirit would shatter.
War was a battle of will as much as strength. With their forces already at a slight disadvantage, losing their nerve would be the same as surrendering. Half of what he said was from purchased intelligence, the other half was a calculated guess.
He trusted his intel. He believed his guess was sound.
But at this moment...
*Whoosh!*
A sharp object tore through the air. Rasa's head snapped up. A massive boulder was hurtling toward them out of the darkness, closing the distance at a terrifying speed. In a matter of seconds, it was right on top of them.
'That strength...' he thought, his mind instantly flashing to one name. 'Tsunade?'
His hands were already a blur of motion. He flew through a set of hand seals, commanding his Gold Dust to surge into the air and meet the projectile. With a sharp application of Earth Release, the boulder crumbled mid-flight, disintegrating until only a fist-sized rock fell from the sky.
*Smack!*
Rasa caught it, his grip tightening as his gaze fixed on the space behind Orochimaru's lines. A figure was leaning casually against a large tree, a cold smile playing on her lips.
It was her. It was really Tsunade.
"Listen, kid," she called out, her voice dripping with disdain. "When Orochimaru and I were making a name for ourselves, you weren't even a jonin. Your teacher died too soon. If he hadn't, you never would have become Kazekage. It's a shame, really. All that talk about him being the 'strongest Kazekage,' only for him to die in some backwater without a trace. And then you lot had the gall to come demanding his body from Konoha. Pathetic."
The sight of her sent a fresh wave of unease through Rasa. Tsunade was here, and she was clearly ready to fight. But why reveal her so openly? A trump card was meant to be saved for the final play.
Unless... they had an even stronger one.
The thought struck him with the force of a physical blow. Another piece of intel surfaced in his mind, a rumor about Kirigakure's surrender. It was said their Mizukage had been captured alive, forcing the village to ransom him back with supplies and funds.
'Minato Namikaze... and that black cat.'
Damn it.
As befitting a Kage, Rasa's mind worked quickly, piecing together the terrifying possibilities. His first instinct was to sound the retreat, but as he mentally retraced Orochimaru's likely maneuvers, a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
"Will you surrender, Rasa?" Orochimaru's voice was smooth, almost gentle. He knew the secret was out, but he'd never intended to keep it for long. By the time Rasa figured it out, it would be too late to escape.
Like now.
Orochimaru's body dissolved into a featureless puddle of mud. It had only been an earth clone.
'Retreat?' Rasa thought desperately. 'No.'
To retreat now would be to fall directly into Orochimaru's encirclement. They would be slaughtered. The best option was to charge forward and capture Tsunade. He would gamble on the belief that she was the lynchpin. He figured the odds were in his favor.
He raised his hand, about to give the order.
"Kazekage-sama," Pakura cautioned from nearby. "Orochimaru has likely surrounded us. Lady Chiyo and the rear guard may be in danger. We should fight our way back to them!"
Just then, a violent explosion erupted from their rear.
"What was that?"
"Reinforcements!" one of his ninja shouted.
Rasa watched as more and more Konoha shinobi appeared, gathering around Tsunade. The window of opportunity had closed. He slammed his hand on the ground without another moment of hesitation. A towering wall of golden sand erupted, shielding their forces.
"Retreat!"
But in the rear...
"Meow~ All done," Takeshi said, clapping his paws together. He carefully guided his drone, which had nearly been caught in the blast, back to safety. "Now we just wait for them to come out."
The drone was a treasure. If it was destroyed, he might never get another one, especially since the prize pool had refreshed today.
"Takeshi, some of your jutsu are as unbelievable as Sensei's," Minato sighed, shaking his head in genuine admiration. 'How does he even come up with these things? The ancestor of the nin-neko clan must be a true prodigy.'
"Meow? Are you teasing me?" Takeshi chirped, tilting his head.
"I'm not teasing you, I'm just impressed," Minato corrected himself quickly. "They're coming. Get ready."
Chiyo and a contingent of about a hundred shinobi emerged from the smoke, moving steadily. It was impossible to get an exact count, no one could be sure how many were puppets.
"Despicable Konoha ninja, using such tactics..." Chiyo's face was ashen with fury, but she hadn't lost her composure. She calmly began issuing orders to coordinate with Rasa's forces, hoping to break the encirclement and, ideally, turn the tables on their daring attackers.
The strike team at their backs had to be dealt with first. Chiyo was a veteran of the founding of the Hidden Villages, her battlefield experience was second to none. A knife at your back, if ignored, would sooner or later prove fatal.
'But...' she wondered, a flicker of doubt crossing her mind. 'Could I be their target?'
As a puppet master, caution was her nature. Instead of turning to confront the enemy herself, she began leading her team toward Rasa's position while dispatching five small squads to scout the situation behind them. Her plan was to first break through Orochimaru's lines, rendezvous with the Kazekage, and then deal with the threat to their rear.
However, before her orders could be fully carried out, two figures, shot out from the distance. The smaller one in the lead moved like the wind itself, covering an incredible distance in the blink of an eye.
'Are they flying?' Chiyo thought, startled. Her fingers flickered, and ten puppets materialized around her. The White Secret Technique: Ten Chikamatsu Puppets.
"Chiyo-sama?" one of her guards asked, confused.
They had barely reacted before Chiyo let out a sharp cry. "Positions! Be on alert!"
Her shinobi instantly closed ranks around her.
In the next second, the approaching silhouette grew larger, and then, it opened its mouth. A roaring torrent of fire and wind erupted from it. A combination ninjutsu. The gale fanned the flames into a devastating inferno, while wind bullets wrapped in fire shot out from its core, blanketing a huge area. The Suna ninja hastily threw up earth walls to defend themselves, but the scorching heat melted the rock, and the firestorm raged on, undiminished.
"It's too strong!" one of them screamed out in terror. The power of the jutsu was unlike anything they had ever seen.
It was Sage Mode.
Chiyo didn't hesitate. She manipulated three of her puppets, which leaped forward and activated their mechanisms. A powerful tornado formed between them, sucking the fire, wind, and flaming bullets inward. The force was so great that even Takeshi, if he hadn't been in Sage Mode, might have been drawn in.
'Three Jewels Suction Crushing!'
After a moment of violent compression, a giant, super-condensed fireball erupted from the center of the vortex and shot back toward Takeshi, its power magnified tenfold.
Following the fireball, three more puppets, one with a demonic blue face, two wielding massive swords, dashed forward. Chiyo had gone straight for her ultimate techniques. She knew, with chilling certainty, that this man and this cat were among the most dangerous enemies she had ever faced.
"Meow!"
With a casual swat of his paw, the cat made the fireball vanish.
'Flying Thunder God: Guiding Thunder!'
In the next instant, Minato was a blur of motion. The three advancing puppets were shattered into splinters before they could even strike. The Suna shinobi threw a volley of kunai and shuriken, but before their weapons could find their mark, a massive wall of ice erupted from the ground, blocking everything.
'Ice Release?!' Even more terrifying was the sound from their rear. They turned to see a giant snake rampaging in the distance, cutting off their path of retreat.
"Hold them off!" was the only thought left in Chiyo's mind.
But...
'Could they hold them off?'
The ice wall shattered. Not wanting to engage the poison-users in close combat, Takeshi unleashed a jet of water from his mouth, but it was laced with crackling lightning. The beam of electrified water swept across their ranks, and any ninja who couldn't evade in time was horrifically wounded.
Even with her Ten Chikamatsu Puppets, Chiyo was completely outmatched. If their mission hadn't been to capture her alive, Takeshi could have torn their entire defensive line apart with a single Rasenshuriken.
But now, the mission was accomplished.
Minato appeared beside Takeshi and rushed forward. The cat held back, providing support from a distance with a barrage of Vacuum Bullets, Wind Release bullets, and other devastating combination jutsu. Empowered by sage chakra, each attack was terrifyingly effective. The remaining Suna ninja were powerless to stop them.
*Boom!*
They fought as they fell back, using everything they had, poisons, hidden weapons, puppets. Chiyo pushed her seven remaining puppets to their absolute limit, desperately trying to buy time, but she knew it was a losing battle. Takeshi's suppressive fire alone was overwhelming, and Minato's lightning-fast attacks made it impossible to focus on anything else.
Even if they held on now, Orochimaru was waiting for them. The Sannin was a venomous snake, content to bite you where it hurt most and simply wait for you to die.
Minato took a steadying breath and threw several marked kunai. The Suna ninja moved their puppets to intercept them, but just as they made contact, each kunai exploded in a burst of blinding yellow light.
'Flying Thunder God: Flash Bomb!'
In that instant of chaos, Minato swept through the disoriented crowd and appeared directly in front of Chiyo. At the exact same moment, the black cat teleported to his side.
Chiyo's heart hammered against her ribs. Her mind could barely process it.
'How... how can they be so fast?'
===============
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