The Third Mizukage's usually impassive poker face shattered in an instant.
Over the past few years, the Third Mizukage would sometimes crack under the pressure of the Bloody Mist, shouting and going a little crazy by himself in the Mizukage's office, or privately complaining to Nakamaro and Genji.
But in front of the vast majority of Kiri shinobi, he still maintained the appearance of having everything under control.
Now, however, anyone could tell that something was wrong with the Third Mizukage...
Even his tiny, slit-like eyes had gone completely round!
"An ambush?"
"Has Sarutobi Hiruzen lost his mind?!"
The Third Mizukage's first reaction was exactly the same as that of the now-dead Ruthless Duo.
Although Hōzuki Gengetsu had once scathingly judged the Third Mizukage to be a complete amateur when it came to warfare, he was still a powerful shinobi who had survived the Warring States Period. Even if his isolationist policies and the Bloody Mist had left his thinking rigid, he still understood the basic logic of war...
Under normal circumstances, committing the entire army at once was inadvisable.
But the Third Mizukage had done so on the assumption that Konoha was besieged on all sides, making it impossible for Hiruzen to spare enough manpower to mount an effective ambush against Kirigakure...
Besides, the Third Mizukage had little choice. If he didn't bring enough men with him, then while he was away fighting the war, the village—where dissenting voices had already begun to emerge—might very well run into trouble...
"Mizukage-sama!"
Suikazan Fuguki immediately understood what he was thinking. His fat body trembled, and his voice carried a sobbing note.
"We were ambushed by the Third Hokage alone..."
"He unleashed an absolutely terrifying barrage of compound ninjutsu. Wearing black battle armor and wielding a blood-red war halberd dozens of meters long, he tore through our elite formation all by himself..."
"I fought him with everything I had, but the others risked their lives to cover my retreat so I could bring this intelligence to you!"
"Munashi Jinpachi, Kuriarare Kushimaru, Kurosuki Raiga, Akebino Jinin..."
Fuguki glanced behind him. When he failed to spot Biwa Jūzō, he swallowed hard.
"Aside from me, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist should all be dead!"
"Mizukage-sama, I have no honor left to continue living. I'll cut my own throat right now!"
With that, Fuguki raised a kunai to his neck and was about to drive it in with all his strength...
Bang!!
The Third Mizukage slapped Fuguki to the ground, kunai and all, and roared furiously: "If you want to die, then get your ass back to the front lines and die there!"
Fuguki rolled twice before scrambling back to his feet.
"Yes, Mizukage-sama!"
But inwardly, he felt considerably more relieved.
Good. At least the Third Mizukage wasn't going to kill him now...
Otherwise, as the leading member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, with everyone else dead while he alone survived, there was no telling what the Third Mizukage might do in his unstable mental state...
This was the survival wisdom of a veteran who had endured Kirigakure's Bloody Mist for years.
"Sarutobi Hiruzen is actually that powerful?"
"He did have something of a reputation before, but he hasn't fought publicly in so many years. Konoha isn't the Bloody Mist, either. As Hokage, he shouldn't have had that many opportunities for actual combat..."
"For him to come personally means they're getting desperate!"
Even now, the Third Mizukage remained trapped in the logic that 'Konoha was collapsing from within,' unable to pull himself out of it.
In fact, Hiruzen personally ambushing an elite Kiri force only reinforced that belief.
"Mizukage-sama, although our losses were indeed severe, this isn't a major problem..."
Genji's aged voice sounded.
"Konoha is fighting on four fronts simultaneously, and even Takigakure has joined the war. Even with Amegakure on their side, their manpower is still stretched thin..."
"Hanzō used to be quite formidable, but later he lost his drive. He hasn't made any waves in the shinobi world for years, and he turned his village..."
Genji paused.
He had been about to say that Hanzō had also completely closed Amegakure off from the outside world.
Leaders in the shinobi world who behaved that way had generally lost all ambition and cared only about preserving what little power they still held...
Generally speaking, the strength of a powerful shinobi could fluctuate greatly depending on their will.
But Genji's thoughts raced. Somehow, he had the feeling that if he said that aloud, the Third Mizukage might take it the wrong way...
Kirigakure under the Bloody Mist was far more isolated than Amegakure.
"In any case, Hanzō can't provide Konoha with much assistance. The quality of Amegakure's shinobi is also relatively low. They only have a handful of people worth mentioning, nothing comparable to Takigakure, which possesses a Tailed Beast..."
Genji continued his rational analysis.
Strictly speaking, none of what he said was actually wrong.
The problem was that his database was a little outdated...
Under normal circumstances, Genji relying on intelligence from a few years ago wouldn't have been much of a problem.
After all, both Amegakure and Hanzō had already reached a stage where their future seemed set in stone...
A sudden transformation from obscurity into greatness was an extremely unlikely event.
What Genji didn't know was that Konoha's biotechnology, combined with the Will of Fire, really did possess that kind of power—it could reverse the decline of both Hanzō's physical condition and his will!
Kirigakure had cut itself off from the wider information network, and Madara had forcibly imposed his own local network over the village on top of that. Over the past two years, the various forms of information infiltration orchestrated by Hi-kun and Black Zetsu had already woven an information cocoon around Genji and the Third Mizukage.
"So even though our vanguard forces have taken a hit, we still hold a decisive advantage."
Genji's gaze remained steady as he spoke calmly and unhurriedly: "Mizukage-sama, why don't we have the vanguard become the rearguard for now and withdraw to the coastline? We can restore discipline among the troops there and let the shinobi settle down again. These routed soldiers will hurt the army's morale in their current state..."
"Once the follow-up forces have caught up, we can resume our advance at a measured pace."
"Near the ocean, the terrain favors you. Heaven has also blessed Kirigakure by allowing you to further refine your method of controlling the Tailed Beasts. With two Tailed Beasts and the advantage of the sea, Sarutobi Hiruzen wouldn't dare come after us!"
The Third Mizukage was proficient in nearly every form of Water Release.
And, unlike what one might expect from Kirigakure, he was also an exceptionally skilled genjutsu user!
His mastery far surpassed that of an ordinary three-tomoe Uchiha!
Because of this, although the Third Mizukage was not a jinchūriki, he could use his genjutsu together with a method passed down through his clan to keep the Three-Tails firmly under his control even while it remained outside his body...
Furthermore, with the help of a certain third son of Kaguya who preferred to remain anonymous, some of the Six-Tails' weaknesses had also been subtly revealed to the Third Mizukage.
This was one of Black Zetsu's little schemes...
Because it had finally figured something out!
Not only was Madara, this reincarnation of Indra, more talented than any of his predecessors, his brain was also more stubborn than any generation before him—and somehow seemed to be fighting against itself...
He kept talking about the Infinite Tsukuyomi, yet everything he actually did looked more like he was using outside pressure to push Konoha's development forward. It was enough to make Black Zetsu faint...
What was even the point of gathering the Tailed Beasts like this?
You summoned the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, but you're not even making use of it!
But because of this, Black Zetsu came up with another brilliant little scheme.
Building on its efforts to help Hiruzen temper his body so that he could eventually replace the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path with his own flesh, Black Zetsu decided to play along with Madara's strange feelings toward Konoha and arrange for Hiruzen to come into contact with as many Tailed Beasts as possible!
After all, the body-tempering method from Black Zetsu's reconstructed version of the Kekkei Mōra explicitly stated that chakra from various Tailed Beasts was required for the tempering process.
That way, if Hiruzen ever wanted to reach greater heights, there was a good chance he would eventually temper the chakra of all nine Tailed Beasts into his body...
It might not even require all nine. As long as he gathered chakra from most of them in sufficient quantities, it might be enough to resonate with their mother's consciousness within the moon and allow her to descend...
As far as Black Zetsu was concerned, once Kaguya descended into Hiruzen's body, everything would work itself out.
No matter how talented a mere mortal might be, how could he possibly contend with the noble Rabbit Goddess?
Just wait to become the vessel for her resurrection!
Of course, the plan had all kinds of uncertainties, such as whether Hiruzen was actually talented enough...
But Madara had left Black Zetsu with no other options.
If it didn't at least pretend to go along with Madara's twisted way of thinking, things would only get worse. Black Zetsu had already been severely reprimanded when it tried to persuade him to "attack Konoha during the baby boom"...
So there was nothing left to do but put Hiruzen to the test and see what he was really capable of.
After all, Black Zetsu only wanted to see the chakra of all nine Tailed Beasts gathered inside a single person.
Whether that person was Madara or Hiruzen made no difference to it...
Although this method wouldn't allow Kaguya to return in her most perfect form, things had already deteriorated this far. Black Zetsu trusted that its great mother Kaguya would understand...
There was no longer room to be picky.
The Third Mizukage's expression eased slightly as he said in a deep voice, "Elder Genji's advice is exactly the kind of prudent counsel needed to safeguard a nation!"
"Pass down my orders! The vanguard will become the rearguard. All units are to withdraw in an orderly manner to the coastline of the Land of Fire and disperse their formations. A portion will remain at sea as a reserve force while we await reinforcements from the forces behind us!"
At that moment, the Third Mizukage couldn't help sighing sincerely:
"Thank goodness we have Nakamaro!"
"Now that something has gone wrong at the front, I have someone I trust handling support in the center and rear. We don't have to worry about what's behind us..."
"If something caught fire in the rear right now, we'd really be in trouble!"
Genji nodded, clearly agreeing with every word.
"Nakamaro has no desire to compete for military glory. He has devoted himself entirely to you and Kirigakure, taking responsibility for the inconspicuous but critically important work of logistics and battlefield supervision. Once this war is over, you should reward him handsomely!"
"Mm, well said!"
A trace of satisfaction flashed through the Third Mizukage's eyes.
"With Nakamaro around, Kirigakure can finally behave like a proper great shinobi village where everyone knows their place. Otherwise, far too many people would be trying to turn everything upside down!"
Objectively speaking, Nakamaro had indeed served that purpose.
By protecting some of the persecuted shinobi, he had alleviated the village's visible tensions to a certain extent. It was just that when those tensions eventually erupted, the result would be even more terrifying...
...
"The Hokage can't be defeated!"
"Run! Run!"
Among Kirigakure's routed troops, some had been scared out of their wits by Hiruzen.
Now that they had returned to the army formation, they clutched at their comrades' hands with terrified expressions.
A Water Gun shot shattered the head of one of the panicked Kiri shinobi.
The Third Mizukage lowered his finger and barked expressionlessly: "Anyone else who disrupts the morale of my army will be executed on the spot!"
"The entire army will withdraw in an orderly fashion and await reinforcements from the rear! If anyone dares attack us, I will personally meet them in battle!"
Under the Third Mizukage's swift and ruthless suppression, Kirigakure's formation finally settled down considerably.
But at that moment, quite a few of the routed soldiers began entertaining other thoughts.
That guy who had just been shouting—if he'd listened to what the Konoha shinobi were yelling and simply crouched down with his hands over his head, could he actually have survived?
Quite a few of them vaguely remembered hearing it. They simply hadn't processed it at the time.
It had been the Third Hokage's promise that anyone who surrendered would not be killed...
And at that very moment.
Biwa Jūzō, who had not returned to the ranks, took Zabuza with him and raced toward the coastline at full speed. With no need to maintain formation, master and disciple moved extremely quickly.
Once they reached the sea, they seized a troop transport and sped straight toward Kirigakure.
After suffering a blow from Hiruzen that was practically a natural disaster, Jūzō understood that Nakamaro definitely knew something he didn't!
And having already lost on the battlefield, whether because he didn't want to face that terrifying Hokage again or because he wanted to survive under the Third Mizukage, his only option was to find Nakamaro...
"He's a very mysterious man..."
Jūzō consoled the utterly bewildered Zabuza while stomping down so hard on the troop transport's throttle that he nearly kicked his foot into the engine.
The old Zabuza had believed that after earning himself the title of "Demon," there was no one left in the world he needed to fear. Even the Third Mizukage hadn't seemed like much to him.
But after witnessing Hiruzen fight, Zabuza realized that he really was still just a kid.
...
"Hokage-sama..."
"We've captured all the remaining Kiri shinobi and branded them with the 'Heavenly Prison' seal!"
Tenzō's Byakugan gleamed as he admired the battlefield, which looked like hell itself.
Hokage-sama's power was so beautiful!
"Hokage-sama, when I used my Byakugan at full power from the air just now, I discovered that there wasn't only one massive chakra source near the coastline. There's another one hidden beneath the surface of the sea..."
"Kirigakure must have brought both the Three-Tails and the Six-Tails!"
"But they're not in human form. They're in their Tailed Beast forms. Kirigakure must have obtained some method of controlling the Tailed Beasts, but the chakra inside them is extremely chaotic..."
"So this probably isn't cooperation like what Nine-Tails-san has with Konoha. They're most likely being controlled by force."
Hizashi quickly reported all the intelligence he had gathered.
Hiruzen nodded slightly as he listened.
Having powerful Hyūga shinobi serving as scouts and snipers really was the kind of support that only someone who had experienced it could truly appreciate...
Built-in x-ray vision and status analysis. With a single sweep of the Byakugan, there was almost no chance of walking into an ambush.
If Kirigakure had possessed even a single pair of Byakugan, then no matter how powerful Hiruzen was, he could never have planted his clones ahead of time and unleashed such a smooth barrage of attacks without the enemy knowing anything was wrong...
In fact, Hiruzen himself had been a little stunned at the time.
Were they seriously not going to take even the slightest precaution?
It had felt as though they had deliberately lined themselves up in formation just so he could farm kills...
Kirigakure was such a huge village. Did they really not have a single decent large-scale sensory ninjutsu?
Even without the Byakugan, Mind's Eye of the Kagura, or the Yamanaka Clan, surely they should have had some other sensory technique?
Hokage-sama didn't want to be the kind of person who asked why starving people didn't simply eat meat.
But unfortunately, Konoha really did have too much meat. Sometimes, even when he wanted to pick up his chopsticks, he had to think about which dish to enjoy, or else he would end up favoring one over another...
"Two Tailed Beasts..."
"And neither of them has a jinchūriki!"
Hiruzen was instantly tempted.
Those were two enormous treasures!
Konoha now had far too many shinobi who might be capable of controlling a Tailed Beast. It had long since moved beyond the days when Kushina had been regarded as the only possible vessel...
Shio, Tomie, and Kushina were all exceptionally suitable in different respects.
Tobirama could do it as well, but in Hiruzen's opinion, without a Mangekyō Sharingan, he was still missing something.
Besides, he already had Izuna inside him. Mixing too many things together wasn't necessarily a good idea...
Hiruzen knew that Tobirama had designs on the Box of Ultimate Bliss and wanted to become a very special kind of jinchūriki.
It was just that sometimes, whenever Hiruzen thought about it, he wanted to laugh...
With the foundation of the original Darkness of the Shinobi, combined with Tobirama's current reputation, and then becoming the jinchūriki of something formed from negative emotions on top of that, it gave off the strangely familiar impression of someone giving up on himself and deciding to walk the path of darkness all the way to the end...
Of course, Hiruzen would never actually laugh.
He respected Tobirama-sensei.
"Hizashi, take the aerial squad and investigate Kirigakure's follow-up forces!"
Hiruzen immediately gave the order.
Hizashi took to the air at once and entered his cursed-seal state.
In this form, combined with his specially made flight-wing ninja tool, Hizashi possessed extremely high aerial mobility.
"Nine-Tails..."
"Kakuzu has been assigned to keep an eye on Takigakure's Seven-Tails. That one has to be taken out."
"Kirigakure has the Three-Tails and Six-Tails. Sunagakure betrayed the alliance, so there's no way we're letting them keep their Tailed Beast either. That leaves Kumogakure and Iwagakure with the Two-Tails, Four-Tails, Five-Tails, and Eight-Tails..."
Compared with the internally divided Kirigakure and impoverished Sunagakure, Iwagakure and Kumogakure were indisputably worthy of being counted among the Five Great Shinobi Villages.
Their highest-end combat strength naturally couldn't compare with Konoha's.
But the cohesion and numbers of their mid-level shinobi were both quite respectable, and their force structures were well balanced. They didn't suffer from the kind of glaring imbalance Kirigakure did.
Or rather, even Sunagakure had managed to develop powerful sensory ninjutsu from its sand-manipulation techniques...
In Hiruzen's view, the Hiding in Mist Technique, sand-manipulation techniques, and Amegakure's Rain Tiger at Will Technique all shared similar underlying structures. With a few modifications, turning them into area-defense sensory ninjutsu wouldn't have been difficult at all, and the results would have been excellent.
But Hokage-sama had made the same mistake once again...
Not every hidden village had the solid research foundation and spirit of exploration that Tobirama had built for Konoha.
Because of its isolated environment, Kirigakure inevitably lacked the mindset needed for progress.
Over all these years, the only person who had truly been comparable to Tobirama in that respect was the Second Tsuchikage, Mū, who had developed Kekkei Tōta.
But that man had now fallen victim to Impure World Reincarnation as well...
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