The continuous explosions ripping through Suna's rearguard forced the Third Hokage to temporarily halt his assault.
Initially, Hiruzen's instincts screamed that Suna was prepping a massive counterattack. Sustained detonations of that magnitude weren't parlor tricks; they demanded absolute caution.
A moment later, he realized that wasn't the case. His sharp eyes immediately caught the unnatural stiffness rippling through Suna's ranks. Their command structure was failing.
Did they botch a massive forbidden jutsu?
Highly unlikely. No one unleashed a volatile technique on a battlefield without absolute certainty.
Which left only one impossible conclusion. The enemy wasn't attacking; an ally was attacking the enemy.
But who? Konoha didn't have a single shinobi capable of launching a wide-area strike from that far away. Thousands of Suna ninja stood between the vanguards. Hitting the enemy's backline through that meat shield was practically impossible.
Take Minato Namikaze, for example. The Flying Thunder God gave him near-infinite range, but he still wasn't a long-range fighter. Because he had to physically teleport to strike, he was fundamentally a close-quarters specialist.
Just as Hiruzen was rapidly cycling through possibilities, the Yellow Flash appeared behind him.
"Lord Third, those explosions... that's likely an aerial bombardment by Kamishiro Hagoromo," Minato reported smoothly.
"Hagoromo? The boy has that kind of range?"
The kid managed to shock the Hokage yet again. An airstrike certainly explained the impossible angle.
Still, if Kamishiro possessed that kind of firepower, why the hell wasn't it mentioned during the tactical briefing? Command could have deployed him to maximize the carnage.
Of course, Hiruzen didn't know yet that leveling the enemy command center was already the most optimal use of the boy's talents.
This was the sheer terror of absolute aerial superiority. Even the Byakugan's x-ray vision paled in comparison to a bird's-eye view of the entire battlefield.
Hovering high above, Kamishiro didn't need to fight his way through the vanguard. He simply tracked the enemy's troop movements, pinpointed their central command, and dropped a payload directly on their heads.
"The one casting the jutsu... it probably isn't Hagoromo, but his summon," Minato clarified, sweating slightly on the boy's behalf.
Kamishiro probably didn't even know his own summon's capabilities before riding it into a warzone. He was bold, to say the least. He likely just discovered the bird could act as a stealth bomber a minute ago.
Minato's tactical intuition was terrifyingly accurate. His guess was practically fact.
As the two Kage-level shinobi conferred, the deafening roar of explosions continued to roll over the desert.
"Minato, signal a full-scale advance. I believe Hagoromo just crippled their chain of command," Hiruzen decided after a brief pause.
He couldn't see the Suna rearguard, but the chaotic, disorganized panic radiating from the enemy lines was unmistakable.
Without a single explicit order, Kamishiro was maximizing his impact. Dropping bombs on the enemy command tent was largely a happy accident, considering his original plan was significantly more... unsanitary.
Suna's command center was blown to absolute hell. Once Kamishiro accidentally discovered Yatagarasu's firepower, he didn't hold back. He doubled down, mercilessly carpet-bombing the already pulverized crater for several solid minutes.
He didn't actually expect to kill the Kazekage. The Fourth Kazekage was a village leader and a Kage-level monster. He undoubtedly had defensive measures. But making the man eat a face full of dirt was a solid win.
In reality, Kamishiro severely underestimated the yield of those "egg bombs." More importantly, the strike was entirely too sudden. The enemy hadn't expected it, and frankly, neither had he.
Caught completely off guard, the Kazekage took a direct hit. He didn't have bad luck; he deserved it. Kamishiro was aiming for his head anyway.
Just how badly the Kazekage was injured was anyone's guess. The target zone was swallowed by thick smoke and dust, blinding the instigator in the sky. Fortunately, assassination wasn't Kamishiro's main goal. He just wanted to use the chaos to permanently sever Suna's chain of command.
Brawling with the Kazekage was the Hokage's job.
After emptying several volleys of egg-bombs, Kamishiro finally banked Yatagarasu around to hunt new targets. The Suna shinobi below weren't idiots. Having witnessed the apocalyptic firepower, they scattered.
Unfortunately for them, two legs couldn't outrun a giant mutant bird.
Even if they managed to dodge the blasts, Kamishiro's secondary objective was complete. Routing the enemy formation was just as good as killing them. Chaos was chaos, and panic was exactly the opening Konoha needed.
From that moment on, the casualty ratio became an utter bloodbath.
No matter how chaotic the battlefield got, Konoha maintained their strict four-man squad formations. Suna, heavily bombarded from above and chased on the ground, completely lost their cohesion. Disoriented shinobi were forced to watch the sky while simultaneously fending off coordinated Konoha kill squads.
The result was tragic. Most Suna ninja dropped dead before they could survive a single coordinated volley.
With the enemy stripped of their ability to launch an organized counterattack, the war decisively tilted toward Konoha's victory.
Knowing that any flying mount had a limited payload, Kamishiro figured Yatagarasu's carpet-bombing drained a massive amount of chakra. After leveling high-value targets, shattering the formations, and hovering just long enough to cement the psychological terror, he whistled down a new message.
"Enemy command structure critically compromised. Rear formations completely routed. Kazekage's status unknown, but Suna is incapable of an organized counterattack in the short term."
Command went dead silent at the sheer scale of the victory achieved in mere minutes.
If they had a way to transmit emojis through a whistle, they would have sent Kamishiro a giant, glaring question mark.
If we recall correctly, Kamishiro Hagoromo, your mission was reconnaissance. In what universe does "recon" involve completely decimating the enemy army?
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