Besides, wasn't Kamishiro supposed to be a Chunin? Could he please show some basic restraint? Last time he bombarded a Tailed Beast, and now he was dropping bombs on Suna's central command. Was he Suna's personal grim reaper? How were normal Chunin supposed to look good after this?
His massive success was largely due to the sheer unfairness of aerial superiority. A surprise attack was one thing—the enemy was caught off guard—but a vertical airstrike was another entirely. Casting a Fire Style jutsu face-to-face had a completely different effect than dropping one directly onto someone's skull from the clouds.
If Yatagarasu had fired those egg-bombs horizontally like a cannon, they wouldn't have possessed nearly the same destructive yield as a gravity-assisted drop.
Even with Kamishiro's confident report, most of the command tent remained highly skeptical. Sure, they heard the rolling explosions, but had the kid really wiped out the enemy's entire command structure?
Thankfully, Tsunade was present. She trusted him. She knew the boy was arrogant, but he wouldn't fabricate battlefield intel.
"Confirm it with Hagoromo again."
Her face was dead serious. If he had actually shattered Suna's command, Konoha possessed an insurmountable advantage. Despite her stern tone, she was gnawing on her thumbnail—an old nervous habit whenever she was deep in thought.
Command demanded a second confirmation. Almost instantly, Kamishiro repeated his exact report. That was good enough for Tsunade to believe him.
However, before she could even begin adjusting their tactical formation, a new message whistled down.
"Lady Tsunade..." The relay ninja hesitated, his mouth opening and closing like a stranded fish.
"What now? Spit it out!" she snapped, her short temper flaring. This was no time to stutter.
"The recon Chunin, Kamishiro Hagoromo, just reported... he's going to airstrike the Hidden Sand Village."
Tsunade: "..."
I take it back. The kid wouldn't fabricate intel, but he was absolutely capable of doing something this completely unhinged!
Hearing that, Tsunade nearly tripped over her own feet. Airstrike Suna? Was this a joke?
"Stop him immediately! His mission is reconnaissance! Ask him if he needs a dictionary to understand what that means!" she roared.
She had to shut this down. The boy was completely off the rails. Like teacher, like student—had Kushina taught him to pull these psychotic stunts?
"Um... Lady Tsunade, he didn't wait for a response. He already flew away."
The relay ninja looked like he was suffering from severe indigestion.
By this point, Kamishiro was already flying away from the battlefield, navigating by his tactical map straight toward Suna.
If the Third Hokage or anyone else had been in charge, he never would have dared pull this. Abandoning a designated recon post was grounds for severe punishment. But the supreme commander was Tsunade. She was basically family. It would be fine.
Besides, he was just one small gear in the recon machine. It wasn't like Konoha would go blind without him. What were the Hyuga clan out there for, decoration?
More importantly, Kamishiro could see the result clearly. This battle was effectively over; the outcome was set in stone. One more fighter on the field wouldn't change anything. So, why not fly into the enemy's deep rear and cause some absolute chaos?
Objectively speaking, his logic was somewhat sound.
Objectively speaking, his actions were also completely suicidal.
But he followed his heart anyway, transforming into a maniac who rode the wind, doing exactly what he wanted, exactly when he wanted.
Tsunade was furious, but mostly resigned. Let the kid go. She just hoped he made it back alive. Stopping him was impossible now anyway. Plus, she couldn't afford to waste any more energy worrying about one rogue Chunin; she had an entire war to manage.
From a grand strategy perspective, attacking the Hidden Sand Village was never one of Konoha's objectives.
If this were a simple one-on-one war between Konoha and Suna, they would gladly wipe Suna off the map. But this was a massive, five-way global conflict. Committing immense military power and suffering catastrophic casualties just to exterminate one enemy was strategically braindead.
The Land of Wind was one of the Five Great Nations. Even at their weakest, Suna was a formidable military power. A full-scale invasion of their village would trigger a desperate, suicidal counterattack. Konoha had no interest in paying that butcher's bill.
Konoha needed Suna to submit, not die. Even if they wiped Suna out, winning this battle didn't mean winning the war. If Suna fell, the Hidden Stone Village would instantly exploit the vacuum and hit Konoha with everything they had.
Let some other idiot do the heavy lifting. Konoha's goal for this campaign was simple: beat Suna until they cried, then force them to go fight the Stone on the northern front and stop sniffing around the Land of Rivers.
Since the Kazekage was currently on the battlefield, capturing him would make achieving that goal infinitely easier.
So, a large-scale army assault on Suna was out of the question. But a single operative sneaking in? An aerial infiltration?
That should be perfectly fine.
After roughly thirty seconds of intense deliberation, Kamishiro concluded his plan was highly feasible. He whistled his "request" to Tsunade, and without waiting for a reply, banked hard and flew off.
If anyone asked why he was acting so impulsively, he would totally blame Kushina's educational methods.
Kamishiro maintained that his actions were strictly for the greater good of Konoha. He absolutely did not just want an excuse to test out Yatagarasu's maximum payload on a populated area.
To prevent the Suna forces below from sending a warning back to their village, Kamishiro played it smart. He deliberately flew back toward Konoha's lines first, giving the enemy the illusion that he was returning to base.
Once he vanished from their line of sight, he immediately pulled Yatagarasu into a steep climb, circled wide around the entire battlefield, and finally set a direct course for Suna.
When it came time to be cautious, the White Yaksha was as careful as they came.
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