Chapter 83: The Thermobaric Bomb's First Dazzling Display in the Ninja World
"Did you catch those two ninja?" A stood atop the Raikage Building, staring down at the Hidden Cloud Village below as he asked the question again.
For some reason, he could not settle. A heavy, restless unease clung to his chest, the kind that made it impossible to sit still in an office. In the end, he had come outside for air, hoping the wind would scrape the irritation off his nerves.
"I apologize, Fourth Raikage." An ANBU answered at once. "Those two were extremely skilled at hiding. C tracked them to a valley, but we could not find any further traces."
A's mood sank even lower.
C was excellent. A sensor, a genjutsu user, and even capable with medical ninjutsu. Someone A valued highly. And even he had lost them.
A's eyes narrowed.
"Inform the sealing squad. Increase vigilance. If anything unusual is detected, respond immediately."
He was still agitated. That unease kept twisting inside him, so sharp he wanted to punch the mountain beside the village and split it open. He needed an enemy to hit, something solid to vent on, something that would answer his frustration with the honest feedback of bone and blood.
The last time he had felt this unsettled was the day his father died.
On that day, anxiety had swallowed him whole. Later, the news came, the Third Raikage was gone.
Now that same ominous instinct had returned, cold and stubborn, refusing to let him breathe.
Why? What was wrong?
Bee was strong. A knew exactly how strong. Unless Konoha mobilized a massive force and the Third Hokage personally stepped onto the battlefield, ignoring casualties, nobody was putting Bee down. And if Bee ran into trouble, he would find a way to notify him.
As A's thoughts churned, his ear twitched.
He looked up.
The sky was unchanged, a veil of mist and cloud obscuring everything above.
Yet the unease only intensified.
Then, under his gaze, a black shadow ripped downward at terrifying speed. It fell so fast that the moment A registered it, it was already slamming toward the sealing barrier over the Hidden Cloud Village.
Only then did he see it clearly.
A cylinder. Silver white. Metallic sheen. Not a jutsu.
"A foolish attack," A muttered.
The barrier was on high alert during wartime. It could withstand physical impact. A crude metal cylinder should not even leave a scratch.
But the warning in his blood screamed louder.
The instant the cylinder struck, it was deflected by the barrier and hurled aside, crashing down on the left side of Kumogakure.
A kept his eyes on the sky.
The next second, a blinding flash erupted from the left.
A did not even have time to blink.
A violent shockwave, carrying brutal heat, slammed into him. The impact forced him back several steps. A storm of scorching wind and debris swept across the rooftop, mixed with rubble and fragments of flesh.
Something dark flew through the air.
An eye.
It struck A's face and vanished in an instant, vaporized by the dense Lightning Release armor surrounding his body.
Then came the strangest part.
Suffocation.
A's eyes widened. He moved to inhale and realized he could not. His chest rose, his throat opened, and yet there was nothing. It was like the air itself had been stolen.
When he tried to force a breath, the heat surged in instead, dry and murderous, as if it wanted to burn his throat from the inside out.
"What kind of ninjutsu is this?" A growled.
If he still could not understand that Kumogakure was under attack, he would be the one who needed medical treatment.
At the heart of the blast, fire roared upward into the sky, swelling into a towering cloud like a mushroom of flame. The shockwave, heavy with heat, looked ready to sweep across the entire Hidden Cloud Village.
A watched with bloodshot eyes.
No.
He could not accept it. He would not accept Kumogakure being swallowed like this.
"Defend! Defend immediately!" A shouted, furious and urgent.
Only silence answered him.
An eerie silence.
The thermobaric explosion had consumed the surrounding oxygen, creating a brief vacuum zone.
The shockwave had already passed. The ninja were not fools, though. They reacted quickly, throwing up defensive jutsu to block what they could of the heat and impact.
Then they felt it too.
They could not breathe.
Panic flashed through the crowd, but the sensation came fast and vanished just as quickly. A few seconds later, air rushed back into their lungs, and everyone gasped like drowning men breaking the surface.
What greeted them was devastation.
Near the rising fire cloud, buildings were crushed or flattened entirely. Ruins smoldered across the village. Ninja staggered through the wreckage, screaming, coughing, wailing.
The shinobi had defended themselves enough to survive.
The civilians had not.
Near the center of the blast, there were no bodies. No remains. People had vanished like water thrown onto a forge.
A clenched his fists until the joints creaked, his gaze burning as he stared into the clouds.
The attack had come from above.
"Tch. It did not break through the sealing barrier. They got lucky." Kenichi clicked his tongue as he looked down at the mushroom cloud rising beneath them.
After Sasori used magnetism to hurl the thermobaric bomb downward, it had already been moving at terrifying speed, but it still could not punch through the barrier. It was knocked aside instead.
The sealing barrier shattered in less than a tenth of a second under the sudden, violent blast, but it still managed to block most of the energy. Otherwise, the outcome would have been completely different.
If the explosion had happened inside the barrier, it would have been even more interesting. Kumogakure might have been wiped off the map.
Still, the results were already excellent.
A quarter of the Hidden Cloud Village had been destroyed, and that was only because the barrier had absorbed so much. Without it, the damage would have been far more impressive.
"What was that?" Sasori's voice was tense. He looked like he wanted to jump down and see the crater with his own eyes.
When Kenichi had told him to throw the metal object, Sasori had not taken it seriously. After dropping it, Kenichi had immediately used Wind Release to push the hot air balloon away from the airspace above Kumogakure.
Sasori finally understood why.
What if that thing had detonated in his hands?
You could die. Instantly.
A cold fear crawled up Sasori's spine.
Perhaps I should become eternal too.
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