Dusk was close at hand.
The instant his sanity snapped for good, Gaara could no longer suppress the murderous intent raging inside him. The sand hidden beneath the ground surged upward in a violent swell, like a storm-tossed tide, and swallowed Asuma whole.
Fizz!
In the evening wind, a choking cloud of smoke flashed with a tiny ember-red spark, like the shower of fire that bursts from hammered steel in a blacksmith's forge.
Gaara's murderous gaze froze for a beat. The wave of sand rushing forward halted at the same moment, every grain rubbing against the next as if alive, forming a protective barrier around him.
Boom!
A torrent of superheated smoke and dust roared forward without warning like an enraged dragon, slamming into the golden Shield of Sand in front of Gaara. The sheer heat warped the air around it.
The golden grains blackened under the blast. Sand had almost no heat capacity to begin with, and in an instant the grains were scorched white-hot.
Ahead of them, Asuma stood amid the swirling sandstorm, black smoke pouring from his mouth. Without his Welcoming Approach: Thousand-Armed Murder technique, the only thing he could do was answer offense with offense.
The jutsu he used was the Sarutobi clan's signature Fire Release: Burning Ash.
A high-grade fire technique inherited from the monkey tribe, modeled after the ash blasted out by a volcanic eruption.
The ash cloud blurred vision while continuously burning whatever it touched. If someone inhaled it by mistake, even their lungs and organs would be cooked from the inside out. And that was not even the most dangerous part. This technique had an even deadlier second stage.
Watching the yellow sand whirl and coil itself around Gaara's frail figure, Asuma kept exhaling smoke, his eyes fixed on the ember that had not yet hit the ground.
Sizzle.
The spark on the cigarette glowed brighter and dimmer in the wind as the burning stub dropped through the air straight into the billowing black smoke.
"Explode."
In that instant, the black volcanic ash ignited.
The dim forest flashed bright before the eyes of every onlooker.
Terrifying explosive flames erupted outward with a violent shockwave, swallowing Gaara's figure whole. Then countless superheated sand grains blasted out in every direction like hidden weapons.
"Watch out!"
"Run!"
The watching ninja teams turned pale and scattered. Defensive jutsu flew up all at once as they tried to block the storm of sand.
Akatsuchi had already spat out a flat earthen figure shaped like a shield. Han raised one arm over his face and remained rooted in place, his crimson armor clanging. Kurotsuchi was hidden so completely behind him that not even a strand of hair showed.
Suigetsu stood at the front of the Mist group. His body was punched full of hollow cavities by the sandstorm, yet not a drop of blood came out. Instead, he used his own liquefied body to intercept the bullet-like sand grains.
Darui and the other three drew their blades. Moon-shaped arcs of lightning-wreathed steel flashed again and again, knocking every grain of flying sand aside with a chorus of metallic clangs.
Boom!
Countless trees were uprooted by the stray shockwave. Sand and gravel flew everywhere. Leaves and branches were riddled full of holes as if attacked by a swarm of bees.
It had all happened in the blink of an eye.
Only then did the Konoha ninja manning the perimeter snap back to themselves.
"Asuma-sama!"
The guards roared in unison. A ninja standing atop the treetops, wearing a scarf around his forehead, narrowed his eyes and pulled out a steel whistle.
"Enemy attack!"
Peeeeeeep!
The shrill alarm cut through the forest.
Almost at the same moment, hidden watch posts all through the woods sounded their whistles as well. The screaming sound rolled outward in waves, carrying who knew how far.
Before the people still enduring the aftermath of the clash could react, the dark forest began to rustle violently on all sides. It was no gentle evening breeze. Shadows were moving everywhere, swarming from every direction like a disturbed hornet's nest.
If anyone had been watching from the sky, they would have seen hundreds of black figures, like fleas, leaping wildly through the woods and converging on Asuma's position at a terrifying speed.
The First Perimeter had never consisted of only the dozen or so ninja personally led by Asuma.
In the Hokage Tower, most incoming missions were actually a minority. They were nowhere near enough to support Konoha's huge ninja population of over twenty thousand, much less the village's outrageous cost of living.
The real source of employment in a ninja village was the perimeter itself, which consumed manpower on a massive scale.
The defense line had two rings, inner and outer.
The outer ring, the First Perimeter, contained thousands of ninja, mostly genin and chunin, with only a small number of tokubetsu jonin.
The inner ring, the Second Perimeter, had more than a thousand as well, the vast majority chunin, along with over a hundred tokubetsu jonin. Their sole purpose was to protect Konoha's core districts and prevent enemy intrusion.
It functioned like a military rotation. More than seventy percent of Konoha's ninja had served perimeter duty at some point.
"This is bad! Konoha's alert system has been triggered!"
"So many of them..."
"This is Konoha's home ground, what did you think..."
Seeing the endless stream of Konoha ninja pouring in from the forest, the genin from Grass nearly wet themselves. To them, the black woods in every direction seemed packed with murderous intent.
The Mist group followed an elite policy. The Bloody Mist had raised its ninja through constant slaughter, and even they had never seen this many enemies gathered at once.
Chojuro, Suigetsu, and Ringo huddled back to back, their eyes darting everywhere, nearly dizzy from the crowd.
Ao alone remained calm. With his Byakugan active, the countless points of chakra lighting up the forest looked like stars slowly appearing in the evening sky.
What happened with the Sand had nothing to do with the Mist.
The half-crazed Gaara seemed stronger than ever under the dimming sky. He had become so unstable that he could barely think.
The yellow-brown sand in his gourd gave off the stink of blood.
"Gaara... are you alright?"
Temari's voice shook as she looked at him.
The moment she reached out, Gaara's bloodshot eyes snapped toward her, murderous intent twisting his face.
He had already lost control.
Darui frowned. Han's gaze sharpened. Ao's expression changed.
Everyone realized it at once.
This was no normal outburst.
The one standing before them was a jinchuriki on the verge of going berserk.
Asuma emerged from the smoke, his face blackened with ash, but otherwise unharmed. He took one look at Gaara's state and his heart dropped.
Damn it.
Of all the possible disasters, it had to be this one.
A simple conflict between visiting ninja could still be contained.
But if a tailed beast went wild outside Konoha's gates, the entire situation would spiral out of control.
And yet before he could issue a new order, before the newly arrived Konoha ninja could tighten the encirclement, before any of the foreign teams could decide whether to retreat or advance, a sudden change overtook the world.
Rumble...
The ground trembled.
At first it was slight, like a wagon passing somewhere underground. Then it became violent enough to rattle bones.
Everyone's expressions changed.
Boom!
The earth split open.
A massive crack tore across the forest floor, racing straight through the battlefield like the slash of a divine blade. Trees toppled, dirt flew, and whole stretches of land sank and rose.
The Konoha ninja who had just arrived staggered. The visiting teams wavered. Even Gaara's surging sand paused in midair.
Then, before anyone could comprehend what they were seeing, the earth continued to move.
The forest parted.
The ground bulged and folded, pushing aside ancient trees and undergrowth alike. A gigantic road, black and broad and impossibly straight, rose out of the shattered land itself, extending forward with overwhelming force.
It carved through the sea of trees like a line drawn by the heavens.
No one spoke.
No one could.
At the far end of that road, beneath the last glow of sunset, stood Konoha.
The village lights had already come on.
Warm, golden, countless, they stretched into the deepening dusk like a sea of stars on earth.
The newly opened road connected the distant village to the battlefield in a single impossible line, as though some unseen god had cleaved the wilderness apart and built a path to Konoha with one stroke.
A path through heaven and earth.
Silence swallowed the forest.
Even Gaara, half-mad with bloodlust, stared blankly ahead.
Asuma's cigarette slipped from his fingers.
Darui's eyes narrowed.
Ao's breath caught.
Han, usually unmoved by anything, went still.
And among the crowd, hidden within the Grass team, Orochimaru and Danzo both looked toward that impossible road, their expressions changing at the same time.
Because every one of them understood the same thing.
That was not a natural disaster.
That was power.
A kind of power that stood above ninjutsu, above bloodlines, above ordinary human understanding.
And the road's destination was Konoha.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to add this story to your Library, drop a review, and leave a Power Stone if you enjoyed it!
Craving more chapters? Join my Patron to unlock advance releases and dive deeper into the story!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"