Chapter 216 The Prelude to War
"Third Hokage, please calm down." Inside Konoha, Kakashi, while mobilizing troops, was also reassuring Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had already changed into his battle suit. "The Fifth Hokage has already gone after him. With his strength, he can definitely bring Konohamaru back safely."
"Calm down? How can I calm down? Asuma has been married for almost two years and still doesn't have a child. Konohamaru is my only grandson." Hiruzen Sarutobi puffed on his pipe for a while. "No, I have to go myself. Although Touko's strength should be above the Raikage's, he's alone now."
"But, Third Hokage, it's too late for you to go alone now. Inuzuka Kaze, who excels at long-distance raids, and his ninja dog, Sumi, are already heading towards the border with Flying Thunder God kunai. Waiting a little longer and having Genma and the other two use the Flying Thunder God Formation to send us there might be faster."
"That's the only way." Hiruzen Sarutobi exhaled a long puff of smoke and sighed.
Faced with the kidnapping of his own grandson, Hiruzen Sarutobi felt a sense of karmic retribution, along with anxiety.
Back then, when the Hyuga clan faced a similar situation, he did nothing, watching helplessly as Hiashi Hyuga died in his place.
But now, his grandson was the one being kidnapped.
[Touko, he probably won't abandon Konohamaru...] Hiruzen Sarutobi thought, looking at the empty sword rack in the Hokage's office.
...
The Kumogakure delegation, carrying Konohamaru, was desperately fleeing towards the border.
Just then, a large bird flew overhead, scattering a barrage of clay bombs.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! The road in front of the Kumogakure delegation exploded one after another, the colorful flames particularly dazzling against the night sky
. However, the Kumogakure members had no time to appreciate the fireworks.
"Enemy attack!" The Kumogakure ninja at the forefront, the temporary commander in A's absence, barely managed to avert the sudden explosions, and cried out in anguish.
The sudden explosion caused heavy losses to the Cloud Village ninjas at the forefront. Several weaker ones were instantly killed in the violent blast, while the stronger ones were severely injured.
"The enemy is in the sky!" the Cloud Village commander said through gritted teeth, wiping blood from his mouth.
Deidara's figure, perched on the bird's head, was clearly visible in the firelight from the ignited bushes.
However, Deidara made no attempt to hide; for an artist like him, the feeling of being the center of attention was paramount.
Under the watchful eyes of the Cloud Village ninjas, Deidara pulled a large chunk of clay from the scroll and began chewing it with his mouth and the gaping maws in his hands. Then, another string of exploding clay was flung out.
"Hahaha, admire my art! Art is an explosion!" Deidara laughed loudly, flung clay at the sky from the giant bird.
Seeing this, the Cloud Village ninjas could only desperately use defensive ninjutsu to fend off the aftershocks.
Meanwhile, Naruto and his two companions took advantage of the chaos to sneak behind the main force of the Cloud Village.
Sasuke bit his finger, formed hand seals, and summoned his contracted snake.
Unlike Uchiha Touko, whose strength and fighting style were already fixed when he signed the contract with Ryuchi Cave, making the contract with his snake less significant, Sasuke could grow and develop synergy with his contracted snake partner, integrating its power into his own fighting system. Sasuke's talent was undeniable. After leaving his name on Ryuchi Cave's contract scroll, Ryuchi Cave sent the most talented snake of their generation, the Blue Snake, to become Sasuke's partner.
In the darkness, a giant snake nearly thirty meters long emerged from the center of the summoning circle. However, to avoid detection, it lay entirely on the ground, only its enormous head facing the three.
"Young Master Sasuke," the green snake greeted Sasuke before asking, "What brings you here?"
"Could you lead the three of us underground to infiltrate this group's formation and rescue them?" Sasuke asked.
"That's easy," the green snake nodded, gesturing for the three to climb onto its back.
Sasuke, along with Naruto and Neji, settled on the green snake's back. The green snake's chakra began to circulate, and its body slowly sank into the earth.
Not a single ninja from Kumogakure noticed the commotion. Leaving aside whether these elite Jonin, the strongest among them, knew about the mysterious Sage Mode chakra, the sight of Deidara laughing and throwing bombs from the sky completely distracted them.
"Damn it, we don't have any ninjas with anti-air capabilities in our team!" The Cloud Village commander gritted his teeth, glaring at the giant bird hovering in the sky. But facing Deidara soaring overhead, he was truly powerless.
This Cloud Village unit consisted of several elite Jonin who had followed A, as well as spies who had infiltrated Konoha and had to return to Cloud Village after their mission. The ninjas A had brought were either skilled in ninjutsu or defensive ninjutsu, making their ranged attack capabilities extremely weak. As for the spies who had been exposed while infiltrating Konoha, they were even less likely to be proficient in long-range attacks. Therefore, faced with Deidara's relentless bombardment from above, they could only helplessly use defensive ninjutsu to protect their heads.
Fortunately, their Lightning Release ninjutsu had some effect against Deidara's Explosion Release Clay. Although they were constantly being bombarded and unable to lift their heads, the casualties of the entire team, apart from the initial wave of bombardment which caused some losses due to its suddenness, were not particularly severe.
Before they could even celebrate, the ground at the center of their formation suddenly began to surge, and a giant serpent burst forth.
The Blue Serpent, which usually ate a rather bland diet, didn't make its appearance like Orochimaru's Manda, which would at least devour two people for added excitement. But this time, the Blue Serpent's poisonous mist, mixed with Sage Chakra, was far more terrifying than Manda's. The Cloud Village ninjas whose skin touched the mist began to petrify instantly, forcing them to use kunai to slice away the poisoned flesh. Their decisiveness saved their lives; several Cloud Village genin, hesitating for a moment, were corroded by the mist and turned into scaled stone statues.
The Blue Serpent had perfectly completed its mission, infiltrating the Cloud Village's formation with the three of them and even clearing an area for them. Now, only a Cloud Village jonin carrying a sack remained in that area.
Sasuke and Neji said nothing, wielding their Purple Lightning and Eight Trigrams Staff, and charged forward.
"Konoha's genin?" The man carrying the sack gritted his teeth as he parried the two men's attacks with his sword. He immediately recognized Sasuke and his two companions who had shone brightly in the Chunin Exams. "Are you here to die?"
"Hmph," Sasuke snorted coldly, his Purple Lightning Blade, crackling with purple electricity, slashing heavily at his opponent. The impact with the opponent's weapon produced a series of ear-piercing shrieks, like a thousand birds singing. The next moment, a bolt of lightning as thick as an arm descended from the sky.
Seeing this, the man could only retreat. At this moment, Neji, using the Eight Trigrams Step, followed closely, his long staff striking repeatedly at the opponent's pressure points, forcing him to retreat in a sorry state.
By this time, the surrounding people reacted and gathered to provide support. Sasuke, meanwhile, ran his hand over the blade of Purple Lightning Blade, imbuing it with a layer of lightning-attribute chakra, before planting it into the ground.
"Lightning Release: Earth Movement!"
In an instant, purple lightning bolts surged in all directions like dragons, precisely targeting the ninjas attempting to provide support.
The electricity flowing in the ground exploded precisely beneath the enemies' feet. Sasuke's ninjutsu instantly took down two Chunin.
Seeing this, Omoi, not far away, was also filled with shock. Having lost to Sasuke in the Joint Chunin Exams, he had thought the gap between them wasn't that big. But now, witnessing Sasuke's full power, he finally realized that Sasuke hadn't used his full strength during the Chunin Exams.
This isn't hard to understand. During the Chunin Exams, Sasuke only wielded an ordinary chakra metal sword. While the sword was of excellent quality—even many Konoha Chunin who used swords would need to save for a long time to afford a similar one—it was still far inferior to the Purple Lightning, forged by the best swordsmith in the Land of Water, renowned for his sword-making skills and made from the finest chakra metal in the entire ninja world. During the Chunin Exams, Sasuke had to consider whether the sword could withstand his chakra and dared not go all out. But now, with the Purple Lightning in hand, he could naturally unleash his full power. Meanwhile
, the Cloud Village Jonin carrying the sack was also being pushed back by Neji's relentless attacks. Neji's staff technique, incorporating the essence of the Eight Trigrams Palm, was already overwhelming, not to mention the strange ninja tools that would occasionally pop out of the summoning scroll on Neji's wrist.
Just as his opponent was preoccupied with Neji's attack, a gust of wind swept past him from behind, and Naruto, seizing the opportunity, snatched the sack from his back.
"Success!" Naruto eagerly opened the sack, wanting to release Konohamaru.
However, at that moment, Neji's Byakugan noticed something amiss and immediately shouted, "Watch out, Naruto! It's not Konohamaru inside!"
At that moment, the Nine-Tails, which had been sleeping in the sealed space within Naruto's body, also suddenly awoke and warned sharply, "Kid, be careful, the person inside is hostile towards you!"
However, their words had barely faded when a cold glint flashed from the open sack. Inside, a short boy who looked no more than seven or eight years old, with a fierce expression, gripped a kunai and thrust it towards Naruto's heart.
Naruto, assuming the sack contained Konohamaru, was caught off guard. When he saw the attacker's movements, he only had time to slightly dodge, and the kunai pierced his right shoulder, causing profuse bleeding.
The attacker, having missed, immediately drew another kunai and aimed at Naruto's heart.
Naruto caught the kunai with his left hand and finally saw his attacker's face, his expression one of disbelief.
The attacker was an eight-year-old child, similar in age and build to Konohamaru, a child Naruto had seen several times in the village.
"I remember, you seem to be the son of the owner of that restaurant two blocks away from Ichiraku Ramen..." Naruto stared blankly at the boy in front of him, whose face bore a ferocity that shouldn't belong to a child his age. "Why would you do such a thing?"
"My father is the captain of the Kumogakure spy team, infiltrated into Konoha. I've known for a long time that I'm from the great Kumogakure." A fanatical look appeared on the boy's face. He released the kunai that Naruto was holding, grabbed a new one, and attacked Naruto again. "Die, you damned demon fox!"
However, the next moment, a purple bolt of lightning streaked through Naruto's vision.
"Sasuke! No!" Naruto shouted, but it was too late. The boy who had ambushed Naruto was overwhelmed by Sasuke's attack in the blink of an eye.
Blood splattered on Naruto's cheek, and he stared blankly at everything before him.
"What are you standing there for? This guy is an enemy." Sasuke came to Naruto's side and said with a frown.
However, the current situation didn't allow Sasuke much time to think. After Neji arrived, the three of them stood back to back in a defensive stance. Sasuke demanded sharply, "Where did you hide Konohamaru?"
The current commander of Kumogakure was preoccupied with defending against Deidara's attacks from the sky and didn't answer Sasuke's question. He simply turned around and shouted, "Kill these Konoha geniuses! Even if we all die here, it's still a guaranteed profit!"
"We've been tricked," Sasuke said coldly, looking at the Kumogakure army that was beginning to gather around them.
"It's my fault. If I had realized earlier that it wasn't Konohamaru, this wouldn't have happened," Neji said with some frustration. "
There's no point in saying this now, Naruto. Can you still fight?" Sasuke asked.
Naruto's blood-stained face was somewhat numb. He didn't say anything, but silently pulled the kunai out of his right shoulder. The deep, bone-revealing wound healed incredibly quickly after bleeding a little.
"We should break out from the north. Even if we can't break through their lines, we should hold out for as long as possible. The border troops should be on their way after hearing the commotion. It seems we can only force them to reveal Konohamaru's whereabouts by taking them prisoner first." Sasuke said, his hands crackling with purple lightning.
...
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(End of Chapter)