Chapter 201: Unrivaled Beneath the Heavens! Capturing Two Tailed Beasts Single-Handed, the Third Mizukage's Moral Bankruptcy
The Third Mizukage's normally unreadable poker face shattered in an instant.
In truth, his stoic, expressionless reputation was largely due to his naturally narrow, slitted eyes. Under standard conditions, no one could discern the subtle micro-shifts in his gaze, so remaining silent made him appear perpetually composed and calculating.
Throughout these past few years, the suffocating internal pressure of sustaining the Blood Mist Protocol had occasionally broken him. In the privacy of his executive suite, he would unleash unhinged shrieks of pure frustration or vent bitterly to Genji and Kimimaro.
Before the rank-and-file shinobi of Kirigakure, however, he had always maintained the calculated facade of an executive in complete command.
Now, even the lowest-tier grunt could tell the CEO's psychological baseline had suffered a critical crash.
His slitted eyes were bugged out wide in raw disbelief.
"Ambushed?"
"Has Hiruzen Sarutobi lost his absolute mind?!"
In the opening seconds of the debrief, the Third Mizukage's analytical processing arrived at the exact same conclusion as the late Heartless Duo.
Although Gengetsu Hozuki had disparaged him as a rank amateur at high-level military logistics, the Third Mizukage was still a battle-tested veteran forged in the Warring States era. Even if decades of national isolation and the Blood Mist's paranoid purging had calcified his strategic agility, he still possessed foundational literacy in the laws of theater war.
Deploying an entire army's full strength in a single vanguard wave was a catastrophic tactical violation under ordinary conditions.
The Third Mizukage had only authorized this all-in deployment because Konoha was surrounded on four fronts. Under all standard macroeconomic models, Hiruzen Sarutobi could not possibly reallocate sufficient combat assets to stage a pre-emptive ambush against the Mist.
Moreover, the Mizukage was backed into a corner. If he hadn't mobilized the vast majority of active personnel, the simmering civil unrest back in the village would have erupted into an armed coup the moment he stepped across the border.
"Lord Mizukage!"
Fuguki Suikazan instantly decrypted his superior's train of thought. His massive, blubbery frame trembled like jelly, tears of simulated panic leaking into his voice:
"We weren't ambushed by an army... We were ambushed by the Third Hokage alone!"
"He deployed an apocalyptic sequence of composite ninjutsu artillery! Clad in jet-black plate armor and swinging a blood-red halberd extended to dozens of meters, he punched straight through our elite vanguard formation by himself!"
"I fought with everything I had to hold the line, but my sworn brothers in the Swordsmen threw their lives away to shield my retreat so I could deliver this critical tactical intelligence to your desk!"
"Jinpachi Munari, Kushimaru Kuriarare, Raiga Kurosuki, Jinin Akebino..." Fuguki cast a swift, calculating glance over his shoulder, confirming that Juzo Biwa was nowhere in sight, and swallowed hard:
"Except for myself, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist have been completely wiped out!"
"Lord Mizukage, I have brought unspeakable shame to the village! I shall sever my own throat and perish here!"
Fuguki drew a kunai, pressing the cold steel firmly against his own neck as if preparing to drive it home with suicidal devotion.
A heavy slap echoed across the clearing.
The Third Mizukage struck Fuguki with enough kinetic force to send both the kunai and the massive swordsman sprawling into the dirt, his voice roaring with unbridled fury:
"If you are so eager to die, crawl to the front lines and die facing the enemy!"
Fuguki executed a smooth, round roll through the mud before scrambling back onto his knees: "Understood, Lord Mizukage!"
Internally, he breathed a massive sigh of relief.
His immediate operational survival was secured. He wouldn't be executed on the spot.
Had he returned as the sole surviving leader of the Seven Swordsmen while the rest were wiped out, the Mizukage's notoriously volatile temper might have led to an immediate execution for treason.
This was the seasoned corporate survival instinct of a veteran thriving under the Blood Mist Protocol.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi possesses combat metrics of that tier?"
"He commanded notable prestige in his youth, but he hasn't mobilized for a live engagement in decades. Konoha is not governed by the Blood Mist; as their chief executive, his active combat hours should have atrophied to near zero..."
"To personally lead the vanguard... He must be terrified!"
Even at this stage, the Third Mizukage remained hopelessly trapped within his own cognitive echo chamber, convinced that Konoha was internally decaying.
In his mind, Hiruzen Sarutobi personally staging an ambush merely validated that Konoha lacked the troop reserves to field a proper army.
"Lord Mizukage, while our losses are undeniably severe, our macro-position remains secure..."
Elder Genji's raspy, ancient voice drifted through the tent:
"Konoha is simultaneously engaged across four distinct theaters, and even Takigakure has joined the coalition. Despite Amegakure entering the board as their subsidiary, Konoha's total manpower reserves are stretched paper-thin..."
"Hanzo of the Salamander was once a formidable warlord, but he liquidated his own ambitions years ago. He has remained silent on the continental stage for a decade, letting his village..." Genji paused briefly.
He had almost said that Hanzo had placed the Land of Rain under total isolationist lockdown.
In the shinobi market, whenever a supreme executive chose total national isolation, it was an explicit signal that they had surrendered all external expansionist ambitions, choosing merely to cling to their localized monopoly...
A warlord's kinetic combat power typically scaled or deteriorated in direct proportion to their ideological ambition.
Genji's mind raced, realizing that drawing that specific analogy might trigger the paranoid Mizukage.
Kirigakure's Blood Mist Protocol was exponentially more draconian than anything Hanzo had ever implemented in the Rain.
"In summary, Hanzo cannot provide substantial kinetic leverage to Konoha. The baseline competency of Amegakure's ninja corps is notoriously poor—mere scattered remnants that cannot compare to an established power like Takigakure with a confirmed Tailed Beast..."
Genji delivered his clinical, rational analysis.
In a vacuum, his strategic assessment wasn't entirely inaccurate. The fatal flaw was that his intelligence database was half a decade out of date.
Under ordinary historical conditions, relying on five-year-old intelligence regarding minor hidden villages carried minimal strategic risk.
Factions like Amegakure and leaders like Hanzo were typically mature assets whose growth curves had long flattened out.
A sudden, revolutionary corporate pivot was a near-zero statistical probability.
What Genji could never have forecasted was that Konoha's cutting-edge biotechnology, combined with the pure ideological fuel of the Will of Fire, possessed the staggering capacity to completely reverse Hanzo's biological aging and reignite his martial ambition.
Furthermore, Kirigakure's total diplomatic blackout—compounded by the specialized regional firewall Madara Uchiha, A-Huo, and Black Zetsu had constructed around the archipelago—had locked Genji and the Third Mizukage inside an impenetrable, highly sanitized information silo.
"Therefore, even though our vanguard sustained heavy losses, our core strategic advantage remains uncompromised," Genji continued with calm, measured authority:
"Lord Mizukage, my tactical recommendation is to invert our formations. Withdraw our primary forces to the coastline to re-establish discipline and pacify the troops. These scattered, panicked routing units will merely infect the main army's morale if left unchecked."
"Once our rear-guard reinforcements arrive and our battle-lines are reorganized, we shall initiate a methodical, phased advance."
"Anchored directly along the maritime shoreline, the environmental topography grants you absolute superiority. Heaven has blessed Kirigakure by granting you advanced mastery over the Tailed Beasts. Operating with two Tailed Beasts backed by the infinite volume of the sea, even Hiruzen Sarutobi will not dare approach!"
The Third Mizukage had mastered virtually every high-tier Water Release transformation in existence.
Moreover, in sharp contrast to Kirigakure's traditional combat doctrine, he was a peerless master of sensory-deprivation Genjutsu.
His ocular and psychological illusions far exceeded the capabilities of a standard three-tomoe Uchiha.
Consequently, while the Third Mizukage was not a biological Jinchuriki, he could leverage his proprietary Genjutsu, alongside ancestral binding formulas, to maintain total external control over the Three-Tails.
Furthermore, through the covert assistance of Kaguya's third child, Black Zetsu, the specific physiological blind spots and chakra vulnerabilities of the Six-Tails had been discreetly fed to the Mizukage's intelligence desk.
This was a calculated, asymmetric move on Black Zetsu's part.
Black Zetsu had realized that Madara, despite being an Indra reincarnation of unprecedented talent, possessed an executive stubbornness that surpassed all his historical predecessors. The ancient patriarch was actively locked in a cognitive civil war with himself.
While Madara endlessly preached the gospel of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, his actual operational deployments functioned as an external whetstone to pressure-test and accelerate Konoha's evolution. Black Zetsu had nearly suffered an internal meltdown auditing the data.
How are we supposed to harvest the Tailed Beasts under these conditions?
You summoned the Gedo Statue, yet you refuse to execute the extraction protocols!
Pushed to the brink, Black Zetsu had engineered an alternative master plan.
Operating on the foundation of assisting Hiruzen Sarutobi's physical body-refinement—grooming the Hokage to serve as a biological replacement for the Gedo Statue—Black Zetsu decided to exploit Madara's distorted emotional attachment to Konoha, engineering opportunities for Hiruzen to interface directly with as many Tailed Beasts as possible.
The corrupted manuscript of Kekkei Mora he had inscribed upon the stone tablet explicitly declared that absolute ascension demanded the integrated refinement of multi-tailed chakra signatures.
If Hiruzen ever sought to scale the divine summit of power, he would be structurally compelled to assimilate the chakra of all nine beasts into his core.
He wouldn't even require all nine full entities; securing a critical mass of qualitative chakra samples from the majority would suffice to allow Kaguya's lunar consciousness to resonate with the vessel and descend upon the mortal plane.
In Black Zetsu's calculation, the moment Kaguya overwrote Hiruzen's consciousness, the board was won.
How could a mere mortal, regardless of his localized talent, resist the divine authority of the Mother of Chakra?
He would simply serve as her resurrection vessel.
The plan carried monumental variables—primarily whether Hiruzen's baseline potential could survive the strain.
Yet Black Zetsu had been backed into a corner by Madara's volatile psychology.
When Black Zetsu had previously suggested launching an invasion of Konoha during their demographic baby boom, Madara had nearly turned him into ash for daring to propose such a dishonorable, cowardly maneuver.
Black Zetsu could only throw out long-shot contingencies.
At the end of the day, Black Zetsu only cared about seeing the chakra of nine beasts concentrated into a single vessel.
Whether that vessel was Madara Uchiha or Hiruzen Sarutobi was completely irrelevant.
While utilizing a mortal vessel was an imperfect, budget implementation of Kaguya's return, given how thoroughly degraded the timeline had become, Black Zetsu was confident his mother would understand.
There was simply no room left to be picky.
The Third Mizukage's expression relaxed slightly, his voice dropping into a stern, commanding tone: "Elder Genji's counsel is the mark of seasoned statecraft!"
"Transmit my command: the vanguard will execute an orderly retreat to the coast! Disperse our ranks along the shoreline to establish defensive sectors, while our offshore naval transports stand by as reserves awaiting incoming reinforcements!"
In that moment, the Third Mizukage felt a profound surge of genuine appreciation: Thank the heavens for Kimimaro.
With the vanguard collapsing, having an operative I trust holding the rear logistics guarantees my operational security...
If my supply lines were compromised right now, this campaign would be completely unsalvageable!
Elder Genji nodded in profound alignment:
"Kimimaro has demonstrated zero personal greed for military merits, operating entirely for your security and the village's stability. He willingly accepted the unglamorous, critical burden of logistics and internal discipline. You must reward him with massive promotions following this war!"
"Well spoken!"
The Third Mizukage's eyes warmed with rare paternal pride: "With an asset like Kimimaro, Kirigakure can finally maintain proper institutional hierarchy. Too many upstarts in this village are scheming to overturn the board!"
Objectively, Kimimaro had indeed fulfilled that function.
By shielding persecuted clans and dissident ninja under his Internal Affairs banner, he had artificially alleviated the surface-level friction within the village, delaying the inevitable explosion... which merely ensured the final detonation would be exponentially more catastrophic.
"The Hokage is an invincible monster!"
"Run! Fall back to the sea!"
Among the routed vanguard units, several traumatized Mist survivors had completely lost their psychological composure.
Breaching the perimeter of the main camp, a hysterical Chunin grabbed the arm of a comrade, babbling incoherently.
A high-pressure water bullet punctured the man's skull.
The Third Mizukage lowered his smoking index finger, declaring with icy, merciless authority:
"Anyone who attempts to destabilize military morale will be executed on the spot!"
"The army will execute a structured retreat to the coast to await incoming reserves! If the enemy dares pursue, I shall personally take the field and crush them!"
Under the Mizukage's brutal, summary executions, the panic within the camp was violently suppressed.
Yet a dangerous, subversive seed had been planted in the minds of the survivors.
That terrified operative who had just been executed... if he had simply followed the surrender instructions broadcast by the Konoha ninja, kneeling with his hands behind his head... wouldn't he still be drawing breath?
Many operatives recalled hearing the broadcast amidst the smoke: By the executive guarantee of the Third Hokage, surrender and your lives are spared...
Meanwhile.
Juzo Biwa, having bypassed the main command camp entirely, hauled young Zabuza across the terrain at maximum velocity. Moving light and unburdened by military formations, the two dashed toward the coast, hijacked a high-speed logistical launch, and sped out to sea, charting an evasion course back toward Kirigakure.
After witnessing Hiruzen Sarutobi descend like a localized apocalypse, Juzo knew that Kimimaro was operating with classified intelligence he had deliberately withheld from the high command.
Having abandoned his post, Juzo's only viable survival strategy—whether to evade the Hokage's wrath or escape the Mizukage's execution squads—was to link up with Kimimaro's underground network.
"That boy is an unfathomably dangerous operator..."
Juzo muttered, nearly kicking the vessel's throttle through the engine casing as he offered rough comfort to the shell-shocked Zabuza.
Zabuza had previously believed his "Demon of the Mist" moniker meant he had conquered fear, viewing even the Third Mizukage as a hurdle he would eventually leap.
Watching Hiruzen Sarutobi casually dismantle the Seven Swordsmen in minutes, Zabuza realized he was still an absolute infant in the realities of shinobi warfare.
"Lord Hokage..."
"The surviving Mist elements in this sector have been fully secured. Every prisoner has been processed with the Fire Sealing: Heavenly Prison formula!"
Tenzo's Byakugan flared as he audited the smoldering, cratered landscape.
The Hokage's raw kinetic force was breathtakingly magnificent.
"Lord Hokage, while maintaining high-altitude aerial surveillance, my Byakugan detected a secondary, colossal chakra signature concealed beneath the coastal waters, operating alongside the primary signature on land..."
"Both the Three-Tails and the Six-Tails have been deployed to this theater!"
"However, they are not manifested within biological Jinchuriki vessels; they are operating in their raw, beast forms. Kirigakure appears to possess a specialized remote-control methodology, but the internal chakra balance of both beasts is chaotic..."
"This indicates an external, forced subjugation rather than a cooperative partnership like Konoha maintains with Lord Kurama."
Hizashi delivered his intelligence debrief with rapid, clinical precision.
Hiruzen nodded thoughtfully.
Operating with elite Hyuga officers as sensory scouts and artillery spotters was an administrative luxury that defied description.
Passive 360-degree telemetry, structural chakra analysis, and real-time threat identification: with the Byakugan surveying the grid, stepping into a tactical ambush was mathematically impossible.
Had Kirigakure possessed a single functional Byakugan within their ranks, even with Hiruzen's overwhelming combat metrics, staging a covert shadow-clone ambush to execute an uninhibited, multi-directional elemental bombardment would have been impossible.
In all honesty, Hiruzen had been slightly bewildered during the opening engagement.
Did they deploy zero sensory countermeasures?
The Mist vanguard had marched forward in high-density formations, practically queuing up to present the maximum possible surface area for his AoE elemental blast.
Did a superpower of Kirigakure's scale truly lack a single wide-area sensory art?
No Byakugan, no Mind's Eye of the Kagura, no Yamanaka transceiver network... Did they lack even baseline sensory techniques?
Hiruzen hesitated to play the role of the arrogant aristocrat asking why the peasants didn't simply eat cake.
Yet Konoha's strategic pantry was simply overflowing with high-tier delicacies; selecting which asset to deploy was often an exercise in diplomatic equity rather than military necessity.
"Two wild Tailed Beasts..."
"And neither anchored within a Jinchuriki host!"
Hiruzen felt a sudden, aggressive spike in strategic interest.
Those were two monumental, high-value assets.
In modern Konoha, the demographic of elite operatives possessing the biological hardware and chakra density to serve as potential Jinchuriki had scaled far beyond the era where Kushina was treated as the sole irreplaceable vessel.
Shio Uzumaki, Tomie, and Kushina herself all possessed near-perfect physiological compatibility.
Tobirama Senju was technically an eligible candidate as well, though Hiruzen calculated that without a Mangekyou Sharingan to suppress the chakra, and already cohabiting Seisui's vessel alongside Izuna's soul, packing a third entity into that hardware would turn the boy's psyche into an unmanageable corporate circus.
Hiruzen was aware that Tobirama harbored ambitious R&D designs regarding the Box of Ultimate Bliss, seeking to convert himself into a bespoke Jinchuriki for the entity known as Satori.
Whenever that thought crossed Hiruzen's mind, he had to suppress an amused chuckle.
The First Darkness of the Shinobi, bearing an already tarnished public profile, actively choosing to become the human vessel for a primordial mass of negative emotional malice... It had an aura of glorious, unhinged self-abandonment, leaning entirely into the villain aesthetic.
Naturally, Hiruzen would never mock his master openly; he maintained absolute filial reverence toward Grand-Sensei Tobirama.
"Hizashi, lead the aerial flight squad to audit Kirigakure's rear reinforcement vectors immediately!" Hiruzen commanded.
Hizashi ascended into the clouds, engaging his Curse Mark transformation.
Synchronized with his flight-wings, his three-dimensional mobility parameters scaled to extreme heights.
Kurama is secured in the village...
Takigakure's Seven-Tails has been assigned to Kakuzu's interception portfolio; that asset must be confiscated and defanged.
Kirigakure has delivered the Three-Tails and Six-Tails directly to my doorstep. Sunagakure broke corporate faith, forfeiting their rights to the One-Tail. That leaves only the Two, Four, Five, and Eight-Tails distributed between Kumogakure and Iwagakure...
Compared to the internal rot of Kirigakure and the chronic poverty of Sunagakure, Iwagakure and Kumogakure were true, heavyweight competitors.
While their apex combat metrics could not match Konoha's High Commission, the organizational cohesion and sheer volume of their mid-tier Jonin and Chunin corps were formidable. Their troop allocations followed rigorous, textbook doctrines, avoiding the catastrophic structural deficiencies plaguing the Mist.
Even Sunagakure had engineered sophisticated, wide-area sensory architectures derived from Sand Manipulation.
In Hiruzen's tactical assessment, the Hidden Mist Technique, Sand Manipulation, and Amegakure's Rain Tiger at Will shared identical structural geometry; with minor R&D optimization, adapting the Mist into a passive, regional sensory firewall was trivial.
Yet Hiruzen had fallen into another analytical blind spot.
Not every hidden village inherited the profound R&D foundations and unyielding scientific curiosity that Tobirama Senju had hardwired into Konohagakure.
Trapped within their isolated archipelago, the Mist lacked the intellectual drive to iterate their techniques.
Across modern history, the only foreign executive who stood on equal footing with Tobirama in jutsu development was the Second Tsuchikage Mu, who had pioneered Kekkei Tota.
And that titan was currently bound within an Edo Tensei chassis.
Onoki... The Third Raikage...
Hiruzen calculated the variables. Those two men were the only foreign executives who possessed genuine, asymmetric specialties.
Atomic disintegration via Particle Style, and physical durability and kinetic yield that rivaled or exceeded a Tailed Beast.
Neither Onoki nor the Raikage matched Hiruzen's comprehensive, balanced mastery across all disciplines, but their peak outputs demanded absolute respect.
Combat was never a simplistic comparison of static stat sheets; topography, troop volume, and biological fatigue were volatile factors.
Securing the beasts of the Cloud and Stone will be a protracted campaign, but harvesting qualitative chakra samples from their hosts is easily achievable...
Come to think of it, Orochimaru previously secured high-density cellular samples of the Eight-Tails during an earlier R&D cycle!
A spark of realization flashed through Hiruzen's mind.
The cultivation doctrine inscribed upon the Sage of Six Paths' stone monument explicitly mandated that the chakra signatures of all nine Tailed Beasts must be woven into an integrated loop to catalyze the manifestation of "All Creation."
Hiruzen loathed war.
Yet since the foreign cartels had forced this conflict upon his village, he was obligated to extract the absolute maximum strategic dividends for Konohagakure.
There is no immediate rush...
Attempting to force-fuse the chakra of nine distinct Tailed Beasts into a mortal core is an exceptionally volatile, high-risk biological trial. While my sensory intuition confirms the Sage's text is not mythological fabrication, I must advance with methodical discipline.
I will finalize the Myriad Seals Body Integration Mark, and then deploy the composite Kekkei Genkai filaments to structurally reinforce my internal sealing matrices. Attempting extreme, high-yield biological experiments without structural redundancy will inflict internal trauma that standard medical ninjutsu cannot repair...
Hiruzen stabilized his internal roadmap.
At that moment, Hizashi descended from the clouds, landing gracefully as he delivered his reconnaissance brief:
"Lord Hokage! Kirigakure's rear logistics have suffered a catastrophic breakdown! Their secondary reinforcements are moving with agonizing slowness!"
"A supply-chain breakdown? That is statistically anomalous..." Hiruzen's brow furrowed.
"Could it be Kimimaro?" Tenzo's eyes gleamed with triumphant certainty:
"Kimimaro inherited my absolute personal doctrine! I possessed total confidence that he would secure an executive placement in the Mist, preserve his unit, and build a dedicated corporate faction!"
"Did Lord Hokage log any Kaguya casualties during your vanguard assault?"
Hiruzen shook his head; he possessed clear memory of every Mist bloodline he had just processed: "Not a single bone-manipulator was deployed."
"That confirms it beyond a shadow of a doubt! Kimimaro would never allow the Kaguya clan to be liquidated as vanguard fodder. The three strategic contingency scrolls I bequeathed him contained precise protocols for this scenario!"
Tenzo declared with absolute, unshakeable conviction:
"Lord Hokage! The logistical paralysis in Kirigakure's rear is Kimimaro identifying Konoha's overwhelming kinetic dominance! He is using this supply-chain sabotage as a silent, encrypted diplomatic signal to our desk!"
Standing nearby, Hizashi wore an expression of rare, profound bewilderment.
Father... what is the operational meaning of this?
Hizashi experienced a bizarre intuition.
His biological father, Tenzo, seemed to comprehend and prioritize the developmental trajectory of an adopted Kaguya orphan vastly more than his own biological sons...
Arguably even exceeding his investment in Hiashi, the clan's direct heir!
Hiruzen smiled knowingly, offering no critique.
In the shinobi market, an ideological successor who inherited your core doctrine frequently held vastly more weight than mere shared genetics.
"If the board has developed in this direction..."
"The Mist forces have just absorbed a catastrophic psychological shock from the vanguard's collapse. Their morale is shattered, and their logistical pipeline is severed..."
"Even though the coastal topography favors Water Release formations..."
Hiruzen analyzed the tactical variables at hyper-speed.
If Kirigakure were granted the operational window to regroup, even with his overwhelming combat metrics, an entrenched army operating in their native maritime environment, coordinating mass-scale combined ninjutsu, could still inflict annoying friction.
Against a Kage, thirty disorganized Chunin posed zero threat.
Yet if those thirty Chunin moved with disciplined cohesion, coordinating defensive walls and suppressive fire, parrying a Kage's advance was entirely achievable. A military's kinetic output scaled in direct proportion to its organizational discipline.
"Lord Hokage, the Mist forces have halted their retreat, establishing an entrenched defensive perimeter along the coastline to reorganize their ranks..."
Hizashi reported rapidly: "Cross-referencing the anomalous chakra spikes, I project they intend to anchor their defensive line around the power of their two Tailed Beasts!"
"Strike!"
Hiruzen issued the operational directive with absolute finality: "We strike precisely to confiscate those two Tailed Beasts!"
"All forces, advance under my command! I will deploy a secondary Five Elements Great Combo Blast to shatter their organizational cohesion. Hizashi, deploy high-altitude sniper overwatch to systematically execute their field commanders!"
Now that the Mist understood the necessity of spatial dispersion, attempting to wipe out their entire army with a single combo blast was statistically unfeasible.
However, for troops that had just witnessed the slaughter of their vanguard, the mere sight of that apocalyptic elemental storm descending a second time would ignite uncontrollable, viral panic throughout their ranks.
Synchronized with Hizashi executing their officers and Tenzo managing the troop movements, Hiruzen could manufacture a localized duel, isolating the Third Mizukage in a one-on-one engagement.
This was a once-in-a-century tactical window.
"Lord Hokage, what is our countermeasure regarding the two Tailed Beasts?"
Tenzo asked, his brow furrowing: "We currently lack granular intelligence regarding the specific mechanics the Third Mizukage utilizes to subjugate them..."
"Unnecessary. Lady Mito and Kurama have thoroughly briefed me on their operational profiles."
Hiruzen waved his hand dismissively:
"A wild Tailed Beast's offensive repertoire is laughably predictable: Tailed Beast Balls, minor elemental breath attacks, and leveraging their massive biological bulk to execute crude kinetic charges."
"As for the Tailed Beast Ball... I possess complete architectural data on its chakra formulation. They will not be permitted to fire."
"A perfected Jinchuriki commands my professional respect, but feral, wild beasts manipulated by external strings pose zero threat. In this single campaign, we will confiscate both the Three-Tails and the Six-Tails for Konoha's strategic reserves, breaking the back of Kirigakure's military capabilities forever!"
"And if the window presents itself, I shall execute the Third Mizukage on the field!"
Tenzo blinked slowly. The Hokage's operational phrasing was wildly outside standard shinobi logic.
What does he mean by 'I understand the chakra formulation of a Tailed Beast Ball, so they will not be permitted to fire'?
Is that mechanically possible?
Yet Hiruzen's proprietary Spirit Release was engineered specifically for this exact administrative override...
"Lord Hokage, the Third Mizukage is an elite master of high-grade Genjutsu. You must exercise extreme caution..."
Tenzo mentally cross-referenced decades of historical diplomatic intercepts between the Hyuga and Kaguya, warning severely: "His capacity to subjugate both the Three-Tails and Six-Tails simultaneously suggests his ocular and psychological manipulation metrics are extraordinary!"
Hiruzen chuckled warmly: "Understood."
Within his Myriad Seals Body Integration Mark, the three elemental modules he had refined to partial completion were Fire Sealing, Water Sealing, and the Evil Sealing Method...
Two of those modules directly counter-engineered the Third Mizukage's primary combat specializations.
Even Hiruzen had to admit that his current build functioned as a hard mechanical counter to the Mist's sovereign.
"Deploy!"
Hiruzen gave the command, stepping to the front: "Our numbers are limited, but we must project overwhelming kinetic ferocity! Re-ignite the terror they experienced during the opening strike!"
"Understood, Lord Hokage!"
Hizashi, Tenzo, and the assembled Konoha strike force roared with absolute martial conviction.
Land of Fire.
The Southeastern Coastline.
The Third Mizukage observed his regrouped forces with an icy, merciless gaze, supervising the execution of demoralized deserters.
His battle-lines were stretched thin along the ocean's edge. He had deployed the subjugated Three-Tails and Six-Tails to the absolute front of the formation.
The two colossal monstrosities stood with glazed, chaotic eyes, their breathing erratic as violent chakra radiated from their massive frames.
Drawing reassurance from the suffocating chakra of two Tailed Beasts combined with the infinite expanse of the sea at his back, the Third Mizukage felt his strategic confidence stabilize.
This was the absolute foundation underwriting his reign of terror!
In that exact microsecond.
The sky cracked open, and a secondary Five Elements Great Combo Blast descended from the clouds!
Once again, the violent, synchronized fusion of magma, thunder-fire, electrified water, adhesive quagmire, and screaming flame-dragons roared into their lines!
Shrieks of panic erupted across the Mist formations. The catastrophic explosions detonated in rapid sequence, shockwaves ripping through the earth as splashing elemental chakra sent another wave of agonizing screams into the air.
Hiruzen harbored zero expectation of wiping out the dispersed Mist forces with this single volley...
His objective was the absolute, systematic destruction of their military morale!
Casting these massive, multi-nature composite bombardments naturally extracted a heavy chakra expenditure.
Yet Hiruzen remained entirely unbothered; his active chakra capacity rivaled or exceeded that of a standard Tailed Beast.
"Such audacity!"
The Third Mizukage thrust his hand forward, manifesting an ornate, gleaming blade forged entirely from hyper-compressed, high-pressure Water Release chakra—a technique mechanically analogous to Tobirama's Water Style: Hard Whirlpool Water Blade!
Weaving hand seals with blinding velocity, the Mizukage channeled the ocean itself.
Water Release deployed adjacent to an infinite maritime source enjoyed an exponential kinetic multiplier. A colossal tidal wave surged upward like a tsunami, extinguishing the descending firestorms, violently partitioning the battlefield into isolated sectors.
Yet the airspace remained Konoha's undisputed operational domain.
Operating from high altitude, Konoha's flight squads unleashed sustained, multi-directional senbon volleys, emptying their magazines before executing low-altitude ninjutsu strafing runs against the ground troops.
Under the cover of this aerial suppression, Konoha's ground infantry surged forward with terrifying, feral momentum!
Their Hokage had charged into the jaws of the enemy army alone; how could they dare offer anything less than their absolute lives?
Kings clashed with kings; commanders engaged commanders!
The Konoha shinobi possessed absolute, unshakeable faith that their Hokage could not be defeated, and they refused to bring dishonor to his vanguard.
"Kitori..."
Hiruzen Sarutobi materialized across the water, his midnight-black armor dripping with ocean spray, his eyes narrowing as he evaluated his opponent:
"Why did you shred our bilateral non-aggression pact? Why launch an unprovoked war against Konohagakure?"
"Hokage, are you a naive child?"
Standing face-to-face with Hiruzen, the Third Mizukage dropped all diplomatic rhetoric, sneering with cold derision:
"Does total war in the shinobi market require moral justification? Beyond soft-hearted fools like yourself, what seasoned operative places their faith in a piece of parchment signed between rivals?"
"Konoha does not possess the kinetic dominance to defend the fertile paradise of the Land of Fire. Surrendering your agricultural territory to the strong is the fundamental law of nature. I trust even your limited intellect can comprehend that reality."
"What a profound tragedy..." Hiruzen sighed softly:
"When the entire continent mocked your succession as illegitimate, I was the sole executive who issued a formal statement defending your political standing..."
The Third Mizukage's expression twitched. That historical data point was an undeniable liability he could not cleanly rebut.
Even within the morally bankrupt culture of the Blood Mist, executing a corporate backstab against an executive who had publicly shielded your reputation was viewed as exceptionally dishonorable. It violated the baseline rules of engagement.
"It appears my analytical audit was fatally flawed."
"A dishonorable wretch like yourself undeniably secured the Mizukage seat through treasonous, backchannel maneuvers. You harbor an internal complex because you failed to defeat Gengetsu Hozuki in combat, defying Kirigakure's ancestral tradition of martial succession."
"As the officially appointed successor to the First Hokage, I must inform you of a bitter historical truth: had the First Mizukage, Byakuren, truly intended to install you as his successor, Gengetsu Hozuki would never have been granted the operational standing to challenge your claim."
"From the foundational inception of your village, you were an asset Byakuren actively discarded. Your failure was entirely decoupled from Gengetsu's existence."
"An operative of your caliber ascending to the office of Mizukage was merely the tragic byproduct of the Second Mizukage falling in the line of duty, leaving a power vacuum you opportunistically occupied..."
"To hold executive power without possessing the requisite moral virtue or strategic capability guarantees catastrophic ruin."
"Clearly, neither your competence nor your personal character possess the structural bandwidth to shoulder the mantle of Mizukage. You have reduced the Land of Water and Kirigakure to a chaotic, bankrupt ruin. It is no surprise the international market brands you as the most incompetent Kage in history..."
Hiruzen delivered his forensic psychological audit with cold, clinical precision.
High above in the cloud cover, Gengetsu Hozuki smashed his fist into his palm, roaring in absolute ecstasy:
"Magnificent!"
"I knew it! Old man Byakuren had his eye on me from the very start! Forcing Kitori to fight me was merely a performative corporate hurdle to legitimize my succession!"
Mu offered a dry, mocking chuckle.
To witness a deceased Kage celebrating an enemy executive ruthlessly humiliating his own village's sitting leader...
Gengetsu Hozuki was an absolute, one-of-a-kind anomaly.
"Though... perhaps Sunagakure's leadership would celebrate an identical dynamic?" Mu shrugged indifferently.
He had no personal stake in this maritime theater. He was merely an immortal spectator auditing the show.
The Third Mizukage's complexion shifted violently from flushed crimson to deathly pale.
In truth, Hiruzen's critique was relatively measured by diplomatic standards.
Yet trapped inside the echo chamber of the Blood Mist, where no subordinate had dared utter an unvarnished truth to his face in decades, his psychological defenses were fragile and childlike.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi, you dare evaluate my leadership?! You dare judge my Blood Mist?!"
The Third Mizukage's slitted eyes widened with unhinged, psychopathic fury: "Let me educate you! I was waiting to see if you had the courage to step into my theater! Do you witness this boundless ocean? Do you witness these two divine beasts?!"
"Today, this coastline shall serve as your eternal tomb!"
Hiruzen offered a look of serene, absolute contempt: "A man of your emotional discipline... No wonder Byakuren relegated you to a simple bodyguard before discarding your career entirely."
"Chasing trivial profits while abandoning corporate faith; fleeing when confronted by existential duty..."
"Fierce in rhetoric, cowardly in execution; stubborn, arrogant, and blind to reality..."
Hiruzen shook his head slowly: "Very well. Today, I shall execute the purge the First Mizukage failed to complete!"
The Third Mizukage was momentarily paralyzed by the sheer, poetic eloquence of the verbal beatdown, his blood pressure spiking dangerously.
Since when was the Third Hokage a literary scholar?!
Why does a military commander read this much classical philosophy?!
"Die!" The Third Mizukage roared in absolute fury.
Standing atop the colossal shell of the Three-Tails Isobu, his fingers wove hand seals with blinding, residual velocity.
Isobu's massive maw unhinged, discharging a volley of pressurized water artillery, synchronized with the Six-Tails Saiken spewing a tidal wave of corrosive, flesh-melting foam, closing off all vectors of evasion in a multi-angled barrage!
"Hiruzen, you brought shame to my name! Leave your corpse in these waters!"
The Mizukage bellowed with supreme arrogance.
In his calculation, the synchronized assault of two Tailed Beasts supported by an infinite ocean granted him absolute, unassailable dominance.
The very next microsecond, his pupils contracted into microscopic dots.
A blinding corona of lightning detonated across Hiruzen's armor as the Hokage completely ignored the incoming dual-tailed bombardment, accelerating in a straight, uncompromising line directly toward the Mizukage's coordinates!
A subjugated Tailed Beast operated with vastly degraded kinetic reflexes compared to its wild state; its combat animations lagged as if trapped in low framerates.
Against standard shinobi, that output remained lethal.
Against an apex predator, it was a glaring vulnerability.
The Third Mizukage's fury instantly transmuted into alarm. He had no more bandwidth to care about classical philosophy; he needed to decompile the Lightning Release Chakra Mode screaming into his face!
"You dare challenge my domain with a lightning mantle?!"
The Mizukage's seals shifted violently: "Ludicrous!"
While lightning and water possessed complex interaction mechanics, in active combat, environmental volume dictated the victor.
Channeling immense chakra, the Mizukage pulled the ocean upward into a colossal, hundred-foot tsunami that crashed down upon Hiruzen!
Concealed within that churning wall of water were thousands of rotating, high-pressure water blades—spinning like miniature gyroscopes.
This was apex-tier Water Release.
In this singular jutsu, the Third Mizukage validated that his title was not entirely fraudulent.
Yet what followed shattered his comprehension of physics.
Hiruzen did not deviate from his trajectory, charging dead-center into the tsunami as though the watery mountain did not exist!
The lightning mantle vanished, replaced instantly by a slick, obsidian layer of high-density mineral armor.
"Earth Release: Earth Spear?"
"You intend to tank my oceanic Water Release with basic Earth Spear?! Die!"
The Mizukage recognized the jutsu instantly, his eyes bloodshot as he poured every drop of his remaining chakra into the torrent.
In an ocean theater, he held absolute confidence that his water pressure could grind even Onoki's highest-tier Earth Release into silt!
How could a mortal body coated in hardened earth endure the pressure?
The Mizukage grinned savagely as his high-pressure water blades tore through Hiruzen's outer layer of earth armor.
Then, an impossible anomaly occurred.
The microsecond the water blades struck Hiruzen's physical flesh, their rotational velocity stalled. They sputtered, lost their shape transformation, and dissolved into inert moisture.
Several blades were actively decompiled, their raw chakra siphoned directly into the Hokage's core!
While the sheer volume of water created mechanical drag, slowing Hiruzen's velocity, an explosive burst of pressurized steam detonated from his armor seams, projecting him directly before the Mizukage's face in the blink of an eye!
"Impossible!" The word died in the Mizukage's throat.
He raised his water blade in an instinctive panic.
The kinetic yield of Boil Release erupted through Hiruzen's frame. Unrivaled Strength, stripped of all decorative flourishes, delivered a straight, heavy fist directly into the Mizukage's solar plexus!
A cloud of atomized blood sprayed from the Mizukage's mouth like a crimson mist!
Hiruzen's follow-up strike slammed squarely into his sternum. The Third Mizukage was launched like an artillery shell, tearing across the ocean surface before skipping across the water and cratering into a coastal reef a hundred meters away, sending massive geysers of sea spray into the air!
Hiruzen did not pause. Suspended above the water's surface, his hands wove a minimalist seal with imperceptible speed.
He released a low, resonant breath, detonating a focused burst of chakra that forcibly repelled the ocean within a hundred-meter radius!
The sea was held back by an invisible, absolute barrier, creating a dry, vacuum crater on the seabed, exposing the Third Mizukage embedded deep within the shattered coral.
Hiruzen observed the Mizukage drawing upon the ambient seawater to reconstruct his pulverized flesh.
The Hozuki clan's Hydrification Technique? The structural mechanics are homologous; he likely reverse-engineered it from classified Mist scrolls...
He managed to decompile Gengetsu Hozuki's signature secret art?
Before the Mizukage could dissolve completely into the water, Hiruzen descended from the sky like an iron anvil, offering zero operational runway, committed to beating the Third Mizukage to death with his bare hands!
Hiruzen's fists and knees fell like a localized meteor shower, every impact supercharged by boiling steam!
The Mizukage desperately mobilized his chakra to shield his internal organs, but the kinetic shockwaves punched straight through his flesh, sending tremors through his chakra pathways, throwing his internal network into total cardiac arrest.
Trading blows with Hiruzen was an agonizing nightmare. It felt as though Isobu were repeatedly stomping across his limbs, leaving the recipient locked in suffocating despair.
In sheer desperation, the Mizukage bit his tongue, using the agonizing pain to shock his nervous system back into alignment.
His eyes flared with a deep, spectral blue luminescence.
His ultimate secret art: absolute, uninhibited Genjutsu!
A tidal wave of invisible, psychological chakra flooded toward Hiruzen—the crowning achievement the Third Mizukage had refined across twenty-five years of isolation!
During his historical duel with Gengetsu Hozuki, Gengetsu's Demonic Illusion: Steaming Mirage had inflicted humiliating, permanent trauma upon him...
Consequently, he had spent his entire life obsessively engineering an illusion art that could surpass his predecessor!
I have refined this illusion for a quarter of a century...
A cruel, desperate madness flashed in the Mizukage's eyes.
The moment Hiruzen's cognitive functions were trapped in his illusion, the tactical equilibrium would reverse instantly!
He held absolute confidence in his Genjutsu.
He had engaged the Uchiha's Mangekyou Sharingan in his youth; he did not believe his proprietary art was inferior to ocular illusions.
Then, a sight that extinguished his very soul unfolded before him.
The illusion—potent enough to paralyze a Kage and subjugate a Tailed Beast—struck Hiruzen's frame and vanished like a cup of water tossed into the Sahara Desert.
It lost its structural coherence instantly, failing to generate a single ripple in Hiruzen's neural pathways.
Just like the water blades moments before...
The Third Mizukage's mind suffered a total system crash.
Is this man biologically immune to Genjutsu?!
"A respectable yield... Roughly on parity with a mature Mangekyou Sharingan," Hiruzen commented casually, his kinetic assault never pausing for a microsecond as a devastating knee strike caved in the Mizukage's ribcage.
The Mizukage coughed up another gallon of blood, his terrifying vitality surprising even Hiruzen.
No wonder he had possessed the audacity to challenge Gengetsu for the throne...
Even without the hydrification buffs, his physical durability vastly outclassed standard shinobi; the man was exceptionally difficult to kill.
Letting out an enraged shriek of existential terror, the Third Mizukage activated his final, scorched-earth forbidden art:
"Water Release: Thousand Streams Liquidation Jutsu!"
An apex synthesis of Water Release and Genjutsu—a self-destruction protocol that instantly dissolved his physical hardware into millions of microscopic, independent water droplets, spraying across the ocean in all directions to execute an emergency escape.
Concurrently with his physical dissolution, a high-priority command pinged the Three-Tails and Six-Tails.
The two enraged beasts began an immediate, synchronized casting sequence. Black and white positive and negative chakra particles began compressing within their gaping maws, condensing into two colossal, apocalyptic Tailed Beast Balls, aimed directly at Hiruzen Sarutobi!
Hiruzen's expression remained entirely flat. Channeling his chakra, he deployed his proprietary Spirit Release across his visual targeting vector!
The Tailed Beast Ball...
Hiruzen had thoroughly decompiled the jutsu through extensive technical reviews with Mito and Kurama. The architecture was crude: an 8:2 ratio of positive and negative chakra, compressed through raw mass.
It was not true Yin-Yang Release; it was merely an unstable, compressed kinetic bomb relying entirely on brute-force volume.
Having studied its structure extensively, Hiruzen's Spirit Release anchored directly onto the core stabilizing nodes of both condensing spheres.
The sight caused the reforming consciousness of the Third Mizukage to freeze in absolute terror.
What kind of impossible witchcraft is this?!
Immunity to Water Release, total immunity to Genjutsu...
And now you can remotely cancel a Tailed Beast Ball out of thin air?!
Did you have a private audience with the Sage of Six Paths to unlock developer administrative codes?!
The Mizukage burned through his remaining reserves, desperately driving his hydrification to repair his shattered chassis. Yet the bone-breaking trauma Hiruzen had inflicted left structural micro-tears across his pathways that passive regeneration could not mend...
The Hokage hit with horrifying density!
Under the Mizukage's frantic mental directives, the Three-Tails and Six-Tails launched a feral, uninhibited charge straight toward Hiruzen.
Hiruzen narrowed his eyes, entirely composed.
Extensive research alongside Kurama had yielded clear data regarding the structural advantages and bottlenecks of Tailed Beasts.
Immense biological mass and inexhaustible chakra reserves.
Their vulnerabilities: agonizingly predictable attack patterns, primitive combat instincts, and zero tactical nuance.
Synchronized with an enlightened Jinchuriki, their operational effectiveness scaled exponentially.
Conversely, feral beasts operating under the lag of forced mental subjugation were nothing more than paralyzed giants.
They looked terrifying, but their practical threat index was negligible.
Hiruzen adjusted his stance, allowing a concentrated stream of chakra to vent from his Yin Seal, the golden crown of chakra flaring across his brow.
Dense, complex sealing formulas wrapped around his limbs...
Isobu and Saiken charged with apocalyptic momentum!
Hiruzen leaped into the air, manifesting two colossal chakra constructs in the shape of giant hands!
His left hand seized Isobu's armored, spike-covered skull; his right hand locked around Saiken's slimy, slug-like head. His muscular framework coiled, and an impossible, primordial kinetic force detonated through his arms as he violently smashed the heads of both colossal beasts together dead-center!
A catastrophic impact reverberated across the coast, the kinetic shockwave churning the ocean into violent, cresting waves!
The craniums of the two beasts collided with bone-shattering force. Their chaotic chakra networks were thrown into total systemic failure; both beasts unleashed agonizing howls before their eyes rolled back into their heads!
Along the perimeter, the clashing Konoha and Mist infantry instinctively froze, turning in unison to stare out at the sea in absolute, paralyzed awe.
The acoustic crack of two Tailed Beasts' skulls colliding was so deafening it rattled the heavens.
Hiruzen unleashed a guttural roar, his veins bulging against his armor as his chakra reached peak saturation!
Boil Release Chakra Mode, Lightning Release Chakra Mode, the Yin Seal...
All three states stacked simultaneously!
Mechanically, stacking three high-output chakra cloaks risked catastrophic systemic instability, degrading fine control in exchange for wild, unguided output.
Yet against two concussed, brain-dead beasts, Hiruzen required zero fine control; he merely needed raw, unadulterated kinetic force to inflict total physical incapacitation!
With terrifying power, Hiruzen hauled their massive heads back...
And smashed them together again!
Once! Twice! Three times!
It was as if an invisible war hammer of the gods was relentlessly pounding the ocean, unleashing sonic booms that terrified the souls of every mortal on the field!
The two colossal beasts were literally beaten into unconsciousness!
Vanishing in a flash of Body Flicker, Hiruzen deactivated the chaotic triple-cloak state, dropping onto the foaming maws of the collapsed beasts, slamming his palms flat against their brows:
"Four Symbols Seal!"
Intricate, obsidian sealing formulas spread across their flesh like a living web, permanently locking down the chakra networks of the incapacitated beasts.
Having neutralized both strategic assets, Hiruzen slowly turned his frame, his cold, uncompromising gaze locking onto the distant reef where the Third Mizukage was struggling to reconstitute his physical body from the sea.
In the Third Mizukage's eyes, all arrogance and defiance had been permanently extinguished.
Only now did he finally comprehend the objective, horrifying truth:
From the very opening second of this engagement, he had never possessed a single viable win-condition against Hiruzen Sarutobi.
☆☆☆
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