Hatani hadn't unlocked the Juggernaut yet. In his previous life, his performance with Yurnero had been... questionable, to say the least. He was the kind of player who spent the match "spectating" only to Blade Fury thin air, rushing in with a Healing Ward just to see it get sniped, missing every last hit despite his crits, and—the ultimate sin—using Omnislash just to clear a wave of creeps. His micro was, frankly, hot garbage.
But watching Sakumo Hatake move was different.
The man's combat was fluid, a masterpiece of lethal rhythm. Seeing him slash through the palm and throat of an Iwa Jonin simultaneously, then pirouette through the spray of blood without a single drop staining his vest, Hatani was immediately reminded of the Juggernaut's third skill: Blade Dance.
In the game, skill names didn't always match their effects. Pudge's Meat Hook was literal—a giant hook on a chain—but Juggernaut's Blade Dance was just a 1.8x critical strike. There was nothing particularly "elegant" about the animation; it was usually just a high-commitment jumping downward chop that emphasized power over aesthetics. It was a MOBA, after all, not a high-fidelity character action game.
However, Hatani felt that if the Juggernaut were truly manifested in reality, Blade Dance would look exactly like Sakumo: a display of pure, rhythmic beauty.
It wasn't just a fanboy's observation; it was a gut feeling.
And, more importantly, it was a mechanical reality. As he replayed the details of Sakumo's swordsmanship in his mind, the System interface flickered. In just a few minutes of "mental training," the Gold requirement to unlock the Juggernaut dropped from 4,000 to 3,900.
The progress was staggering. To Hatani, it meant that Sakumo's style was so perfectly aligned with the Juggernaut's essence that simply witnessing it increased his understanding of the hero's "Talent."
If just watching provided such a massive discount, then actually apprenticing under the man might mean he could "free-load" his way to a full unlock.
While Hatani was busy daydreaming about cheesing the System, Team Tsunade was facing a life-or-death crisis.
Minato and Choza's fears had been realized. Barely half an hour after their initial breakout, the pursuers they had shaken off caught up, and a swarm of Iwa squads—alerted by the commotion—began to converge.
They were now trapped in an encirclement far more suffocating than the last. This time, there was no room to run.
Even with the naked eye, they could see heads bobbing in the tall grass for hundreds of meters in every direction. The Iwa ninjas had formed a perimeter specifically designed to prevent another breakout. They were the filling in a massive, reinforced sandwich, surrounded by layer upon layer of enemy shinobi.
Escaping on their own power was now a statistical impossibility. Their only hope lay with the Konoha reinforcements Hatani was bringing—hope that the main army would arrive like a set of jagged teeth to tear this encirclement apart from the outside.
Realizing they were at the brink, the last traces of worry vanished from Tsunade's eyes. Her legendary temper was replaced by a fierce, heroic resolve.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
She stopped holding back. Biting her finger, she slammed her hand down, summoning Katsuyu—a slug the size of a small mountain.
"Tongue Tooth Sticky Acid!"
The moment she appeared, Katsuyu unleashed a barrage of indiscriminate acid spray upon the horrified Iwa ranks. With her gargantuan size and devastating reach, she looked less like a companion and more like a final boss from a monster movie—reminiscent of the terrifying Krayt Dragon from the second season of The Mandalorian.
"Earth Style Defense!"
The surrounding Iwa ninjas were border troops. They might not have been as elite in a duel as men like Kyu or Fumikawa, but their large-scale coordination and teamwork were peerless.
At a Jonin's roar, dozens of ninjas gathered, their hands blurring in near-perfect synchronization.
"Earth Style: Great Mud Wall!"
Under the combined effort of nearly twenty Chunin and Jonin, a massive stone rampart erupted from the earth. While it was a mere prototype compared to the "Ten-Thousand-Mile Earth Wall" that would be used in the Fourth Shinobi World War, it was sufficient to block the acid raining down from above.
However, Katsuyu's acid was a technique that even Orochimaru feared—a substance capable of truly killing him. It wasn't so easily thwarted.
"Damn it! Fall back! The acid is eating through the wall—it's even corroding the chakra within it!" the lead Earth Style Jonin bellowed, his face pale as he watched the stone hiss and melt.
"Water Style: Exploding Water Colliding Wave!"
"Water Style: Wild Water Wave!"
A handful of Water Style users unleashed torrents of water, hoping to wash the acid away and dilute it.
"Idiots, stop!" the Earth Style leader screamed in a rage.
The water succeeded in washing the acid off the wall, but it didn't dilute it. The acid behaved like oil in water; it floated on the surface and used the current to flow even faster down toward the base of the Earth Wall.
The rate of corrosion accelerated instantly.
"We can't just sit here. All Jonin, initiate a full-scale assault!"
Kyu, the man who was willing to sacrifice his own subordinates without a second thought, remained chillingly calm. A massive summoning was a problem for the Genin, but this was exactly the kind of situation where a concentrated force of Jonin was meant to shine.
"Earth Style: Swamp of the Underworld!"
"Earth Style: Rock-Lodging Staff!"
"Earth Style: Earth Mausoleum Dumpling!"
"Earth Style: Weighted Rock Technique!"
Unlike Konoha, where ninjas were "jacks-of-all-trades," the shinobi from the Land of Earth were almost universally masters of Earth Style. Their Jonin were the pinnacle of this specialty.
For a moment, the battlefield became a high-level demonstration of Earth Ninjutsu.
A group of Iwa Jonin worked in tandem: some altered the terrain to trap Tsunade's team, others used precision strikes to force them out of position, and the rest prepared wide-area attacks. A few even acted as "enchanters," using the Weighted Rock Technique to buff their allies' attacks.
The only thing the Iwa forces lacked was a truly monstrous Earth Style user like Kitsuchi. Had he been there, the time they had spent surrounding the team would have been enough to trigger the Mountain Sandwich Jutsu and crush the giant slug into a literal "pancake."
Still, a mountain-sized boulder launched with the Earth Mausoleum Dumpling and enchanted by Weighted Rock was more than enough to turn even a legendary summon into a pile of mangled meat.
_______
+80 chapters on: patreon.com/Shinobi_Scrolls