"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
While Hatani was still agonizing over whether to accept the wind's request, Hiruzen Sarutobi—unwilling to sit like a lame duck—immediately manifested four clones the moment he reappeared.
"Five-Element Combo: Great Combo Jutsu!"
The four clones utilized Wind, Lightning, Earth, and Water chakra respectively, coordinating with the original Hiruzen's Fire Style. Though it wasn't technically a Kekkei Genkai, the combined power was in no way inferior to the Particle Style.
However, to everyone's shock, his target wasn't the two Tailed Beasts. It was the giant Salamander currently spewing toxic gas.
This was Hiruzen's clinical side at work.
A Tailed Beast Bomb's power was indeed terrifying, but precisely because it was too powerful, even a perfect Jinchuriki struggled to control its blast radius. Given that the Konoha forces were currently tangled in a messy melee with the Iwa shinobi, the Jinchuriki wouldn't dare drop a bomb on Konoha's head unless the "Big-Nosed" Ohnoki had completely lost his mind or the beasts had gone berserk.
The Salamander, on the other hand, was an active threat to Konoha's rank-and-file. As the toxin concentration rose, even the Jonin would eventually succumb.
Hanzo, who had retreated to Ibuse's side, was caught completely off guard. In his haste, he could only throw up a Water Encampment Wall while ordering the Salamander to stop the gas and dive for cover.
But a simple water wall was no match for Hiruzen's Five-Element Combo. In the Land of Grass, without the constant rainfall of the Hidden Rain, the amphibious Salamander was significantly less mobile—and its massive size made it an impossible target to miss.
Under Hanzo's murderous glare, the Salamander was heavily wounded and instantly forced back into its summon contract, vanishing in a puff of smoke.
But Hanzo didn't even have time to seek revenge on Hiruzen, because the long-awaited Tailed Beast Bombs were finally unleashed.
'It's been a long time since I've seen Sensei go all out like that.'
After summoning Gamabunta and Manda, Jiraiya and Orochimaru didn't seem the least bit tense. They stood atop their colossal summons, chatting as if they were observing a distant storm.
They had seen the tactical reality: unless Ohnoki was willing to annihilate his own army, both Tailed Beast Bombs would be aimed squarely at the Rain-Grass alliance.
But as the old saying goes: "You never know which will come first—the unexpected or tomorrow."
The Four-Tails' crimson orb did indeed scream toward the panicked Rain and Grass shinobi. However, the Five-Tails' bomb veered wildly, hurtling straight toward the two Sannin.
It was a direct hit path that would also incinerate hundreds of nearby Iwa shinobi.
Ohnoki's eyes widened, filled with agony and desperation. He knew exactly what this meant.
The Five-Tails had lost control!
"Crap... I acted too fast!"
As the Five-Tails' bomb hurtled forward, carrying the weight of a thousand nightmares, Hatani had no time to worry about the explosion.
His earlier fears had come true.
He had decided to gamble, figuring it was better to go out in a blaze of glory than to die in the shadows. He had accepted the wind's plea, and in an instant, the atmosphere didn't just move—it surged. It was as if a dam had burst, and he was being drowned in a torrential flood of pure wind.
The wind didn't just surround him; it forced its way into his body. By the time he realized the danger and tried to shut it out, it was too late.
He felt like a greedy villain from a Wuxia novel who had used some Forbidden Suction Art to steal decades of internal energy, only to realize the power was infinite and his body was the vessel. He was about to burst.
Just as he was reaching the peak of his regret—cursing his own stupidity and literally hallucinating the "reincarnation tunnel" opening up before him—the wind inside him seemed to realize that if they popped their host, all their efforts would be for nothing.
The energy began to compress itself.
To create more space, the wind actively expanded everything it could within him. If anyone had been looking at Hatani at that moment, they would have seen his body emitting a faint, ethereal white glow. His skin was becoming translucent; first his veins, and then his hands, became so clear you could see the faint outline of the bone beneath.
While Hatani was undergoing this painful "remodeling," Orochimaru and Jiraiya's casual demeanor vanished. Jiraiya quickly unsummoned Gamabunta, and Manda—ever the coward—didn't even wait for an order, vanishing back to Ryuchi Cave in a heartbeat.
"Triple Rashomon!"
Orochimaru unleashed his ultimate defense, three monstrous iron gates rising from the earth.
"Earth Style: Multi-Layered Earth Wall!"
Jiraiya slammed his hands down, erecting five massive stone barriers behind the gates.
The Iwa shinobi, realizing their own Tailed Beast had turned its fury on them, stopped caring about who was an enemy. They threw their chakra into the defense alongside the Leaf.
"Earth Style: Moving Earth Core!"
The ground in front of the Rashomon gates surged upward to act as a ramp.
"Earth Style: Earth Golem Jutsu!"
Kitsuchi spat out a massive stone titan, bracing it against the walls.
The defenses stacked one after another just as the Tailed Beast Bomb arrived.
The light of the explosion blotted out the sun. A colossal shockwave swept across the plains, ripping grass out by the roots and incinerating everything in the immediate blast zone.
Thanks to the Triple Rashomon and the layer-upon-layer of Earth Style, the brunt of the energy was diverted to the sides. It left two jagged, terrifying scars across the earth, but those who failed to find cover simply ceased to exist, their forms vanishing into the dirt.
Farther away, the Rain-Grass alliance fared even worse. Triple Rashomon was a legendary treasure, and Hanzo didn't have access to that kind of summoning.
But the explosion wasn't the true disaster. The true disaster was that the Five-Tails had completely lost its mind.
The beast's roar, saturated with centuries of resentment, shook the very foundations of the battlefield. Every shinobi who heard it felt a chill run down their spine.
"Retreat! Now!"
Fighting a rampaging Tailed Beast was suicide, especially one that didn't belong to your village. Seeing his students had survived the blast, Hiruzen didn't hesitate to prioritize the living over the dead. He gave the order to pull back, even if it meant leaving behind the hundreds of shinobi who were paralyzed by the poison but still breathing.
As a leader, one must know how to perform triage. To Hiruzen, risking the entire army to save a thousand poisoned soldiers while a Tailed Beast was on the loose was a gamble he couldn't take.
But at that exact moment, the kunai Minato had left on Hatani's person flared.
Minato and Tsunade reappeared in a flash of yellow, carrying the newly brewed antidote.
Simultaneously, the white glow surrounding Hatani finally faded. He was drenched in sweat as if he had been fished out of a river, gasping for air. The Tailed Beast Bombs had been spent, and the winds that had been trying to force their way into his soul finally calmed down, sensing the threat had passed.
He was alive. He was safe.
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