The Akayama Clan watched as, just before their ninjutsu and weapons could land—
A huge sphere of gold sand burst through the roof.
"He's there!"
"He's inside that sand ball!"
"Attack it!"
One Akayama ninja shouted.
But just as they prepared to strike the gold sand sphere—
Three hundred yellow sand soldiers suddenly appeared, each holding a spear, and charged straight toward the inner ring of Akayama shinobi.
Their speed was astonishing.
In an instant, they forcibly tore the Akayama shinobi's attention away.
"What is that?"
"Enemy attack!"
Only then did the Akayama Clan members get a clear look at what was assaulting them.
Their entire bodies were yellow.
Humanoid.
But they carried no trace of human life. What radiated from them was only the presence of sand.
"What the hell are these things?"
"Puppets?"
"Clones?"
The three hundred sand soldiers formed a tightening circle and drove inward with savage force, pressing the Akayama ninja back... and back... and back again.
Some Akayama ninja fought to hold them off.
Others continued attacking the gold sand sphere in the sky.
Bang!
The sphere shattered.
Rasa and Uchiha Hanatsuki were revealed.
A mass of gold sand floated beneath their feet.
But Rasa's position had risen even higher.
Which meant that even fewer of the Akayama ninja's attacks could reach him.
And at that point, they were no longer a threat.
Rasa looked down calmly from above.
Akayama Tsuchiha's face darkened.
"Rasa!"
Hundreds of people launching a surprise attack together, and they still had not brought him down.
Those strange creatures that had appeared outside had tied down most of the Akayama Clan's ninja.
"What exactly are those things?"
"They weren't there before."
"They're not living creatures, but they don't look like puppets either."
Suddenly, a possibility flashed through Akayama Tsuchiha's mind.
"Could they be puppets created through ninjutsu?"
In this world, there were two kinds of puppets.
One was Sunagakure's signature type—constructed from rare materials.
The other was a temporary puppet made through ninjutsu.
By pouring chakra into earth, stone, or other materials, one could create such a puppet to fight on the user's behalf. Once its chakra ran out, or the caster stopped supplying chakra, it would collapse.
"But who could create so many sand puppets in such a short time—and so silently?"
"What kind of jutsu is this?"
"I've never heard of it before."
"There was clearly no one else around besides Rasa and that female Uchiha."
"…Wait. Don't tell me it's Rasa?"
Akayama Tsuchiha stared at Rasa in the sky.
"Since when could Rasa use a jutsu like this?"
"Aren't all of Rasa's techniques based on those inherited from the Third Kazekage-sama?"
"Did he create this himself?"
At that moment, Akayama Tsuchiha could only think of that one explanation.
There was no other.
His expression turned even uglier.
"Rasa... you hid yourself well."
"From the beginning, were you planning to purge the remnants of the Third Kazekage-sama's faction? To remake Sunagakure in your own image?"
"Was your earlier conflict with Pakura nothing more than an act too?"
At that moment, a vast shadow descended from afar and blanketed the entire abandoned training ground.
Akayama Tsuchiha looked up.
A gigantic bird beat its wings overhead, cruelty gleaming in its eyes.
"Yatagarasu!"
"Rasa's summon!"
Akayama Tsuchiha shouted in alarm.
"Not good! Run!"
Yatagarasu's capabilities had already been fully proven on the battlefield against Kirigakure.
Under its bombardment, tightly clustered Kirigakure ninja had suffered over a thousand casualties.
And the Akayama ninja were packed together even more tightly now.
Yet even their total numbers did not reach a thousand.
Much less the number present here.
At that moment, Akayama Tsuchiha no longer even thought about assassinating Rasa.
The instant those sand soldiers had appeared, the Akayama Clan's assassination attempt had already failed.
Rasa's abilities were too abnormal.
Once he rose into the sky, the number of people who could threaten him became pitifully small.
Now the situation had reversed.
The one trapped here was no longer Rasa—
It was the Akayama Clan.
The moment Akayama Tsuchiha shouted, the Akayama ninja all realized the danger and began frantically trying to break out.
"You came all this way. Leaving won't be so easy."
Rasa folded his arms and looked down calmly.
Hanatsuki did not dare look below. She could only stare at the surroundings.
Whenever the Akayama ninja's attacks drew near, they were blocked by gold sand.
With a bang, the gold sand burst apart into a brilliant golden spray, like a firework blossoming in the air. To Hanatsuki, it looked impossibly beautiful.
At that moment, the world below and the world above felt like two completely separate realms.
The Akayama ninja fought desperately to escape, but they could not break through.
The sand soldiers had formed a complete ring and were hemming them in with absolute force.
Even if these sand soldiers only possessed the strength of chunin, they held one overwhelming advantage over ordinary shinobi—
They did not fear death.
And they did not fear pain.
Nor would they vanish like shadow clones from taking a slightly serious wound.
Sand soldiers were far more durable than that.
One Akayama ninja drove a kunai into the neck of a sand soldier.
The sand soldier did not even flinch. It drove its spear straight into the ninja's lower abdomen.
Another Akayama shinobi leapt high, trying to escape.
A sand soldier below jumped as well and stabbed its spear upward—directly toward the man's groin.
An Akayama jonin severed both legs of a sand soldier.
But the soldier's remaining two arms still clamped onto him like iron.
Then another sand soldier lunged from the side.
The sand soldiers brought their fearlessness of pain and death to the absolute extreme.
The Akayama ninja, on the other hand, feared both.
Once injured, their fighting strength inevitably fell.
They did not dare exchange injury for injury, much less life for life.
And the sand soldiers' purpose was simple—contain, delay, and entangle.
What the Akayama ninja had to do was far harder.
They were trapped.
Completely trapped.
And then—
The white explosive eggs began to fall from the sky.
Yatagarasu let out an excited cry.
One white egg after another appeared beneath its body and descended toward the abandoned training ground below.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Violent explosions shook the earth.
At that instant, the entirety of Sunagakure was jolted awake.
People were torn from their sleep and turned as one toward the source of the blasts.
"What happened?!"
Advance Chapters available on Patreon
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