A mountain-sized Spirit Turtle crawled slowly outside the Hidden Whirlpool Village.
Its shell was double-layered. The plates along its belly could open into a ramp, so villagers who climbed into the turtle's belly would ascend the slope and vanish inside the shell.
The Spirit Turtle was, astonishingly, the village's mobile refuge.
Its mouth kept blowing fierce gusts that sent any Cloud shinobi who dared attack its head flying. As for the turtle's hard shell, the Cloud forces' usual methods did nothing.
Yagami watched the Spirit Turtle and worried. If someone pretended to be a villager and slipped inside the refuge, and the defenses within weren't strong enough, wouldn't that be a disaster?
The turtle moved with glacial slowness. There was no way to know whether the people beneath its belly were villagers or Cloud spies.
Minutes later, a long trail of blood marked the turtle's path.
Vibrations came from inside, and the Spirit Turtle let out mournful cries.
It opened its belly plates and toppled out heaped corpses.
Cloud shinobi had infiltrated the double-layered refuge and committed a slaughter.
Rows of bodies lay behind the turtle, throats cut, fresh blood staining their necks. The Cloud shinobi favored simple throat-slitting when dealing with civilians, and their hands were practiced.
Above, the Yatagarasu swept repeatedly, dropping explosive eggs into dense positions of the Mist forces.
The eggs glowed red; the fire-nature chakra inside detonated violently. Each explosive egg hit with the force of two or three regular explosive talismans.
The Four Violet Flames Formation's energy was being eroded by the Mist's water techniques, so the Yatagarasu concentrated on striking the Mist shinobi who were jointly using water release.
After the first wave of Mist shinobi were killed by the bird's bombs, they found a countermeasure.
Some Mist shinobi released water jutsu that formed thick fountains from the ground. Those fountains blew the eggs away, forcing the explosives to detonate in midair.
There were simply too many Mist shinobi—Yatagarasu's harassment had only limited effect.
Yagami shook his head. Outside the Four Violet Flames Formation, the scene was a massacre.
Negotiations at the barrier made no progress. The Uzumaki couldn't control the fate of the villagers outside; the Mist and Cloud shinobi kept killing without mercy.
In three efficient hours, the Mist and Cloud forces had almost wiped out every civilian.
The great river washed wave after wave of bodies downstream. The surface was clogged with corpses, stretching for hundreds of meters.
Even more bodies gathered around the Spirit Turtle, tangling and hampering its slow gait.
The turtle's enormous weight crushed those it stepped on, grinding bodies into pulp.
To break the Uzumaki clan's will to resist, the Cloud shinobi exhausted the Spirit Turtle, then—using steel wires tied together—flipped the turtle onto its back.
Explosive talismans and thrown tools battered the shell without pause.
The Spirit Turtle retracted head and limbs into the shell. The shell's seams were not perfectly sealed; the turtle still bled through those slits.
Added to that were lightning attacks from the Mist—electroshocks that rendered the turtle immobile.
The muffled wails from inside the shell were pitiful and heavy.
After five full hours, the Four Violet Flames Formation exploded outward.
The barrier shattered into heat and a shockwave that sped across the village.
Houses collapsed in the blast. The Cloud and Mist shinobi were startled; many of them were killed by the shockwave.
Even so, more Mist and Cloud soldiers surged in, frenzied.
Yagami lowered his binoculars and looked again at Danzō.
Danzō remained unmoved.
The will of the Anbu was cold as iron. The deaths of outsiders meant nothing to him.
Then another Four Violet Flames Formation rose—this one smaller, now enclosing the Uzumaki clan's ancestral hall.
Yagami trained his binoculars on the hall. Inside the formation were many women and children.
No doubt Uzumaki Kushina was among them.
Around the family shrine, everyone else—including the clan head—remained outside the formation.
The clan head stood at the front, hands forming seals, then slammed them down on the earth.
Four enormous columns of white smoke erupted.
The Mist and Cloud forces halted, watching, uncertain what the Uzumaki still had left to play.
From the smoke burst four massive summoned beasts.
Hell-split Hounds, Charging Rhino, Giant Centipede, and the Battering Bull.
Yagami was surprised. Aren't these the same great summons later associated with Nagato's Animal Path? No wonder Nagato ended up with so many mighty summons—these had been accumulated by the Uzumaki.
Why, though, had those accumulations not been preserved for Kushina, and instead wound up in the hands of some Uzumaki orphan in the Hidden Rain?
Ordinary shinobi could not stand against such giant summons.
The Split Hounds snapped up shinobi like scavengers; when the Charging Rhino charged, it smashed warriors to death or hurled them away.
The Giant Centipede cut the battlefield apart, isolating pockets of Mist shinobi so Uzumaki forces could overwhelm them numerically.
Adamant chains flashed; many Mist shinobi died under those sealing techniques.
Using the giant summons, the Uzumaki mounted a beautiful counterstrike.
Mist and Cloud casualties mounted fast.
Yagami thought the Uzumaki might stage a comeback.
Just as he guessed Danzō might intervene, one advisor began to unroll a sealing scroll that contained Cloud disguises and headbands. The Anbu were preparing to act—masking themselves as other villages' shinobi was a standard dark tactic of the Anbu: do it, then strike without being suspected.
But Captain Yellow Dog spotted new movement and halted the advisor.
Upstream on the river, a boat streaked toward the Hidden Whirlpool Village.
A lone figure stood at the bow. Long hair streamed behind him, and his eyes were closed.
Most shocking of all: he wore the mizukage's ceremonial robe.
The Third Mizukage had come.
The arrival of a Kage signaled the depth of this conflict.
Danzō twitched and took two steps forward.
It was clear Danzō had become serious.
The Uzumaki's attempt to seal a wild Three-Tails had stirred a hornet's nest. The Hidden Mist had come in force to punish the Uzumaki; the Cloud had joined with similar resolve. They intended to destroy the village.
Their actions had also enraged the higher-ups in the Hidden Leaf. Negotiations had fallen through, and the Leaf's plan now included seizing Uzumaki Kushina—Danzō himself had come with men to secure her.
Yagami felt a chill. Having guessed too much as an Anbu agent, would Danzō silence him?
Danger came not only from Mist and Cloud, but from within the Anbu ranks themselves.
Yagami focused his binoculars and tried to discern what the Third Mizukage's abilities might be.