Chapter 295: Just One Cut for You
The sky hung thick with dark cloud, distant thunder rolling underneath it, and a bitter wind swept across the assembled tens of thousands.
Every soldier in the coalition army swallowed hard, staring at the lone figure standing atop the rise ahead of them.
"Absurd."
"The order of the nobility has stood since ancient times. And you, Hokage, would overturn it — inviting the wrath of heaven and the fury of mankind alike."
"Konoha, now surrounded by the entire shinobi world, has only you to blame for that!"
Recovering from the crushing weight of a moment ago, Ōnoki looked up at the Hokage, furious.
"Surrender now, or Konoha's destruction is only a matter of time!"
Ōnoki kept talking.
At seventy-plus years old, he simply couldn't accept Sakura's argument on any level.
Sakura stood on the rise, watching him, cold and unmoved.
Under ordinary circumstances, this stubborn old man might actually be sort of endearing.
But right now, that same stubbornness is nothing but a rock blocking my path.
And what did you do with a rock in the road?
You kicked it aside.
"So — you're choosing to be my enemy, then."
"Ōnoki."
Sakura's words carried a note of quiet understanding, and something tightened in Ōnoki's chest at the sound of it.
Their positions had already diverged too far. From this point on, there could be no ending except one where one of them was dead.
"This girl."
Sakura rested a hand, almost affectionately, on Sai's shoulder, and turned to face the tens of thousands assembled before them.
"Her friend was violated and driven to her death. Facing that abuse from a so-called noble, she picked up a kunai."
"Fifteen years old, and she already had the courage to stand against a rotten system like this."
"So tell me — is everyone gathered here today simply too cowardly to do the same?"
The Hokage's voice carried across the battlefield, reaching every ear present, and Ōnoki ground his teeth at the sound of it.
Here we go again.
The pre-battle speech she'd given before the fight against Yomi was still fresh in his memory.
This Hokage had a gift for stirring morale through provocation, bending it toward whatever end she wanted.
And right now, her own side numbered only three hundred. The coalition stood thirty thousand strong.
She wasn't speaking to her three hundred at all.
She was speaking to the thirty thousand standing against her — stoking, deliberately, every shinobi's buried resentment toward the nobility that ruled them.
"Hokage. Don't speak so recklessly."
"Not every noble is a fool. Plenty among them care genuinely for the world's wellbeing."
Ōnoki understood clearly: if he let this rhetoric keep spreading unchecked, it had to be stopped.
But interrupting her mid-speech, right now, would be the single most foolish thing he could do.
The human heart didn't bend under pressure. It only resisted harder, the more it was pushed.
"You're right about that."
To Ōnoki's surprise, Sakura nodded, acknowledging the point — and then continued.
"When a great house is collapsing, there are always a few who try to hold it up alone."
"But against the full weight of the whole, they're always too small to matter."
"There's no shortage of corruption among the nobility — people abusing their privilege for personal gain, at every turn."
"The genuinely honest ones among them ought to recognize where the tide is turning, and abandon the sinking ship while they still can."
"I intend to rule the entire shinobi world, and build an empire unlike anything that's come before."
"When that day comes, there will be no more injustice left in this world. No more oppression. Everyone will live in peace."
The Hokage's words shook something in Ōnoki — he couldn't quite grasp the scale of what she was describing. Not merely tearing down the nobility as a class, but unifying the entire shinobi world under a single nation.
"No more injustice, no more oppression — that sounds like a fine dream."
Temari let out a cold laugh.
"Wrong."
Sakura wagged a finger at her.
"A dream is still just a dream. However real it feels, it's ultimately hollow — and it always ends when you wake up."
"What I'm building is within reach. Real."
Her words did nothing to move the stubborn old man before her. Ōnoki simply regarded her, cold, and asked:
"And how exactly do you guarantee this empire of yours won't rot? Won't collapse in on itself?"
Sakura answered, calm.
"As long as I'm alive, my empire won't rot."
"When I die — if that day ever comes — and the empire has grown corrupt, decayed, then someone like me will rise again, and tear the rot down, and rebuild."
"A new era of peace will follow."
Temari, sensing what she thought was a weakness in the argument, spoke up with mockery in her voice.
"So you're saying war will always come again eventually, no matter what."
"Whatever you do, death and chaos will keep repeating in this world, over and over."
"Then what's the point of any of this?"
The Hokage showed no sign of unease at the question, her expression calm as still water, and she answered:
"Your vision's too narrow. That's the limit of your understanding."
"Without war, no one learns to treasure peace."
"Only sacrifice, death, and suffering give peace its true value."
"A thousand years have passed since shinobi first came into being. A century or two under the old shinobi sects. Several centuries of the Warring States era. Decades under the hidden villages."
"And with every passing era, the scale of war has only grown larger. The bloodshed, the death — worse each time."
"It's time for that cycle to end."
"Before I die, I'll raise a worthy successor for this empire."
"They'll inherit my responsibility, and carry on working tirelessly for this world."
"They may make mistakes. They may falter. But they'll have countless people, genuinely committed to peace, standing behind them to help."
"By my own estimate — even accounting for eventual corruption — an empire like this could sustain at least one or two centuries of real peace."
"Compared to what we have now — four Great Ninja Wars in barely a few decades — isn't that already worth something?"
Silence.
Dead, total silence.
Every face turned toward the Hokage, struck speechless.
Behind her, the three hundred Konoha shinobi looked at their Hokage with something close to fervent devotion burning in their eyes.
A Hokage with a vision like this...
No — a sovereign like this.
Even if they died here today, on this road, they'd die without a single regret.
"Absurd. These are nothing but your own theories."
Ōnoki shook his head, dismissing everything she'd said.
"Heh. When Hashirama Senju founded the hidden villages all those centuries ago—"
"Where was your coalition army then? Why didn't you unite against him?"
"The truth is simple. He was too strong for you to touch, and he never threatened noble interests — never threatened yours."
"If anything, quite the opposite. He married his own daughter to the Land of Fire's Daimyō."
"That's how he was able to build his hidden village without interference."
A cold shock ran through Ōnoki. Is this Hokage openly repudiating Hashirama Senju himself?
But her words kept coming.
"His era limited his vision. I don't blame him for it."
"But now — now is the time to correct everything he left unfinished."
That sent a genuine spike of alarm through Ōnoki, and he shouted:
"Hokage, what exactly are you planning to do?!"
The Hokage's finely sculpted face carried nothing but cold detachment, and she began walking forward, step by step, as unshakable as her own will.
"You've all dared to stand in my way today."
"Is it because you think I'm..."
"...beneath Hashirama Senju?"
"The God of Shinobi?"
"That title's due for a new holder, I think."
With a single step, the Hokage's figure vanished from where she stood.
"EVERYONE!"
"ATTACK!!!"
Ōnoki, furious and terrified in equal measure, roared the order.
Thunder cracked across the dark sky.
Was that thunder?
No.
That was the Hokage. Already moving.
A sharp gust of wind tore past Ōnoki's ear, and his eyes shook.
What was—
Before he could even turn to look, the Hokage's figure had already reached the front line of the thirty-thousand-strong army.
And it was only then — with her standing right in front of them — that the shinobi coalition finally reacted.
"Kill her!"
"KILL HER!"
"Kill!"
Countless voices merged into a single roar, driving them forward, drowning out the fear beneath it.
Fear?
Thirty thousand against one.
And it was the thirty thousand who were afraid?
How absurd. How grotesque. And how — undeniably — true.
Facing the charging mass of soldiers, the Hokage's expression didn't change at all. She simply raised a hand.
And brought it down.
The first shinobi to reach her was thrown backward instantly, offering no resistance whatsoever.
The overwhelming force shattered his chest, his organs reduced to pulp in a single strike.
His body shot backward like a fired artillery shell, tearing straight through the ranks of the coalition army behind him!
Countless soldiers were flung apart, crushed, in his wake.
Finally, his body embedded itself in some rock formation, far off in the distance.
Only now did Ōnoki understand what that gust of wind past his ear had actually been.
That was one of our own men. A living human body.
In that same instant, countless more shinobi surged forward!
Roaring battle cries filled the field, chaotic and deafening.
They were the machinery of war. However shaken they'd been by the Hokage's earlier words, the moment the order to attack was given, they'd already set aside any thought of survival.
One punch.
One kick.
Every motion of her body claimed the lives of dozens, sometimes more.
Sakura regarded the countless shinobi swarming around her with cold, unfeeling eyes, no mercy in her expression at all.
Anything standing in her way would be kicked aside, crushed, obliterated.
Rain poured down now, torrential, as if heaven and earth themselves were mourning what was happening below.
Blood soaked the ground, and still the coalition's soldiers kept throwing themselves forward, like moths hurling themselves at flame.
Even the lowest creature clung to its own life. How much more should a human?
But by now, these men had stopped being human, in any meaningful sense.
"FORWARD!"
"FORWARD!"
"Anyone who retreats dies!"
Ōnoki directed wave after wave of shinobi to throw themselves at the Hokage.
Under the weight of their own commanders' authority, the vast black tide of soldiers surged forward against the single, unmistakably vivid pink figure standing at its center.
Ōnoki understood clearly: this Hokage's strength was without precedent, without equal. She'd already declared herself, before the battle even began, the true God of Shinobi of this era.
To kill someone like that, he had no choice but to grind down her chakra reserves however he could.
Under pressure from the nobility, from the shifting political tide, from the Hokage herself — Ōnoki forced himself, grimly, into this brutal decision.
This was the second time in his life he'd made this exact choice.
Bury an enemy powerhouse under the weight of sheer human sacrifice.
The first time had been at the end of the Second Great Ninja War — burying the Third Raikage under ten thousand Iwa shinobi, grinding him down until he died.
Now, he was directing thirty thousand soldiers to do the same to the Fifth Hokage.
But—
If only this opponent were the Third Raikage instead.
The pink-haired Hokage tore through the massed ranks unopposed. No one could land a single blow against her. No one could even meet her fist, her foot, in any meaningful contest.
Every strike she landed came without the slightest hesitation.
A tiger, loosed among sheep.
Slaughter without restraint.
At the rear, Konan stared at the Hokage moving through the massed army, her fists clenched white.
This was the first time she'd witnessed this woman's true power with her own eyes.
It was, genuinely—
Exactly what she'd told the others herself.
This was—
The true God of Shinobi of this era.
Facing down thirty thousand soldiers, and not the slightest flicker of fear.
As if the tens of thousands before her were nothing more than thirty thousand pigs. Except — even thirty thousand pigs would take a single person ten days and nights to slaughter completely.
At the rate this Hokage was moving, it wouldn't take long at all before the entire force was ground into ruin.
Death, death, death.
Dying, dying, dying.
Blood, blood, blood.
Everywhere the Hokage walked, twisted, lifeless bodies followed in her wake.
How is this possible...
How is this possible...
How could a being like this even exist?!
This isn't a person. This is a — a demon.
"So many already dead, and still you haven't moved!"
Temari, watching the scene unfold, her lips white, turned a furious glare on Ōnoki.
If the Hokage in the middle of that army had been using some technique — some jutsu, some secret art — Temari could have made sense of it.
But this was nothing but bare fists and feet, and entire ranks of her own side were dying by the dozen with every motion.
How could that not terrify her? How could it not?
And every death felt, to her, like a wound bleeding straight through her own heart.
This was Sunagakure's entire fighting strength being ground away, right in front of her.
"Remember this."
Ōnoki turned a furious glare of his own on Temari.
"On a battlefield, there's only one head giving orders."
"Death is the most ordinary thing there is, out here."
Facing Ōnoki's fury, Temari pressed her lips into a thin, bloodless line, then tore off her Kazekage robe, gripped her Three-Star Fan tight, and charged forward herself.
Ōnoki simply watched her go, cold, making no move to stop her.
Facing this endless, suicidal tide of soldiers throwing themselves at her without fear of death, Sakura's heart stayed as unmoved as steel — not a flicker of feeling in her at all.
This was nothing more than a rock in her road.
Kick it aside. Crush it. Grind it to dust.
A single punch killed the nearest Amegakure shinobi. She yanked the gleaming long blade from his dying grip and, without breaking stride, cut down an Iwa shinobi charging at her side with the same weapon.
A single stroke, and the Iwa shinobi — man and blade both — shattered outright.
"KILL HER!"
Another Iwa shinobi charged in. Sakura recognized this one, faintly — the gate guard from Kusagakure who'd once given her a towel.
Did it matter?
Cold steel flashed, merciless, and his head parted cleanly from his body.
Blood filled her field of vision, mixing with the falling rain.
At that moment, a violent gust tore through the driving rain, racing toward the Hokage from within the crowd.
But—
Cold light shattered.
Pink chakra flared along the edge of the stolen blade.
A single stroke tore the fully-formed technique apart.
"Summoning Jutsu — Dance of Slicing Blades!"
A figure rose high above the field, a Three-Star Fan fully unfurled in her hands, moving in perfect coordination with a summoned weasel spirit.
A violent, blade-sharp whirlwind, shaped deliberately by the caster's will, condensed into a terrifying tornado and hurled itself at the Hokage.
The acting Kazekage.
The Hokage watched the attack come, cold.
"Just one cut for you."
The words left her mouth, and the borrowed blade blazed pink, chakra pouring into it so violently the steel itself let out a keening, tortured cry.
An instant later, a pink flash of blade-light shot skyward, and the terrifying tornado was torn apart, shredded in the span of a single instant — not even briefly slowing her down.
High above, Temari's face went white with horror as, under that single stroke, the summoned weasel spirit died first — and then her Three-Star Fan itself was severed clean through.
That searing, unmistakable pink edge of light tore straight through her body, blood spraying across the battlefield.
A single cut, and the current Kazekage of the Land of Wind was dead.
(End of chapter.)
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