Chapter 309: The Hokage Arrives in Person

Land of Fire border

"Lord Third. What should we do now?"

Having just narrowly dodged another Dust Release attack from the Second Tsuchikage overhead, Itachi turned to Hiruzen, his expression grim.

Black-haired, black-bearded Hiruzen shot a cold glance up at the Second Tsuchikage — already blending seamlessly back into the surroundings after unleashing his technique — then glanced toward the Second Mizukage, Gengetsu, taunting them from a distance. Genuinely troublesome, both of them.

The Second Tsuchikage's ability to blend perfectly into his surroundings was an extraordinarily refined stealth technique. The Second Mizukage, likewise, could vanish using his giant clam to create mirages — impossible to defeat without first locating the clam itself.

Individually, the two Second-generation Kage might have been manageable as old rivals fated to clash. But working together, they became a genuinely difficult problem.

And that would have been bad enough on its own — but nearby, the makeshift double-A combo formed by the Third and Fourth Raikage loomed as well. Thrown together on short notice or not, that pairing posed a threat every bit as serious as the canonical AB Combo.

"You're the one who died and dragged me back through Edo Tensei — if anything happens to Sakura because of this, you're in for it!"

The Adamantine Staff, transformed from Enma, kept up a running string of complaints at Hiruzen.

Hiruzen could only sigh at that. Facing the combined assault of the double-A combo moments earlier, without Enma serving as a weapon to block the attack, his own frail body would have been cut clean in half instantly.

"How's Sakura doing right now?"

Hiruzen asked, hopeful. If she could resolve her own fight quickly, given her sharp instincts, she'd surely rush to reinforce this front the moment she was free.

"Sakura could probably crack your skull open herself!"

The Adamantine Staff's retort left Hiruzen speechless.

He'd only just died, and already Enma had picked up this kind of attitude toward him...

"All forces, fall back—"

Hiruzen let out a sigh. The entire front was being pushed back, and with Orochimaru's involvement never having been anticipated, this Edo Tensei force vastly outnumbered whatever sealing specialists they had on hand.

The only viable option now was retreating into the Land of Fire proper, using the terrain to hold a defensible line while waiting for reinforcements.

According to Tobirama's intelligence, Hikaru and Tsunade were still en route from Konoha. Once they arrived, the pressure here would ease considerably.

—

Standing atop a distant rise, Killer Bee watched the coalition forces pressing steadily toward the Land of Fire, his expression giving nothing away.

He already knew the Third and Fourth Raikage stood among the revived Edo Tensei fighters. But if that meant genuinely crushing Konoha once and for all, he could stomach that particular discomfort.

Tsuchidai had once given him guidance on exactly this kind of situation — small grievances shouldn't be allowed to derail a larger plan. As Raikage, and commander of this combined Lightning-Water-Bear-Iron coalition, he had to think of the bigger picture first.

Behind his dark glasses, his gaze settled on a golden figure in the distance, and something flickered, faintly, behind his usually calm expression.

He'd only lent Turtle Island to Konoha for three years. He hadn't expected that in that short a span, Konoha's Nine-Tails jinchūriki would actually master how to properly wield tailed-beast chakra.

Still — fortunately, judging by his current state, Naruto hadn't yet earned the Nine-Tails' genuine trust. Otherwise, in a situation like this, he'd already have gone full tailed-beast transformation.

There was still time to correct that particular mistake.

With that thought, Killer Bee turned to the Kumo shinobi beside him.

"Mabui. Where's Tsuchidai?"

The white-haired, dark-skinned Mabui answered quickly.

"Lord Raikage, Lord Tsuchidai said he had pressing matters to attend to. It'll be some time before he can reach the battlefield."

Killer Bee said nothing more at Mabui's answer, simply nodding.

Tsuchidai's importance to him went without saying — so even without seeing him on the field during wartime, Killer Bee's first thought was simply that he'd been called away on other business.

"Understood. Pass the order."

"Advance the main force. Push into the Land of Fire."

Mabui nodded and hurried off to relay the command.

By now, the fighting had already begun spilling into the Land of Fire proper itself — even with Tobirama's reinforcement, the front was struggling to hold.

The Gold and Silver Brothers weren't mediocre fighters — they ranked among the finest of their era. Even with Tobirama confident he could eventually take both of them down, a quick victory simply wasn't in the cards.

Long ago, before Hashirama had ever captured any tailed beasts, the newly founded Kumogakure had once tried to seize the Nine-Tails for itself, sending the Gold and Silver Brothers on the mission. Kurama had swallowed them whole.

But the two brothers hadn't died inside the Nine-Tails' stomach — they'd survived by devouring its very flesh from within, and the unbearable pain eventually forced Kurama to spit them back out.

From that point on, the Gold and Silver Brothers had retained a certain degree of Nine-Tails chakra within themselves — concentrated enough, even, to let them enter a partial tailed-beast cloak.

Right now, both brothers were wreathed in that same Nine-Tails chakra, five chakra tails trailing behind each of them, capable of shattering stone and jade with the lightest flick.

Tobirama watched the two of them, grim. If this dragged on much longer, his only real option left was the Mutual Detonation Explosive Tag.

"Brother. This Tobirama Senju's about done for."

Silver Horn watched Tobirama with an arrogant laugh.

"Ha ha ha, that's right! Let's finish him off again today!"

Golden Horn, without hesitation, charged forward alongside his brother, Binding Rope in hand.

If the rope managed to catch Tobirama this time, his death was all but guaranteed.

"No other choice, then."

Tobirama still had enough reserve strength left to keep tracking the surrounding battlefield.

Right now, Konoha's forces were being pushed back hard — if Sakura hadn't sent Naruto ahead with two hundred chakra-armored shinobi earlier, the front might already have collapsed entirely.

The only option now was to retreat.

Once Sakura, Tsunade, or Hikaru arrived, they'd have the strength to properly contend with this Edo Tensei force.

And beyond that — they still needed to locate whoever was actually controlling the Edo Tensei technique, and break it entirely.

Tobirama couldn't help a bitter grimace.

Elder brother was right, all along. Researching forbidden techniques — and now not only was Sakura dragging him into working overtime, but the whole of Konoha was paying the price for his old research too.

Those who toy with forbidden power are destined, eventually, to be toyed with by it in turn.

At this moment, Tobirama and Hiruzen had reached the exact same conclusion independently: fall back into the Land of Fire, hold a defensible line using favorable terrain, and wait for reinforcements.

"All forces, listen — fall back—"

Before Tobirama could finish the order, several bursts of chakra appeared behind Konoha's lines, and his narrow eyes lit up instantly.

"ATTACK!"

"ALL FORCES, ATTACK!"

Sakura!

Sakura had reached the battlefield!

The words had barely left Tobirama's mouth before the entire Konoha force reacted — a streak of pink light tore across the sky, splitting the air with a howling roar, and crashed down onto the battlefield like a falling meteor!

A deafening boom rolled across the entire field, kicking up a massive wall of dust!

Every one of the more than fifty thousand soldiers on the field turned toward it at once.

"That's—"

"The Fifth Hokage."

Standing on his rise, Killer Bee stared at the cloud of dust at the battlefield's center, his expression grim behind his dark glasses.

If the Hokage had made it here to the Land of Frost front—

That could only mean one thing. The battle in the Land of Rain had already been decided.

"Mabui. Prepare the Heaven Transmission Technique — tell Orochimaru the target has arrived."

"Yes, sir!"

Mabui nodded quickly.

By then, Killer Bee had already vanished from where he stood.

King against king. General against general. As the coalition's supreme commander, with the enemy's own commander now on the field, he couldn't simply stand aside.

He needed to buy Orochimaru time for whatever came next.

On the battlefield, a streak of pink cut through the settling dust, visible now to everyone present.

"That's — Sakura?!"

Hiruzen recognized her instantly, and something warm settled in his chest.

Only a few months apart, and he could already sense how much she'd grown.

"Father!"

"KILL HER!"

"Then the whole battle's ours to win!"

The Fourth Raikage roared, furious.

"Fine."

The Third Raikage didn't recognize the girl who'd just fallen from the sky, but hearing his son's demand, he agreed without a second thought.

"Combined—"

"—Lightning Plow Blade!"

Both Raikage unleashed the technique together, their arms crossing to form the sharpest possible blade, lightning roaring furiously — and before the dust had even fully cleared, they charged straight at the streak of pink.

Lightning Release Body Technique worked differently from other jutsu — even in an Edo Tensei body, frail as it otherwise was, the technique restored the practitioner's original physical strength in full.

Lightning roared, their movement almost too fast to track — and coming from two Raikage acting in perfect coordination, an ordinary opponent facing the combined Lightning Plow Blade wouldn't have stood a chance.

An instant later—

A massive boom rocked the battlefield once again.

A single hand had caught both men's combined strike, dead in its tracks.

Both Raikage's eyes went wide with shock in the same instant.

"That's not possible!"

The Fourth Raikage stared, disbelieving, at the scene before him.

When he'd died at this person's hands, she hadn't even been thirteen years old.

Barely three years had passed since then — and she'd already grown to this?!

"Beaten opponents. Had your fun yet?"

The Hokage looked at father and son, calm, her sharp, elegant features cold as ice.

By now the dust had fully settled, and every soldier on the field bore witness to what had just happened. The battlefield fell utterly, momentarily silent.

Then—

"LORD HOKAGE!"

Cheers erupted through Konoha's ranks, a deafening roar — and the flagging morale that had been sinking moments before surged violently back to life.

"Sakura!"

Naruto's eyes lit up, overwhelmed.

He'd tried earlier to help Hiruzen drive back the Third and Fourth Raikage, only to find the Third Raikage's body genuinely, terrifyingly durable — he'd taken a full Rasengan Shuriken head-on without so much as a scratch. Hiruzen had eventually sent him off to help elsewhere instead.

"She's already reached this level?"

Even Yagura, who'd been holding back from the sidelines this whole time, stared, stunned, at Sakura — who'd just blocked both Raikage's simultaneous attack with a single hand.

"Hey, hey, hey. You're kidding, right."

"Power like that..."

"Where the hell does a monster like that even come from?"

Gengetsu stared, unable to believe what he was seeing.

As the former supreme commander of Kirigakure during the First Great Ninja War, he understood the Lightning Release Body Technique better than almost anyone.

Blocking two Raikage at once with a single hand — it looked, frankly, like something out of a dream.

"Clearly, another Konoha monster."

"And this whole war probably only started because of this Hokage in the first place."

"No one's ever willing to let a second Hashirama Senju exist."

"Though... she doesn't seem to be quite that type of person, either..."

The Second Tsuchikage landed beside Gengetsu, speaking calmly.

"When did you get over here? Are we close or something?!"

Gengetsu glared, irritated, at Mū beside him.

At that moment, the Hokage — still holding both Raikage at bay with one hand — spoke. Her voice wasn't loud, and yet it carried across the entire battlefield.

"Everyone. Counterattack."

The words fell, and a massive, sky-blotting shape shot out from behind Konoha's lines at tremendous speed, the wind of its passing forcing everyone present to shield their eyes.

"What is that?!"

Mū's expression shifted with genuine shock.

As a shinobi from the Warring States era, he knew exactly what this was, or should be called—

A nightmare.

"Ah. Susanoo."

"And the full version at that. Looks like Konoha's produced more than one monster this generation..."

Gengetsu looked up at Susanoo overhead.

"In that case, it seems this war really can't be avoided now."

Mū said, visibly wary.

Susanoo dropped, without hesitation, directly into the middle of the coalition ranks — the shockwave of its landing alone kicked up a devastating gust of wind, sending more than a few coalition shinobi flying.

"Let's go deal with that Uchiha carrying the Susanoo."

Mū said, serious.

"Fine."

Gengetsu had no objection. With Konoha this strong, if they didn't crush the village decisively in this war, every future generation of their own villages would end up bowing to Konoha's will forever.

With that, both abandoned Itachi entirely and charged straight at the Susanoo now standing in the coalition's midst.

If they'd still been living, flesh-and-blood shinobi, caution would have been necessary. But as Edo Tensei revivals — immortal, indestructible bodies — they could throw themselves against Susanoo without fear.

And both their signature techniques — Dust Release and the Vapor Detonation Technique — remained entirely unaffected by Edo Tensei's limitations.

One was a molecular-level attack. The other exploited pure physical phenomena.

Neither could be weakened by revival at all.

"So that's Konoha's next generation?"

"How wonderful..."

Nearby, still locked in combat with Guy and Asuma, Kakuzu spoke, genuinely impressed.

He'd assumed Naruto — with his Nine-Tails Chakra Mode — represented the pinnacle of Konoha's current generation. He hadn't expected two more just as formidable to appear right after.

One of whom happened to be the current Hokage herself.

Something warm settled in Kakuzu's chest alongside his surprise.

"Ah, that's right. That's the treasure we're all here to protect."

Asuma smiled, taking advantage of Kakuzu's distraction to slice off one of his arms.

"A treasure, is it..."

Kakuzu paid no attention to the severed limb, his eyes fixed entirely on the young Hokage in the distance.

He'd noticed the necklace hanging at her throat.

Half-hidden beneath her clothing, but he recognized it regardless.

Tsunade's necklace.

This Hokage — someone Tsunade herself acknowledges, then...

"Oh, and by the way — Sakura's Lord Third's own final student, and Lady Tsunade's own junior."

Asuma seized the moment, working with Guy to sever one of Kakuzu's legs as well, while continuing to needle him with words.

Facing this particular elder, Asuma wasn't about to let his guard down for even a second. Guy might not know it, but Asuma understood precisely how terrifying Kakuzu's soul-manipulation techniques were.

Once he set his sights on you, death was all but guaranteed.

An attack on the level of the soul itself — no one in the entire shinobi world could withstand that.

"You little—"

Kakuzu looked down at his severed leg, laughed ruefully, and opened his mouth to say something — but at that moment, countless golden chains came streaking toward him from the distance. Missing a leg now, there was no chance of dodging in time.

The chains bound him fast in an instant, and the moment they closed around him, his chakra was sealed completely.

"This is... Mito Uzumaki's Adamantine Sealing Chains."

"One of her own clan, then."

Kakuzu recognized the chains immediately, something like nostalgia crossing his face.

He looked out across the battlefield and spotted a red-haired girl standing among Konoha's ranks, dozens of chains radiating outward from her, stretching across a full half of the battlefield — every one of them targeting an Edo Tensei revival, unerringly.

"Adamantine Sealing Chains at this level..."

"Genuinely remarkable."

Something warm settled in Kakuzu's chest. He felt, in that moment, that his return to this world hadn't been without meaning after all.

At least he'd gotten to witness just how strong Konoha had become.

The next generation had already, fully, surpassed him.

"COUNTERATTACK!"

Seeing both Raikage occupied with Sakura, Hiruzen raised the Adamantine Staff and roared across the entire battlefield.

"KILL!"

Konoha's shinobi surged forward as one, fired up beyond measure, charging the enemy lines with a furious roar.

In an instant, the entire battlefield began, unmistakably, to turn — the coalition being pushed back toward the Land of Frost.

"Beaten opponents. You're pathetically weak, you know that?"

The Hokage looked at the Fourth Raikage, calm, and something surfaced in his mind — the exact same person, the exact same words, from three years ago.

Fury exploded through him.

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

The Fourth Raikage roared and drove a fist at her head, like a raging dragon.

But—

Paper scattered in the wind.

The Fourth Raikage stared, disbelieving, at what had just happened — the Hokage had simply raised her own arm and matched his punch blow for blow.

And then, his arm — shattered.

"Fourth!"

The Third Raikage's expression went pale with shock.

This pink-haired girl is on an entirely different level from that blond kid earlier.

The boy's Rasengan Shuriken had already left him genuinely impressed — but this girl surpassed him by even further.

"DIE!"

The Third Raikage held nothing back, driving a single finger straight at the Hokage.

Hell Stab — Piercing Thrust!

Even though Hell Stab normally needed a running start to build its full power, at this range — point-blank — even Madara Uchiha himself shouldn't have been able to dodge it.

The Third Raikage had absolute confidence in that.

But—

The Hokage simply tilted her head, letting the strike sail past her entirely, and in the same motion, spun and drove a kick straight into the Third Raikage's broad chest.

His eyes bulged wide — the impact felt exactly like a three-year-old getting hit head-on by a speeding armored vehicle.

His entire body was sent flying backward, completely beyond his control.

His massive frame tore straight through the battlefield.

Plowing a trench hundreds of meters long into the earth as it went.

"FATHER!"

The Fourth Raikage roared.

"You miss your father that much? Go join him, then."

The Hokage looked at him, cold, and without hesitation grabbed his wrist, hauling him bodily off the ground and hurling him straight toward the Third Raikage.

An instant later, the Fourth Raikage slammed directly into the Third Raikage's body.

Two Lightning Release Body Technique users, colliding at full force — paper scattered instantly, and one of them, unmistakably, had just shattered on impact.

Whichever technique proved weaker would be the one whose body broke apart.

Judging by the result, the Third Raikage's Lightning Release Body Technique had proven the stronger of the two.

"FIFTH!"

A single fighter, taking down both Raikage in three moves — Konoha's morale surged, nearly through the roof, a roar so heartfelt and thunderous it seemed almost enough to shatter the overcast sky itself.

The Hokage had arrived in person, standing unrivaled over the entire battlefield — no one left who could stand against her.

"Good!"

"GOOD!"

"Excellent!"

Hiruzen shouted the word three times over, his heart swelling with pride.

"And you?"

Enma, still in Adamantine Staff form, spoke up.

"...Nobody's going to think you're mute if you stay quiet for once!"

Hiruzen snapped back, irritated. Enma had never been quite this sharp-tongued before.

How did just a few months with Sakura turn this monkey's mouth this foul?

At that moment, a massive shadow swept across the battlefield, bearing down on the Hokage at tremendous speed.

Sakura looked up — a towering, tsunami-like wave of sand and gold dust, fused together, rushing straight at her.

"A bunch of beaten opponents, trying tricks on me."

"Enma — Adamantine Staff!"

In an instant, the staff shot out of Hiruzen's grip on its own.

"Old man, I still haven't settled the score with you from before!"

Hiruzen, who should have been the one complaining about Enma, found himself wearing a pained expression instead.

How was I supposed to know Sakura was busy fighting someone else at the time?

The staff landed in Sakura's hand, instantly extending to hundreds of meters, her Superhuman Strength nearly bending the metal into a curve as she swung it.

A single strike, and it landed like a bolt of thunder from clear sky, splitting the entire wall of sand and gold dust clean in two!

The very earth trembled under the blow!

The gust of wind alone sent nearby shinobi flying!

The towering wave of sand and gold, for all its scale, tore apart as easily as paper!

Sakura scattered the wave with a single swing, then launched herself forward, straight toward the Fourth and Fifth Kazekage waiting behind it.

At that same moment, another figure stepped into her path.

The Fourth Mizukage, Yagura Karatachi.

"Stop me!"

Yagura tried desperately to hold his own movements back, but found himself utterly unable to.

"Water Release — Water Mirror Technique!"

"No need to bother explaining. You're a beaten opponent too."

Sakura gave Yagura a cold glance, and the Adamantine Staff snapped back to a shorter length, swinging straight at him.

From within the water mirror, an identical Sakura burst free, staff in hand, matching her strike.

Staff against staff!

The strike landed, and the imposter from the water mirror shattered instantly against Enma's Body of Indestructible Vajra.

"DIE!"

The Hokage shouted, and struck again — Yagura himself was shattered outright.

(End of chapter.)

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Chapter 309 - Chapter 309: The Hokage Arrives in Person