Chapter 200: Composite Ninjutsu: Five Elements Great Combo Blast! Enma's Transformed Halberd
"Point..."
Tenzo froze for a fraction of a second before decoding the Hokage's operational shorthand.
"Three kilometers to the southwest. Roughly one thousand Mist vanguard elites, flanked by two division-strength line-fill formations..."
"Aerial reconnaissance logs anomalous, hyper-dense chakra signatures along the distant coast. High probability of Kirigakure mobilizing a Tailed Beast..." Tenzo reported, his voice dropping into grave military cadence.
In terms of apex combat assets, Konoha's portfolio was stacked; matched against the combined might of rival hidden villages, they held the quantitative and qualitative advantage.
However, when auditing their rank-and-file demographic, the numbers told a different story. Although Hiruzen Sarutobi's aggressive administrative reforms had elevated the baseline parameters of his lower-tier personnel well above the international standard, raw volume remained an operational bottleneck.
The family-planning subsidies had stimulated birth rates, but biological assets required time to mature into active-duty units.
Furthermore, Konoha's total registered population had never been the largest among the Five Great Villages.
Dividing their military assets across four active theaters dictated that Konoha's overarching grand strategy had to remain anchored in defensive counter-offensives.
Hold high-ground topography, exploit informational asymmetry, and execute surgical, high-yield decapitation strikes against enemy weak points.
Never charge blindly into a massed infantry meat-grinder.
Across the shinobi market, even top-tier combat assets generally suffered from a severe structural flaw: their defensive tolerances were vastly inferior to their offensive damage output.
Once an operative was enveloped in a high-density, multi-directional encirclement, the sheer volume of attacks could force a mutual liquidation trade.
Especially during a general war, where enemy reinforcements were fed into the meat-grinder continuously.
That foundational law bound even standard Kage.
Yet it held zero relevance for Hiruzen Sarutobi.
He was fundamentally different. He held zero fear of human-wave attrition.
Standard Chunin and Tokubetsu Jonin—even standard all-rounder Jonin lacking high-yield piercing arts—could not compromise his passive defensive thresholds.
Lightning Release Chakra Mode, Earth Release: Added-Weight Rock Technique, the Myriad Seals Body Integration Mark, synthetic Kekkei Genkai filaments, and advanced neuro-reactive conditioning: five distinct layers of holistic physical refinement.
The steady accumulation of quantitative density had triggered a profound, qualitative biological metamorphosis.
"You two will secure the outer perimeter. Do not shadow my advance," Hiruzen commanded concisely.
The moment the words cleared his lips, a plume of white smoke detonated beside him.
Having returned from advanced Senjutsu conditioning at Mt. Myoboku, Enma materialized at Hiruzen's flank.
"Hiruzen..."
"In my current state, I can finally withstand your baseline kinetic output."
Enma's physical structure shifted rapidly. Unlike previous deployments, he did not compress into his traditional adamantine staff.
Instead, his mass elongated and forged itself into a massive, pitch-black halberd!
After the Great Toad Sage, Fukasaku, and Shima confirmed Hiruzen as the "Prophet-Teacher," the strategic partnership between Mt. Myoboku and Konoha had scaled to unprecedented heights. Proprietary Senjutsu arts previously restricted to internal summon lineages had been transferred to Enma without hesitation.
Nor was this limited to Mt. Myoboku's proprietary techniques.
As an ancient sage region spanning millennia, with the Great Toad Sage sharing direct, historical ties with the Sage of Six Paths, Mt. Myoboku's institutional vault was effectively a boundless treasury.
Historically, the Great Toad Sage had mirrored Hagoromo's strange detachment toward the mortal plane: Assistance is permitted, but never in excess. Maintain plausible deniability.
Thus, Mt. Myoboku had historically intervened only through summon contracts and vague prophecies.
Yet upon receiving Fukasaku and Shima's reports detailing Hiruzen's operational philosophy, the shrewd old toad had made an immediate strategic calculation:
Authorize unrestricted, heavy investment into Hiruzen Sarutobi.
This executive understood that both emotional bonds and absolute kinetic force were mandatory pillars of statecraft.
Compared to Asura and Indra, the current Hokage was arguably the truest ideological heir to Hagoromo's original Ninshu.
If the Sage of Six Paths ever audited the board and realized Mt. Myoboku had placed a massive, high-leverage bet on Konoha, he would raise zero objections.
What choice did we have? We merely recognized your ancient reflection in the boy.
Consequently, while Enma had yet to achieve total autonomous mastery over Sage Transformation, Mt. Myoboku's intensive resource injection had evolved the monkey clan's ancestral Transformation Jutsu.
Enma could now forge himself into a significantly more lethal, high-mass weapon chassis, scaling his structural density and elasticity by orders of magnitude.
"Excellent work, old friend." Hiruzen gripped the black halberd, testing its crushing, metallic heft.
With his biological density, swinging such a weapon was natural, but an ordinary operative would have struggled simply to lift it from the soil.
A fleeting, nostalgic thought crossed Hiruzen's mind: It bears an uncanny resemblance to a classic Fangtian Huaji...
The Hokage dismissed the aesthetic thought.
In total war, acquiring any asymmetric tactical leverage was a net positive; he logged Mt. Myoboku's institutional favor into his strategic ledger.
In a blur of raw velocity, Hiruzen vanished, hurtling toward the southwest vector like an artillery shell.
To the Byakugan, his trajectory resembled a single, screaming beam of black light!
"Deploy our lines! Encircle the advancing Mist formations!" Tenzo commanded without hesitation.
It was an unconventional, near-suicidal directive: ordering roughly one thousand perimeter troops to encircle a fully mobilized, division-strength invasion vanguard defied all classical military doctrine.
Unlike the other cartels who deployed balanced expeditionary forces, the Third Mizukage—terrified that the volatile unrest in his rear would ignite a civil war—had executed an all-in corporate gamble, ordering a total troop mobilization.
Southwest sector. The Kirigakure vanguard.
Wearing cruel, predatory grins, the Mist elites maintained a rapid forced-march toward the Land of Fire's interior.
Due to the unique maritime theater, despite Konoha's naval cruisers and flight patrols, Kirigakure's all-out amphibious landing had breached the coastline with surprising speed.
There were no minor sovereign nations serving as geographical buffers here.
This frictionless opening had convinced a significant portion of the Mist troops that the Third Mizukage's strategic assessment was accurate:
Konoha was structurally hollow.
While rational officers understood that this local beachhead was simply a mathematical byproduct of geography and an all-in blitzkrieg, none dared voice that reality aloud.
The Third Mizukage held absolute authority, and the lingering horrors of the Blood Mist Protocol had warped the psychology of these operatives to the point where mass slaughter in a foreign theater felt like a psychological release valve.
"What utility is advanced hardware?"
"Konoha absorbed Soragakure's tech—flying toys, maritime cruisers—yet the moment they brushed against the vanguard of the Blood Mist, they broke formation and fled!"
"Lord Genji's operational forecast was flawless. He saw through Konoha's hollow paper tiger! Their internal command structure has devolved into total chaos; their cruisers and flight squads are merely conducting performative, low-yield harassment..."
Kushimaru Kuriarare, one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist and half of the notorious "Heartless Duo," ran his tongue along the edge of his longsword, Nuibari. Beneath his mask, his expression twisted with sadistic glee: "I cannot wait to thread those soft Leaf brats together like raw meat on a skewer!"
"My blade is starving..."
What Kushimaru failed to comprehend was that Konoha's naval cruisers and aerial squadrons had actively avoided kinetic skirmishes under the direct executive orders of Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Sacrificing high-tier, integrated aerospace platforms to fill a defensive line against expendable infantry was an egregious waste of capital.
More importantly, Hiruzen Sarutobi was personally managing the vanguard liquidation.
"Indeed. Slaughtering our own village's Genin always carried tedious administrative red tape..." Jinpachi Munari, the other half of the Heartless Duo, bared his serrated teeth:
"Domestic executions never offered sufficient release!"
Nearby, Juzo Biwa furrowed his brow, looking upon his comrades with deep, undisguised disgust. These men were completely unhinged.
Shinobi lived and died by kinetic combat, but the Heartless Duo derived zero professional satisfaction from combat itself; they were addicted to pure, sadistic brutality.
"By the way, why is that brat Kimimaro absent from the vanguard?"
Jinpachi narrowed his eyes:
"He had the stomach to liquidate his own rebellious Kaguya clansmen, and he spends his days playing the obedient lapdog to Lord Mizukage. How is it that he vanished the moment military merits were on the table?"
Kushimaru let out a dry sneer:
"Isn't the answer obvious? Kimimaro belongs to the Kaguya clan. You comprehend their cognitive limitations..."
"Intelligence indicates that because our entire army deployed to the front, our logistics and rear security were completely exposed. Kimimaro actively petitioned to take his internal security unit to manage the transport lines."
"He claimed he would maintain the rear line, execute military discipline, and await the Mizukage's personal orders."
Jinpachi burst into loud, mocking laughter:
"Of course! With the cerebral capacity of a Kaguya, how could he possibly calculate which operational portfolios yield the highest combat merits? The fact that he figured out how to stop openly defying the Mizukage already marks him as a genius by their standards!"
"If Kimimaro actually grasped that Kirigakure prioritizes raw headcounts above all administrative metrics, he'd be positioning himself for the Mizukage seat!"
Logistics and internal discipline were critical operational verticals in a general war.
However, those were classified as "soft merits," analogous to Orochimaru and Hiruko generating asymmetric dividends through R&D.
In an enlightened, progressive administration, those contributions were rewarded with immense institutional capital.
Under the Blood Mist Protocol, soft merits were entirely worthless. Raw, verified kill tallies were the only currency that carried weight.
In their estimation, Kimimaro had squandered an elite career advancement window out of naive, earnest dedication to Kirigakure.
Kushimaru nodded: "Fortunately, the brat is an idiot. In all honesty, if a Kaguya ever seized the Mizukage seat..."
Both members of the Heartless Duo shuddered involuntarily.
If a Kaguya achieved supreme executive authority, the resulting insanity would make the Third Mizukage look like a measured diplomat.
Yet they knew that scenario was a statistical impossibility.
Kirigakure respected raw force above all, but scaling the corporate ladder to the point of challenging for the throne required baseline political intelligence.
The Kaguya clan's historical reputation for unadulterated stupidity was bulletproof.
Over the past two years, anonymous whistleblowers had occasionally alerted the Third Mizukage that Kimimaro was playing both sides and organizing an underground faction. The Mizukage had dismissed the reports without a second thought.
A Kaguya organizing a sophisticated political syndicate?
Stop wasting administrative bandwidth.
Had the reports named Mei Terumi or Yuki as the mastermind, the Mizukage would have authorized an immediate Anbu audit.
"Once this campaign concludes, our Seven Swordsmen unit will hold the overwhelming majority of battlefield merits. We must maintain corporate solidarity..."
"We cannot allow an adolescent bureaucrat like Kimimaro to step on our necks. Internal Affairs? Hmph..."
Fuguki Suikazan chimed in, his massive frame shifting as he patted the bandages wrapping Samehada.
"Rest easy. I pulled strings within the logistical command; Kimimaro and his lackeys were redirected to the deep rear... Right now, they're either idling back in the village or counting crates on a supply barge!" Jinin Akebino, wielder of the blunt blade Kabutowari, chuckled dismissively.
Juzo Biwa kept his brows locked together, recalling the subtle, cryptic warning Kimimaro had dropped in passing days before deployment:
Do not advance too close to the vanguard.
Juzo and Kimimaro were not close allies, but Kimimaro harbored a sliver of respect for this specific swordsman, who had managed to retain a shred of basic human conscience amid the horrors of the Mist.
Kimimaro had offered a quiet piece of operational counsel, leaving the interpretation to Juzo.
Something is deeply wrong with this theater...
Juzo narrowed his eyes:
Forget it. I hold zero desire to serve as the Third Mizukage's butcher anyway. I will fall back to the secondary line.
Without drawing attention, Juzo subtly reduced his stride, reaching out to grab the shoulder of a young Zabuza, guiding the boy toward the rear-flank perimeter.
Following the "Demon of the Mist" incident, their dynamic closely mirrored that of a master and apprentice.
At that exact microsecond.
The sky above detonated into a canopy of roaring, incandescent crimson, as colossal spheres of flame descended toward the Mist formation like a barrage of falling meteors!
"Fire Release: Dragon Flame Caterwaul Jutsu!"
"Ambush!" A senior Mist Jonin roared: "All Water Release specialists, deploy to the vanguard!"
Within seconds, the Mist vanguard demonstrated the baseline tactical discipline expected of a Great Hidden Village. Dozens of Water Release users broke formation, converging shoulder-to-shoulder:
"Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"
A colossal, surging barrier of high-density water slammed upward, colliding violently with the descending dragon-headed fireballs. The thermal kinetic impact detonated, flash-boiling the moisture into an ocean of blinding steam!
The resulting shockwave swept outward in a deafening gale, forcing dozens of Mist shinobi to raise their arms to brace their footing.
"What terrifying fire density..." Juzo's pupils shrank to pinpricks. An icy premonition seized his core. He tightened his grip on Zabuza's shoulder, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper:
"Listen to me, kid. Keep your head down, play it smart, and fall back with me!"
"The Konoha operative deploying this caliber of jutsu is an apex anomaly. You have no business throwing your life away for the Third Mizukage!"
Amidst the roaring steam, Juzo dropped all pretenses, laying out his tactical survival doctrine.
The young Zabuza offered a silent, rigid nod. Both master and apprentice adopted an aggressive combat posture while systematically drifting toward the rear flank.
"The initial strike has been neutralized..."
Fuguki Suikazan narrowed his small eyes, squinting through the mist: "Who has deployed? A Fire Release of this magnitude..."
Before his tactical processors could finalize an assessment, the battlefield fractured.
From five distinct cardinal vectors encircling the Mist formation, five massive, composite elemental bombardments—each outclassing the initial Fire Release by orders of magnitude—converged upon the vanguard simultaneously!
Composite Ninjutsu:
Lightning-Water Dragon Blast!
Fire-Earth Magma Blast!
Wind-Fire Dragon Blast!
Fire-Lightning Detonation Blast!
Water-Earth Quagmire Blast!
A water dragon wreathed in screaming, high-voltage lightning; colossal boulders flash-burned into molten magma; towering columns of fire accelerated by high-pressure wind tunnels; unstable plasma explosions forged from fire and lightning; and a sprawling, high-density wave of adhesive, corrosive mud!
Five distinct composite elemental blasts, supercharged by Hiruzen Sarutobi's absolute, uninhibited chakra output, slammed dead-center into the Mist vanguard!
The steam from the initial clash had yet to dissipate before this apocalyptic secondary barrage roared into their lines.
Though several Mist Jonin scrambled to deploy secondary Water Formation Walls, this Five Elements Great Combo Blast was not an attack that conventional, single-nature elemental walls could mitigate.
This was not a numbers game.
The Lightning-Water Dragon, for instance, demanded a high-tier Earth Release barrier to ground the current; attempting to intercept it with Water Release merely converted the defensive wall into an electric execution chamber.
In a single instant, five distinct vectors of composite destruction overwhelmed the defensive cognitive bandwidth of the Mist vanguard.
The formations collapsed into chaotic, fragmented instincts.
Some panicked operatives cast low-tier Water Walls, others deployed crude, unrefined Earth Release, and some simply crossed their kunai before their chests, screaming curses at the sky as if pure volume could parry an elemental storm.
It was entirely useless.
Some defensive barriers marginally slowed the kinetic energy, while others actively fed the elemental reactions of the incoming blast.
The five composite streams slammed into the Kirigakure formation in staggered, rhythmic succession.
The ambient fog was torn to shreds by the catastrophic chakra tempest!
The Fire-Lightning Detonation Blast detonated first.
Plasma wreathed in thunder exploded into an ocean of screaming shrapnel, instantly clearing a massive vacuum within the forward ranks. The frontline operatives were torn apart before a single scream could clear their throats, their pulverized remains cast into the sky by the kinetic shockwave.
Immediately behind it roared the Lightning-Water Dragon.
The electrified leviathan smashed through the center, collapsing into a tidal wave of supercharged water. The Mist's own defensive water walls acted as conductors, transmitting the lethal current into dozens of trapped shinobi, locking their nervous systems in rigid paralysis.
The Wind-Fire Dragon exploited the kinetic blast of the initial explosion, triggering an instantaneous secondary detonation.
Wind fed the flames; the fire drank the wind.
The already savage dragon erupted into a sprawling firestorm, incinerating the paralyzed Mist troops, converting their biomass into combustible fuel.
The Fire-Earth Magma Blast descended with the weight of an iron mountain, shattering dead-center into the command grid.
Molten slag splashed outward like a meteor shower, each droplet carrying sufficient thermal energy to melt straight through armor and bone, punching smoking, cauterized craters through anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the splash zone.
Finally, the Water-Earth Quagmire Blast deployed the finishing cage.
A suffocating tide of corrosive mud detonated across a perimeter dozens of meters wide, transforming the terrain into an inescapable marsh with extreme adhesive properties. Mist operatives trapped up to their knees could only watch in paralyzed horror as the overlapping shockwaves washed over them.
Survival was a mathematical impossibility.
In the span of a single breath, Kirigakure's elite vanguard was annihilated.
Firestorms, lightning nets, bubbling quagmires, molten rock, and pressurized hydro-cannons interlaced with one another, feeding their respective elemental engines like a living, destructive ecosystem.
The few surviving Mist operatives huddled in the scorched mud, looking up at the burning sky. Their cruel, arrogant smirks had vanished, replaced by a primal, bone-deep terror.
This was not an ambush.
This was a localized natural disaster.
Unreasonable. Unannounced. Unstoppable.
"Impossible... Who deployed this?!" Kushimaru Kuriarare tossed aside the charred, smoking corpse of a subordinate, his face coated in ash and blood.
At the instant of detonation, Kushimaru had extended Nuibari's wire, stitching the body of an allied Mist shinobi to his chest to serve as a biological kinetic shield against the shockwave.
"It's a trap!"
"Konoha is deploying scorched-earth protocols... Their apex assets are all stationed here! The Hokage intends to execute a mutual liquidation strike against our vanguard!" Jinpachi Munari hurled away the shredded remains of another subordinate, wiping black blood from his eyes.
"Have they completely abandoned their other theaters?!"
The Heartless Duo's operational doctrine was identical: when cornered by lethal kinetic fire, convert the nearest subordinate into ablative armor.
Neither man could fathom that this apocalyptic devastation was the output of a single individual. They assumed Konoha had committed their entire High Commission to an ambush.
The smoke had yet to clear; the scorched earth hissed with boiling groundwater.
Before the concussed survivors could regain their situational awareness, Hiruzen Sarutobi breached the perimeter!
Encased in midnight-black plate armor, he wielded the colossal halberd forged from Enma's living mass. Hyper-dense chakra coated the weapon's edge, tracing arcs of deep, blood-red light through the smoke!
The halberd swung in wide, cleaving arcs. The sharp crack of severed steel and the dull crunch of shattering bone blurred into a single, continuous acoustic signature. Blood painted Hiruzen's black breastplate like splashed ink.
Wherever the halberd passed, the Mist shinobi fell like harvested wheat!
"Is that... is that even a shinobi?!"
Jinpachi stared in paralyzed horror at the one-man slaughter.
Hiruzen tilted his head, his cold gaze locking instantly onto the massive, scroll-wrapped blade gripped in Jinpachi's trembling hands: the Blastsword, Shibuki.
The Seven Ninja Swordsmen...
With a thought, the twelve-foot halberd suddenly elongated, its metal shaft expanding like living tissue, while the twin crescent blades flared with hyper-compressed, blood-red chakra edges.
Hiruzen dropped his center of gravity, engaging his core, and an explosion of pressurized white steam detonated from his armor seams!
Boil Release Chakra Mode: Unrivaled Strength!
With kinetic force measured in kilotons, Hiruzen swung his arms horizontally!
The halberd—extended to a length of dozens of meters—carved a catastrophic, horizontal circle of death through the battlefield, clearing a radius of fifty meters in a single rotation!
The elongated blade met zero operational resistance. It shattered half a dozen hastily erected water barriers before cleaving clean through the torsos of the trapped Mist operatives. Their death rattles were swallowed by the localized sonic boom as their souls were ejected directly to the Pure Land.
"What kind of monster is this?!"
Jinpachi's hands trembled violently.
He and Kushimaru were branded the "Heartless Duo" simply because they derived pleasure from tormenting the weak. Their cruelty was not born of unyielding martial resolve; it was the cowardly sadism of a predator bullying prey that could not fight back.
Confronted by an apex entity whose combat metrics vastly outclassed their own, the psychological high they derived from cruelty collapsed into sheer, paralyzing cowardice. They lacked even the baseline courage of a standard Chunin.
"Run!"
That single operational directive screamed through Jinpachi's mind.
Beside him, Kushimaru arrived at the exact same tactical conclusion.
The Heartless Duo abandoned all pretense of discipline, sprinting toward the rear command lines, terrified that a single glance from that black-armored demon god would mark them for immediate termination.
The two brothers-in-arms sprinted side-by-side.
Yet behind them echoed a sonic boom that sounded like the tolling of a funeral bell.
The boiling steam encasing Hiruzen's armor vanished, replaced instantly by an aura of crackling, blinding blue electricity!
Velocity Configuration: Lightning Release Chakra Mode!
Hiruzen closed the distance in a fraction of a microsecond. He did not deploy the halberd; he simply used his physical body to execute an uninhibited, forward shoulder-tackle directly into their spines!
In a fraction of a second, Jinpachi and Kushimaru felt as though an accelerated Tailed Beast had struck them from behind.
Both men were launched through the air like discarded cannon shells, their spinal columns pulverized, their internal organs ruptured, blood pouring from their eyes as they slammed into the earth like broken dolls.
"Pardon me..."
Hiruzen narrowed his eyes, maintaining his forward momentum without breaking stride.
He was thoroughly unimpressed by these two swordsmen.
An adversary ought to demonstrate baseline combat resolve. Had they conquered their terror and deployed Shibuki and Nuibari in a synchronized, suicidal counter-strike, they might have forced Hiruzen to execute a proper parry, sparing themselves a humiliating death.
Yet the moment terror breached their psychology, their combat effectiveness degraded to less than a tenth of their baseline.
Hiruzen did not care if they felt retrospective regret. They could register their formal complaints with the Sage of Six Paths in the Pure Land!
"Outstanding!"
Hiruzen bellowed, his voice ringing across the field.
Directly before him, a Mist operative wielding the Twin Swords, Hiramekarei, charged with suicidal ferocity, the dual blades radiating high-density chakra.
Concurrently, Raiga Kurosuki and Jinin Akebino breached the soil beneath his flanks. Raiga's Lightning Blades, Kiba, discharged high-voltage arcs, while Jinin swung the blunt axe of Kabutowari with bone-crushing velocity.
The Seven Ninja Swordsmen retained a few operatives capable of holding their nerve against an apex predator.
Hiruzen did not dodge.
Chakra flooded the black halberd as its blade expanded once more, piercing straight through the wielder of Hiramekarei and the incoming chakra hammer simultaneously!
Dropping the halberd, Hiruzen crossed his forearms, absorbing the synchronized strikes of Kiba and Kabutowari directly against his armor!
"This..." Raiga felt as though his blades had struck a granite mountain.
Worse, as the wielder of the Lightning Blades, his lightning should have paralyzed his target. Yet the moment Kiba touched Hiruzen's Lightning Release Chakra Mode, the electrical current back-siphoned into Raiga's own arms, threatening to dislocate his shoulders.
Jinin Akebino's eyes flared: "Die! Shatter everything, Kabutowari!"
Kabutowari was an asymmetric weapon—an axe linked to a massive hammer.
The operational mechanic: lodge the axe blade into the target's armor, then strike the hammer against the back of the axe to generate extreme piercing force, bypassing high-density defenses.
Against heavy plate, Jinin had deployed this technique to execute countless armored elites.
The hammer struck the axe with deafening force, driving the kinetic shockwave inward!
Hiruzen's armored forearm barely twitched.
"Are you finished with your tantrum?"
Hiruzen's eyes turned glacial. The lightning armor vanished, replaced by a minimalist hand seal.
An absolute, high-density gravitational field collapsed dead-center onto Raiga and Jinin!
The crushing downward pressure forced both men to their knees, their arms trembling violently as they struggled simply to lift their chins.
Entering Hiruzen's gravitational threshold without mastery over Earth Release or monstrous physical durability resulted in immediate physical paralysis.
Hiruzen unleashed a pair of straight punches.
Two dull impacts echoed across the field as the shockwaves punched through their chests.
In the span of a few minutes, five of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen had been liquidated by Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Only Fuguki Suikazan and Juzo Biwa remained on the board.
Juzo had anticipated the slaughter early, drifting to the outer perimeter with young Zabuza strapped to his back, sprinting toward the rear lines without looking back.
Fuguki had also survived. Recognizing that the vanguard was being liquidated, he hadn't panicked like the Heartless Duo, nor had he attempted a heroic stand like the others; he simply turned on his heel and sprinted toward the Third Mizukage's command tent.
As an executive under Genji, Fuguki understood the mathematical reality: the Seven Swordsmen were merely high-tier Jonin. The gulf between a Jonin and a true Kage was an insurmountable chasm.
In high-altitude airspace.
Gengetsu Hozuki and Mu observed the slaughter in absolute, stunned silence.
Though Madara had deployed Gengetsu to pressure Hiruzen, Gengetsu had petitioned to bring his eternal rival Mu along to provide cloaking and sensory support.
"Wait a moment..."
"Isn't Hiruzen Sarutobi the disciple of Tobirama Senju... or rather, Hashirama Senju?" Gengetsu scratched his head, his cognitive processing severely scrambled.
Having operated during the Warring States era, both men were intimately familiar with the visual profile of Madara Uchiha in his youth.
Including the aesthetic presentation of that midnight-black heavy plate armor...
"Why does his operational profile mirror Madara Uchiha with such terrifying fidelity?!"
"Aside from wielding a halberd instead of the Gunbai fan, and lacking a Sharingan and Susanoo... how does this differ from the Ghost of the Uchiha operating at peak combat metrics?!"
Gengetsu buried his face in his hands.
As a battle-hardened warlord, Gengetsu held zero personal grievance regarding Hiruzen slaughtering Mist troops; that was the reality of war, especially one initiated by Kirigakure.
What infuriated him was his village's total lack of sensory countermeasures.
During their covert infiltration of the Mist weeks prior, Gengetsu had flagged their catastrophic deficit in sensory shinobi. And today, that structural blind spot had cost them their entire vanguard!
Hiruzen's composite elemental bombardment had obliterated the vanguard precisely because the Mist lacked the sensory telemetry to detect his casting sequence!
"There are notable divergences," Mu noted in his dull, hollow voice:
"Madara was never this blunt or unrefined in his youth. The 'Rose of the Battlefield' was renowned for absolute precision and tactical elegance. Have you noticed that Hiruzen Sarutobi doesn't even bother parrying incoming kinetic attacks?"
"The kinetic output generated by his Boil Release's shape transformation is absurd..."
"Furthermore, where did he acquire such advanced mastery over Lightning Release Chakra Mode? Had I not logged his identity as the Hokage, I would have assumed the Second Raikage had materialized on the field!"
Mu felt an intense headache setting in.
Iwagakure had mobilized for this war as well.
His direct disciple, Onoki, was an elite executive who had mastered Particle Style and refined its application with brilliant independence. He had inherited Mu's core operational legacy.
However, Onoki suffered from a severe, clinical case of "Madara Uchiha Phobia," born of the trauma inflicted when the Ghost of the Uchiha had terrorized master and apprentice during Konoha's founding era.
Upon returning to Iwagakure, Onoki had relentlessly questioned Mu regarding Madara's power. Though Onoki had eventually managed his fear, it left him with an ingrained, biological terror of the Uchiha lineage.
Witnessing Hiruzen's combat metrics, Mu worried deeply.
How was Onoki supposed to counter this monster?
Compared to standard five-element ninjutsu, Particle Style cast relatively quickly. But in high-tier combat, unless an operative maintained continuous, peak chakra saturation, Particle Style carried severe environmental constraints...
Given Hiruzen's demonstrated velocity, Particle Style had a near-zero probability of securing a direct hit.
"He would have to bait the Hokage into melee range and cast Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World..." Mu murmured. That ultimate variant boasted massive AoE coverage, theoretically allowing Onoki to engulf Hiruzen within the cube.
Yet that technique demanded immense chakra reserves.
Particle Style was already an expensive jutsu; executing Detachment of the Primitive World required Onoki to operate at one hundred percent capacity from the opening bell.
If Mu were in his split form, he couldn't even cast standard Particle Style, and splitting merely halved his reserves. In an elite duel, preliminary probing attacks drained vast reserves before an ultimate technique could even be deployed.
What Mu did not know was that Hiruzen commanded a proprietary art designated "Spirit Release."
While it might not completely decompile Particle Style into raw, inert chakra, it possessed the capacity to fracture the jutsu's internal molecular geometry, dramatically neutralizing its atomic disintegration yield.
"Forget Particle Style for a moment; what is your operational assessment of my village?!"
Gengetsu clutched his forehead, thoroughly despairing over Kirigakure's command decisions.
Launching an amphibious assault against Konoha was identical to committing corporate suicide.
Yet maintaining peace was equally impossible under the Third Mizukage's catastrophic domestic policies. The man had implemented the Blood Mist Protocol—an administrative horror so extreme it would have disgusted even Warring States warlords.
The village was trapped in a total structural dead end.
"I recall Kitori was intellectually limited—he managed to lose to you, after all—but he was never completely braindead," Mu analyzed with narrowed eyes:
"How could he misread the macroeconomic board this catastrophically? Beyond their isolationist policy, I suspect Tobirama Senju deliberately fed Kirigakure falsified tactical intelligence!"
"Now I comprehend his design..."
"Tobirama never believed Konoha was weak; he doesn't want administrative reform!"
"He believes Hiruzen Sarutobi is far too peaceful! The boy is his disciple, yet he insists on walking Hashirama Senju's path. Sitting on the absolute kinetic dominance to subjugate the continent, he chooses instead to pursue bilateral trade with Amegakure! Tobirama demands total conquest!"
"Hiruzen refused to comply, so Tobirama forcibly ignited the flames of a world war..."
"This is unhinged extremism!"
Even the stoic Mu was losing his composure:
"What kind of mentor executes this playbook?! What was wrong with Hiruzen following the First Hokage's doctrine? He is actively forcing an honest, benevolent statesman to evolve into a second Madara Uchiha!"
"Hashirama was his biological brother! And Tobirama spent his entire life persecuting Madara!"
"Yet today, he is actively engineering a synthetic Ghost of the Uchiha..."
Mu took a long, steady breath.
He felt an overwhelming urge to summon Hashirama from the grave.
Someone needed to discipline Tobirama Senju. Who could have predicted that the First Darkness of the Shinobi would dedicate his retirement to manufacturing a second Madara?
The Senju and Uchiha were truly an irredeemable collective of madmen!
"I must concede the logic," Gengetsu replied in a deadpan voice:
"That is quintessential Warring States psychology. Did you and I not operate under that exact mindset? We mutually liquidated one another over battlefield spoils; we hold zero standing to lecture him."
"As for falsified intelligence..."
"Would you ever provide authentic telemetry to an enemy state? Lacking the analytical capacity to verify data before declaring war is pure incompetence. I refuse to defend Kitori; he is an absolute amateur when it comes to military logistics!"
Though Gengetsu possessed an eccentric, comedic personality, his strategic literacy was elite.
Kirigakure's troop distribution was tactically bankrupt, their organizational discipline was non-existent, and the Mizukage deploying his entire army in an all-out frontal charge was an act of sheer idiocy.
Unless waging a final, existential siege, no commander operated an army like this.
Standard doctrine demanded deploying an advance guard to secure the perimeter, probing the enemy's defensive lines, and advancing in structured phases. Charging blindly forward guaranteed getting obliterated by mass-AoE artillery.
Even setting aside Hiruzen's composite elemental bombardment, if Gengetsu were deployed against that dense infantry mass, a single casting of Steaming Danger Tyranny would have wiped out half their forces.
"The engagement is concluding..." Mu noted, crossing his arms. "The vanguard has suffered total systemic collapse."
From the upper atmosphere, Gengetsu watched as the Konoha defensive units, electrified by the Hokage's single-handed devastation of the enemy line, initiated a crushing counter-encirclement!
The surviving Mist troops had lost all cohesive command, scattering like headless insects into Konoha's kill-zones.
"That Hyuga operative again..."
Hizashi Hyuga captured their sensory attention.
During the rout, numerous Mist shinobi deployed the Hidden Mist Technique to mask their retreat—their traditional countermeasure for lacking dedicated sensory ninja. By blinding both parties, they relied on auditory tracking and Silent Killing to execute targets.
Yet Hizashi's Byakugan pierced through the fog with absolute clarity.
Operating under active Curse Mark transformation, suspended in mid-air via his flight-wings, Hizashi deployed hyper-compressed Storm Release bolts, executing Mist officers with beyond-visual-range precision.
"Drop your weapons! Kneel! Hands behind your heads! Surrender and your lives are guaranteed!"
While Hizashi and the strike teams executed hostiles, Tenzo Hyuga amplified his voice across the battlefield via chakra:
"This is the official executive guarantee of the Third Hokage, Lord Hiruzen Sarutobi!"
"This is your final operational window to secure your survival!"
Remarkably, when Tenzo initially broadcasted surrender demands without citing the Hokage, the Mist troops ignored him completely. Terrified out of their minds, they preferred risking a Storm Release bolt to the skull over trusting the mercy of an enemy shinobi.
Yet the moment the name Hiruzen Sarutobi echoed across the field, several Mist units actually threw down their blades, collapsing to their knees in the mud with their hands clasped behind their heads, trembling as they waited for compliance processing.
"Sealing Corps, deploy!"
Tenzo shook his head with an amused smile. The Hokage's reputation for absolute moral integrity was a tangible strategic asset. Even the Mist shinobi logged it as valid data.
The Sealing Corps surged forward—or rather, the specialized Prisoner Processing Division.
They deployed the Fire Sealing: Heavenly Prison technique harvested from the ruins of Kusagakure's Hozuki Castle.
The jutsu established a high-density, low-drain seal that blocked the target's chakra network; attempting to mold chakra ignited intense, agonizing burns along their pathways. It demanded total compliance from the subject to cast, making it custom-engineered for handling surrendered prisoners of war.
"Look at their organizational redundancy. A compact strike force, perfectly modular, complete with dedicated prisoner-processing units!" Gengetsu cursed under his breath, though his expression softened slightly.
At least they were securing prisoner survivability.
"What is your operational plan? Do you engage now?" Mu inquired softly.
"Let us observe how Kitori responds," Gengetsu replied, his expression darkening:
"He possesses the methodology to siphon the Three-Tails. I hope he demonstrates a shred of Kirigakure's martial dignity. He cannot be permitted to drag the office of Mizukage into absolute, irrecoverable disgrace!"
Moments later.
At Kirigakure's central command post, the Third Mizukage logged the catastrophic anomaly.
The systemic collapse of his forward ranks and the rolling thunder of elemental explosions were impossible to miss.
Fuguki Suikazan crawled into the command tent on all fours, gasping for breath as he collapsed before the Mizukage's desk:
"Lord Mizukage! Disaster! Catastrophic disaster!"
"We were ambushed by the Third Hokage! The vanguard has been completely wiped out, and the Seven Swordsmen are virtually extinct!"
The Third Mizukage's expression instantly turned the color of pitch-black iron.
This was statistically impossible!
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