Uchiha Yoru was very careful when gathering chakra.
He was afraid of using too much and exceeding the limit of a jonin, drawing the attention of the observers around the battlefield and exposing the abnormal vastness of his chakra reserves.
If he clearly released the full chakra volume of several jonin and could still continue fighting lively and unharmed afterward, without even gasping for breath, any shinobi would know there was something wrong with him.
An eighteen-year-old jonin was not frightening.
An eighteen-year-old elite jonin was acceptable too.
After all, he had the three-tomoe Sharingan.
But paired with Kage-level chakra reserves—
Wouldn't that make him a proper Kage-level shinobi?
Right.
This Kage-level shinobi from the Uchiha clan also excelled at developing ninjutsu, training shinobi units, and guiding Uchiha clan shinobi to awaken their eyes.
The Third Hokage would go insane.
Even if Yoru was no longer afraid of the Third Hokage and the others, he couldn't just force them to lose their minds.
How was anyone supposed to live like that?
His efforts were not for the sake of competing with the Third Hokage.
They were for cultivation.
For longevity.
But in the end—
They were for life.
Time stood on Uchiha Yoru's side.
There was no need for him to actively seek trouble.
Once enough chakra had gathered, Yoru exhaled.
Orange-red flames surged from between his clasped palms.
Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation.
A B-rank Fire Release ninjutsu.
Among Fire Release techniques, it belonged to the highest level of ninjutsu.
Under the support of chakra dozens of times greater than normal, the flames expanded into a sea of fire.
Although it wasn't truly as grand and magnificent as an actual sea of flames—
At the very least, it had the scale of a lake.
And on top of his head, Miwa Masayo also blew out a thin, pale-white line of fire at exactly the right moment.
Sage Art · Fire Release · Blue-White True Flame.
The pale flames moved like a spirit snake, catching up to the surging ninjutsu fire current, wrapping around it intimately before quickly merging into it.
Under the exquisite control of the two sages, fire-aspected chakra and fire-aspected natural energy first formed ninjutsu and sage art separately—
Then fused into senjutsu chakra.
At the same time, the two techniques completed their fusion.
It was like pouring a bowl of water into a burning oil pan.
The sea of flames expanded explosively.
The color of the fire changed from orange into a mixture of gold and crimson.
Especially the golden sparks, which burst continuously, increasing the technique's power by more than ten times.
The tide-like flames swallowed the charging Kirigakure shinobi—
Along with every Water Release technique they used.
Those Water Release techniques were powerful enough in their own right.
But before this enormous sea of fire, they were like swimming pools and tap water pipes buried beneath a volcanic eruption.
Only insignificant interference.
Inside the terrifying flame storm, the bodies of the swallowed Kirigakure shinobi burned rapidly.
In the blink of an eye, they charred, cracked apart, and turned into fingernail-sized fragments that danced inside the flames.
Then those fragments continued breaking down—
Until they became pure white bone ash and merged into the air like dust.
Orochimaru stared blankly for a full ten seconds before finally regaining his Cold Lord composure.
Then he bit his finger, formed hand seals, and pressed his palm beneath his feet.
When the huge cloud of white smoke dispersed, Manda appeared beneath Orochimaru, covered in blue-purple scales, his horns and head fierce.
He asked impatiently,
"Orochimaru, why did you summon me? Have you prepared the sacrifices?"
"If there aren't a hundred humans as offerings, I won't—"
Orochimaru didn't even look down.
He coldly interrupted Manda's usual opening line and scolded him.
"Fool. You still haven't felt it?"
Manda froze.
Then asked blankly,
"Felt what?"
"Idiot. The terrifying heat, of course. And the dense natural energy."
"Ah? Ah… ah—! Hot! Hot, hot, hot!"
Only after Orochimaru reminded him did the dazed Manda finally notice the heat radiation in the air and the rolling hot wind.
For a cold-blooded animal, this was terribly unfriendly.
But Manda's cries suddenly stopped.
He finally saw the flames in the distance, then swallowed nervously.
"Sage art…"
"It really is sage art."
"And Fire Release sage art…"
Orochimaru lowered his head and asked,
"Manda, can you gather pure natural energy like that cat sage, then cooperate with me to perform sage art?"
Manda's scales stood on end in fright.
He hissed in argument.
"How is that possible? How could anyone gather pure natural energy?"
"Once that kind of thing enters the body, it petrifies you. It must be fused with chakra to ensure safety!"
"I know that much about Ryūchi Cave's sage arts."
"But the cat sage from the Cat Castle before us has done it."
"Do you really not want to try?"
Manda opened his mouth wide, but only hissing noise came out.
He was actually so agitated he had lost his voice.
Only after a long while did Manda recover. After muttering a few words no one could hear, he said,
"I'll go back and ask for you. In any case, I don't know."
After saying that, he canceled the summoning.
He even forgot about the sacrifices he had been shouting for earlier, hurriedly returning to Ryūchi Cave.
Of course, Orochimaru had never intended to give any this time.
He had provided such precious intelligence.
How could Manda still have the nerve to ask for sacrifices or compensation?
If he really dared to demand them with that thick face, Orochimaru would absolutely take the matter to the White Snake Sage and demand an explanation.
Ryūchi Cave's sage art teaching service was too poor.
It was one thing to be inferior to Mount Myōboku's toads.
But if they were even worse than the ninja cats of the Cat Castle—
What right did they have to call themselves one of the Three Great Sage Regions?
After Manda left, Orochimaru summoned another unintelligent giant snake and had it raise him high into the air, making it easier to carefully observe Uchiha Yoru's performance.
The more he watched, the more wonderful he found it.
Inspiration surged through his mind like a tide.
Orochimaru grew excited to the extreme. His tongue extended long, constantly licking his cheeks.
"Excellent. So it can be done like this."
"Ah… I feel it now. The flavor of senjutsu chakra."
"So he cooperates with a contracted summoning beast to complete external senjutsu chakra fusion."
"What an interesting idea."
"No—"
"A genius concept."
"If fusing it inside the body is dangerous, why not fuse it outside the body?"
"No matter how it goes out of control, it won't endanger one's life."
"This can absolutely be tested."
"Since there's no danger to life, I need to find more experimental subjects."
"Hm?"
Orochimaru suddenly discovered something new and cried out in surprise,
"After the fusion, all control is handed over to Uchiha Yoru?"
"That's practically handing over one's life."
"It requires the summoning beast to trust him without reservation…"
Orochimaru's gaze became indescribably complicated.
"Trust… something so extravagant… can actually be obtained from a summoning beast."
"Uchiha Yoru, this fellow's luck is truly enough to make me jealous."
"Damn it."
"Why is my summoning beast Manda?"
"Lazy, greedy, and with a temper that stinks to death."
"I should find an opportunity to get rid of him."
"This time, I'll search Ryūchi Cave properly. With so many giant snakes, there has to be one I can trust…"
Manda, who was currently hurrying toward the White Snake Sage's temple, suddenly shivered.
He froze inexplicably for a moment.
Then continued slithering forward.
He could already see the White Snake Sage's cave temple.
…
The sage art flames were immensely powerful, accompanied by a violent thermal storm.
The scorching wind blew away all the fog, clearly displaying the battlefield to everyone.
The first thing the Third Raikage noticed, however, was a blue giant snake in the distance.
He snorted coldly.
"Orochimaru is here too."
"Konoha really values this shinobi unit."
This seemingly reckless old man finally extinguished the idea of ambushing the Tiger Unit completely after seeing Orochimaru's presence.
If no Kage-level shinobi had appeared, the Third Raikage truly would have acted.
He would have killed every member of the Tiger Unit.
Perhaps Konoha only had this one new shinobi unit.
Perhaps their training method had not yet spread.
Even if those lucky assumptions weren't true, if the first unit was inexplicably wiped out on the battlefield, Konoha would definitely hesitate.
There might even be voices questioning the unit itself.
That would buy Kumogakure time to catch up.
But this was something that could be done, not said.
It absolutely could not be leaked.
First, the Third Raikage had already decided to join forces with Konoha to encircle and destroy Kirigakure's army, driving this unstable factor out of the Land of Hot Water.
He would not violate established policy for uncertain benefits.
Otherwise, it would confuse the shinobi in his village.
Second—
What kind of person was the Third Raikage?
If he personally slaughtered a new shinobi unit, wouldn't that be equivalent to advertising it?
Was he supposed to use his own reputation as the price to increase the chance that Konoha would make the correct choice?
Wasn't that something only an idiot would do?
Since he had decided to abandon the assassination of this Konoha unit, the Third Raikage no longer stayed.
He left with his staff officers.
Kirigakure's defeat was already certain.
Kumogakure's army could attack without any hesitation now.
After destroying Kirigakure, he would return to meet Orochimaru and confirm the limit on foreign shinobi in the Land of Hot Water.
Then he could concentrate his attention on preparing to deal with Iwagakure.
The Third Raikage left swiftly.
…
Kirigakure's upper ranks finally saw the battlefield clearly.
Kaguya Ren, Hōzuki Sakuzuki, and Ryō were all stunned.
Thousands of burning piles.
Each one represented the corpse of a Kirigakure shinobi.
Adding in those that had already gone out and those that had never burned, Kirigakure's losses had probably exceeded four thousand.
More than half destroyed.
No one could have imagined that surrounding a village defended by fewer than a hundred people—
A village already reduced to ruins—
Would cost such a terrifying price.
And after paying such a price, they still had not managed to touch the enemy.
Ryō was the first to speak.
"We were wrong."
"Attack is not something where more people always means better."
"Once numbers reach a certain point, they become a huge mistake instead."
Kaguya Ren did not refute him.
The reality of more than four thousand casualties lay before them.
It was an indisputable fact.
He asked,
"What now? Do we leave, or keep fighting?"
Hōzuki Sakuzuki answered,
"We can't leave."
"If we leave, we're dead."
"We must take this village, then leave people behind to defend it."
"Use this same method to hold back Konoha's army."
He looked north and muttered,
"With the battle turning into this disaster, Kumogakure absolutely won't sit by."
"They'll join Konoha and surround us."
"We absolutely cannot be caught between them."
"We need this high ground so we can concentrate our strength and retreat under Kumogakure's attack."
Kaguya Ren took several deep breaths, but still couldn't suppress the anxiety and impatience in his heart.
He asked urgently,
"How do we fight?"
"How do we fight like this?"
The situation was urgent.
Ryō could no longer be bothered to mock his old rival and hurriedly said,
"We follow our original plan."
"Flood this high ground and force all the Konoha shinobi out."
"Don't tell me our Kirigakure shinobi can't defeat a few dozen Konoha shinobi in floodwater?"
Kaguya Ren said viciously,
"That's right."
"Impossible."
"Then we do it."
"When the flood submerges this village, I'll personally charge up and kill them all!"
Ryō stopped him.
"This time, let me go."
"Save your strength to fight Kumogakure."
Kaguya Ren could not accept that.
Once the flood covered the field, the Konoha shinobi would be fish on the chopping board. They could be killed casually.
He had lost the heir to his clan head.
If he couldn't take revenge, even returning home would leave him with an unbearably difficult life.
He absolutely could not miss this chance.
So Kaguya Ren put on a look of deep hatred and shouted,
"They killed Kaguya Gaiya!"
"I must avenge him!"
Among the three giants, Kaguya Ren was the one with the worst brain.
How could the other two fail to see the little calculations in his heart?
Ryō sneered.
"Heh. Kaguya Ren, do you not want to live?"
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"Once the flood comes, this place will be easy to deal with. But after that, we retreat north and fight Kumogakure, who specializes in Lightning Release."
"Do you think I'm suitable to take the lead?"
"Or Commander Hōzuki?"
"If we can't break through Kumogakure's obstruction, we can only dissolve the army and jump into the sea together."
"Other shinobi aside—"
"For shinobi like us, once we leave the army, do you think those Kumogakure lunatics will let us go easily?"
Ryō sighed.
"The one hunting us might even be the Raikage."
"The Third Raikage, known as the strongest defense in the shinobi world."
"If we want to live, we need your strength."
"Whether it's breaking through Kumogakure's blockade or struggling for survival under the Third Raikage's Lightning Release."
The Third Raikage was a ruthless man obsessed with hunting enemy Kage-level shinobi.
The record in his hands was enough to make every Kirigakure upper-rank shudder.
Especially Hōzuki Sakuzuki, who was completely countered by the Third Raikage.
He had not even dared to speak during the discussion just now.
Even Ryō, an Ice Release user whose bloodline limit was not restrained, could not break the Third Raikage's defense.
And he could not dodge the enemy's speed either.
Once targeted, there was only death.
Among the three great shinobi clans, only the Kaguya clan's Shikotsumyaku could confront the Third Raikage head-on.
Speed, defense, offense—
They could contest him in every aspect.
They were an indispensable force when fighting Kumogakure.
But if Kaguya Ren ran into that ruthless Third Raikage while exhausted, he knew he wouldn't have much room to struggle.
Considering his own life, Kaguya Ren suddenly felt that going home and taking a beating from the clan head…
Might not be unacceptable.
Today's Kaguya clan had enough members, enough awakened Shikotsumyaku users, a high enough social status, enough family wealth, and a comfortable enough life.
So Shikotsumyaku awakeners like Kaguya Ren were only hot-tempered because of their bloodline limit.
They were not yet as insane as they would be later, when the entire clan defected from the village.
He valued his own life greatly.
He had no thought or impulse to throw it away casually.
Kirigakure's upper ranks discussed quickly.
Only a few minutes passed before Kirigakure's shinobi launched another attack.
This made Uchiha Yoru and the Uchiha little brothers feel deeply uneasy.
Shinobi were not machines, after all.
They could not truly attack continuously without pause.
Their physical stamina and chakra consumption were not small.
Yoru's original hypothetical enemy had only been three thousand people.
He had assumed Kirigakure's army was a mercenary-style force. Once they suffered thirty percent casualties, they should collapse.
Now, he had no idea how Kirigakure's upper ranks had managed it.
Not only had they not collapsed—
They could even launch a new attack.
In truth, this was because Yoru's understanding of the shinobi world was still insufficient.
In the shinobi world, when calculating the strength of a shinobi army, one had to refer to each side's combat power coefficient.
If the core jonin and veteran chunin had not suffered losses, then the genin and ordinary chunin at the bottom were irrelevant.
Even if their death rate exceeded seventy percent, and the death rate of the entire army exceeded half, the whole force would not collapse.
On the contrary—
If half the jonin in a shinobi army died, even if total casualties did not reach one percent, that army's morale would hit bottom and might collapse on the spot at any time.
Kirigakure had not collapsed.
If they continued fighting like this regardless of cost, the Tiger Unit's battle would become extremely difficult.
Yoru was unwilling to let the Tiger Unit be wiped out.
He would not fight on the defensive position until they were exhausted before considering retreat.
Just as he was considering when to break out with the Tiger Unit and fight a mobile battle around this high ground, he noticed something.
Kirigakure's shinobi stopped six hundred meters away.
Then began forming hand seals collectively, preparing to cast ninjutsu.
It could be seen that their hand-seal speed was shockingly slow.
They were likely pursuing synchronization, trying to maximize the power of the technique.
Water Release: Exploding Water Colliding Wave.
Kirigakure's shinobi gathered chakra in their throats, then spat out enough water to form a lake toward the ground, sending it surging toward Kubota Village.
The terrain here was indeed very gentle.
The flood created by Kirigakure's Water Release crossed the six hundred meters in one breath and rushed into Kubota Village.
Then—
It was contained and diverted by the crisscrossing drainage channels.
The flood that only reached above the instep lasted for just a few minutes before the water level rapidly dropped.
But before the flood could fully drain away, the next wave of Exploding Water Colliding Wave brought in fresh water.
Soon, the large and small pits throughout Kubota Village could no longer hide people.
The Konoha shinobi quickly left their concealed positions and gathered atop the muddy water that reached their calves.
Uchiha Shigenobu asked,
"Big Brother Yoru, are we still waiting here?"
Yoru immediately answered,
"Since the flood has already covered the ground, that proves the timing is mature."
"Let's begin."
"Yes!"
Uchiha Kazushi stepped on the water surface a few times and said unhappily,
"Fighting on water really is inconvenient."
"No need to complain."
"This is only a small inconvenience."
"We dug so many drainage channels. Very soon, the water will be drained away."
Yoru smiled as he looked at the enemy opposite them.
Some Kirigakure shinobi were already waving weapons and beginning their charge.
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