"Aaah—! My eyes!"
"Help!"
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
Screams and cries of alarm rang out one after another.
Although many people felt that Nawaki dying to an explosive tag was somewhat embarrassing, to be fair, in the real ninja world, explosive tags were by no means useless ninja tools. Their kill count was far higher than kunai or shuriken, and even high-level ninja did not dare tank them with their bare bodies.
And now, with one side prepared and the other completely unaware, many Sand ninja were blown away before they could even use ninjutsu. Some were blasted to pieces on the spot. Some were swallowed by scorching flames and turned into human torches. Others had their internal organs displaced by the shockwave; although they did not die immediately, most of their combat strength was gone.
The raging flames ignited the surrounding grass, trees, and fallen leaves. The Sand Village's originally neat formation was blasted open, leaving a huge gap filled with flying flesh and blood, an utter mess.
But…
This was only the beginning.
Before the aftershocks of the explosion had even settled, the steep cliffs on both sides suddenly triggered the prearranged traps. Rolling logs and boulders thundered down like a landslide, carrying the force to crush everything as they smashed into the smoke-filled area where the crowd was densest.
At the same time, countless poison-tipped arrows rained down like a swarm of locusts from hidden points above, falling into the chaotic crowd below. In the blink of an eye, the once-aggressive pursuing army had been turned into a battlefield of screams and slaughter.
"Damn it! What is going on?!"
Rasa rapidly spread out his gold dust, forming a huge curved shield that protected himself and several dozen Sand ninja around him. Even so, he still watched many of his subordinates die horribly under the layers of traps, or be reduced to severed limbs and mangled remains.
The bloody scene made Rasa's eyes nearly split with rage. His entire face twisted with fury and shock.
"Where are the sensory ninja?! What the hell were you doing?! Why didn't you find those Konoha ninja when you scouted earlier? And what is going on with these explosive tags?!"
"L-Lord Kazekage!"
A dusty, battered sensory ninja clutched his bleeding ear and shouted in terror, "These tag arrays were buried too deep! And they were covered with extremely advanced barrier formulas that completely confused our perception… This is Konoha's scheme!"
Strictly speaking, one of the main reasons Orochimaru's plan had succeeded so smoothly was that Sunagakure's sensory capabilities were truly limited and had never developed into a proper system.
If this tactic had been used against Kumogakure or Iwagakure, it probably would not have gone nearly as smoothly.
After all, the latter two villages had sensory ninja of much higher quality than Sunagakure.
At that moment, Rasa abruptly looked toward the old woman beside him. There was a trace of panic in his eyes that even he himself had not noticed.
"Elder Chiyo!"
"…"
Chiyo's face was so gloomy it looked as if water might drip from it.
At that moment, she was controlling several puppets from the Chikamatsu Collection of Ten and using "Puppet Technique: Mechanical Light Shield Seal" to form a huge chakra shield, blocking the boulders and arrows falling from the mountain. She had saved a group of Sand ninja from certain death, but her expression was still extremely ugly.
"We miscalculated! That fool Jiraiya… actually used strategy! He silently set up all of this!"
With Chiyo's experience, she could naturally tell that an operation on this scale clearly could not have been completed by one or two people in just a day or two.
It would have required at least several squads and more than a week of work. Yet during all that time, no one from Sunagakure had discovered anything unusual.
This was a serious intelligence failure.
Ryūsa of the intelligence division had to bear responsibility for this.
However…
"Now is not the time to assign blame."
Chiyo took a deep breath and observed the situation around them, especially the front and rear. Then she made a decisive call.
"Rasa! Order an immediate retreat! Break out of this valley! If we stay here any longer, we may be surrounded and wiped out completely!"
"Retreat?!"
Rasa looked at Jiraiya's figure looming faintly through the smoke and dust from the explosion not far ahead, and unwillingness flashed in his eyes.
"But Jiraiya of Konoha is right there! He's already at the end of his rope! If we charge one more time, we can kill him! If we retreat now, all our efforts will be wasted!"
"Idiot!"
Chiyo snapped sharply, her voice piercing and harsh.
"Do you really think Jiraiya's condition is real? Look at the scale of these traps! Look at the timing of their activation! Everything was clearly done deliberately to lure us into this killing ground! Do you want everyone to be buried here?"
"And if I'm not mistaken, Jiraiya is probably not the only one on the other side. Another one of the Sannin may have come as well…"
After all, this strategy of luring the enemy deep into a trap did not seem like Jiraiya's style. It felt more like something Shimura Danzō would do.
However, Danzō was now Konoha's second-in-command and had not appeared on the battlefield for a long time. In that case, the most likely suspect was…
The Sannin famous for playing with snakes.
In the span of those few sentences, Jiraiya had already led his people charging back.
Jiraiya bit his finger and slammed his palm onto the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu: Food Cart Destroyer!"
Boom!
A gigantic toad holding a steel fork—this time, Gamahiro—descended from the sky like a meteor under Jiraiya's summons.
Its massive body carried overwhelming impact as it smashed directly into the center of the gap that had just been blasted open in the Sand forces.
"Waaah—!"
A terrifying shockwave instantly sent more than a dozen Sand ninja flying. A deep crater was left where Gamahiro landed, with dust and smoke billowing everywhere.
At the same time, a hoarse voice rang out from the other side of the valley.
Orochimaru had appeared in sight at some point, both hands pressed to the ground as well.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
This time, what appeared was a massive purple-black serpent.
Its body was even more astonishing than the toad brothers. The moment it appeared, it released a chilling killing intent and the stench of blood. Its cold eyes swept across the surroundings.
"You again, Orochimaru. Did you prepare enough sacrifices for me this time? If I don't get to eat a hundred living people, I'll eat you instead!"
"Heh."
Orochimaru gave a cold laugh and hissed, "Manda, those people over there are ninja from Sunagakure. As long as you kill them, their corpses will be your sacrifices."
Compared with the other two Sannin, Orochimaru's relationship with his summon, Manda, was undoubtedly rather subtle.
The man and the snake always called each other directly by name, each viewing the other as a lower creature. There was no loyalty or trust between them, only mutual benefit.
Right now, seeing there was profit to be had, Manda reluctantly agreed to Orochimaru's command and charged toward Rasa and the others. Its huge body pushed trees, grass, and rocks aside, giving it an astonishing presence.
Orochimaru himself stood atop Manda's head, his gaze locking onto Chiyo in the distance.
In his eyes, the so-called "acting Kazekage," Rasa, was merely a junior elevated because there were no better candidates. He was not worth mentioning.
Only by taking down Chiyo, an old-generation ninja from the same era as Hiruzen Sarutobi and Hanzō of the Salamander, could he fully prove his own strength.
Only then could he use this enormous victory to earn the support of the people of Konoha and ascend more smoothly to the seat of the Fourth Hokage.
The moment she saw the two enormous summons appear, Chiyo no longer held onto any hope.
"As expected, it's Orochimaru… He arrived long ago, yet kept lying in wait until now before showing himself! These naturally evil Konoha ninja are truly despicable!"
Immediately, Chiyo snapped her head toward Ishikawa Tetsugan.
"Ishikawa! You deal with Jiraiya!"
"Huh? Me?"
Ishikawa Tetsugan froze, his entire body going numb.
No, wait…
He did not mind risking his life for Sunagakure, but was that thing something he could handle?
That giant toad was more than ten meters tall. One sweep and he would be sent flying. How was he supposed to fight that? He did not have a summon of that level!
"You don't need to defeat him. Just take a few people and hold him back for now! He just went through the battle at Wildfire City. Even if he ate soldier pills along the way, his chakra definitely hasn't fully recovered!"
Chiyo explained rapidly, then looked toward Rasa.
"Rasa, take the others and break through toward the rear! Before Konoha's ambush forces fully gather, open a gap as quickly as possible and let most of our people leave this place!"
In the short time it took to say those few words, Manda had already rushed right up to them.
Chiyo bit her finger and formed the summoning seal.
Boom!
With a huge burst of white smoke, a giant poisonous scorpion appeared on the battlefield. It was two sizes smaller than Manda, its entire body covered in purple-black armor, and its tail hook gleamed with a cold light.
Then it swung its massive pincers and charged toward Manda.
Yes, that was right.
As an elder of Sunagakure and one of the top powerhouses in the current ninja world, Chiyo naturally had her own summon. It was just that her combat system was built around puppetry, so under normal circumstances, she rarely used this move.
But now that they were trapped in such a desperate situation, she naturally had to use everything she had.
The next moment, the two summons collided.
The impact tore through the air, forming a massive shockwave that spread outward and sent shattered stones and sand flying.
Chiyo's poisonous scorpion was clearly somewhat weaker than Manda, but not by too much. It was only half a tier below.
And so, the two colossal creatures clashed head-on and quickly rolled into a fierce struggle inside the valley. One opened its bloody maw and bit down with all its strength, while the other swung its pincers and tail hook, trying to pierce the other's hide and inject poison.
Soon, they were locked in a brutal melee.
On the other side, Chiyo controlled the Chikamatsu Collection of Ten to face Orochimaru, who had leapt down from above.
Ishikawa Tetsugan, an elite jōnin, led seven or eight elites and charged toward Jiraiya and Gamahiro.
Although each of them was far weaker than Jiraiya individually, once they fought with their lives on the line, throwing Earth Release and Wind Release techniques at him without restraint, they were still able to hold him off briefly.
As for the other Konoha ninja who had retreated with Jiraiya, they had now turned around and charged back as well. There were probably around two or three hundred of them left.
But before they could reach the front, many of them were blocked by a layer of gold dust. A few others accidentally triggered explosive tag arrays that had not yet finished detonating and hurriedly dodged away.
The entire Kikyo Mountain valley had descended into total chaos.
"…Damn it!"
Rasa gritted his teeth as he looked at the hellish scene around him.
The embers of explosions, tumbling boulders, dense rain of arrows, rampaging giant beasts, terrifying waves of snakes, and the despairing screams of Sand ninja…
His scalp went numb.
But he could only follow Chiyo's instructions and organize the remaining Sand ninja, trying to break out toward the rear.
This detail was first noticed by Mikami Yuu and Kosuke Maruboshi.
"Not good. They're trying to retreat!"
"That explosion just now only took out a little less than half of those Sand ninja. There are still a lot left. We have to stop this charge, then wait for Jiraiya and Orochimaru to finish off their opponents before surrounding them from both sides!"
"…Kakashi, take soldier pills in rotation and recover your chakra! Senior Kosuke and I will cover you!"
As Mikami Yuu spoke, Kakashi called Obito, Kurenai, and the others to temporarily fall back. They quickly shoved soldier pills into their mouths, trying to replenish even a little of their exhausted chakra during this short window before facing the next, even more ferocious assault.
Mikami Yuu, meanwhile, activated "Instant Prison Shadow Killing Formation" once again, working with Kosuke Maruboshi and another ninja to buy as much time as possible for those at the front.
Well…
Of the twenty-odd people they had, nearly half were already dead.
Fortunately, several dozen Konoha ninja who had retreated from Wildfire City were gradually arriving nearby and filling the gaps, barely stopping Sunagakure's breakout momentum for the moment.
On the other side, while observing the situation, Rasa noticed Mikami Yuu through the layers of people—a figure harvesting lives like a white god of death.
"That guy…"
"Could it be him?"
Although Mikami Yuu had spent this period staying with the medical squads at Kikyo Mountain and Wildfire City, and had not directly participated in the frontal battles between Konoha and Sunagakure, he had once encountered Chiyo and Pakura, leaving them with a deep impression.
With ninja methods, it was not difficult to use special means to sketch his appearance, print it into intelligence manuals, and distribute them to various squads.
So Rasa quickly identified Mikami Yuu.
Then, an indescribable violence surged up from the depths of his heart.
No, seriously?
A young white-haired brat like you dares act this arrogant?
You bring only a few dozen people and dare cut off Sunagakure's retreat?
Who gave you that courage?
Not being able to fight Jiraiya or Orochimaru, those two Sannin, had already made Rasa feel extremely stifled.
After all, he genuinely believed his strength was not beneath the Sannin's. It was only because they had summoned those two giant beasts. Otherwise, he would have gone up and killed one of the Sannin himself.
As for Mikami Yuu…
What level are you even on?
Didn't you just defeat Pakura once? What is there to brag about?
As if no one else could beat Pakura.
If I don't kill you here, then my title as the Fourth Kazekage might as well be written backward.
~~~
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