"Raikage-sama!"
Several elite Cloud jōnin shouted and rushed in, grabbing the Third Raikage's arm to steady him.
"Kazu!!"
The Third Raikage roared—and in an instant, lightning chakra erupted across his whole body, wrapping him in a crackling cloak and forcibly stopping the bleeding from his mangled arm stump.
He'd just lost over a thousand Cloud shinobi in the fighting—including three jōnin.
Elite losses.
His face twisted with fury as he locked onto Kazu, who had appeared in front of Kushina like a wall.
Lightning Release Chakra Mode—maximum output.
"Kazu… DIE!"
"Hell Stab: Shihon Nukite!"
He compressed chakra into his fingers—power rising as the number of fingers dropped.
Four-finger… three-finger… two-finger…
And then—
one finger.
The strongest spear.
Kazu's palms hit the ground.
"Wood Release: Tree Boundary Wall!"
A layered shield of thick wooden vines burst upward between them.
But Hell Stab was famous for tearing through even the most stubborn defenses—earth walls, barrier ninjutsu, reinforced lines.
The "wall" of vines might as well have been paper.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The Tree Boundary Wall shattered instantly.
The Third Raikage exploded through it and appeared right in Kazu's face.
THUD!
His strike pierced straight through—
THUD!
Kazu's body tore apart—
And the Third Raikage's eyes widened.
…Wood.
No blood.
No organs.
A split second later—
Poof.
"Shadow clone?!" the Third Raikage choked.
He'd just reopened his own wound by forcing that all-in thrust, and now he'd wasted it on a decoy.
His vision swam.
His knees buckled.
Meanwhile—one hundred meters away—Kazu was already holding Kushina, pulling her out of the kill zone.
The Third Raikage dropped to one knee, shaking, dizzy, furious.
And then—
a wooden dragon erupted beneath his feet.
"Wood Release: Wood Dragon Jutsu!"
It wrapped him in a crushing coil.
Its jaws clamped near the damaged arm and began to drain chakra.
"Ghh—!!"
"Raikage-sama!!"
Cloud elites surged forward, slashing at the dragon. They managed to sever sections of it, but their frantic cuts also nicked the Raikage himself as they yanked him free and dragged him back.
Kazu started to move—then stopped.
He'd returned at full speed, burned through an absurd amount of chakra, and couldn't safely overextend while protecting Kushina.
So instead, he weaponized the moment.
Kazu's voice rang across the battlefield:
"The Third Raikage is finished—Konoha, push them out!"
Konoha shinobi erupted.
Morale shot through the roof.
The Cloud forces—already rattled—felt the collapse hit like a hammer.
Hiruzen and Tsunade both exhaled hard as they saw the Third Raikage being carried off, badly wounded.
The Konoha officials who'd been running their mouths earlier went stiff, stunned.
They'd been cursing Kazu's "recklessness" minutes ago.
Now, the moment he returned, the entire tide flipped.
"Kill!!"
Fugaku and the jōnin spearheaded the counterattack, chasing Cloud shinobi who were already turning to run.
Cloud had pushed too deep into Konoha—now they couldn't disengage cleanly.
Their formation dissolved.
Units scattered.
Some got lost in the Forest of Death and never came out.
Others died to genin and chūnin they would've mocked in any other battle.
Up north, the Third Raikage was half-carried, half-dragged by his elites—his son at his side.
A medic captain worked frantically, but everyone knew the truth:
Even if that arm could be reattached, it would never be the same.
For a man who fought like a living spear, losing the right arm was worse than death.
A scout reported in a trembling voice, "Raikage-sama… of the ten thousand we brought… fewer than a thousand are returning."
The Third Raikage's eyes bulged.
"Heaven wants me dead…"
Then he coughed up blood and collapsed.
"Father!!"
"Raikage-sama!!"
Everyone crowded in.
…
Back in Konoha, the atmosphere was completely different.
Wherever Kazu walked, shinobi stopped celebrating, stood straight, and saluted.
Faces full of awe.
Worship, almost.
Kushina, Mikoto, Rin—every woman watching looked like their eyes had been turned on.
And behind Kazu, the same officials who'd threatened impeachment trailed him like a parade of hungry dogs, praising him nonstop.
Kazu didn't respond.
He remembered exactly what they'd said while he was gone.
He'd settle that later.
Today, the village had to be stabilized.
An intelligence officer gave the numbers.
"At least 6,266 confirmed kills."
"1,866 captured."
"There may be more—some teams haven't fully reported yet."
"And Konoha?"
"Fewer than a thousand dead and wounded."
A crushing victory.
Kazu's eyes narrowed slightly—calculating.
If he rested for a day… then hit Lightning Country while they were broken…
He was already thinking it through when he spoke aloud, almost casually:
"Not bad."
The pro-war jōnin lit up.
"Hokage-sama is mighty!"
"It's all thanks to Hokage-sama!"
Then the civilian-leaning leadership tried to rein him in again.
"Hokage-sama, think twice! If we push into Lightning Country, we risk suffering the same kind of disaster Cloud suffered here!"
"And—taking Sunagakure without Fire Daimyō approval—if we keep escalating, the Fire Daimyō may become dissatisfied with us!"
Kazu's smile didn't reach his eyes.
"The Fire Daimyō?"
He turned his head slightly.
"ANBU—arrest these people."
"I suspect they're enemy agents."
The room went ice-cold.
"What?! Hokage-sama—!"
Kazu's tone stayed calm.
"Peace talk, daimyo talk—yet you never talk about Konoha's survival."
"Taking the Sand opens a trade corridor from Fire to Wind."
"That corridor belongs to Konoha."
"It's opportunity, resources, leverage."
"And you want to ignore it?"
"They weren't afraid of Konoha dying. They were afraid of Konoha changing."
The ANBU moved.
The officials panicked.
"I'm loyal to Konoha!"
"Hokage-sama, please reconsider!"
Kazu's eyes were flat.
"Danzō said he was loyal too."
"So did the people who destroyed this village from the inside."
"Lock them up. Trial tomorrow."
Hiruzen coughed once and looked away.
"I've already stepped down," he said quietly. "Everything follows the Fourth."
The centrists fell silent immediately.
No one wanted to be next.
The war faction finally dared to ask, "Hokage-sama… what do we do now?"
Kazu thought for a moment, then said, "We don't rush in blind."
"Fugaku."
Fugaku stepped forward instantly. "Yes, Hokage-sama!"
"You go to Lightning Country."
"Deliver terms."
"Surrender without bloodshed."
"If they refuse—tell them I'll walk into Kumogakure in one week."
Fugaku's chest tightened with fierce pride. "Understood!"
Then Kazu added, casually lethal:
"And contact the Fire Daimyō."
"I'll meet him."
His eyes narrowed just a fraction.
"If he knows his place, he stays."
"If he doesn't…"
Kazu didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.