"I wonder… how long can you hold your breath underground?"
Yagami walked forward at an unhurried pace, the cross-shaped light spinning at his fingertips.
With Kagura's Mind's Eye locked onto Kagerō's presence beneath the earth, he had no intention of letting him slip away.
Yes, Earth Style ninjutsu could let someone move underground.
But no matter how well one hid, a human still had to breathe.
As long as Kagerō stayed buried beneath the ground, he was only delaying the inevitable. The moment he surfaced, even for an instant, Yagami would blow his head off with a laser.
And if he refused to come out…
Then Yagami was perfectly happy to let him suffocate down there.
After all, if they wanted to bury themselves—
"Jet Heel!!"
A roar suddenly cut through the battlefield.
At that same instant, a red figure came tearing through the air.
A massive kick came crashing straight toward Yagami's face, white steam trailing behind the attacker in a long streak.
"Ohh?"
Yagami raised a brow.
With the incoming strike already right in front of him, his body instantly dissolved into light and flickered to the side.
It was not that he could not take the hit.
He simply had no reason to.
The kick tore through empty air, and the figure shot past him before forcibly stopping in the distance.
"So it's you."
The scattered photons gathered once more.
In the span of a blink, Yagami's figure reformed exactly where the light converged.
Looking at the two large men now moving to box him in, Yagami immediately recognized them.
A moment ago, his attention had been focused almost entirely on Kagerō's movements underground, so he had not noticed them drawing close.
But now that his perception had widened again, their identities were obvious.
Both of them carried the unmistakable presence of Tailed Beast chakra.
There was no doubt about it.
These two were Iwagakure's Four-Tails and Five-Tails Jinchūriki.
"My, my… couldn't just stand there and watch your jōnin die, could you?"
"At your age, having strength on the level of a Kage…" Han said slowly, his expression grave. "Konoha really is a frightening place."
The man who had launched the kick steadied himself in the distance.
Even after hearing Yagami's mocking tone, he did not lash out.
This was a battlefield. Trading blows was normal.
There was no point letting cheap anger show on his face.
For someone of their level, barking like a fool would only make him look pathetic.
"Hmm? That's a funny thing to hear from people who came here to start a war," Yagami drawled.
His tone was lazy, but the ridicule in it was obvious.
Hearing that familiar words, Yagami suddenly looked a little amused.
"Someone from Sunagakure said the exact same thing to me before."
Han caught that immediately.
"You fought Sunagakure's forces too?"
He was clearly buying time, waiting for Rōshi to fully close the distance, but Yagami did not seem bothered in the slightest.
Han was known for his Steam Release and overwhelming close-range power. With the propulsion of his armored steam, both his speed and striking force were monstrous.
But after that one sneak attack just now, he already understood something very clearly.
He could not take Yagami alone.
The difference in speed between them was too wide.
So for now, all he could do was keep talking and wait for Rōshi to arrive.
"The one who said it was Chiyo," Yagami said with a faint smile. "But she's dead now."
Han's expression shifted at once.
"Chiyo is dead?"
Though he had never met her personally, the Kage-level fighters of the Five Great Nations all knew of one another by reputation.
And Chiyo was no ordinary shinobi.
Even among Kage-level fighters, she had been one of the most troublesome.
"She didn't die on the battlefield itself," Yagami said lightly, as though discussing the weather. "Still, the end was pretty miserable."
He even sounded amused by it.
Han stared at him in silence.
He could tell Yagami was casually feeding him information, and yet that only made the situation feel heavier.
Meanwhile, Rōshi was getting closer with every passing second.
Yagami, however, looked completely unconcerned.
With his logia body and mastery over movement through light, he already stood in a position where ordinary methods could not truly touch him.
Even against two Jinchūriki, he did not feel pressured.
For a few moments, the battlefield fell into a strange atmosphere.
The two sides were clearly enemies, yet the conversation between them felt oddly calm.
It was enough to leave both the Konoha shinobi and the Iwa shinobi watching from afar wearing strange expressions.
This did not feel like two sides locked in battle.
It felt like something else entirely.
"Thud."
At last, Rōshi landed beside Han.
Now the two Jinchūriki stood together, directly facing Yagami.
Han did not waste the chance.
"What do you mean Sunagakure has already lost?"
His voice had turned much more serious now.
When he heard from Yagami that Sunagakure had signed a surrender agreement more than two days ago, even Han could no longer keep his composure.
Rōshi, who had only just arrived, frowned the moment he heard that.
"What?"
His eyes narrowed.
"Are you serious?"
After the initial shock passed, Han stared at Yagami suspiciously.
They were all one of the Five Great Nations. Even if there were differences in strength between the great villages, the gap should not have been so overwhelming that one would collapse this quickly.
How could Sunagakure have been defeated so fast?
"Believe it or don't. That's your problem."
Yagami shrugged carelessly.
Rōshi's arrival had not changed his expression in the slightest.
As for that information, there was no point hiding it anyway. By tomorrow at the latest, the news would spread across the battlefield.
Seeing how casual Yagami remained, Han's heart sank further.
Yagami had come from the direction of Amegakure.
That alone made the claim hard to dismiss.
"Alright, that's enough chatting."
Yagami finally stopped walking and looked at them with narrowed eyes.
"The reason you kept talking was to stall until this guy got here, wasn't it?"
He casually pointed at Rōshi, exposing Han's purpose without hesitation.
Han's brows twitched.
"Since you already knew I was stalling, why play along?"
"Because…"
Yagami's tone changed.
The mocking lightness remained, but now it carried a sharper edge.
"…neither of you is enough to make me care."
As his voice fell, Yagami brought his hands together in front of him.
Then he suddenly swept them apart.
Golden particles of light gathered instantly between his palms—
and in the next moment, they formed into a radiant longsword.
The blade gleamed with dazzling golden brilliance.
"What's the point of wasting words with him? Just do it!"
Seeing Han still hesitate as if he wanted to say something else, the hot-tempered Rōshi immediately lost patience and barked out a curse.
Then he dropped low.
A violent burst of chakra erupted from his body.
In the next instant, boiling lava surged across his skin, wrapping around him like molten armor.
The moment he and Han arrived, they had already seen enough.
Yagami's strength was obvious.
Against an opponent like this, Rōshi had no intention of holding anything back.
So without the slightest hesitation, he activated Lava Release Chakra Mode.
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