Not long after escaping through the venue's exit, Gaara and Kitsuchi realized someone was already pursuing them.
Using his Third Eye, Gaara quickly identified the threat. "It's the Third Hokage."
Kitsuchi didn't look thrilled. "So it's him."
Their old nemesis from the Third Great Ninja War. The so-called 'Ninjutsu Professor.'
If it had been Danzō giving chase, that would've been easier to handle. Danzō's reputation mostly came from underhanded tactics and schemes outside the norm.
But Sarutobi Hiruzen—strongest Hokage, Ninjutsu Professor...All those titles were nothing short of intimidating.
They didn't know exactly how powerful Hiruzen really was, but imagining him in comparison to Ōnoki, Kitsuchi couldn't convince himself that he and the "weakest Kazekage" by his side had any hope of winning.
"If the situation turns sour, Kazekage, feel free to retreat," Kitsuchi said quietly.
Gaara paused, then gave a small smile in response to Kitsuchi's consideration.He even had the mood to joke a little.
"Thanks. But I doubt we'll be getting away so easily."
Because it wasn't just someone behind them—they were blocked ahead as well.
Gaara raised his hands, and two clouds of sand rose up, lifting the pair into the sky.
Kitsuchi glanced at him in surprise. Most shinobi had little means of dealing with aerial movement—but both of them knew full well: Sarutobi Hiruzen was not like most shinobi.
Before the sand clouds could lift them fully into the air, a sharp whistling sound split through the wind.
"Shadow Shuriken Jutsu!"
Giant shuriken, each as large as a grown man, flew up in a tight net, hurtling straight at them mid-air.
Up there, Kitsuchi couldn't use Earth Style to defend. Gaara could only rely on the sand from his gourd.
The two made a quick decision—abandoning the aerial advantage. Gaara retracted the sand clouds and dropped them both, using the sand instead to form a barrier to block the incoming shuriken.
Kitsuchi simply leapt down.
Hiruzen successfully cut off their escape route. As the two landed, the old Hokage appeared directly in front of them.
"Lord Third Hokage," Kitsuchi said coldly, looking at Hiruzen like he was facing a shameless criminal.
"Using the Five Kage Summit as an excuse to hunt down the Kazekage and capture the One-Tail... Is this how the current Hokage operates?"
Hiruzen's expression was devoid of joy or sadness.
"I'm no longer the Hokage. I simply act under the orders of the one who is."
"So I can take that to mean you condone this operation, yes?"
Kitsuchi shifted slightly, positioning himself protectively in front of Gaara, who was less than half his size.
That one movement said enough—he wasn't planning to back down. Whatever persuasion Hiruzen might have had, he swallowed it.
—Both sides moved at once, hands forming seals in perfect sync!
Hiruzen was faster with his hand seals, but Kitsuchi's large-scale Earth Style technique dropped the ground beneath Hiruzen like a collapsing platform.
The fire dragon Hiruzen unleashed struck the walls of the pit instead.
The surrounding earth was crushed into sand. A sand waterfall surged forward, sealing the mouth of the pit.
Gaara clenched his fist. "Sand Burial!"
The sand that had filled the pit instantly contracted—crushing any physical object inside with terrifying force.
The battlefield went still.
Both Gaara and Kitsuchi stayed alert.
They weren't careless—they knew better than to assume Hiruzen was finished. They waited for the next move.
Gaara glanced off to the side. Someone else was approaching.
In that moment of distraction, a hand shot out from the earth and grabbed Gaara's ankle.
Gaara and Kitsuchi: !!
The sand's automatic defense responded faster than either of them, smashing the hand into a splatter of mud.
A mud clone.
Hiruzen was proficient in all five chakra natures—he had used Earth Style to escape.
Just as the two processed his previous maneuver, Hiruzen attacked again.
"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"
"Fire Style: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet!"
The fire borrowed the force of the wind, erupting into a sea of flames that blotted out the sky, engulfing a massive area.
Too late to mount a full defense, Kitsuchi slammed a palm to the ground.
"Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall!"
The fire dragon slammed into the wall, heating it until it glowed a scorching red.
Cracks began forming in the middle—clearly, the barrier wouldn't last long.
Instinctively, Kitsuchi reached out to grab Gaara by the collar to pull him to safety—but Gaara's sand batted his hand away.
Kitsuchi stared at the sand.
Seriously? You guys protect your master like this?
Friend or foe—made no difference, huh?
The earth wall finally collapsed under the intense heat, and the firestorm surged forward, engulfing the two shinobi.
...
The ground was scorched red by the flames, with faint wisps of smoke curling upward.
Once the temperature cooled, the earth was left dull gray and lifeless.
Gaara had raised a second sand wall in time, shielding them from the flames. Beneath that, Kitsuchi had raised another layer of defense with Earth Style.
"A double-layer defense of sand and stone," Hiruzen muttered.
This turtle shell of theirs was starting to get annoying.
The situation reminded him of Danzō. If Danzō had come to capture the One-Tail himself, brute-forcing through these defenses wouldn't have been his style.
The surface of the sand had turned red-hot from the fire—like the midday desert sands of the Land of Wind.
Gaara launched a fresh wave of scorched, fire-imbued sand at Hiruzen.
Hiruzen dodged nimbly, silently making a mental note of Gaara's sand manipulation speed.
He used a small Water Style jutsu to cool and solidify the sand, neutralizing the attack with ease.
Seeing Gaara switch to offense, Kitsuchi also let down his earth defenses.
At that moment, a three-bladed, blood-red scythe came flying toward Gaara!
It was a simple physical attack—Gaara didn't even glance at it.
The sand wall automatically blocked the scythe, deflecting it.
Its owner yanked it back by the rope attached to the handle.
"Whew! What an intense fight we've got here!"
Resting the scythe on his shoulder, Hidan strode into the battlefield with exaggerated steps, glaring openly at Gaara.
Kitsuchi was baffled.
When did the One-Tail become so popular? Everyone wants a piece of it.
There weren't even that many tails to go around!
And Gaara wasn't just a Jinchūriki—he was the Kazekage. Sure, young and relatively weak, and maybe lacking reputation due to being installed by Kirigakure, but still—have some respect!
If people were out to capture Tailed Beasts, shouldn't Konoha be targeting the Seven-Tails? Stronger beast, weaker host!
Kitsuchi didn't realize just how close he was to the truth. If he had, he might've found some bitter amusement in it.
Their odds against Hiruzen had been slim to begin with. Now there was another enemy.
Hiruzen glanced at Hidan.
Was this the person Danzō had mentioned—his "outside hire"?
That headband... a missing-nin from the Hot Water Village. One of those tiny, obscure shinobi villages.
Root operatives were supposed to be the cream of the crop within Konoha, and Danzō still felt the need to partner with outsiders?
Someone had just told him this operation needed to be "secure," and now they bring in freelancers?
Hiruzen's instincts screamed at him—there was more going on here than he'd been told.
He stopped Hidan, who was approaching fast.
"Keep an eye on them. Don't let them escape."
The unspoken message: don't interfere with the fight. Just make sure Gaara doesn't slip away.
Hidan halted, frowning. Then he remembered...
Wait, what was it again? Something Obito told him...
Ugh, his head itched—like a brain was trying to grow in there.
Oh right. The mission was to capture the One-Tail Jinchūriki alive. The Konoha guys were temporary allies.
But Obito hadn't said not to fight them. Who was he supposed to listen to again?
Scratching his silver hair violently, Hidan let out a loud sigh.
"Fine. Old man."
If Gramps wanted to fight, let him fight.
Hidan didn't mind—so long as someone handed him the Jinchūriki alive afterward, he was good.
Less effort for him.
That old man from Konoha causes a scene... and somehow walks away with the perfect mission record.
He took all the advantage for himself—how convenient!
Hidan made no move to interfere further. For now, that was good news for both Gaara and Kurotsuchi's father, Kitsuchi.
Kitsuchi tried to stay optimistic. "At least, for the moment, we only have to deal with the Hokage."
"Even though that's no easy task," Gaara replied calmly.
As he spoke, he quickly formed a string of hand signs. A surge of chakra erupted from him, and the ground began to quake violently.
Solid stone and earth crumbled into a fine layer of sand.
Pressing his palms together, Gaara stirred his chakra once more, unleashing a tide of sand that surged up and burst from the surface.
A massive wall of sand, over ten meters tall, roared toward Hiruzen Sarutobi. The sheer breadth of it left nowhere to run.
Hiruzen looked up at the approaching wave.
After decades of fighting—even having once clashed with the Nine Tails—he was no stranger to dealing with chakra-heavy jutsu like this.
If he were ten or twenty years younger, he might've countered it head-on with brute-force ninjutsu.
But he wasn't that young anymore. His chakra reserves were dwindling. He couldn't afford to be reckless.
He bit his thumb, formed the seals, and slammed his hand onto the ground in one swift motion.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
The sand swallowed Hiruzen whole.
"Extend!"
A moment later, a staff burst upward, piercing through the thick sea of sand—the staff of Enma the Monkey King, transformed into the Adamantine Staff.
It hadn't truly restrained Hiruzen—not long enough for Gaara to follow up with something more devastating, like his Desert Layered Burial.
Hiruzen used the staff as leverage, vaulting out of the sand and landing back on solid ground. The staff quickly returned to its normal size.
With a casual spin and a flourish, he pointed the staff forward.
"Extend!"
The staff shot forward again, lengthening with terrifying speed and force, punching clean through Gaara's sand defenses and slamming hard into his chest!
Kitsuchi moved to assist, already forming hand seals to intercept the next blow.
But Hiruzen merely cast him a sideways glance and swept the extended staff across with brutal force—catching Kitsuchi full-on with a crushing strike.
In a single move, both Gaara and Kitsuchi were down.
Gaara's sand armor and defenses hadn't helped at all. The staff—empowered by Enma's strength—had blasted through it all, its full weight landing squarely on the boy's small frame.
His stomach twisted in agony as if he'd swallowed a mouthful of gravel. Just trying to stand up felt impossible.
But Hiruzen didn't give him even a second to recover. He rushed forward, relentless and unforgiving.
After a few exchanges, Gaara realized one painful truth—his sand-based ninjutsu might as well have been children's tricks in the face of Hiruzen Sarutobi. They were barely effective.
Clutching his aching side, he began forming more chakra.
"First... I need to get some distance."
Another wave of sand cascaded outward.
It wasn't as large as the first, and Hiruzen tore through it with sheer force alone. But it gave Gaara just enough of a visual cover to slip away, leaving behind a sand clone to delay him.
His real body made a beeline for Kitsuchi, who had just struggled back to his feet, simmering with fury.
The moment Hiruzen destroyed the sand clone, he lost track of Gaara—and didn't have time to recover before two massive walls of stone rose up on either side of him, slamming inward like jaws.
Hiruzen just barely managed to jam his staff between the two mountains, preventing them from crushing him outright.
Feeling the immense pressure bearing down on both ends of the staff, he muttered,
"Sorry, Enma."
The Monkey King still had enough spirit to scold him.
"If you've got time to apologize, you've got time to get out!"
Hiruzen's brow furrowed. He spotted Kitsuchi charging in from the front, and, gripping the staff tightly, he swung his body upward and brought both feet crashing down.
Kitsuchi didn't even dodge. He tanked the hit, stone armor absorbing the blow, then grabbed the staff with his rock-covered hands.
Is he going after Enma? Trying to take my weapon?
Hiruzen weaved signs and breathed in.
"Fire Style: Dragon Flame Jutsu!"
At point-blank range, the fire engulfed Kitsuchi's stone-covered body.
Still, Kitsuchi didn't back down. He focused his chakra and completed his own technique:
"Ultra-Added-Weight Rock Technique!"
The staff suddenly became exponentially heavier, pulling straight downward and grinding through the stone walls like a falling meteor. It hit the ground with a deafening crash.
Hiruzen realized what he was trying to do—Kitsuchi wanted to break his weapon.
"Enma!"
Gaara, floating in the air atop a sand cloud, swooped in to retrieve the injured Kitsuchi. At the same time, another sand cloud formed behind him and launched a barrage of sand bullets at Hiruzen.
"Sand Drizzle!"
Hiruzen tried to grab the staff, but it was too heavy to lift. That split-second delay was all Gaara needed—his sand hands wrapped tightly around Hiruzen's legs, trapping him in place.
The sand bullets rained down like a storm of needles, filling the tight space with a relentless downpour.
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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