Hearing the sharp sound of air tearing behind him, the Sand shinobi spun around and raised his kunai to block. Two shuriken crackling with lightning chakra were knocked aside.
Instead of feeling relieved, a sense of unease crept into his heart. Acting on instinct, he stepped backward—
At that very moment, a knife-hand strike pierced straight through the earthen wall he had just created with ninjutsu.
If he hadn't dodged in time, that hand would have plunged directly into his chest cavity.
Unfortunately for him, what was his good fortune became his enemy's misfortune.
The kunai in his hand stabbed straight through the attacking palm. Then, the Sand shinobi leapt high from behind the wall!
Wind Release: Wind Cutter!
The wind blade slashed across the enemy's neck. In the next instant, he should have seen his opponent's head tumble to the ground—
But he didn't.
That familiar, satisfying scene never appeared.
Instead, another sound reached his ear.
Another Hagoromo appeared at his side, holding the long sword that had earlier been thrown as a projectile.
The Sand shinobi's attention was completely focused on the "Hagoromo" in front of him. He never noticed the attack coming from the flank.
With a simple thrust, the blade pierced straight through his heart.
At the same moment, the Hagoromo struck by Wind Cutter went poof, dissolving into a puff of white smoke.
It had been nothing more than a Shadow Clone jutsu.
The enemy's final thought was simple:
Ah… so it was a clone.
Even as his life faded, what lingered in his eyes was regret—not remorse. He didn't regret his carelessness in dying to a single hand; he merely regretted failing to kill his opponent.
So the question was—
When had Hagoromo used the Shadow Clone jutsu?
The answer was simple.
When he fell earlier—before using Fire Release—he had simultaneously used Shadow Clone jutsu and Transformation jutsu, creating a clone while concealing his true body. That setup had led directly to this final, lethal strike.
This had been a particularly troublesome opponent. To bring him down, Hagoromo had expended a large amount of chakra. After steadying his breathing, he began to withdraw.
He needed time to recover his chakra.
In large-scale battles like this, charging forward nonstop was suicide. Once chakra was gone, a shinobi was nothing more than a corpse waiting to happen.
After retreating back to Konoha's main force, Hagoromo spent the next stretch of the battle fighting from the rear, picking off enemies with long-range throws—shuriken and kunai launched whenever an opening appeared.
Thanks to his precision throwing and sharp calculations, his efficiency was extremely high. Constantly repositioning in the back lines, relying on unpredictable movement and surprise attacks, he averaged one kill for every five to seven shuriken.
Finally, just as his supply of ninja tools was nearly exhausted, Konoha's reinforcements arrived.
Unlike previous encounters, however, the Sand shinobi did not retreat upon meeting Konoha's reinforcements.
Instead—
They fought even more fiercely.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
At this point, cutting their losses and retreating would have been the rational choice.
Once Konoha's reinforcements arrived, the balance of power had completely reversed. Konoha now held an overwhelming advantage. Yet Sunagakure continued to fight desperately—
As if their lives meant nothing.
A sense of dread rose in Hagoromo's chest.
Why would the Sand shinobi adopt such tactics? This was clearly a deliberate sacrifice of their own forces…
Unless—
This entire battle was a feint.
With doubt taking root, Hagoromo—despite having recovered a fair amount of chakra—stopped charging toward the front lines as he had earlier.
He conserved his strength, preparing for any sudden change.
In terms of individual shinobi quality, Konoha's forces were likely superior. Even assuming equal strength on both sides, numerical superiority alone gave Konoha a crushing edge.
At this stage, the ratio of forces was roughly two-to-one in Konoha's favor. Soon, the remaining Sand shinobi would be wiped out—
If they truly refused to retreat.
Yet the reality was shocking.
Even after their casualties reached seventy percent, the Sand shinobi continued fighting to the death.
By now, Konoha's reinforcements had been present for nearly an hour and a half. Almost every Konoha shinobi on the battlefield sensed that something was terribly wrong.
Why would they fight like this?
Suddenly, Hagoromo heard a faint, distant roar.
It sounded like—
Some kind of monster.
And it was coming from the direction of the Land of Fire.
A grim suspicion formed in Hagoromo's mind. His unease was about to be confirmed.
He quickly located his squad leader. Thankfully, the man was still alive and intact.
"Captain Hyūga," Hagoromo asked, "has something happened at the command post?"
Hagoromo didn't know whether the captain was from the Hyūga main branch or branch family, nor the exact limits of his perception.
"I don't know," the Hyūga captain replied. "Even my Byakugan can't see that far. But… I can vaguely sense an enormous chakra presence over there. I've never encountered chakra like that before. It feels almost like—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
But Hagoromo already knew what he meant.
Like a tailed beast.
Even if they had never seen one in person, all shinobi had heard the legends of the tailed beasts.
Then—
Above Konoha's command post, a massive point of light suddenly burst into the sky.
This was Konoha's special signal flare, used to transmit urgent information.
Then a second flare rose.
A third.
A fourth.
This was an unmistakable distress signal.
The command post was under attack—and the situation had become extremely critical.
Everything made sense now.
The Sand shinobi's objective had been to stall Konoha's main forces, preventing them from reinforcing the command post.
Hagoromo and the Hyūga captain exchanged a glance, each seeing the same concern reflected in the other's eyes.
"Disengage from the Sand forces! All units, return immediately to reinforce the command post!"
No one knew who had issued the order on the battlefield, but at this point, verifying it didn't matter.
The moment Hagoromo heard it, he turned and sprinted toward the command post.
In truth, even without the order, he would have gone.
There were few enemies left here—but the command post was in grave danger.
More importantly—
Kushina was there.
Konoha's intelligence division had made a grave miscalculation. They hadn't anticipated that this entire engagement would be a diversion.
To carry out this feint, Sunagakure had paid an enormous price. They had clearly prepared to sacrifice a thousand shinobi from the very beginning.
Which meant only one thing—
The enemy force attacking the command post was unprecedentedly powerful.
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