Chapter 70: Don't Interfere, He Can Be Saved
For this mission, Tsukasa Kaede actually had a trump card up his sleeve.
That's right, it was Might Dai.
The Eight Gates Technique was inherently a powerful jutsu with high explosive damage. Regardless of whether it was self-destructive or not, it was simply effective.
However, the only thing Tsukasa Kaede cared about was how many Gates the 29-year-old Might Dai could open. If it was the Gate of Death, that would be best. Opening the Gate of Death and fighting the enemy head-on, then Tsukasa Kaede would sacrifice a batch of zombies and revive him.
Infinite Eight Gates was precisely the strongest offensive ninjutsu Tsukasa Kaede could unleash.
The only catch was that Might Dai would suffer for it. However, considering Might Dai's untrusted position, and that only Tsukasa Kaede was willing to take him on high-difficulty missions, he would likely do it with his life on the line.
As each zombie relayed feedback, Tsukasa Kaede nodded repeatedly. The suicidal attacks of several Explosion Release zombies had indeed caused enormous damage to Roshi, blowing out many body fragments—these were all highly concentrated chakra.
Tsukasa Kaede immediately opened the sealing scroll and quickly sealed the Four-Tails chakra the zombies had brought back.
This was good news, but there was also bad news: the immense pain caused Roshi to completely lose consciousness, and the Four-Tails officially took over.
"Ooooh! That hurts! You damned bastards! Watch me use Lava Release to melt you and these rocks together!"
The Four-Tails, dozens of meters tall, half-crouched on the spot, raging. Its four tails slammed the ground, creating a new round of earthquakes.
Its sheer size alone exuded an unfathomable pressure, making people tremble from the bottom of their hearts.
This was a super high-intensity chakra life form, an immortal creature in some sense.
The Four-Tails opened its mouth, and a large amount of chakra highly compressed, condensing into a purplish-black sphere that grew larger and larger as time passed.
"Using a Tailed Beast Bomb right from the start?" Tsukasa Kaede had a bit of a headache. "It should still be possible to transfer Might Dai over with Space-Time Ninjutsu now, right? Might Dai should be able to kick this thing away, right?"
If he were to use Spatial Rift Jutsu to transfer the Tailed Beast Bomb, that would be even more impossible. While Spatial Rift Jutsu indeed had many advantages, it also had one major limitation—only Tsukasa Kaede and zombies could swap positions.
Unless Tsukasa Kaede risked his life, actively rushed up to touch the Tailed Beast Bomb, then activated Spatial Rift Jutsu to transfer himself and the Tailed Beast Bomb together to a zombie far away, and immediately after, abandoned the Tailed Beast Bomb and transferred himself back—the difficulty and danger of that would be ridiculously exaggerated.
Even Minato Namikaze a few years from now wouldn't be able to do this.
In another two years, when Jiraiya took Minato Namikaze and two subordinates on a mission, facing a Tailed Beast Bomb, Jiraiya was helpless. In the end, Minato Namikaze could only use Flying Raijin Jutsu to awkwardly escape with the three of them.
Facing a Tailed Beast Bomb, even a genius like Minato Namikaze would be dumbfounded, and Jiraiya would also be at his wit's end, having no choice but to flee. At this time, Minato Namikaze had already learned most of the Sealing Jutsu left behind by the Uzumaki Clan from Kushina Uzumaki, but still couldn't reach the level of directly transferring the Tailed Beast Bomb away.
And the most important point: Minato Namikaze was clearly not a Jinchuriki, but his chakra reserves were a bottomless pit, a mystery.
Even if Tsukasa Kaede risked death to transfer the Tailed Beast Bomb, without first replenishing a vast amount of life force, he wouldn't have enough chakra to do so.
Primarily, there was no need for it. The Four-Tails chakra was already in hand; he wasn't so foolish as to engage in a desperate struggle with the Four-Tails. Before acquiring an ideal body, Tsukasa Kaede preferred to prioritize his own safety.
"The village's companions have almost all escaped. It seems it's time to escape. Might Dai as a trump card cannot be used unless absolutely necessary. Sakumo Hatake might have slightly sensed Might Dai's talent, but he is far less aware than I am."
Tsukasa Kaede retrieved Araki of the Sand, the precious zombie, then extracted most of the life force from all the ordinary zombies present; a surging life force visibly swelled from his body—this was the most immense life force he had ever accumulated! He immediately canceled the Summoning Jutsu, gathered the depleted zombies back into the Summoning Scroll, and then used Spatial Rift Jutsu to escape, returning to Tsunade and Kato Dan.
Unfortunately, the Root ninja squad tracking him was too far away; it was too late to rush over now and extract the life force from these living humans, so Tsukasa Kaede could only reluctantly give up.
"Oh? How strange, making so many corpses use the same Ninjutsu, and even swapping places at the end. It's a Space-Time Ninjutsu I've never seen before, but escaping is useless! Don't think you can deceive me with a dead person!!"
The Four-Tails didn't care what kind of Jutsu this was, and ignored the swapped zombie in front of it, immediately changing direction, aiming at Tsukasa Kaede, Tsunade, and the others' location, and ferociously spitting out a Tailed Beast Bomb!
Boom! The Tailed Beast Bomb blasted its way forward; wherever it passed, the ground was torn open by its pressure, forming a deep chasm, and the thick dark clouds in the sky also split open, momentarily dividing into two.
"For now, this is the end of this engagement. Once I achieve my true objective, I won't let you off so easily."
Tsukasa Kaede glanced at the Tailed Beast Bomb that almost obscured his vision and performed a second transfer with Tsunade and Kato Dan.
The location they had just been in immediately erupted into a terrifying hemispherical light mass. A mushroom cloud soared into the sky, and visible ripples swept out in all directions; it was as if heaven and earth had lost their original colors and sounds.
The Konoha ninjas in the distance watched this scene with utter horror; it was also their first time witnessing the terror of a Tailed Beast Bomb.
The Iwagakure ninjas outside the Land of Hot Water's borders also stood up one after another at this moment, gazing into the distance.
"Ha, that must be Lord Roshi's Jutsu!"
"With that scale, the Konoha guys must all be dead, right? We've won a great victory!"
"Right, break through from the Land of Hot Water into the Land of Fire, destroy Konoha's rear, and end this war."
The Iwagakure ninjas cheered enthusiastically, but a few individuals showed signs of worry. Being forced into a Full Tailed Beast Transformation and spewing out a Tailed Beast Bomb, didn't that precisely indicate Roshi's dire situation?
The risks of Full Tailed Beast Transformation were far too great! As expected, before these Iwagakure ninjas could finish celebrating, they saw another Tailed Beast Bomb blasting towards them—the Four-Tails did it on purpose.
Compared to Hidden Leaf Village, for the Four-Tails, the Hidden Stone Village that restricted and tormented it was the true enemy. As long as it seized the opportunity, it would naturally kill as many Hidden Stone Village ninjas as possible.
"I never expected it to turn out like this, two countries fighting to a mutual destruction in a third country."
Tsukasa Kaede placed Tsunade and Kato Dan on the ground and looked up, gazing into the distance.
He could vaguely feel the terrifying impact; this power was truly awe-inspiring. Many Kage-level powerhouses struggled to deal with a Tailed Beast.
As for what terrible state the Land of Hot Water would be in after the war, apart from the citizens of the Land of Hot Water themselves, no one cared.
Tsunade paid no mind to anything else, desperately trying to heal Kato Dan, but as time passed, Kato Dan's life force was ultimately slipping away.
"It's enough, Tsunade. Don't do such futile things anymore. You'd better save your chakra and lead our companions back to the Land of Fire."
Kato Dan's mouth twitched with difficulty. "I'm truly unwilling to accept this. My dream hasn't been realized yet, but my sacrifice is worth it. I saved so many companions…"
"…Is that so? But you're fine now. Look, the bleeding has stopped." Tsunade forced a smile that was uglier than crying.
"Is that so? That's really great… I…" The light faded from Kato Dan's eyes.
Tsunade desperately wanted to bury her face in her hands and cry bitterly. Her tears rolled down with the rain, and she was about to let out a mournful wail to the sky.
Just then, Tsukasa Kaede squatted down and said blandly, "Lady Tsunade, are you finished? If you are, I'm about to perform a jutsu. Although it's rude to say this, seeing how you two were just now, I really didn't have the heart to interrupt… It's mainly that you're getting in my way here."
(end of chapter)