The Hokage gave me a glance, then nodded and rushed off, almost immediately disappearing from sight. I looked around and found that they were the last of the enemies in the area, and the unkilled remnants were being slaughtered by shinobi of the S-rank who could do without my immediate assistance, so I let the chains go and focused my efforts on the civilian and ninja casualties, of which there were many.
Everyone, regardless of rank, was eager to fight back, so even though the main casualties were chunin, former shinobi of the Mist, there were also genin bodies, cut almost in half, with their entrails minced into mincemeat, or simply decapitated.
They didn't stand a chance, except for one Hyuga girl who had half her body burned by the lava of a genkai kekkei wielder, but was still alive. Judging by the charred heads nearby, her partners, who had taken the brunt of the damage, were less fortunate.
On the streets alone, I counted a little over a hundred bodies of civilians who'd gone for a walk this weekend, and how many more would be in the damaged or completely destroyed houses around them?
Suddenly, chakra flashed from the shinobi who were still fighting, and about two hundred meters away from me, a wave of water twenty meters high rose up, threatening to bury the rather low Konoha houses and wash away the living.
I handed the wounded man over to the clone I'd immediately created, and rushed toward the machinery, unleashing my chains and preparing to create a commensurate barrier in its path - I didn't want all my rescue efforts to be ruined by some unkillable kiri-nin our tops had missed. I could feel Jiraiya's chakra spilling out first, twisting him instantly, but there was nothing more he could do.
The wave found the nearest house, and I stretched the chains enough to cover the full width of the attack and almost put up a barrier, only in the next moment, a huge black pillar splashed the water column, literally turning it into a harmless water slurry and raining down, I had a view of Sarutobi standing on one of the rooftops beyond where the ninjutsu had been created, holding a rapidly diminishing staff that looked tiny against the weapon.
I knew, of course, that the monkey boss could arbitrarily change his size when transforming, but to such gigantic proportions? Truly, summoning greatly increases the combat power of the summoner and adds variation. I can't wait to be able to summon not just a small furry glutton, but powerful fighting cats.
After making sure that the residual water from the ninjutsu couldn't do any harm, I went back to rescuing the wounded, figuring that Hiruzen and the others would deal with the captured enemies themselves, but for the people still alive, every minute counts when it's a matter of life and death.
I wasn't the only one, though - several iryonin teams had arrived from the hospital and immediately got to work with the chakra users I'd already found and who'd only made it to the final showdown, and some of them joined in removing the rubble and pulling the bodies out from under them. Some were still breathing.
- Ryo, are you all right? - The head of Nara and the others who had joined him asked worriedly.
- I'll live," he said, busy patching up the kunoichi's cut side, "I've already healed all the damage.
I really looked like I was still in torn, bloody, and burned clothes, with my pants holding on by a thread, and my T-shirt had more holes than fabric, and part of my hair was burned. A real burner, to say the least.
When I was done with the wounded woman, I peeled the rags off her torso and pulled a shirt from the scroll of the inviolable reserve and put it on.
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