Chapter 29: The Frontline Battlefield — Kumogakure Retreats

On the other side...

The battlefield between Konoha and Kumogakure had descended into complete chaos.

The clash of steel.

Exploding ninjutsu.

Desperate screams.

They blended into a deafening roar.

Flames lit up the night sky.

The ground trembled beneath one violent impact after another.

Lightning flashed across the battlefield.

"Cough... Cough..."

Jiraiya was blasted backward by the Fourth Raikage.

He barely managed to steady himself before crashing heavily to the ground.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he coughed.

His injuries were already severe.

"Lord Jiraiya! Are you alright?"

Hiashi Hyūga, his own body covered in wounds, immediately stepped forward and shielded him.

"I’m fine."

"I can still fight."

Jiraiya wiped the blood from his lips.

His gaze instinctively drifted toward Kumogakure’s encampment.

Hasn’t it started yet?

Did something go wrong?

The combined assault of the Fourth Raikage and Killer B had pushed him to his absolute limit.

If Hiashi hadn’t repeatedly disrupted their coordination—intercepting attacks and forcing them apart—

Jiraiya might already have been dead.

Not far away...

"Huff... Huff..."

The Fourth Raikage breathed heavily.

He, too, had suffered significant injuries.

Surprisingly...

He made no attempt to continue pursuing Jiraiya.

It was almost as though both sides had silently agreed to catch their breath.

But...

A growing sense of unease crept into the Raikage’s heart.

Something’s wrong.

Today’s Jiraiya had fought like a man possessed.

He had desperately kept both the Raikage and Killer B occupied.

Meanwhile...

"Shisui Uchiha" could still be seen in the distance.

Yet he had never once entered the battlefield.

Even the earlier signal flare felt suspicious.

Although Konoha reinforcements had arrived afterward...

They had caused little more than minor confusion among Kumogakure’s ranks.

Jiraiya...

A veteran who survived both the Second and Third Great Ninja Wars...

Would he really bet everything on such a mediocre tactic?

Suddenly...

An overwhelming aura of darkness...

Hatred...

And savage violence...

Drifted faintly across the battlefield.

"Bee!"

"I can feel the Nine-Tails’ chakra!"

Gyūki’s voice echoed inside Killer B’s mind.

Killer B’s expression changed instantly.

He immediately shouted toward the Raikage.

"Big Brother!"

"The Nine-Tails!"

The Raikage instantly realized something.

His pupils contracted.

He spun around—

BOOM!!!

A thunderous explosion shook the heavens.

The chaotic battlefield seemed to freeze.

Everyone instinctively looked toward the distant horizon.

More than ten kilometers away...

A gigantic mushroom cloud rose above Kumogakure’s encampment.

The earth trembled violently.

Blinding light turned night into day.

Success!

Joy flashed across Jiraiya’s and Hiashi’s faces.

They exchanged a glance.

Then immediately seized the opportunity.

Their hands flashed through hand seals.

Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!

Jiraiya slammed both palms onto the ground.

An enormous swamp hundreds of meters across instantly spread beneath the battlefield.

The stunned Hidden Cloud shinobi were swallowed before they could even react.

Konoha’s forces immediately followed up.

A barrage of ninjutsu rained down upon them.

At the same moment—

Hiashi flashed behind the distracted Fourth Raikage.

He assumed the Gentle Fist stance.

A massive Eight Trigrams diagram spread beneath their feet.

Eight Trigrams One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms!

"Big Brother!"

"Behind you!"

Killer B roared.

The Raikage snapped back to reality.

He immediately turned around.

But...

The countless palm strikes had already landed.

"Damn it!"

Killer B charged forward to rescue him.

Toad Mouth Bind!

Jiraiya summoned the stomach wall of a giant toad from Mount Myōboku.

Killer B was instantly trapped inside.

"Killer B."

"You can stay in there for a while."

With those words...

Jiraiya stepped backward.

His body merged directly into the fleshy wall.

"Damn you!"

Killer B roared.

Lightning surged along the blade in his hand.

Super Vibrating Lightning Release Blade!

His slash seemed capable of tearing through the air itself.

The high-frequency vibrations gave it piercing power surpassing even Wind Release.

Yet...

The blade simply sank into the stomach wall.

And was digested.

Outside...

Despite having many of his chakra points sealed by the One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms...

The Raikage’s terrifying physique allowed him to continue fighting Hiashi through sheer physical strength alone.

His taijutsu remained overwhelmingly fierce.

Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm!

Hiashi unleashed a concentrated blast of compressed chakra.

The Raikage instantly sidestepped.

Avoiding the attack...

He appeared directly in front of Hiashi.

His elbow shot forward.

Hiashi’s heart skipped a beat.

His arm was still extended from using Vacuum Palm.

There wasn’t enough time to defend.

Suddenly—

A white-haired figure appeared between them.

Standing in a low archer’s stance...

He curled the fingers of his right hand.

Chakra gathered at his fingertips.

The kanji for Lightning, Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth briefly materialized.

Then—

He drove his palm into the Raikage’s abdomen.

Five Elements Seal!

Sizzle!

Sealing formulas rapidly spread across the Raikage’s stomach.

The chakra he had been forcing through his blocked tenketsu instantly fell into complete disarray.

The Raikage leaped backward.

Even after landing...

He slid several meters across the battlefield before finally coming to a stop.

"Lord Raikage!"

Dozens of Hidden Cloud shinobi immediately rushed over to protect him.

"Damn you, Jiraiya!"

"So you really sent the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki to attack our camp!"

"I underestimated you!"

The Raikage’s face was filled with grief and fury.

Ever since the Tailed Beasts had been distributed...

Even during the Third Great Ninja War—

When Konoha had fought enemies on every front—

They had never once deployed their Jinchūriki.

The Raikage had never imagined...

That Konoha would suddenly unleash the Nine-Tails in a surprise assault.

At that moment...

He became completely convinced.

Konoha’s apparent weakness...

Their repeated defeats...

Everything had been an elaborate deception.

Feign weakness.

Strike from the shadows.

It had all been Jiraiya’s plan.

Now...

His chakra points had been sealed by the Gentle Fist.

His chakra flow had been thrown into chaos by the Five Elements Seal.

Then he remembered...

The rear encampment.

Not a single messenger had reached the battlefield.

Which meant...

The situation there had to be catastrophic.

BOOM!!

A gigantic sphere of energy suddenly burst through the nearby toad stomach wall.

Then exploded in the middle of the battlefield.

The blast killed numerous shinobi—

Konoha and Kumogakure alike.

They had all been caught in Killer B’s Tailed Beast Bomb.

What a shame...

Five more minutes...

Watching Killer B break free...

And seeing the Raikage now protected by dozens of Hidden Cloud shinobi...

Jiraiya sighed inwardly.

Another five minutes...

And they might have captured the heavily weakened Raikage alive.

"Big Brother!"

"Are you alright?"

Killer B, now partially transformed into Gyūki, rushed to his brother’s side.

"Damn it!"

"Killer B!"

"Stop firing Tailed Beast Bombs so carelessly!"

Seeing the Hidden Cloud shinobi killed by friendly fire...

The Raikage’s expression darkened even further.

The fate of the rear camp remained unknown.

The frontline was already collapsing.

He made his decision without hesitation.

"Fire the signal."

"Retreat!"

Moments later...

The Kumogakure retreat flare shot into the sky.

"Pursue them!"

Jiraiya immediately gave the order to chase.

At the same time...

He launched a signal flare of his own.

Elsewhere...

At what had once been Kumogakure’s encampment...

The eight-tailed Nine-Tails stood directly across the road leading to the front lines.

It roared continuously.

Its enormous claws slaughtered every Hidden Cloud shinobi attempting to carry news to the battlefield.

Meanwhile...

Konoha’s assault squad finished off anyone who survived the Nine-Tails’ attacks.

Those fortunate enough to escape the Tailed Beast Bomb’s blast radius...

Had already been gravely injured by the shockwave.

Of the more than one thousand surviving Hidden Cloud shinobi...

Only a handful had escaped with light injuries.

Most were seriously wounded.

Their morale had completely collapsed.

Many had already been scared out of their minds.

In that condition...

They were no match for Konoha’s elite assault force.

Inside the Sealed Space

Naruto listened to the endless stream of system notifications echoing through his mind.

Ding... Ding... Ding... Ding...

How many have been analyzed already?

I’ve lost count.

Only intact corpses could be analyzed.

Even so...

There had to be well over a hundred by now.

What a pity...

The system only extracts techniques, bloodlines, and kekkei genkai.

It can’t absorb the chakra they possessed while alive.

Otherwise...

The combined chakra of over a hundred shinobi would probably rival that of a Tailed Beast.

Naruto smiled faintly.

I’m getting greedy.

Author’s Note:

Thanks to Donquixote Doflamingo, Long Long Q Dies You, and Shiva’s Cosmic Dance for the support!

One more thing.

Some readers may feel I’ve made the Nine-Tails too powerful—taking on thousands of shinobi by itself.

But honestly...

Without a hard counter...

Or monsters like Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha...

A Tailed Beast truly is the ninja world’s equivalent of a nuclear weapon.

Just look at the Nine-Tails Incident.

The entire Hidden Leaf Village struggled to stop Kurama.