"Gods… I clearly remember this whole area being surrounded by tall mountains. There shouldn't be a basin here at all."
"Could Lord Kitsuchi and the others have been hit by some kind of natural disaster?"
"Lord Kitsuchi is still alive, he's right there."
The uproar caused by Garp's manually delivered meteor was simply too overwhelming.
And since this was the Land of Earth, Kitsuchi didn't remain collapsed on the ground for long before dozens of Iwa-nin landed before him.
"Kitsuchi, what on earth happened here?"
"Where are the other Iwa-nin?"
"And the Sannin? Are they alive? Dead?"
The one leading them was none other than the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki.
It was clear that the meteor shaking the Land of Earth had directly alarmed him, the Tsuchikage himself.
"They're dead."
The moment Kitsuchi saw Onoki, he broke down like a kid who'd just been disciplined by society and finally ran home to his parents, two streams of miserable tears sliding uncontrollably down his face.
"Dead? What do you mean dead?
Our village's shinobi, or the Sannin?"
Onoki looked at Kitsuchi, this child he had placed such great hopes on since youth, now not only losing both legs but openly sobbing in front of so many comrades.
His heart twisted with pain and anger.
Just how devastating must the blow have been for his own son to lose all composure like this?
"The shinobi I led out… they're all dead… They were all killed because of me."
Kitsuchi grabbed onto Onoki, practically howling the words.
"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!
Jiraiya had already been gravely injured by me, and Orochimaru's chakra was severely drained. The only one still with decent combat strength was Tsunade.
Those injured and exhausted Sannin, how could they possibly slaughter hundreds of our shinobis?"
Onoki had already suspected something, but hearing that not a single one of the hundreds of Iwa-nin survived still hit him like a sledgehammer. He stood there stunned and speechless.
The other Iwa-nin who had arrived with him exchanged looks of disbelief. None of them dared believe this could be real.
"It wasn't the Sannin, it was Monkey D. Garp."
Kitsuchi roared, eyes wild.
"Garp?"
Onoki, enraged and confused, didn't react at first.
"Garp the Fist. The shinobi hero you told me about since I was a kid."
The moment those words left Kitsuchi's mouth, Onoki froze.
"You mean that top warrior of the bygone era? He's supposed to be dead.
How could it be him… It can't be him… And even if it was him, he should be old and decrepit by now, how could he possibly kill hundreds of our shinobis?"
This time, it was Onoki who lost his composure.
Kitsuchi, and every single Iwa-nin present, clearly saw the man who usually sat as unmoving as a stone now wearing an expression of confusion and fear.
"He's not dead, and he's not old at all. Old man, do you have any idea?
That man is terrifyingly strong. Even Hanzo is like a fragile child next to him.
He… he dug up a two hundred meter wide boulder, no, an entire mountain, from the ground with a single hand."
Seeing Onoki's shaken reaction pushed Kitsuchi deeper into despair.
He had clung to one last hope, one last shred of belief that his father could avenge him and the hundreds of slain Iwa ninjas.
But when Onoki's mind exploded even harder at the mere mention of Garp's name, Kitsuchi completely lost that hope.
"L–Liar…"
"Lifting a mountain with one hand?"
"Is that still a human?"
The Iwa-nin were dumbfounded.
"Keep talking."
Only Onoki… though fear and unease flickered across his face, he showed no disbelief.
If anything, after hearing Kitsuchi's words, he was now completely convinced that the one who annihilated hundreds of Iwa-nin and shattered Kitsuchi's legs could only be Garp.
Why?
Because the scene sounded too familiar.
Back when he had not yet become Tsuchikage, he followed the Second Tsuchikage and had personally witnessed something similar.
Even though it happened toward the end of the Warring States Period, the memory had never faded.
He remembered clearly, when Garp kept the Four-Tails imprisoned, he had directly uprooted a mountain within the Land of Earth and smashed it down onto the Four-Tails.
Meteor Fist.
Also known as the manually activated Tengai Shinsei.
It was not only Garp's basic opener but his signature taijutsu technique.
"He carried that giant stone, no, that mountain, with one hand, and threw it straight at us from above.
Old man, do you know what I thought in that moment?
I thought I was staring at a god."
Kitsuchi closed his eyes weakly.
He didn't explain what happened next. Instead, he lifted his trembling right hand and pointed toward the center of the basin.
Onoki and the others followed his gesture, and saw the massive crater-like depression and the shattered remains of the colossal boulder.
Even though the boulder was now broken into countless fragments, they could still imagine what Kitsuchi and the buried Iwa-nin experienced.
"What happened afterward?"
Onoki's gaze focused on Kitsuchi's ruined lower body.
He immediately saw that the wounds had been treated with medical ninjutsu, otherwise, Kitsuchi would never have survived long enough for him to arrive.
"Tell me, old man. If we mobilize ten thousand Iwa-nin, can we kill the Iron Fist? Can we or not?"
Kitsuchi suddenly snapped his bloodshot eyes open and roared at Onoki with a twisted expression.
Ever since the Second Great Ninja War, Onoki had been preparing relentlessly, building up military strength.
In terms of individual combat power, Kumogakure might have been superior.
But in terms of numbers, Iwagakure was unmatched in the shinobi world at this time.
If Onoki willed it, he could indeed rally an army of ten thousand Iwagakure shinobis.
And Kitsuchi knew this very well.