In the distance, on the mountaintop.
Boruto exclaimed, "So amazing! Could this be an advanced version of the Rasengan?"
...
Sasuke, hidden in the shadows, narrowed his eyes slightly.
In his memory, the first time Naruto used the Rasenshuriken was three years later.
Yet, the Naruto before him could condense the Rasenshuriken more than twice as fast as the Naruto from his own timeline.
Coupled with that Light Release he had never seen before, perhaps the Naruto from this timeline truly didn't need him to worry about Urashiki.
Meanwhile, the three Anbu hiding in the shadows had completely forgotten to breathe.
From Naruto launching his attack to ambushing the Raikage, wiping out the elite Kumogakure squad, and then going head-to-head with the Fourth Raikage, they had remained frozen in their hiding spot in the canopy throughout the entire ordeal, their mouths opening and closing, unable to utter a single word.
This was Naruto, the direct subordinate Jonin personally promoted by Hokage-sama.
...
On the battlefield below, the Rasenshuriken had finished condensing.
Naruto stood in place, holding the Rasenshuriken, his gaze fixed levelly on A, who was kneeling on one knee a few dozen meters away.
A's Lightning Chakra was already much weaker than when he started. The blue electrical sparks were no longer dancing as densely, and Naruto had almost perfectly gauged his breathing rhythm.
But he was in no rush to strike. He simply kept the Rasenshuriken spinning at high speed in his palm, waiting.
Surrounded by a group of Shadow Clones, A stared fixedly at the Rasenshuriken in Naruto's hand, the veins on his forehead throbbing. He could clearly sense the density of the Wind Chakra contained within it.
'Such terrifying Wind Chakra... I absolutely cannot get hit by that thing.'
He quickly assessed the current situation. The mission to infiltrate Konoha had completely failed. There was no chance of winning if he continued to fight. The elite squad was gone, C and Darui had both fallen, and his Chakra was bottoming out from the continuous battle. Staying would only increase meaningless casualties.
He had to return to Kumogakure to communicate with the Tsuchikage, and if necessary, declare war on Konoha.
A had already thought of a retreat plan. The moment Naruto launched the Rasenshuriken, his attention would be entirely focused on the attack, and those Shadow Clones would enter a brief standby state because the main body was unleashing a large-scale Ninjutsu. He would use that time gap to accelerate at full speed and break through from the side.
He had confidence in his Lightning Release Chakra Mode. If he sprinted at full power, those Shadow Clones shouldn't be able to catch up to him.
He lifted his center of gravity from his knees, adjusting into a stance ready to burst into action at any moment, his gaze locked firmly on Naruto's movements in the distance. His sensory perception was fully engaged, ready to capture the wind-up of Naruto's throwing motion at any second. He had already secretly built up Lightning Chakra in the soles of his feet, ready to explode into motion.
But he didn't notice that a tiny pattern had appeared on the sole of his right foot at some point.
The next moment, Naruto's figure vanished from mid-air and appeared directly in front of A.
'How is this possible!' A's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
He had been concentrating fully on locking onto every one of Naruto's movements. No matter how fast his movement speed was, there should have been a traceable path. But that last movement had no movement trajectory. It was as if he had jumped directly from one coordinate to another.
This was exactly the same as that man from back then. One second he was far away, and the next second he was right in front of him.
This was that man's space-time Ninjutsu!
He understood everything in an instant, but it was already too late.
He concentrated all his Chakra between his chest and abdomen to form a final defense, his muscles hardening.
The Rasenshuriken slammed solidly into his chest.
BOOM!
A massive white sphere suddenly exploded at the location where A had been standing, countless fine wind blades spinning and cutting crazily from the center of the shuriken, shredding everything within the storm's range into pieces.
Boruto lay on the edge of the hilltop, hands supporting his weight on the ground, his gaze locked on the battlefield below, where dust and smoke were churning.
The storm at the center of the explosion had mostly dissipated, and the remaining wind blades tossed debris and broken branches into the air a few times before slowly fading away. The moonlight shone once again onto the plowed-up ground, revealing pits of varying depths and cracks extending radially in all directions.
As the storm dissipated, the blinding light gradually receded.
Naruto dispelled the Shadow Clone Technique, and the remaining Clones on the field all vanished into white smoke simultaneously.
He stepped over the rubble and scorched earth to the center of the explosion, looking down at A lying on the ground.
At this moment, his eyes were tightly closed, and the wound on his chest, where he had been hit head-on by the Rasenshuriken, was shocking to behold. Blood spread from his sternum all the way to his ribs, and his skin was covered in countless cuts from the wind blades, varying in depth, with the deepest ones revealing glimpses of white bone.
A faint trace of lightning occasionally flashed around his body, the electric arcs jumping weakly on his skin before extinguishing. He was barely breathing, his chest rising and falling so weakly it was almost imperceptible.
If it hadn't been for his Lightning Release Chakra Mode reinforcing his defense to the limit at the last moment, this strike would have been enough to shred him to the molecular level.
"As expected of the Lightning Release Chakra Mode. To physically tank a Rasenshuriken and not immediately expire... there aren't many people in the entire Ninja World who could achieve such a physique and defensive capability."
Naruto then turned his head and called out to the distance, "Anbu!"
Three figures appeared before Naruto. After landing, their gazes involuntarily swept back and forth between the devastated battlefield and the miserable state of A, and they all gulped in unison.
"Clean up the battlefield. Move the Raikage and his two guards together, don't let them get separated."
"Yes!"
The three immediately divided the work.
One Anbu walked quickly toward a rock in the distance that had been blown in half, dragging the unconscious C out from the pile of rubble.
C was not dead, he had just been knocked unconscious by the shockwave of the laser explosion, and while he had multiple burns on his body, his breathing was stable.
Another Anbu came to the rubble pile and dug Darui out. Darui's condition was worse than C's, with two ribs in his chest broken from being kicked.
The two were moved by the Anbu and laid side by side next to A.
Naruto had not killed any of these three. It wasn't out of softness, he had practical uses for keeping the three of them alive.
The Raikage was the supreme leader of Kumogakure, and the two guards were also core figures of Kumogakure. Having these three in Konoha's hands was a ready-made bargaining chip.
Externally, they could negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Kumogakure, discuss reparations, and renegotiate border demarcations.
Internally, it could also suppress the voices of the pro-war faction in Kumogakure.
Three living political resources were far more useful than three corpses.
As for the ten elite Kumogakure ninjas, they didn't have that kind of luck.
Naruto did not deliberately hold back during the first wave of light bullets. Those Kumo ninjas who were charging at the front and reacted a beat too slow were wiped out on the spot.
Later, when his Shadow Clones swarmed them, there were a few who fell unconscious and weren't finished off, but the subsequent explosions and shockwaves killed most of them.
After the Anbu delivered the unconscious body of the core figures to the Raikage's side, they turned around to locate the corpses scattered across the battlefield one by one. They spread out a sealing scroll on the ground, and quickly formed hand seals, sealing the bodies inside one by one.
These corpses still held intelligence value. Chakra nature, physical structural characteristics, traces of frequently used Ninjutsu, and the damage state of the Chakra pathways—all could be gleaned from the corpses.
An Anbu on the right, after placing Darui down, formed hand seals. Earth Chakra seeped from their hands into the ground, and the surface, which had been blasted into a pitted mess, began to repair itself.
Maintaining a steady output of Chakra, it took about two minutes to restore the ground damaged by the wind blades and light bullets to a relatively smooth state, leaving only a few faint color variations indicating that the soil had been disturbed.
Naruto shifted his gaze away from this Anbu and was just about to turn around when he caught something in his peripheral vision.
After the ground was leveled, the Anbu changed to a few different hand seals, then crouched down and pressed his palms against the ground.
Several tiny green sprouts broke through the soil around him, then shot upwards at a speed visible to the naked eye. In the blink of an eye, they grew into trees, blending in with the surrounding forest that had not been affected by the battle.
In less than ten seconds, five trees had grown from the ground, filling the gap in the forest that had been leveled by the light bullets earlier.
Naruto raised an eyebrow.
Yamato!
But right now, Yamato was still in the Anbu, codenamed Tenzō.
Although Yamato's Wood Release was rare, it was, after all, a degraded version obtained through the transplantation of Hashirama cells, and it was not on the same level as the vigorous natural Wood Release of the First Hokage.
Moreover, he had the Hashirama cells he obtained from Orochimaru. If he had time, he could analyze them using Absolute Control and come up with Wood Release himself.