There was no doubt that, in terms of sheer numbers, the Allied Shinobi Forces outnumbered the Akatsuki by dozens of times.
The problem, however, was that wars in the shinobi world were never won by numbers alone. If they were, ten thousand Rock ninjas wouldn't have had to besiege the Third Raikage for days on end, only for him to eventually die of exhaustion rather than being struck down in combat.
In battle, the value and impact of a single powerhouse far outweighed that of a thousand ordinary Genin or Chunin.
Unfortunately for the Alliance, the Akatsuki was a small group composed entirely of such powerhouses.
Aside from Hidan, that useless cultist fanatic who was already dead, every remaining member was an undisputed Kage-level threat. Even Itachi, whose body was on the verge of collapse and near death, could easily toy with the vast majority of elite Jonin.
Then there were the likes of Deidara, Kisame, and Sasori, who specialized in massive, wide-area attacks.
Within just two or three minutes of engagement, the Allied Forces began suffering heavy casualties. Forget about bypassing them to pursue Allen; they were struggling just to stay alive.
As for Jiraiya, one of the Sannin, he was once again being ground into the dirt by his own former student, Nagato. He was only managing to hang on thanks to the massive chakra reserves and regenerative capabilities afforded by his Sage Mode.
"Jiraiya-sensei, give up. There is no place for you in the world to come. If you abandon your unrealistic fantasies now, perhaps you can live out the rest of your days as an ordinary man," Nagato advised in a haughty, superior tone.
"Give up? How could I ever give up! I am a ninja of Konoha! Until the day I die!"
Jiraiya roared, hurling a massive Sage Art: Rasengan to blow back the Animal Path that was closing in on him.
But just as he prepared to weave his next jutsu, he suddenly felt a bone-chilling cold permeate the air. Before anyone could process what was happening, Allen, standing atop the water, abruptly flung his arms wide.
Instantly!
Everything, including the newly surfaced Three-Tails and everything within a ten-kilometer radius, was frozen solid into white ice.
This scene, as terrifying as a natural disaster, stunned not only the Allied Forces but the members of the Akatsuki as well.
Nagato, in particular, was shaken. While he could use Planetary Devastation to create a meteor and level a similar area, that relied on the energy release of a high-velocity gravitational impact. Maintaining a localized ultra-low temperature capable of freezing a Tailed Beast over such a vast area was far more difficult and required an astronomical expenditure of chakra.
This wasn't just freezing a thin layer on the surface; it was turning hundreds of meters of water depth into a single, massive block of ice.
A few unlucky souls near the water who failed to dodge were turned into translucent ice sculptures within a second. The speed of the freeze completely transcended the conventional concept of ninjutsu.
By contrast, Allen acted as if he had done nothing at all. He pried the Three-Tails out of the solid ice and, using a technique no one recognized, forcibly absorbed it into his own body.
There was no sealing ritual. The entire process looked as effortless as taking a sip of a drink.
"Damn it! He got it after all!"
Seeing this, Jiraiya immediately realized the mission had failed. He decisively signaled for everyone engaged in combat with the Akatsuki to halt.
He knew that if Allen secured the Three-Tails, their plans and efforts had been in vain. The only thing left to do was to defend the Cloud's last remaining asset: the Eight-Tails.
At this thought, Jiraiya instinctively turned his gaze toward Killer B. Since the Raikage's death, B had remained uncharacteristically silent. Gone was his erratic, hip-hop-rapping persona; in its place was a 180-degree turn. His eyes burned with a fire of rage and hatred, looking as though he might charge forward to take the enemy down with him at any moment.
Unfortunately, his opponent was Kakuzu, a man with five hearts and boundless combat experience. B's probes had failed to gain any ground.
"Go! Seize the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki!" Nagato immediately commanded the core Akatsuki members.
Before arriving, he and Allen had agreed to finish off the last two Tailed Beasts in one fell swoop to prevent Madara and Black Zetsu from finding an opening.
"Protect Killer B!"
Jiraiya's expression shifted, and he immediately tried to close in on the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki. But breaking away from the Six Paths of Pain was no easy feat. He had only run a few steps before he was dragged back by Universal Pull.
Deidara seized the opportunity to release an oversized clay bomb.
"Art is an explosion!"
In the next instant...
BOOM!
Blinding flames and a massive blast sent everything within several hundred meters of Killer B flying.
With a single strike, at least forty to fifty Allied ninjas lost their lives. Killer B was forced to enter his full Tailed Beast state to withstand the destructive force of the explosion.
As the dust and smoke slowly cleared, the bizarre and gargantuan form of Gyuki was finally revealed.
"Die, Akatsuki scum!"
Killer B instantly gathered a massive amount of chakra, forming a colossal Tailed Beast Bomb at his mouth, and fired it directly at Allen.
"Naive!"
Having completely finished his control and absorption of the Three-Tails, Allen gave a cold laugh. He raised his hand, directly drawing upon the Nine-Tails' chakra and gathering natural energy. In an incredibly short time, he manifested an even larger, more terrifying Tailed Beast Bomb and countered the attack head-on.
The moment the two Tailed Beast Bombs collided in mid-air, the world seemed to lose its color.
The staggering explosion turned the sky into a stark contrast of black and white. Many of the younger generation of ninjas witnessing a battle between Jinchuriki for the first time stood rooted to the spot, eyes wide, watching the brilliant light in the sky and the terrifying shockwave that followed as it tore the earth asunder.
This was a clash of titans.
The Chunin and Genin didn't even have the right to stand nearby as spectators. Even the aftershocks were catastrophic natural disasters they could not withstand.
"You... you really did take the Nine-Tails from Naruto..."
As the Jonin leader of Team 7, Kakashi recognized the source of that Tailed Beast Bomb's chakra almost instantly. His face turned deathly pale. Since Naruto's disappearance, many Konoha ninjas, including himself, had been searching desperately for clues. Furthermore, the soul of his teacher, the Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze, had pleaded with him before fading to bring Naruto back at all costs.
"Take? No! I think you've misunderstood," Allen replied, turning to look Kakashi in the eye. "It was Naruto who asked me to extract that demon fox from his body. He grew tired of your hypocrisy and even more tired of the so-called 'destiny' he was forced to carry. Now, he only wishes to pursue a life of freedom, unburdened by any constraints, and I have given him that chance."
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