For a moment, every Uzumaki ninja on the front line froze.
Uzumaki Kushina—the princess of the Uzumaki clan, granddaughter of the previous clan head.
That vivid red hair.
Those Adamantine Sealing Chains behind her.
They were so familiar, so painfully nostalgic, that it felt as though the great predecessors of Uzushiogakure's history had returned to save them.
One Uzumaki shinobi turned his head and lost focus for just a moment.
At once, a Sand puppet burst out from the pooled rainwater at his feet.
Its mechanical tentacle shot forward, a spike springing from the tip.
Minato Namikaze flashed into place.
His chakra short blade swept down.
The Vacuum Blade technique he had learned from Hayama Shirakumo sliced through the puppet with effortless smoothness.
Looking at the shattered puppet, Minato thought to himself that White Fang's notes had been right—puppet techniques really were too weak.
His refined Wind Release chakra blade had cut through golden ironwood and metal rods as easily as paper.
Uzumaki Yuka shouted, "Fight with Princess Kushina and wipe out the Iwa and Sand ninja! Don't let the tragedy of Uzushiogakure happen again!"
Uzumaki Kaichō, Uzumaki Genchō, and the others all turned, their hearts surging with excitement.
They had brought Princess Kushina back.
The kunai in their hands suddenly felt much lighter.
Behind Yuka, a little girl also charged forward.
She was beautifully delicate, no more than four years old, with luminous white hair. A kunai in her tiny hand looked almost like a longsword.
"Mom! I'm here too!"
Yuka froze.
She had no idea how her daughter, Uzumaki Yoru, had tricked White Glaze the Stone Panda and gotten all the way out here.
"Go back at once!"
"I'm not going back! I want to fight with the uncles and aunts too!"
A tall man suddenly scooped Uzumaki Yoru up around the waist.
The little girl twisted around and saw a strange uncle in a fox mask.
"You again! Weird uncle! The weird uncle who always takes Mom away!"
Yako immediately covered his daughter's mouth.
For secrecy's sake, he had never told his daughter who he really was.
That little brat had nearly exposed him.
The moment she saw Fox, Yuka finally relaxed.
The hidden refuge of the Uzumaki clan had been exposed for no reason at all, and it had terrified her. She feared these pitiful remnants of the Uzumaki would be wiped out again.
But now Princess Kushina was here.
Fox was here too.
The Uzumaki clan's crisis was over.
Yako vanished with his daughter and handed her over to White Glaze in the rear.
White Glaze was a Stone Panda, so he could not sweat, otherwise he would have been drenched already.
Little Yoru had actually fooled him and slipped away.
Seeing Fox-sama leave, White Glaze hurriedly grabbed Uzumaki Yoru.
"Lady Yoru, no more running around! Watch carefully and learn well. What you're about to see is theoretically the strongest ability of the Uzumaki clan!"
Yoru was puzzled. She had no idea what kind of power could possibly be called the ultimate ability of the Uzumaki clan.
Very soon, she saw it.
A translucent chakra fox claw shot out.
It stretched more than a hundred meters, instantly splitting the battlefield apart.
At the tip of the fox claw was a rapidly rotating sphere of chakra.
Several sturdy Earth Style walls raised by the Iwa ninja were instantly destroyed.
Yoru had only just begun learning how to extract chakra. This was the first time she had ever seen such a terrifying attack.
Following the fox claw back to its source, she saw a red-haired older sister.
So strong.
Six fox tails made of chains lashed at the Iwa and Sand ninja. In front of the Nine-Tails' chakra, ordinary shinobi were swatted away dozens of meters with a single strike.
The fox claw combined with Rasengan was completely unstoppable.
White Glaze said, "Your mother once said that the Uzumaki clan's sealing techniques, when used to seal a Tailed Beast and become a Jinchūriki, created the strongest possible state for an Uzumaki.
It's a pity... only the Five Great Villages possess Tailed Beasts."
While Kushina drew all attention to the front, a ghostly blond figure kept flickering between the Iwa and Sand ninja.
In Wind Release refined chakra mode, Namikaze Minato left afterimages everywhere he moved.
Every swing of his blade released a deadly Vacuum Blade.
Watching from afar, Yako nodded repeatedly.
Minato Namikaze really was a born shinobi.
Enemy squads were being cut down one unit at a time.
Minato killed without the slightest hesitation, as casually and naturally as if he were just moving his hand. Every slash struck from a clever angle, often cutting down multiple enemies at once.
Compared to the two elite shinobi Konoha had carefully cultivated, the Uzumaki ninja were much slower when it came to killing.
The overall commander of the Iwa and Sand force was the Four-Tails Jinchūriki, Rōshi.
A few days earlier, the spy network had suddenly received an unexpected report: the hiding place of the surviving Uzumaki had been discovered.
The intelligence had seemed suspicious, but in order to strengthen the allied forces and improve the Jinchūriki's control over Tailed Beast chakra, Ōnoki had still sent word to Sunagakure, and the two villages had joined forces to capture the Uzumaki.
Ōnoki had kept Rōshi confined to the village for four whole years, refusing to let him leave.
Now, after finally being given a mission outside the village, he had run into the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki.
In the distance, he felt a familiar pressure.
A Jinchūriki was condensing a Tailed Beast Ball.
Rōshi immediately dropped to all fours and entered his chakra cloak mode.
Red-brown chakra surged over his body, scorching all his skin.
Three tails appeared behind him, and he too formed a Tailed Beast Ball.
The two Tailed Beast Balls collided in midair.
Rōshi thought to himself that the Nine-Tails was nothing special after all.
The Nine-Tails Jinchūriki's Tailed Beast Ball had been blocked by his own.
But after only a second or two of satisfaction, Rōshi's expression changed dramatically, and he leaped backward.
From the smoke of the exploding Tailed Beast Balls, two more Tailed Beast Balls shot out again.
Three in a row?
And with such ease?
Rōshi refused to accept it. He simply would not believe the Nine-Tails was stronger than the Four-Tails.
But just as he prepared to continue the fight, the rain pressed down the dust from the explosion, and from the corner of his eye, he saw someone.
To the side of the battlefield stood a man in a fox mask.
Fox?
Rōshi had been locked away by Ōnoki for four years precisely because Konoha's Fox had the power to kill a Tailed Beast.
Then it clicked.
Of course it would be like this.
There was no way Konoha would allow the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki to leave the Land of Fire and appear deep inside the Land of Rain without protection.
Konoha must have assigned her an extremely capable guardian.
And that guardian was Fox, commander of Konoha's ANBU.
Still in midair, Rōshi canceled his chakra cloak mode and immediately shouted, "Retreat! Run!"
He had no desire to face Fox alone.
Against an enemy like Konoha, Iwagakure would never surrender.
But neither could they afford to throw their lives away for nothing.
The Iwa and Sand forces broke apart and began retreating in all directions.
Rōshi reached the rear and found Chiyo, who had been overseeing the battlefield.
"Advisor Chiyo! Mission failed! The Uzumaki clan is deeply tied to Konoha—they were never abandoned by Konoha at all!
The Nine-Tails Jinchūriki is here, and Fox is here too!"
With that, Rōshi fled without even waiting for a reply.
Watching the Sand ninja collapse back in retreat, Chiyo said coldly, "I knew cooperating with Iwagakure would lead to nothing good. Rasa is still too green. His decisions will only drag Sunagakure into the abyss."
Pakura, standing beside her, added, "Advisor Chiyo, let's go. We need to return to the village and lay out everything that happened here at the jōnin meeting.
The idea of cooperating with Iwagakure against Konoha is far too naive."
From a distance, Yako watched Pakura leave.
He had heard that Rasa had already become the Fourth Kazekage.
It seemed Rasa's authority was considerable now, if he could order both Chiyo and Pakura out of the village on missions.
Yuka appeared at Yako's side and followed his gaze, wondering why Fox's expression felt so strange.
"Fox, what should I tell Kushina?" Yuka asked. "How much of the truth can I say? Does Konoha have any conditions?"
Yako pulled his eyes away from Pakura and replied,
"Everything.
Tell her the whole truth."