Chapter 453: The Tsuchikage's Faltering Back
The battlefield fractured into three distinct war zones the moment the vanguard clashed.
Without question, the most violently contested arena belonged to Gaara and the Fourth Raikage.
Ay had pushed his speed to the absolute limit. The naked eye could no longer track his physical form—only jagged, blinding streaks of azure lightning tearing across the churning sea of sand. Every time the Raikage's boots touched the ground, an ear-splitting sonic boom detonated, kicking up shockwaves of dust.
Gaara's absolute defense was historically impenetrable, yet under the Raikage's rock-shattering, lightning-infused blows, the sand teetered on the brink of total collapse.
"Too slow! Too slow!!" Ay roared, his booming laughter echoing over the thunder.
A brutal knife-hand strike, wrapped in high-density lightning chakra, crashed directly into the protective sphere of sand.
Crack.
The sphere shattered like fragile glass. Gaara was violently flung backward, his boots carving deep trenches into the earth as a thin trickle of crimson leaked from the corner of his mouth.
Lightning Release intrinsically countered Earth Release. And sand, at its very core, was merely a specialized variant of earth. The Raikage's high-intensity lightning drastically degraded the sand's structural integrity, stripping away its hardened density.
"Can't hold out already?!"
Pressing his overwhelming advantage, Ay's figure flickered, vanishing in a crackle of ozone to instantly materialize directly behind the airborne Kazekage.
"Liger Bomb!!"
In that critical fraction of a second, Gaara's teal eyes widened, his pupils shrinking into jagged, raccoon-like slits.
"Shield of Shukaku!"
A colossal, grotesque raccoon-dog statue erupted from the bedrock, its dense, mineral-infused sand taking the devastating powerbomb head-on.
Though deep fissures instantly webbed across the towering shield, it held just long enough to buy Gaara a desperate breath. Fighting a tactical retreat, the young Kazekage manipulated the terrain, using the fluid, shifting sands to bog down the Raikage's footwork and drain his monstrous stamina.
On the eastern flank, the earth itself groaned.
"Earth Release: Mountain Jutsu!"
Two colossal hemispheres of solid rock, towering like twin peaks, slammed toward each other with the force of a tectonic collision.
Kitsuchi, the Elite Jonin commander of Iwagakure, stood with his hands locked in a heavy seal. As the Tsuchikage's own son, his mastery over Earth Release was nothing short of flawless.
Sasuke stood dead center in the rapidly narrowing gap between the crushing boulders. His demeanor remained chillingly calm. In his eyes, the crimson irises spun, three tomoe tracking the exact trajectory of the rocks and the dense flow of Kitsuchi's chakra.
"Chidori!"
The shrill, deafening chirp of a thousand birds tore through the roar of grinding stone.
Sasuke did not attempt to block the crushing weight, nor did he waste chakra trying to smash the mountains head-on. In the exact microsecond the twin peaks threatened to crush him into paste, his body twisted with serpentine grace. He kicked off the sheer face of the right wall, compressing his form, and shot through the final, razor-thin sliver of space like a bolt of black lightning.
Boom!
The massive boulders sealed shut behind him, sending a violent gust of displaced air rolling across the battlefield.
Sasuke landed lightly on the rocky outcropping directly behind Kitsuchi, the volatile lightning blade still dancing violently across his right hand.
"Big guy."
Kitsuchi whipped around, a flash of genuine shock flickering in his dark eyes as he took in the completely unscathed Uchiha.
"Uchiha brat..." Kitsuchi grunted. "Quick reflexes."
Without a second of hesitation, the Iwa veteran's thick fingers blurred through another sequence of seals.
"But this is solid ground!"
"Earth Release: Moving Earth Core!"
The terrain beneath Sasuke's feet violently shot upward, jagged spears of stone erupting from the crust to impale him.
Sasuke's gaze sharpened into blades. Instead of retreating to safe ground, he aggressively advanced. The lightning in his palm flared, hyper-compressing before extending outward into a blinding, crackling lance over a meter long.
"Chidori Sharp Spear!"
At the dead center of the battlefield, Naruto crossed his fingers, preparing to split off a squad of Shadow Clones to relieve the heavily pressured Gaara.
Suddenly, a suffocating, crushing pressure descended from the sky, pinning his boots to the dirt.
"Looking away will get you killed."
Onoki snorted, hovering just above the boy.
"Earth Release: Rock Fist Technique!"
The Third Tsuchikage's right arm was instantly encased in ultra-dense stone, expanding into a colossal, boulder-sized fist that plummeted directly toward Naruto's skull.
"Naruto!!" Jiraiya's heart seized. The Toad Sage's muscles coiled, ready to intercept, but a firm arm barred his path.
Fugaku stood beside him, his Mangekyo Sharingan spinning lazily.
"Watch."
The Uchiha patriarch's eyes remained locked on the blonde Genin.
"He is the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, and Yo's student. This level of pressure will not break him."
Just as the massive rock fist threatened to cave in Naruto's face—
A terrifying, boiling whirlwind of crimson chakra erupted from the boy's core.
"Get... off me!!!" Naruto roared, his vocal cords vibrating with a dual, beastly resonance.
A massive, semi-translucent claw of bubbling red chakra materialized from his back, surging upward to seize the falling rock fist mid-air. The supposedly indestructible stone groaned, then violently crumpled into dust under the demonic grip.
Onoki's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
Before the veteran Kage could even adjust his altitude, Naruto broke completely free of the localized gravity well. Channeling the explosive burst of the Nine-Tails' chakra into his legs, the boy shot into the air like a fired artillery shell.
A swirling sphere of condensed blue chakra howled in his right hand.
"Rasengan!!"
Onoki was a seasoned Kage who had survived three Great Shinobi Wars; startled but entirely unshaken, his hands blurred into a defensive seal.
"Earth Release: Golem Technique!"
A towering, heavily armored giant of solid rock extruded from his mouth, wrapping around his small frame in an instant.
The Rasengan slammed directly into the golem's broad chest.
Kra-koom!
Chunks of hardened stone exploded outward like shrapnel. The sheer kinetic impact sent the massive rock giant skidding backward through the air, plowing an invisible trench through the sky for several meters.
Inside the golem, Onoki felt a violent jolt of kinetic force travel straight through the stone and into his spine. His already-troublesome lower back flared with agonizing, blinding pain.
"Gah... my back..."
He grunted through gritted teeth, the pain forcing him to dismiss the crumbling golem. He floated backward, desperately putting distance between himself and the blonde monster.
'The power of the Nine-Tails?'Onoki clutched his waist, his weathered face twitching as he couldn't help but marvel at the raw display of force.'Konoha... is truly brimming with terrifying talent.'
Elsewhere on the ruined plains, Gaara was still enduring a relentless, high-speed pummeling. His armor of sand looked like a cracked porcelain doll, yet every single lethal strike the Raikage delivered was blunted by a desperate surge of sand at the absolute critical instant.
More alarmingly for the Kumogakure leader, the longer Ay fought, the more his internal alarm bells rang. Gaara's defensive reactions were steadily adapting, matching the Raikage's blistering rhythm beat for beat.
"Damn it!" Ay cursed, his lightning cloak flaring as he bounded back to scan the wider battlefield.
Kitsuchi was completely tied up by that slippery Uchiha kid; there would be no quick victory on that front. The old Tsuchikage seemed to be physically struggling against the explosive power of the Nine-Tails brat.
Worse, Konoha's hundred-man elite vanguard was fighting with terrifying, perfect coordination, effectively stalling the combined allied assault force in its tracks.
But the most pressing threat stood in the distance.
Jiraiya and Uchiha Fugaku remained anchored to the earth like twin guardian deities. They hadn't even entered the fray yet. Ay knew with absolute certainty that the very moment he slipped up, or his chakra reserves dipped into the red, those two veteran monsters would pounce on him like starving wolves.
Ay spat a glob of saliva onto the scorched earth in sheer frustration.
As reluctant as his warrior's pride made him, the Raikage knew swallowing these tough bones today was a tactical impossibility. Further fighting would only pile up meaningless casualties for the alliance.
"Onoki!!" Ay bellowed, his voice carrying over the din of war. "Pull back!! Fall back to the defensive line!!"
Hearing the Raikage's booming order, the allied shinobi felt as though they had been granted a sudden pardon. Maintaining tight formations, they covered each other with suppressing fire, executing a disciplined retreat toward their rear fortifications.
Hovering in the sky, Onoki gave Naruto a long, lingering look.
"Next time we meet, brat," the old man wheezed, "this old man won't go easy on you."
With that parting threat, he floated back toward the Iwagakure lines, one hand firmly pressing against his aching lumbar spine.
"Hey! Don't run!!" Naruto shouted, his knees bending as he prepared to give chase.
"Naruto!" Sasuke materialized beside him in a blur of the Body Flicker Technique, his hand clamping down hard on the blonde's shoulder. "Don't forget the mission."
Gaara walked over to join them, his sand retreating into his gourd as he casually wiped a smear of blood from his split lip.
"We have achieved our goal."
Watching the massive allied forces scramble back behind their towering stone fortifications, Naruto blinked, processing the shift in momentum. Then, his face split into his trademark, goofy grin.
He turned back toward the command ridge, throwing a massive thumbs-up to Jiraiya and Fugaku.
The vanguard's objective had been met perfectly: they had bloodied the fresh allied troops and dealt a crushing, humiliating blow to the morale of both the Raikage and the Tsuchikage. They had proven that the enemy could not only be held at bay by Konoha's older generation, but that the Leaf's youngest warriors were already their equals on the battlefield.
Behind the safety of the allied lines, Onoki touched down on the elevated command platform of his camp. The moment his boots hit the stone, his knees buckled.
"Lord Tsuchikage!" His elite bodyguard immediately rushed forward, reaching out to support him.
"Out of my way!"
Onoki snapped, shoving the guard aside with a burst of wind chakra. His right hand remained clamped to the small of his back, his deeply wrinkled face twisted in a grimace of sharp pain.
"That damn brat..." he hissed through his teeth. "So strong."
He gazed out across the scarred plains toward that distant, golden-haired figure. His dark eyes were unreadable, swirling with complex emotions.
It wasn't just the raw, destructive power of the Nine-Tails that unnerved him. The explosive speed that blonde kid had displayed, that utterly unstoppable, fearless drive... it made the old Tsuchikage see the terrifying ghost of another man.
A man who had once single-handedly terrorized Iwagakure's forces on the battlefield, slaughtering them until the order to flee on sight was issued.
"Minato Namikaze..." Onoki murmured, the name tasting like ash on his tongue. "Can Konoha's Will of Fire truly never be severed?"
Beside him, heavy boots slammed against the platform. Raikage Ay strode up to the command post, his muscular arms crossed, his face as dark and furious as the bottom of a cast-iron pot.
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