Just as Kitsuchi was sinking into despair, he heard the Stone ninja behind him cheering.
"Lord Tsuchikage is here!"
The average Stone ninja could not see the truth within the dust. When they saw the Dust Release barrier, they thought Ōnoki had personally arrived to deal with the terrifying Konoha fox.
Kitsuchi felt even greater despair.
The Tsuchikage had not come.
The Tsuchikage was dead.
Even the Tsuchikage's memories had been taken by Konoha, and Konoha had mastered Iwagakure's most fundamental secret art—
Kekkei Tōta: Dust Release.
The powerful Iwagakure jonin saw that it was Konoha's fox using Dust Release inside the dust. They hurriedly turned and sharply rebuked the Stone ninja who were celebrating without knowing the truth.
"Retreat!"
Kitsuchi stopped struggling and gave the order to withdraw.
The Stone ninja had thought they were about to reverse the situation. After being scolded by their jonin and then hearing the order to retreat, they froze in confusion.
A second or two later, inertia took over. The Stone ninja turned and followed their respective captains, fleeing backward.
A voice rang out.
"Wood Release: Super Deep Forest Emergence!"
The Threefold Wood Golem clapped its hands together and pressed them against the ground.
Atop the Wood Golem, Yako also clapped his hands together, first entering Sage Mode, then opening the Diamond Seal.
Chakra beyond the Kage level erupted in an instant.
Maple trees burst from the earth one after another. In the blink of an eye, a vast maple forest of terrifying size appeared before the Threefold Wood Golem.
Some Stone ninja had been ordered to hide underground, waiting for a chance to ambush Konoha's shinobi. Their upper bodies had only just emerged from the ground when their lower bodies were crushed by dense tree roots.
The fleeing Stone ninja saw the ground ahead of them churn as if an earthquake had struck. Massive tree trunks forced apart the soil.
Some of the slower ones fell into the gaps between trees beneath their feet and were crushed to death in an instant.
Some of the quicker ones leapt up or used Substitution and Clone, but there were too many trunks. Within that vast forest, no matter where they fled, death awaited them.
One Stone ninja heard strange popping sounds behind him, like the sound of cracking open coconuts during a mission in the Land of Waves.
When he turned back, he saw his teammate's head being crushed open by Wood Release.
At the pre-war mobilization meeting, Lord Tsuchikage Ōnoki had said that Iwagakure had to pay any price. Even if ten thousand Stone ninja had to be sacrificed, they had to defeat Konoha.
He had not expected that the price Lord Tsuchikage spoke of… would be his own squad.
Kitsuchi also knew Light-Weight Rock Jutsu, though he rarely used it.
At this moment, Kitsuchi flew into the air and saw that the maple forest had reached an absurd scale of several kilometers.
He suddenly understood why, when he was young, his father had repeatedly emphasized that no matter how strong a ninja he faced, he had to throw the stone in his hand.
His father had used repeated psychological suggestion to erase the fear he had felt when facing Uchiha Madara as a child.
Uchiha Madara had been Hashirama Senju's equal.
Hashirama Senju had been called the God of Shinobi.
Was this what it felt like to face the God of Shinobi?
Despair.
Despair that seeped into the bones.
He did not know whether he would ever have the chance to erase the fear of this moment through repeated psychological suggestion.
A faint sound of something cutting through the air appeared above his head.
When Kitsuchi looked up, he saw a kunai.
In the next instant, the kunai became a human silhouette. Konoha's fox appeared above Kitsuchi.
The kunai stabbed downward vertically.
Kitsuchi crashed toward the maple forest below. The canopy slowed him for an instant before he smashed onto a sideways-growing branch.
A kunai had sunk into the top of his head, buried all the way to the handle.
Kitsuchi wanted to pull it out, but his brain nerves had been destroyed. He could no longer feel his arms.
Fox appeared with Body Flicker Technique.
Staring into Kitsuchi's pupils, which had yet to fully scatter, Yako said, "The war is going to end. For the foreseeable decades, there will be no more Shinobi World Wars, nor wars between ninja villages."
Kitsuchi did not know why Fox was explaining this to him.
Was Fox trying to find an excuse for killing too?
Killing for peace?
A mocking smile appeared on Kitsuchi's face.
Then he died completely.
Blossom Deer appeared beside Commander Fox with Body Flicker Technique. After glancing at Kitsuchi, the dead commander of the Stone, he reported, "Commander, the surviving Stone ninja have scattered and fled. We are pursuing them. The jonin want to know how far we should chase."
According to the conventions of ninja war, one did not pursue a desperate enemy too far, for fear the Stone had prepared backup plans or ambushes.
Yako said, "Tell every jonin battalion commander: pursue them all the way to the outskirts of Iwagakure."
Blossom Deer froze for a moment, then immediately vanished with Body Flicker Technique to arrange messenger ninja to notify every battalion commander.
Yako did not remain either. After sensing briefly, he rushed toward the place where the Stone ninja were most concentrated.
On another side of the grassland, Tsunade and the others were leading Konoha's forces in search of the Stone.
A Hyūga ninja hurried to the three Sannin.
"My lords! The Stone ninja have changed direction. They are not coming toward us. They're retreating northwest!"
Tsunade asked, "Did you see who's commanding them?"
"Lady Tsunade, it's Iwagakure's Jinchūriki, Rōshi and Han!"
Tsunade frowned gravely.
Two Jinchūriki would be very difficult to deal with. She had thought Kitsuchi would split the Jinchūriki between two different forces.
The Hyūga ninja added, "However, the number of Stone ninja isn't large. Around two thousand."
Jiraiya said, "If we've encountered a two-thousand-man Stone force, doesn't that mean the other Stone force has eighteen thousand?
The Stone planned to use an eighteen-thousand-man main force to advance steadily from the front, then send a two-thousand-man elite Jinchūriki force to flank us.
I wonder what's happening on the main battlefield."
The three of them were not too worried. Fox was extremely strong.
After pursuing for two hours, the three Sannin and the Konoha ninja all stopped.
A maple forest had appeared in the distance.
Fox's signature maple-tree Wood Release.
Fox had acted here.
More importantly, the maple forest was far too large. It covered at least two kilometers.
The Hyūga ninja came to report again.
"Lady Tsunade, there are many corpses inside the maple forest. I didn't have time to count them carefully, but there are at least several thousand—possibly over ten thousand.
Almost all of the corpses are Stone ninja. There are very few Konoha ninja."
Some Konoha ninja handling the aftermath walked out of the maple forest.
They came before Tsunade and said, "Commander-in-chief! Lord Fox defeated the Stone's main force here.
The Stone commander Kitsuchi, deputy commander Bakura, and more than eleven thousand ninja died inside and around the maple forest.
Lord Fox said to pursue the Stone all the way to the outskirts of Iwagakure."
Jiraiya looked at Tsunade in disbelief, then at Orochimaru.
Orochimaru's face was pale.
Of course, his face was always pale, but now it was even paler.
Killing over ten thousand Stone ninja in a single battle—
Some in the shinobi world said the Third Raikage was the strongest of the current era, but even the Third Raikage might not be able to do this.
Perhaps he could.
But he would certainly die doing it.
Yet Fox had actually ordered them to pursue all the way to Iwagakure.
Tsunade quickly said, "Move! We're pursuing the Stone too!"
***
In the capital of the Land of Fire, a swarm of insects crawled along the corner of a wall deep within an alley, like a colony of ants migrating to a new nest.
The insects dispersed and entered the Daimyo's castle.
White Ram was confident that even a Hyūga Guardian Ninja would not notice his infiltration.
After entering the castle, some of the insects transformed into an arm.
In that arm's hand was a kunai.