Hanzo watched his subordinates die one after another, completely useless, and felt a surge of dissatisfaction.
Why had Danzo been able to cultivate subordinates who would probe enemy intelligence for him with their lives, while his own Rain ninja were barely better than samurai?
Scythe in hand, Hanzo began testing the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki's strength.
He used Water Body Flicker to close in at her side and swung his scythe hard, only to see the blade blocked by one of her fox tails.
Such fast reaction speed...
Or rather, it seemed as though the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki possessed some kind of instinctive foresight, as if she could predict the direction of his attacks.
Two more fox tails lashed toward Hanzo, forcing him to retreat again with Water Body Flicker.
Then the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki threw back her head, and deep red and dark blue chakra gathered before her.
A Tailed Beast Ball!
Had Konoha already refined its control over Tailed Beasts to this extent? Their Jinchūriki could fire a Tailed Beast Ball while fully conscious?
A Tailed Beast Ball the size of a human head blasted away every raindrop in front of it, pressed the ground downward, carved a deep trench through the earth, and shot straight toward him.
Hanzo immediately flickered away.
The Tailed Beast Ball exploded behind him, and that single attack alone killed dozens of Rain ninja.
The strength of a Jinchūriki really was enviable.
Only the top villages had the guts to control their Jinchūriki. The only exception was Takigakure, that remote village that also happened to have a Tailed Beast.
Hanzo kept observing the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki, and suddenly his eyes lit up.
The bad news was that the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki was fully rational and could freely control that enormous chakra.
The good news was that because she was rational, after killing dozens of people with a single attack, hesitation and pain actually appeared on her face.
Heh. A delicate flower raised in the greenhouse of a great village, utterly ignorant of how vicious the shinobi world really was.
The moment the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki lost focus, Hanzo flickered to her side once more.
Forming hand signs, he unleashed his strongest technique.
"Fire Release: Exploding Flame Formation!"
Sheets of explosive tags appeared across the ground, swimming like fish through a shallow pool as they rushed toward the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki.
Yako shook his head and said to Minato, "Minato, Kushina is a woman, so if she's soft-hearted, fine.
But you're a shinobi. You're a man. When you kill in the future, you absolutely cannot hesitate.
See? This is what comes of being soft-hearted.
Kushina killed a few dozen people with one jutsu and ended up wavering and struggling."
Minato nodded repeatedly.
"Don't worry, Fox-sama. No matter how many people I kill, I won't go soft. I won't hesitate. I won't have any emotional reaction at all."
"Good, good. That's what a proper Konoha shinobi should be."
Standing to the side, Uzumaki Kaichō thought to himself that the way Konoha was raising its younger generation now felt a little too harsh.
Shinobi were still human. How could they avoid feeling hesitation?
Did a shinobi who killed without blinking really exist?
The explosive tags crawled onto Kushina's chakra cloak. She was crouched on all fours now, and the tags had already climbed to her knees and elbows.
Hanzo's eyes gleamed viciously, and he was just about to press the attack and finish the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki off.
At that moment, a figure suddenly appeared, standing between Hanzo and Kushina.
"Hanzo, give me some face. Let's leave it at that today.
I won't pursue the fact that you blocked our path, and you won't pursue the fact that the Uzumaki were hiding in the Land of Rain.
We'll call it even. Agreed?"
Hanzo had already formed half the hand signs for his follow-up technique, but now he had no choice but to slowly lower his hands.
"So that's how it is... No wonder the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki could leave Konoha. Konoha's Fox is personally guarding her."
Hanzo said, "If it's you, Fox, then no one in the shinobi world could stop you from taking the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki away."
Yako nodded several times when he saw Hanzo lower his hands. Good—he was spared the trouble.
He turned and took Kushina away, signaling that her live-combat training was over.
Kushina immediately dispersed the translucent Nine-Tails chakra cloak, and the explosive tags that had crawled over it fell to the ground.
During earlier special training, Fox-sama had already tested the defensive power of the chakra cloak.
A single explosive tag could not break the Nine-Tails chakra cloak, but every tag produced impact.
In battle, Kushina had to avoid being hit by too many explosive tags at once, or the cumulative force would pass through the chakra cloak and injure her.
Hanzo turned away with a little over a hundred surviving subordinates and several dozen corpses.
Under his breath, he muttered, "In the shinobi world, the weak get beaten. And if they get beaten, they might die. More than seventy men died, and Fox just says 'forget it'—so it's forgotten..."
The Uzumaki group continued on their way.
They left the Land of Rain and entered the Land of Rivers.
The danger there was Sunagakure.
Although the Land of Rivers was a vassal of the Land of Fire and enjoyed Konoha's protection, it was still too close to Sunagakure.
Uzumaki Kaichō and the others were all tense, afraid of running into Sand ninja.
What they did not know was that Sunagakure was internally unstable now. Plenty of people opposed Rasa, and for the time being the village had no energy to spare for sending forces into the Land of Rivers.
Once they crossed the Land of Rivers, they entered the Land of Fire.
The fortress at the Land of Fire border had already received orders from the village.
The fortress commander led his men out to meet the Uzumaki group.
The Uzumaki tensed at once as they stared at the Konoha jōnin.
They had no idea what Konoha's true attitude would be, or whether Princess Tsunade had successfully resolved all the problems surrounding the Uzumaki clan's entry into Konoha.
The fortress jōnin approached Yako first and hurriedly bowed.
"Fox-sama, it is an honor to see you leading the Uzumaki clan back into the Land of Fire," he said. "The Hokage has ordered that every fortress along the route must provide reception and supplies for the Uzumaki clan and ensure their smooth entry into Konoha."
Yako nodded several times.
It seemed Tsunade had already handled the groundwork.
With Tsunade's current influence—especially after Nara Shikakaku had begun quietly leaning toward her—the village no longer had many hostile factions left.
The Sarutobi clan and the Shimura clan were both shadows of what they once were, their jōnin badly depleted, with little voice remaining.
As for the Uchiha clan and the Hyūga clan, they were early great clans just like the Senju clan, so naturally they stood on Tsunade's side.
"Good. Then provide us with supplies. We'll head straight for Konoha."
Several days later, the Uzumaki group finally saw Konoha in the distance.
A great many people were gathered outside the village gates.
All of Konoha's senior leadership, the jōnin in charge of each department, the heads of every ninja clan, and every member of the Senju clan had come out to receive them.
Sarutobi Hiruzen hurried forward and clasped Uzumaki Yuka's hand.
He knew that this young woman was the current head of the Uzumaki clan.
"The shinobi world is once again covered in dark clouds, and another great war is about to descend," Hiruzen said. "When Advisor Tsunade told me that you wished to join Konoha, I was very happy—truly relieved.
I am very glad that the surviving members of the Uzumaki clan are joining Konoha. For both your people and our village, both in symbolism and in terms of mutual safety, this is a decision in which both sides benefit."
Amid the lively welcome, Yamanaka Inoen cast a resentful glance toward Commander Fox.
The Yamanaka clan was responsible for the Barrier Team, and yet when it came to something as serious as taking the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki out of the village, Commander Fox had not even bothered to notify him beforehand.
He had spent days in nervous tension because of it.
Was it because he hadn't treated Yamanaka Sayaka well enough? No, that couldn't be right. Even his own son Inoichi hadn't had as good a childhood as Sayaka was enjoying now.
Once he got back to the clan compound, he was definitely going to talk to Yamanaka Ruri and tell her to communicate with Fox more often.
The Senju compound was spacious to the point of emptiness. After the Uzumaki clan joined Konoha, they moved directly into the Senju lands.
The Senju and the Uzumaki had been intermarrying for generations.
Living together there was only natural.