"Hyūga Coalition! Obey orders! All units, focus your attacks on the giant ahead—full power!"
From his command perch, Hibiscus Miyagi finally understood why the Hyūga forces were collapsing. The battlefield once tilted in their favor, yet now their formation was shattered, their morale broken—and the reason stood clear as day.
Amamiya Raizen.
If he hadn't unleashed Amaterasu and Susanoo, the Hyūga coalition might have held their ground. But with those two godlike jutsu, the balance had been crushed under Raizen's hand.
Miyagi's eyes burned with hatred. "He's the source of this disaster."
"Attack!"
At his command, countless Hyūga and allied shinobi unleashed waves of jutsu toward the towering blue avatar. Two elite commanders—Hibiscus Miyagi and Sarutobi Sanbei—no longer held back.
"Earth Release: Ten Thousand Stone Collapse!"
Sanbei slammed his hands into the ground. The battlefield convulsed, and two enormous boulders erupted from the earth, crashing toward Raizen's Susanoo.
"Boom!"
The impact thundered across the plains. Shards of rock scattered as a storm of debris struck the spectral warrior. The armor of Susanoo cracked, a hairline fracture spreading across its chest.
Miyagi's eyes gleamed. "There! Hit that point!"
Hyūga eyes locked onto the weakness. Chakra flared like wildfire as jutsu after jutsu converged on the same spot.
Raizen stood motionless inside the armor, expression unreadable. He didn't evade. He invited their fury.
If they're all focused on me, he thought, then Konoha's blades can move freely in the dark.
Thousands of Hyūga-affiliated shinobi rained destruction upon Susanoo. Each blow chipped away fragments of the giant, yet Raizen's focus never wavered.
In the shadows, Inuzuka Daisaku caught on instantly. He barked an order, and the Konoha ninjas dispersed like wolves into the chaos, slipping through smoke and corpses. Every flash of steel claimed another Hyūga life.
Cracks spiderwebbed across Susanoo's armor. The battlefield roared with hope from the Hyūga side—only for it to die a second later.
Because despite the fractures, the blue titan still moved. Still swung its blade. And with each swing, dozens of Hyūga fell.
Sanbei's blood ran cold. The real threat wasn't the giant—it was the illusion Raizen had cast upon them all.
Their army's eyes were fixed on Susanoo. None noticed Konoha's flanking units tearing through their ranks.
Bodies littered the ground—nearly all wearing the Hyūga crest.
Sanbei clenched his jaw. "Damn it… we walked right into his trap."
Raizen had baited them perfectly—his overwhelming power drew all focus, letting Konoha's hidden units butcher the distracted coalition.
"Hyūga coalition! Fall back!" Sanbei shouted.
The command stunned his own forces.
"Retreat?!" Miyagi snapped. "You've gone mad! We're about to win!"
Sanbei's glare cut through the din. "Look around you!"
Miyagi froze. Thousands of Hyūga lay dead or dying. In just hours, their three-thousand-strong army had fallen to barely two.
"Damn it…" He ground his teeth. The truth hurt more than the wounds.
Still, pride is poison. And Hibiscus Miyagi swallowed none of it.
"Everyone, attack Amamiya Raizen with everything you have!" he roared.
Sanbei's voice broke through in fury. "Are you insane?! We've already lost half our men—"
"If we destroy that giant," Miyagi shot back, eyes wild, "we can still win this war! Retreat now, and all their deaths mean nothing!"
"This will only feed the slaughter!" Sanbei countered. "The Amamiya clan's chakra reserves are legendary. Even if you destroy that Susanoo, they'll have another jutsu ready before you can blink. Continued fighting will just raise our body count!"
Miyagi didn't listen. Orders flew, jutsu blazed, and chaos swallowed the battlefield again.
And within the inferno of chakra and blood, Raizen smirked bitterly inside his collapsing Susanoo.
So this is the Warring States—pride, fear, and stupidity all mixed together.
Fine then. Let's see who blinks first.