If his strength allowed it, Rei Kaguya actually did not want to use a tactic like killing the heart when he could not kill the person.
Compared to making Kushina suspect that Danzo had leaked intelligence to Kirigakure, then indirectly making Minato Namikaze also harbor doubts toward Danzo, eventually triggering civil conflict within Konoha, Rei Kaguya's personal style leaned more toward killing Konoha's only Nine-Tails Jinchuriki outright, then leading Kirigakure to take advantage of the chaos and carve a large chunk of land from the Land of Fire.
Unfortunately, that method was not very feasible.
At present, Rei Kaguya's defensive ability was basically flawless. But in terms of offense, his situation was actually somewhat similar to Minato Namikaze's.
When facing ordinary shinobi, the offensive power of the Dead Bone Pulse and the Rasengan was already enough, even somewhat excessive.
But when facing monsters with extremely strong vitality or absurd defense, they became somewhat too simple and not quite enough.
There was no need to explain how tenacious the Uzumaki clan's vitality was.
After Kushina had the Nine-Tails extracted from her, something that would have been certain death for any other Jinchuriki, she still retained enough strength to bind the Nine-Tails with Adamantine Sealing Chains and deploy a barrier to buy Minato Namikaze enough time to use the Dead Demon Consuming Seal.
A mere injury like having her heart pierced really would not be enough to kill her directly.
Not to mention, the Nine-Tails was still sealed inside her body right now.
Just think about it.
During the first battle at the Valley of the End, Naruto Uzumaki had the right side of his chest pierced by Sasuke Uchiha's Chidori. Yet the Nine-Tails' chakra merely leaked out uncontrollably, and in the blink of an eye, his wound was completely healed while his combat ability fully recovered.
And Kushina, as a mature Jinchuriki who had received the full inheritance of Mito Uzumaki, how could her control over the Nine-Tails' chakra be inferior to Naruto during the first battle at the Valley of the End?
So when Rei Kaguya launched his initial ambush, he had never considered the possibility of instantly killing someone like Kushina.
Instead, he chose to heavily injure her, forcing her to choose between two poor answers.
Either she did not expose her identity as the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki and relied only on the Uzumaki clan's physique to recover. This choice would prevent her from drawing the suspicion and discrimination of her companions like other Jinchuriki, but it would also inevitably lead to heavy casualties among the mid- and lower-level shinobi fighting alongside her.
Or she used the Nine-Tails' chakra to heal herself, swiftly suppressing Rei Kaguya, whose raw strength was still not enough to oppose a Jinchuriki. But if she did that, Rei Kaguya could choose to run without any psychological burden. As for Kushina, who had exposed her identity as the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, she could not possibly make every Konoha shinobi present ignore that fact.
"Hurry up and decide. If you keep dawdling, you'll lose both sides…"
Rei Kaguya familiarly emerged from a bone spike and casually slit the throat of a Konoha genin whose face was full of despair because he could not hear a single sound.
[Dark Harvest] +1.
The cooldown refreshed.
Then he once again disappeared into the bone forest, approaching a target whose chakra volume was clearly higher than the others.
"Shadow Sewing Technique!"
Almost the instant Rei Kaguya emerged, the surrounding shadows surged under the Nara clan's secret technique and launched a surprise attack at him.
Dense, sharp shadow needles pierced his skin, only to be blocked by the bone membrane beneath it.
But in the blink of an eye, the shadows changed from needles into flexible tentacles, tightly binding Rei Kaguya's body.
"Ugh!?"
"Hah… hah… Although you used mist to block the sun, light will still cast shadows in the end…"
Shikaku Nara panted heavily. Veins bulged on his forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot as he looked at Rei Kaguya's startled face and grinned.
"Don't underestimate the power of Ino-Shika-Cho when we're gathered together… The rest is up to you, Inoichi! Haaaah!"
Shikaku Nara poured all his strength into his shadow manipulation, forcibly dragging Rei Kaguya's body out of the bone spike and throwing him in another direction.
Inoichi Yamanaka, who had already gained enough time to react, swiftly aimed both hands at Rei Kaguya and shouted:
"Mind Body Switch Technique!"
In the blink of an eye, Inoichi Yamanaka's body collapsed uncontrollably to the ground.
As for Rei Kaguya, who was in midair and unable to dodge, he took the Yamanaka clan's secret technique head-on without reservation.
His entire spirit was immediately kicked aside by Inoichi Yamanaka, temporarily losing control over his body.
"Choza, this way! Hurry, I can't hold him for long! His soul is too strong—"
While using Rei Kaguya's body to form the hand seals that would release the Hiding in Mist Technique, Inoichi shouted at Choza Akimichi, who was rolling back and forth across the battlefield, destroying the integrity of the bone forest.
"I'm coming! Super Spiked Human Bullet Tank!"
The rumbling Human Bullet Onion Chicken—no, Human Bullet dump truck—came crashing toward Inoichi Yamanaka, who was struggling to seize control of Rei Kaguya's body.
The momentum was so great that even many Konoha shinobi still shrouded in silent water mist noticed the movement on this side.
"Get the hell out!"
At the critical moment, Rei Kaguya finally relied on the soul he had greatly strengthened after stacking [Dark Harvest] to five hundred, kicking Inoichi Yamanaka's spirit out of his body.
But even so, Inoichi Yamanaka seized the final chance and released another mental secret technique of the Yamanaka clan on Rei Kaguya.
"Mind Body Disturbance Technique!"
He wanted to raise his left hand, but his right foot uncontrollably kicked backward.
He wanted to activate a related derivative of Dance of the Larch to block Choza Akimichi's Human Bullet Onion Chicken, but his chakra flow caused the surrounding bone forest to collapse with a rumble instead.
After two seconds of fierce conflict between body and mind, Rei Kaguya ultimately failed to dodge Choza Akimichi's Human Bullet Onion Chicken.
He was crushed beneath him and sent rumbling into the distance.
"Shikaku… Inoichi…"
Kushina Uzumaki coughed up a large mouthful of clotted blood and slowly loosened her grip over the wound on her chest, which had already begun healing.
She breathed heavily and said with a bitter smile to the two who had worked together to send Rei Kaguya flying:
"Thanks… thanks to you two… Otherwise… cough, cough…"
"Lady Kushina!"
Inoichi Yamanaka immediately used a Body Flicker to reach a medical-nin, bringing him quickly to Kushina's side to treat her. At the same time, he spoke with some self-blame.
"I'm sorry. We still didn't find a way to deal with that guy immediately…"
"No… You already did very well…"
Kushina exhaled heavily, then looked toward Shikaku Nara and said hoarsely:
"Shikaku, gather the remaining companions. We regroup and return to camp first…"
"Yes."
Shikaku Nara did not question Kushina's decision at all.
The other two Konoha jonin who approached, Inoichi Yamanaka and Shibi Aburame, also nodded one after another, then turned and began gathering their own subordinates.
They understood very clearly that the attack just now was not enough to kill Rei Kaguya, whose toughness was terrifying.
Or rather, it was not even enough to heavily injure him.
If they did not seize this chance to retreat while he had been stunned by their combo, then with Kushina Uzumaki already heavily injured, today's battle would inevitably end in heavy losses for their side.
Since failure could already be foreseen, reducing losses in time was the correct choice.
After gathering the remaining hundred-plus people, Kushina Uzumaki dragged her injured body and used the Uzumaki clan's Adamantine Sealing Chains, quickly clearing away the bone forest along their retreat route.
Then she led the remaining Konoha shinobi back in the direction they had come from.
Before they had gone far, they heard the sound of Human Bullet Tank approaching them.
"Sorry. That Kaguya clan monster was just too hard."
After undoing Human Bullet Tank, Choza Akimichi looked apologetically at Inoichi Yamanaka and Shikaku Nara.
"Inoichi and Shikaku risked everything to create that opportunity for me, but all I managed to do was make him cough up a bit more blood…"
"That was already enough, Choza."
Shikaku Nara patted his shoulder, his eyes deep.
"This was only the first local clash… We haven't shown all our cards yet, but they have already placed their most important card in plain sight."
"Mount Kannabe is indeed a strategic point we must retake. But Kirigakure absolutely cannot be willing to abandon control over the remaining strategic points either."
"Once Lord Minato recovers and arrives with reinforcements from the Uchiha and Hyuga clans, we'll have even more cards to force that Kaguya clan fellow to make concessions."
"Konoha may already be very exhausted, but… we are still far better off than Kirigakure, those people who have no choice but to execute shinobi whose injuries are slightly severe in order to reduce their own logistical and medical pressure."
…
Several minutes later.
Rei Kaguya, covered in blood and wearing a set of clothes that had been torn into rags, returned to the ambush area where the Kirigakure shinobi he had brought out were waiting.
"Lord Rei!? You're injured!?"
Several chunin surrounded him and lowered their heads in apology, full of self-reproach.
"It's all because we're too weak that you had no choice but to ambush Konoha's unit alone…"
"We were originally only a side force. It's normal for our average quality to be inferior to Konoha's main force. Don't worry about it…"
Rei Kaguya waved his hand and coughed.
"More importantly, get me some clothes first. That Akimichi clan guy rolled over me and dragged me for several thousand meters. Even my jonin uniform got ground apart…"
"Yes! I'll go immediately!"
Wearing the new uniform handed over by his fanatical subordinates, Rei Kaguya looked in the direction Konoha's side had retreated and took a deep breath.
In the first battle, he had managed to receive the attack without losing a single person on his own side.
But after this, he probably would not be able to replicate this battle's method. He could only bite the bullet and clash head-on with Konoha.
Fortunately, the system was still fairly sensible.
Even though he had not beaten Kushina to the point where she could no longer fight, it still counted Optional Mission 1 as completed.
In that case, he now had another bit of capital he could use to fight the next few hard battles.
"Let me see what kind of secondary rune I can draw this time…"