The Raikage roared, "All units, on high alert! Scan the area for ambushes! Personnel below, evacuate immediately!"
The Cloud ninja grew cautious. The squads directly beneath Pain began to evacuate their ships.
The Hidden Mist contingent also spotted Pain descending slowly from the sky. Mei Terumi deduced that this must be the leader of the Akatsuki.
She was extremely interested in the Rinnegan; it was a legendary dōjutsu. If not for Jūzō Biwa once being a member of the Akatsuki, Mei wouldn't have even known of the Rinnegan's existence.
However, he was too high up and too far away to see clearly. She kept her eyes fixed on the battlefield, eager to see how the Akatsuki's leader would intervene.
On a reef by the beach, Obito watched the battle with Kakuzu, who had been forced into submission.
Nagato... you've borrowed the Rinnegan for long enough.
Obito gazed at Nagato in the distance, scheming silently.
Kakuzu stood behind Obito, his expression impassive. It wasn't that he didn't want to launch a surprise attack; he had already tried. Obito's ninjutsu was simply too bizarre, and Kakuzu still couldn't figure out how to land a blow on him.
It had also been a long time since he'd seen their leader in action. He looked past Obito, his gaze fixed on the descending figure of Pain.
..
Above the battlefield in the Land of Water, Pain's descent immediately drew everyone's attention. The spies from the other great nations were no exception.
Everyone was curious about the true strength of this Akatsuki member. According to previous intelligence, no one in the Akatsuki could be underestimated.
The paper wings on Pain's back, a gift from Konan, were now gradually dissipating. His descent began to accelerate.
His chakra was finally gathered.
His light purple Rinnegan glimmered faintly.
Carried by the powerful surge of dōjutsu, a whisper like divine judgment echoed above the heads of the Cloud ninja.
"War always brings death and pain to both sides."
"Hidden Cloud, as the instigators of this war, are you prepared to accept divine punishment?"
It sounded like both an accusation and a monologue, his calm tone laced with contempt and disdain.
"Is this guy one of the Akatsuki's madmen?"
The hot-headed Raikage dismissed the words, but a growing unease compelled him to order his forces, "Fall back for now!"
All the Cloud ninja retreated to a position hundreds of meters from Pain's projected landing point. They thought they were safe there.
The proclamation from high above continued to echo as the crowd slowly made out Pain's face and his unique eyes. The wind seemed to die, and the air grew heavy and oppressive.
The birds in the sky and the fish in the sea, as if sensing the immense threat, fled the area in a frenzy.
"Feel pain, contemplate pain... accept pain, know pain..."
"Those who do not know pain... will never understand true peace..."
"From here on... let the world know pain!"
Pain raised his hands high. Backlit against the sky, his pair of light purple Rinnegan flared with light. The heavens suddenly brightened. Divine judgment was at hand.
"Shinra Tensei!"
BOOM!
CRASH!
CRASH!
CRASH!
An immense repulsive force erupted, and the surface of the sea instantly caved in. The ocean collapsed as if crushed by an invisible, colossal sphere.
The waves let out a deafening roar! The violent shockwave shoved thousands of tons of seawater outward, forcing the edges of the depression into a monstrous tsunami!
The repulsive force continued to blast outward, pushing the seawater in all directions. Propelled by this power, the colossal waves surged with unstoppable, majestic force!
RUMBLE... RUMBLE...
A sound like muffled thunder echoed across the water.
The Cloud ninja, having just endured one tsunami, now faced an even more terrifying one. And this time, it was right on top of them! A wave hundreds of meters high, like the hand of a giant god, came crashing down!
The Hidden Cloud's ships were like toys, slammed mercilessly to the ocean floor. Their hulls were instantly pulverized, vanishing without a trace.
The Cloud ninja who had just retreated a few hundred meters wished they could sprout more legs as they screamed and scrambled to escape. Unfortunately, the tsunami was too fast.
The ninja still at sea had no time to react; they were dragged to the depths along with their ships. Even those slightly farther away couldn't escape, forced to watch helplessly as the wave bore down on them.
Mabui was still on a ship, having just run onto the deck. The wave was almost upon her!
Mabui stared in terror at the colossal wall of water that blotted out the sky.
Even her usual calm demeanor couldn't suppress the fear gripping her heart. She collapsed onto the deck, her legs giving out.
The Raikage never imagined it would come to this. Even someone as powerful as he was felt insignificant before a ninjutsu of this cataclysmic scale.
The Raikage let out a thunderous roar!
"Damn it!"
He released his chakra with all his might.
BZZZT!
A torrent of lightning-natured chakra erupted from his body!
Lightning Release Chakra Mode, activated!
A streak of blue lightning shot across the water's surface.
CRACKLE...
The deck boards splintered, instantly riddled with countless holes from his speed.
Mabui felt an arm snake tightly around her waist; the Raikage had grabbed her. The wind howled past, giving her no chance to speak.
In an instant, he had carried her to the shore.
A deafening crash erupted behind them. The wave, hundreds of meters high, had swallowed the entire Hidden Cloud fleet in a single moment.
Beneath the churning, violent waves, ordinary Cloud ninja were powerless, battered to death without a chance to fight back. Even the village's elite shinobi struggled to survive against such overwhelming force.
Under the immense pressure, being struck by any piece of debris meant shattered bones and torn ligaments. Survival was left entirely to fate.
The massive tsunami drove the ocean water surging toward the coast. The Cloud ninja near the shoreline were all swept away.
The spreading seawater submerged all of Jinlian Island, scouring it clean.
The few Cloud ninja who had managed to reach the shore stared in terror, relief, and lingering fear at the aftermath of such a powerful jutsu.
The ninja on the shore had witnessed the entire catastrophe. Nearly eighty percent of their fleet had vanished in an instant. Thousands of lives were extinguished right before their eyes.
Even the mighty Raikage had only managed to save Mabui. Many of the surviving Cloud ninja were frozen in shock, their teeth chattering uncontrollably.
In the aftermath of the Almighty Push, the displaced seawater slowly rushed back to fill the void.
As the two sides of the ocean converged, they collided with a thunderous roar, throwing up massive pillars of water.
It took a long time for the sea to calm. The surface was littered with the wreckage of the Cloud fleet and a few survivors.
Those who survived were few and far between, and all were grievously injured.
The Hidden Cloud's fleet had suffered devastating losses; less than thirty percent remained. Of their more than four thousand shinobi, nearly all the chūnin and genin had perished beneath the waves.
Fewer than a thousand survived!
From the Hidden Mist's position, Mei Terumi had watched the entire event through her Nuovian binoculars, completely stunned.
To think... a single person infiltrated the Hidden Cloud's ranks and caused all of this!
The other Mist ninja were equally dumbfounded. They were so shocked by the approaching wave that they forgot to take cover and were thoroughly drenched by the spray.
Even Ibiki, who was positioned on higher ground on Jinlian Island, was soaked to the bone, unable to escape the tsunami's baptism.
The spies from the other villages hadn't fared any better.
After being hit by the water, they were all dripping wet, their faces pale as they shivered uncontrollably.
A jutsu of this scale and power was unheard of, unprecedented.
Was this truly something a human could wield?
Every spy had the same thought: if a jutsu like that were unleashed in the center of their own village... their home might cease to exist.
After a moment of terror, the spies all remembered their missions.
Intelligence this crucial had to be reported back to their villages immediately.
As Pain began his final descent, those who were close enough and possessed means of long-range observation all noticed Pain's unique eyes.