For once, Hiruzen Sarutobi had no answer. The Third Raikage only laughed harder, his booming voice carrying across the empty ground between the two armies like rolling thunder.
"Hokage, don't be so stingy," he said. "Shun is right. Danzo is far more generous than you are. One A-rank, ten B-rank, and thirty C-rank techniques? Does that sound like an offer worthy of a Hokage?"
His eyes hardened. "Three A-rank techniques. Thirty B-rank. One hundred C-rank."
Hiruzen inhaled slowly, the corners of his mouth tightening. "Two A-rank, twenty B-rank, and sixty C-rank. That is Konoha's final offer. If the Raikage still finds it lacking…"
His voice dropped. "Then we can settle this with war."
Lightning crackled faintly along the Third Raikage's arm. On Konoha's side, Enma shifted one step forward, his old eyes sharp. For a single heartbeat, the air between them turned razor-thin.
But neither side had come here to gamble everything away. The Third Raikage knew exactly how far he could push before the negotiation table flipped into a battlefield, and right now the benefits in front of him were too good to abandon.
He snorted, then waved a hand. "Fine. We'll trade."
The argument did not end there. If anything, that was merely the beginning.
The next matter was which ninjutsu would actually change hands, and that was where Hiruzen Sarutobi showed his true colors. He had no intention of giving away anything genuinely precious. In his eyes, special techniques were more valuable than the five elemental arts, and even within the elemental categories, there were tiers of usefulness.
The techniques he wanted to hand over were the ones Konoha could live without. The flashy ones. The cumbersome ones. The kind that sounded impressive on paper but would not truly strengthen an enemy village in the way the Hidden Cloud needed most.
The Third Raikage, however, was not easy to fool. He had already tasted the benefits of the last batch of ninjutsu Chiba Shun had smuggled back from Konoha through Danzo's deal, and this time he wanted substance, not scraps.
The two sides argued again and again, circling the same points until even Chiba Shun's head began to ache from listening. Hiruzen gave ground only by degrees, as if every step back cost him a strip of flesh.
Eventually, the Hokage agreed to let the Cloud choose two offensive A-rank techniques from outside Lightning Release. That was as far as he was willing to go.
The Third Raikage glanced sideways at Chiba Shun. It was not a formal question, but Shun understood the meaning immediately.
Think. What else can be taken?
After a brief moment of thought, Chiba Shun quietly suggested the Yamanaka clan's secret techniques. Hiruzen rejected that proposal without the slightest hesitation. If the Hidden Cloud acquired a method of digging information straight from a corpse's brain, then every dead ninja would become a treasure chest of intelligence and stolen ninjutsu.
That was a door Konoha would never open.
Chiba Shun changed direction at once and proposed medical ninjutsu instead. Hiruzen refused that too, this time more patiently, saying that medical arts were not just one or two techniques but an entire training system. He was not foolish enough to mend the Hidden Cloud's weaknesses with his own hands.
The Third Raikage seized on that refusal immediately, questioning Konoha's sincerity and forcing Hiruzen back into another retreat. In the end, the Hokage agreed to provide one A-rank genjutsu as part of the exchange.
The moment those words were spoken, Chiba Shun's thoughts began to churn.
He still had an S-rank reward from the village he had not yet cashed in. He could claim money, or he could convert the reward into the right to learn one A-rank technique. Up until now, he had never seriously considered trading it for genjutsu. He had been too busy forcing himself through the A-rank Earth Release: Mountain Earth Technique to think about anything else, and at the time he might not even have had the chakra or control to make use of another A-rank art.
But that had changed. He had already crossed the threshold once. His chakra level had risen. His strength was inching closer and closer to true jonin rank. If the Hidden Cloud now possessed an A-rank genjutsu suited for actual combat, then perhaps illusion was no longer a luxury beyond his reach.
Of course, talent still mattered. Chiba Shun was sober enough to know that wanting a technique and being able to learn it were two very different things. Even so, the possibility was there now, and that alone was enough to set his heart beating faster.
He had once thought about learning supportive arts like sealing and genjutsu, but the Hidden Cloud had always been too weak in those areas. Even if he succeeded, there would have been no system, no path, no future. Now there was at least a road, even if it was narrow.
The bargaining over the remaining B-rank and C-rank techniques dragged on for days. There was a great deal of wrangling over categories and practical value. At Chiba Shun's suggestion, the Third Raikage deliberately requested a number of illusion techniques in the lower ranks as well, not merely high-level elemental ninjutsu.
He also insisted that Konoha include simplified hand-seal methods with the techniques being traded.
Danzo had not done that before. The ninjutsu he had handed over were the most primitive versions, the kind that demanded outrageous chains of seals and left most of the burden of refinement to the learner.
Hiruzen agreed in public. Both Shun and the Third Raikage, however, knew exactly what that promise was worth. Konoha would surely keep some of the refinement back. If a jutsu could be reduced to ten seals, then Konoha might only hand over the version cut to thirteen or fourteen.
Still, even that was a victory.
By the time the alliance treaty was finally signed, Kumogakure had secured seven hundred S-rank mission rewards and eighty-two ninjutsu from Konoha.
The mission compensation alone amounted to 1.4 billion ryo. For a village that had practically emptied itself just to assemble this army, it was a staggering sum. Chiba Shun had already done the rough math in his head before: Kumogakure's mobilization had cost only around 350 million. In one sweep, the village had not only recovered the expense but earned more than a billion ryo in profit.
More important than the money, though, was the foundation that money could not buy overnight.
Including the batch Chiba Shun had brought back through Danzo's earlier bargain, the Hidden Cloud now possessed two A-rank Earth Release techniques, one A-rank genjutsu, and one A-rank Wind Release technique on top of a large number of supporting B-rank and C-rank arts. It was nowhere near enough to compare with Konoha's monstrous treasury, but for Kumogakure it was a lifeline.
It meant there was finally something for ninjas outside Lightning Release to build on. It meant fewer talents would be buried alive by the village's own limitations.
As for Kumogakure's side of the exchange, the Third Raikage had no intention of being honest. At Chiba Shun's suggestion, the village handed over little more than a stack of blank scrolls and the name of an agreement. Hiruzen opened one, saw what it was, and silently accepted it. The man had already chosen peace. He would swallow the insult.
Soon after the treaty was concluded, both sides began withdrawing their troops.
For a moment, it seemed the entire matter would end there. Kumogakure had gained what it wanted. Konoha had avoided being crushed while surrounded on four fronts. The great storm, after rumbling across the sky, appeared ready to pass.
Then the accident happened.
Most of the Cloud army had already crossed through the Land of the Moon on its way back to the Land of Lightning. The Third Raikage remained behind with a smaller force, intending to wait two more days and make absolutely certain Konoha had no intention of playing tricks after the signing.
That night, Chiba Shun was asleep in his tent beside Sakai Hashi when an abrupt chill ran down his spine. He opened his eyes instantly, all drowsiness gone.
Something was wrong.
He and Sakai Hashi rushed out at the same time. The moment Chiba Shun emerged into the night air, his sensing instincts screamed a warning so loud it was almost pain.
Not Konoha. Not an ambush. Something worse.
It was coming from the tent next door—from Killer Bee's direction.
Chiba Shun's face lost all color. Sakai Hashi did not understand immediately, but Shun did. He knew exactly what the worst possibility looked like. If the Eight-Tails broke loose this close to camp, then with his current strength his chances of survival were almost nil.
For a single, ugly moment, his first instinct was to run.
But he could not. Not with Sakai Hashi beside him. Not with the Third Raikage's people all around. If he turned and fled now, he might live—but everything he had built in the Hidden Cloud would die in that instant.
He had not even finished weighing that thought when Killer Bee and Yotsuki Ai's tent exploded.
A flood of violent red chakra burst outward, writhing like living fire. Yotsuki Ai was thrown back in a ragged tumble, his body battered and his expression dark with shock. The pressure of that chakra hit Chiba Shun like a wave from a collapsing mountain.
"Move!" he snapped to Sakai Hashi, retreating even as his hands flew through seals.
Earth Release: Earth Flow Wall!
A wall of earth surged up in front of the injured Ai, battering aside the nearest chakra tendrils before they could crush him outright. For an instant it held. For an instant, it gave them breathing room.
Ai dragged in a harsh breath. Even he, strong as he was, had nearly been overwhelmed in the first exchange. That was the terror of a tailed beast. It was not just power. It was scale. It was the feeling of facing something so enormous that all normal standards of combat became meaningless.
Fortunately, the Eight-Tails had not yet turned its full fury on the camp. It was still tearing more chakra out of the seal, clawing its way free. Chiba Shun guessed that Killer Bee himself might still be resisting inside, buying everyone else a few precious seconds.
The chakra gathered at a horrifying speed. It spread like blood through water, swelling wider and wider, threatening to swallow the nearby tents and everyone in them.
Other ninjas poured in from all directions, some in panic, some already trying to form up. Then the specialist team assigned to guard the Jinchūriki arrived.
There were four of them. One blasted the erupting mass of red chakra apart with a powerful Lightning Release, while the other three moved in perfect coordination to perform a sealing technique, compressing the Eight-Tails' chakra back inward.
For a heartbeat, hope flared.
Nearby ninja seized the chance to withdraw. From farther away, more began launching attacks and support techniques, trying to help suppress the beast before it could fully emerge.
But the Eight-Tails was no mindless brute. It had intelligence. Rage. Pride.
The attempt to suppress it lasted only a few breaths.
Then the beast answered.
The chakra that had seemed to contract suddenly exploded outward with monstrous violence. The three sealing ninja were obliterated on the spot. The one using Lightning Release was hurled away. Dozens of others nearby died before they could even scream.
A vast, awful cry split the night. It was not a human voice, not truly. It was something older, deeper, rawer—a roar that seemed to scrape the marrow out of Chiba Shun's bones.
The fully formed Eight-Tails emerged.
The shockwave alone blasted Chiba Shun, Sakai Hashi, and countless other ninja through the air like leaves in a typhoon. Chiba Shun twisted instinctively to protect his head and spine, adjusting in midair before he hit the ground hard enough to see black sparks behind his eyes.
When he forced himself upright, he saw it.
Even knowing from his previous life what a tailed beast was, even having carried that knowledge around like a secret for years, nothing had prepared him for the reality of standing this close to one.
The Eight-Tails was enormous beyond reason, a mountain of flesh, horn, and rage. It filled the night. It bent the battlefield around itself. Against it, even elite jonin looked like insects.
For one frozen instant, despair punched straight through Chiba Shun's chest.
Then he saw another figure moving toward it—wrapped in crackling lightning, every step like a thunderclap.
The Third Raikage.
The strongest man in the Hidden Cloud slammed into the Eight-Tails from the side with enough force to shake the ground. Only then did Chiba Shun truly understand what hope looked like at a moment like this.
Because the Third Raikage had been stationed farther away, he had missed the brief window when the beast might still have been suppressed in its incomplete state. Now he had no choice. There was no neat solution left. No seal to close in time. No clever maneuver to undo what had already happened.
He would have to face the fully awakened Eight-Tails head-on.
And the Eight-Tails, after pretending obedience for so long, had chosen this exact moment because it knew that too.