Over in Konoha's main camp, the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, sat frowning over a war map.
He was trying to solve three problems at once:
How to suppress Kumogakure's momentum.
How to avoid being crushed by the AB Combo.
And how to watch the other great villages, who were clearly just waiting for an opening.
Even for him, it was a headache.
Just then, the outside suddenly grew noisy.
Before he could ask what was going on, an ANBU pushed the tent flap open and dropped to one knee.
It was Kakashi.
Ever since Kumo had ramped up their offensive, Kakashi's unit had been pulled straight to the front lines. He'd mentally prepared himself for that—war was like this. You went where you were needed.
"Lord Third! A gigantic monster has appeared on Kumo's side. Observation squads confirm it's the Eight-Tails' tailed beast form!"
"What?!"
Sarutobi shot to his feet. The other officers in the tent all stared in shock.
That was a tailed beast.
By the unspoken rules of the ninja world, tailed beasts were like nuclear weapons—you didn't just casually toss them into a normal battlefield. Especially not the Eight-Tails' jinchūriki, Killer B, who had ridiculously good synchronization with his tailed beast.
A berserk tailed beast could already devastate a region.
A fully controlled tailed beast was the stuff of nightmares.
Against that, regular shinobi would just be cannon fodder. Only Kage-level powerhouses had any real chance of fighting one head-on.
Back in earlier conflicts, when the AB Combo clashed with the Fourth Hokage, even then B hadn't gone full tailed-beast mode. And now, suddenly, he had.
What exactly was Kumogakure planning?
Sarutobi pushed out of the tent, pipe forgotten in his hand. In the distance, looming over Kumo's ranks, he saw that hulking, ominous shadow—yes, a tailed beast. And not just any tailed beast:
The Eight-Tails.
Second only to Konoha's Nine-Tails in raw destructive capability.
And Kumo still had the Two-Tails as well.
If the Eight-Tails had entered the battlefield… was the Two-Tails also hiding nearby?
"…Is Kumogakure trying to start a full-scale war?"
Sarutobi's face turned grim.
Then his eyes narrowed further.
The Eight-Tails' massive maw opened, chakra gathering in front of it—condensing into a black, swirling sphere.
A Tailed Beast Bomb.
But the direction it was aiming wasn't at Konoha's lines, nor even at the ground.
It was… aimed upwards. Toward the sky.
"The sky…?"
Sarutobi followed its line with his gaze. There was nothing visible above them—just clouds.
But he was sure.
That Tailed Beast Bomb was targeting something up there.
And for some reason, that sight tugged at a memory.
Recently, not long after the attack on Kumogakure, a mysterious organization had contacted him.
They'd claimed to be the ones who'd bombarded Kumo from the sky. Then they'd tried to negotiate.
"Pay us, and we can hit them again."
Sarutobi hadn't bought it. He'd demanded proof.
If they could recreate the same attack on the current battlefield, he'd pay what they asked.
The previous strike on Kumo had come from the heavens. It was why the unknown attacker had been nicknamed "Heaven's Judgment."
"Could it be… Kumogakure has sensed that 'Heaven's Judgment' has appeared again?" Sarutobi exhaled slowly, tension easing just a little. "If so… then that organization wasn't lying after all."
As long as Kumo wasn't trying to escalate the war onto Konoha's head, that was good enough for now.
Konoha was already at its weakest.
The Three Sannin had all left the village.
The Fourth Hokage was dead.
The Nine-Tails' jinchūriki was still a child.
Konoha really wasn't in any state to handle a full-scale tailed beast assault.
"Still," came a low voice beside him, "if there's an enemy in the sky… could it be the remnants of the Sky Ninja Village?"
Shimura Danzō stared at the distant Eight-Tails, feeling his muscles tremble despite himself. Just looking at that monster made his body want to flinch.
It also made his hunger for power burn even hotter.
If he'd had that kind of strength in his hands…
"It shouldn't be," Sarutobi muttered. "We wiped out the Sky Ninja Village years ago. Those flying machines of theirs—"
He hesitated.
Because the truth was, he wasn't entirely certain.
Yes, they'd crushed the Sky Ninja Village. But had there really been no survivors? None at all? The ninja world was very good at leaving loose ends.
"An Eight-Tails jinchūriki, huh?"
Far away on another vantage point of the Frost Country battlefield, Nagato—speaking through Tendo Pain—looked in Kumo's direction.
He'd come here under the guise of completing a commissioned mission, and he'd noticed the Eight-Tails' presence at almost the same moment Konoha had.
But within his heart, there was no particular ripple.
Akatsuki would be collecting tailed beasts one day.
Just not now. And they had an order to follow: from One-Tail upwards.
The Eight-Tails was late-game content.
So he wasn't thinking about capturing it. Not today.
"Amamiya Kenichi," Nagato said quietly. "Let me see the extent of your abilities."
He planned to observe this subordinate very carefully.
If his capabilities were impressive enough, then increasing his benefits and privileges in the organization would be… worth considering.
Konan had already told him that Kenichi didn't fit in very well.
Wouldn't even get his nails done.
At the time, Nagato had looked down at Pain's large, lacquered nails, fallen silent for a very long while… and then decided that maybe that wasn't a critical requirement.
Kakuzu and Orochimaru, operating elsewhere on the battlefield, had naturally noticed as well.
Orochimaru even hopped lightly up onto a tall tree branch, robes fluttering, golden hair and snake-like eyes focused on the distant Eight-Tails. He knew exactly what that beast was about to do.
So he wanted to see:
What did his student really have, to attract this level of attention?
Meanwhile, high above the main battlefield, the person at the center of this storm—Amamiya Kenichi—only wanted to curse.
Because he had really not expected that the thermobaric bomb would attract Killer B's attention before it even dropped, and now that Tailed Beast Bomb had already been fired—roaring straight toward him.
"Sasori! Drop it in seven seconds!" Kenichi sucked in a breath, then simply jumped.
He dove off the balloon.
The incoming violet-black sphere grew larger and larger in his vision, its destructive chakra screaming through the sky.
Pressure—
He could feel it pressing down on his lungs.
But he was already in Sage Mode. If he went all out, he didn't have no chance against a Tailed Beast Bomb.
Natural energy roared through his network, melding with his chakra.
Massive amounts of Sage Chakra surged into his hands, refining into pure lightning—dark, blackish-purple lightning veined with sinister red, crackling and snarling with a very bad-tempered aura.
To meet that Tailed Beast Bomb head-on, Kenichi drove more and more chakra into it, layering it higher, denser, hotter.
The two masses of lightning in his hands became increasingly violent, leaping and biting at his fingers, eager to tear themselves free and explode.
"…What if I compress everything into one shot," Kenichi thought suddenly, "and fire it all at once?"
The idea came out of nowhere.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he brought both hands together, fusing the two masses of lightning into one.
His face changed instantly.
The moment they merged, the energy inside ballooned out of control. The fused bolt became exponentially more unstable, raging like a caged beast, threatening to detonate right in his grip.
"Not in my hands—!"
To prevent his arms from being blown to dust, Kenichi didn't dare hold it any longer. He thrust his hands down and fired.
In that instant, the world turned white.
A pillar of black-red lightning flashed out, so bright that Kenichi's vision went completely blank. For a heartbeat, he saw nothing—only searing light.
Then the heat hit him.
A wave of scorching energy slammed into his body, sending him tumbling upward through the air like a leaf in a gale.
Blinking away the afterimage, he forced his eyes open and looked down.
The Tailed Beast Bomb was gone.
In its place, a massive column of light bored downward toward the battlefield like the wrath of some mechanical god.
It didn't hit the ground.
Because the Eight-Tails moved.
Its enormous tentacles and bulk surged forward, muscles bunching as it raised its body and took the brunt of the beam head-on, roaring as it resisted.
At almost the same moment—
Something black streaked past Kenichi's side with a sharp whistle, slicing through the air in a perfect arc.
It was the thermobaric bomb.
Accelerated by Sasori's Magnet Release, it plunged straight toward the Eight-Tails' jinchūriki below.
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