Chapter 576: End and Accident
When Roshi opened his eyes again, he could clearly feel power surging continuously through his body.
Moreover, although that power was still the Four Tails' chakra, it felt somewhat different from before.
But Roshi had no time to think about exactly what had changed.
He was still on the battlefield, and a powerful enemy who directly countered him was standing right in front of him.
"Hmm? His chakra increased." Mugetsu, who was maintaining his Byakugan, looked at Roshi with slight surprise.
There were only nine Jinchuriki in the entire Ninja World. Mugetsu had already fought three and killed one, so he had a decent understanding of them.
Even Jinchuriki who could fully transform into a Tailed Beast could not draw out all of the Tailed Beast's chakra.
For example, when Han and Roshi were at their peak, they usually had around five million chakra.
But when Mugetsu had appraised the rampaging Three Tails on the eastern shore battlefield before, its chakra had reached an astonishing eighteen million.
According to his memories of the original story, the Three Tails' overall performance was fairly average. It certainly didn't seem stronger than the Four Tails.
So the huge difference in the appraisal results clearly wasn't because the Three Tails was much stronger than the Four Tails.
After comparing the different circumstances, Mugetsu quickly came to a conclusion.
At the time, the Three Tails had been in a rampaging state. The one controlling the body then had been the Three Tails itself, not the Jinchuriki.
As for Han and Roshi, although their full Tailed Beast transformations looked no different from an actual Tailed Beast, the one in control was still the Jinchuriki.
Mugetsu suspected the critical factor was mutual understanding with the Tailed Beast. If a Jinchuriki could reach the level Naruto had with Kurama in the later stages, then perhaps they would be able to fully utilize the Tailed Beast's chakra.
"Could this be a butterfly effect caused by me?" Mugetsu thought as he cast an appraisal on Roshi.
In the original story, Roshi had definitely never reached mutual understanding with the Four Tails. The beast's name had only been called once after Roshi was revived through Edo Tensei.
[Name: Roshi]
[Chakra: 6,120,000]
At that moment, Roshi's chakra had already exceeded six million, and it was still rising.
Still, Mugetsu did not panic.
This wasn't a game where leveling up instantly refilled your health.
Even if Roshi now had more chakra, he was still injured.
Mugetsu didn't even need to switch methods. The techniques he had already used were enough to defeat him.
Because even if Roshi's power had risen, the Jonin who had originally been responsible for protecting him had already been dealt with by Mugetsu.
Without those carefully selected elite Jonin to assist him, Roshi's situation against Mugetsu was unlikely to turn out any better than before.
"Lava Release: Flower Fruit Mountain!"
The moment he emerged from the consciousness space, Roshi immediately used his newly gained power to unleash a Ninjutsu.
Flower Fruit Mountain was an extremely powerful Lava Release technique that Roshi could only use by spending a large amount of the Four Tails' chakra.
Although Roshi himself also possessed Lava Release, neither his personal chakra reserves nor his mastery of Lava Release were enough to support the use of Flower Fruit Mountain on their own.
In the Naruto world, everyone's chakra had subtle differences.
And as beings made entirely of chakra, the Tailed Beasts' chakra was even more unique.
The Four Tails' chakra itself contained the power of Lava Release, so Roshi could borrow that chakra to use high level Lava Release techniques he normally could not perform.
Roshi slammed both hands against the ground, pouring all of that powerful Lava Release chakra into the earth.
The ordinary ground immediately began turning into lava and rapidly spreading outward. Even the small lake Mugetsu had created earlier gradually transformed into a lake of magma.
Most of the Iwagakure Ninja nearby had already been killed by Mugetsu, so Roshi no longer had to worry about friendly casualties while using this technique.
Facing the spreading magma, Mugetsu first tried to suppress it with Water Release.
But he quickly gave up.
This place was only close to the river, not directly connected to it. If he used Water Release to clash with Roshi head on under these conditions, he would be at a disadvantage, because Roshi had the Four Tails serving as a power source.
Boom!!
Under Roshi's control, the churning lava continuously surged toward Mugetsu, but Mugetsu avoided every attack.
"As expected, he's not that easy to deal with." Roshi was not discouraged.
If Mugetsu were that easy to defeat, Roshi would never have been injured by him in the first place.
If Flower Fruit Mountain could wound Mugetsu, that would be ideal. If not, it would at least buy him an opening to launch a Tailed Beast Ball.
Roshi immediately opened his massive mouth, gathering an enormous amount of Tailed Beast chakra. A black purple sphere rapidly began forming in front of it.
For some reason, perhaps because of the Four Tails' direct support, Roshi felt that he could form the Tailed Beast Ball much faster this time than before.
"You think you've won? Don't celebrate too early!" Roshi roared. The black sphere in front of his mouth grew larger and larger.
He looked as if he was preparing to bombard everything indiscriminately.
Swish!
Mugetsu used the Flying Thunder God Technique to instantly appear beside his disciples and cleaned up the Iwagakure Ninja around them.
"Don't get bogged down. Pull back some distance first," Mugetsu ordered immediately.
If Roshi really intended to go all out and bombard the battlefield indiscriminately, Mugetsu's first choice would be to retreat.
With the Iwa Ninja Force commander dead and a large number of elite Jonin already eliminated, this Iwagakure force had effectively been crippled.
It wasn't worth sacrificing around a thousand Konoha Ninja just to wipe out the remnants of a ruined enemy force.
Konoha did not have many Ninja to spare. If they suffered another major round of losses here, then the next step would be forcing fresh Ninja Academy graduates straight onto the battlefield.
"Retreat a certain distance first!" Minato's thinking was similar to Mugetsu's.
If the force suffered heavy damage from Roshi's last desperate struggle, then their encirclement plan would no longer be worth it.
It was better to create some distance first and see whether Roshi truly intended to go all in, or whether he was simply bluffing.
If he was serious, then they would retreat while continuing to harass the Iwagakure retreat. If he wasn't, then this short withdrawal would still leave them room to keep a large number of Iwagakure Ninja behind.
Once the Tailed Beast Ball was fully formed, Roshi hesitated for a brief instant, but in the end he still fired it toward the nearest concentration of Ninja.
Mugetsu had Flying Thunder God. Hitting him with a Tailed Beast Ball would be far too difficult. Since Mugetsu couldn't be directly killed, it no longer mattered where Roshi aimed.
As the black purple mass of chakra came roaring forward with its terrifying aura, both Konoha and Iwagakure Ninja wished they had a few more legs to run faster.
"Jinchuriki are insane. They really use Tailed Beast Balls like this," an Iwagakure Ninja cursed Roshi inwardly.
Rumble!!
The instant the Tailed Beast Ball struck the ground, a dazzling white explosion swallowed the entire battlefield. The merciless energy wave engulfed any Ninja who had not managed to retreat beyond its range.
At that moment, there was no difference between Konoha Ninja and Iwagakure Ninja. Before the Tailed Beast Ball, all of them were equally fragile.
The roar of the explosion was so overwhelming that even the Ninja who escaped the blast zone experienced ringing in their ears.
Now everyone understood. Roshi had not been bluffing. He was serious.
After firing the first Tailed Beast Ball, Roshi immediately began condensing a second one. Another small black sphere rapidly formed before his mouth.
This time, no one doubted him.
Thanks to the orders from Mugetsu and Minato, the Konoha Ninja retreated without hesitation, pulling farther and farther away from Roshi.
Since they had already been ordered to run, no one intended to stay behind and trade lives with the Iwagakure Ninja under a Tailed Beast Ball.
Boom!!!
The second Tailed Beast Ball exploded beside both Konoha and Iwagakure forces, sending another overwhelming blast outward.
Immediately after that, Roshi began condensing a third Tailed Beast Ball.
This time, instead of aiming at the retreating forces, he targeted Jiraiya, who was still engaged in battle with Han.
Han's fully transformed Tailed Beast body had originally been pure white. Now, however, large portions of it were scorched black, making him look utterly battered.
Jinchuriki could withstand the aftermath of a Tailed Beast Ball far better than ordinary Ninja, so Roshi did not need to worry about killing Han by accident.
Swish!
Minato instantly appeared beside Jiraiya and teleported him far away before the Tailed Beast Ball landed.
Boom!!
Another massive explosion roared across the battlefield. Han, who was already injured, was directly knocked out of his full Tailed Beast transformation by the blast and reverted to human form.
"So you were also just holding on this whole time." Roshi leaped over to Han, grabbed him, and immediately began condensing a fourth Tailed Beast Ball.
Han should not have gone down so easily. Clearly, he had already been heavily injured in his fight with Jiraiya, which was why he had been forced out of full transformation the moment the Tailed Beast Ball hit.
After the fourth Tailed Beast Ball exploded, the once beautiful forest had been reduced to utter wasteland.
There were no longer any Konoha or Iwagakure Ninja still fighting within the original battlefield area.
"This Four Tails Jinchuriki is completely insane. He probably killed several hundred Iwagakure Ninja himself with those Tailed Beast Balls," Jiraiya exclaimed as he stared at the distant white flashes of destruction.
Roshi's first Tailed Beast Ball had caused the greatest losses. That one alone had probably killed close to two hundred Iwagakure Ninja.
Fortunately, Mugetsu had given the order early enough on Konoha's side, and their formation had scattered quickly. Konoha's losses were much lighter than Iwagakure's. Even with the first and deadliest blast, only dozens of Konoha Ninja had died.
"Even if he manages to escape with some of the Iwagakure survivors, he's probably not going to have an easy time once he gets back," Minato said, as if he could already see Roshi's future.
Logically speaking, if a Ninja killed fellow villagers and then resisted arrest or fled, they could be labeled a rogue Ninja.
But this time, Roshi had openly killed hundreds of his own people in full view of everyone. Minato could not even imagine how severe that crime would be.
"If Iwagakure executes him and chooses a new Jinchuriki, that would be the best possible development for Konoha. It would take a long time for a new Four Tails Jinchuriki to become a high level combatant," Mimurabe Ketsu said with a nod.
A man's position shapes his perspective. The story of a hero sacrificing himself to help his people escape, only to become a criminal afterward, was certainly tragic.
But if it happened to an enemy, Mimurabe Ketsu could only feel satisfied.
"There's no need to think too much about Iwagakure's internal affairs right now. This time, we won an absolutely tremendous victory!" Jiraiya said in high spirits.
Although they had failed to annihilate the entire enemy force, turning a battle of twelve hundred against two thousand into this kind of result was already incredibly difficult. It was more than enough to be written into Konoha's future records.
Iwagakure had not only lost its commander and a large number of high level Jonin, but also suffered devastating losses among its middle and lower ranks. Other than the fact that the Jinchuriki had survived, this could already be called a complete defeat.
Of course, not killing a Jinchuriki was still a pity. But Jiraiya wasn't overly bothered by it. Capturing or killing a Jinchuriki on the battlefield had always been extremely difficult. There were fewer Jinchuriki who died in war than there were Kage.
"Mugetsu, you'll write the summary report this time. After all, you were both the commander and the greatest contributor," Jiraiya said with a grin, clapping a hand onto Mugetsu's shoulder.
Mugetsu's battle plan had been absolutely essential to achieving such a result.
They had originally been the disadvantaged side, but Mugetsu's strategy had forcibly turned the entire battle around.
And Mugetsu's own performance on the battlefield had been equally astonishing. Like Jiraiya, he had suppressed a Jinchuriki, but unlike Jiraiya, he had also slaughtered large numbers of Iwagakure Ninja in the process.
Mugetsu adjusted his glasses.
What Jiraiya said did make sense.
But he still strongly suspected that Jiraiya was simply too lazy to write the report and was trying to dump it on him.
Even so, Mugetsu still agreed. Writing a report was not difficult. He could always have a Shadow Clone do it later.
"Iwagakure took such heavy losses this time. With so many dead, they should finally understand their own limits."
"Lord Mugetsu really is incredible. The moment he arrived, he turned the entire battle around."
Many Konoha Ninja already felt that this war was coming to an end and began relaxing as they moved to clean up the battlefield.
"Is it really over just like this?" Mugetsu thought.
Behind his glasses, the Byakugan remained active, carefully observing everything around him.
This was not an ordinary war.
To everyone else, aside from its scale, this war looked no different from any previous one.
Only Mugetsu, who knew the White Zetsu's identity, understood that this war was not simple.
Although the main participants were Konoha and Iwagakure, Madara and Black Zetsu had also been interfering from the shadows.
Since Madara had directly used White Zetsu as spies inside Iwagakure's operations, Mugetsu did not believe he had no deeper purpose.
It was impossible that Madara had suddenly become a spiritual Iwagakure supporter who couldn't bear to see them at a disadvantage. That would be absurd.
To guard against whatever Madara might attempt, Mugetsu had made a number of preparations.
Since he had already decided in advance that he would have to deal with the Four Tails personally, he had modified his Yang Seal again and stored chakra into a version aligned with Water Breathing Chakra Mode.
That meant that when he had fought the Four Tails earlier, he had not actually spent much of his own chakra reserve. The Water Breathing Chakra Mode had been maintained primarily through the chakra stored inside the Yang Seal.
Even if unexpected enemies showed up now, Mugetsu still had enough chakra left to deal with them.
Yet the imagined enemies never appeared.
Instead, Minato and Jiraiya called Mugetsu over to the place where White Zetsu had been imprisoned, intending to begin interrogating them.
Although White Zetsu did not look human, they could communicate with humans. That meant they could naturally be questioned as well.
But when they arrived, they found something unexpected.
Minato's expression immediately turned serious as he stepped forward.
On the ground lay the two Konoha Ninja who had been assigned to guard the White Zetsu, both unconscious.
And the three White Zetsu that had been sealed were gone.
.....
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