The golden light swept across the battlefield, and the Third Kazekage's headless body slowly collapsed to the ground.
With both hands still tucked into his pockets and one foot resting lightly on the earth, Kizaru glanced around at the forest.
Corpses were scattered everywhere. Of the Sunagakure force that had been stationed here, only a handful were still breathing.
"Looks like I win," Kizaru said lightly, a lazy smile on his face as he sensed Hatake Sakumo's chakra still moving at high speed through the forest with Kenbunshoku Haki.
He raised his right hand and extended his index finger.
Thin beams of light shot out one after another.
Under the guidance of his Haki, every shot struck true. In an instant, the remaining Sunagakure shinobi scattered throughout the forest were all wiped out.
Once the area had been completely cleared, Kizaru bent down, grabbed the Third Kazekage's headless body, and vanished into the woods with a flicker.
On the muddy road between the two forests, the Sunagakure shinobi led by Chiyo were locked in fierce combat against Konoha's forces.
Knowing the puppets under Chiyo's control were coated with deadly poison, Danzo stayed at a distance and continuously used Wind Release ninjutsu to keep her in check.
Meanwhile, the young Sannin led the Konoha shinobi at the front lines, clashing head-on with the Sunagakure troops.
"Danzo!" Chiyo snapped coldly as she manipulated her puppet to strike. "This is where you'll die!"
Danzo dodged with a sneer.
"You should worry about your Kazekage first, Chiyo."
Though she had absolute faith in the Third Kazekage's strength, unease still flickered deep in Chiyo's heart.
But at a moment like this, there was only one thing she could do.
Stand firm.
"The Kazekage will not lose!"
Her voice rang out with certainty as she intensified her assault.
At the same time, several puppets moved together, attacking Danzo from the front and both flanks. Chiyo wanted to bring him down as quickly as possible and rush back to support the Third Kazekage.
Faced with attacks from multiple directions at once, even Danzo felt the pressure. His expression hardened as his hands flew through seals, preparing to unleash Wind Release: Vacuum Waves.
But just as he was about to fire—
A corpse dropped from the sky.
Danzo and Chiyo both sensed it at once and looked up.
The moment Chiyo saw the clothing on the falling body, her pupils contracted sharply.
Her fingers froze.
That robe...
It belonged to the Third Kazekage.
Danzo seized the opening immediately.
He spat out a blade-like gust of wind that ripped through the puppet in front of him, slicing it into pieces.
"Ooh, scary... Uncle."
Kizaru appeared beside Danzo as casually as if he had simply taken a step forward, the Kazekage's corpse having just landed nearby.
Danzo let out a quiet breath of relief.
The pressure on him vanished instantly.
For a split second, instinct made him want to scold Kizaru for acting ahead of schedule again—but this was the battlefield, and now wasn't the time.
Compared to Danzo's sudden ease, Chiyo's face had gone stiff.
Her destroyed puppet no longer mattered. Her gaze was fixed entirely on the headless corpse lying on the ground.
A solemn weight settled over her features, and for the first time, unmistakable panic flashed through her eyes.
The Third Kazekage...
Had really died in battle?
Her eyes shifted from the corpse to Kizaru.
"Kid," Chiyo asked coldly, though her voice had gone visibly tighter, "where is the Third Kazekage?"
Danzo also turned sharply to look at Kizaru.
He didn't say a word, but the meaning in his eyes was obvious.
Did you really kill him?
Kizaru caught the look and gave a faint smile.
Then he nodded.
"Isn't he right there in front of you, old lady?"
Silence.
The strongest Kazekage.
The man known throughout the shinobi world as Sunagakure's greatest Kazekage...
Killed by Konoha's ten-year-old genius?
At first, Chiyo simply could not accept it.
But she was a veteran of the battlefield. In just a moment, she forcibly calmed herself and began thinking about what to do next.
"There's another bit of bad news, too," Kizaru added in the same easy tone, looking at her. "The puppet unit that tried to circle around from behind... looks like Sakumo-san's already wiping them out too."
"What?!"
Chiyo's composure shattered.
"Ohh... Sakumo-san's really scary."
Kizaru let out his usual lazy drawl as he sensed the chakra signatures behind him rapidly disappearing.
That rear unit was commanded by Chiyo's son and daughter-in-law.
At that point, she no longer had the luxury of verifying whether the Third Kazekage was truly dead.
Even if Kizaru was bluffing—even if there was only a chance—
She couldn't afford to gamble.
With a sharp motion, Chiyo commanded her remaining puppets to feint toward Kizaru and Danzo while she herself leapt away, shooting toward the forest.
A flash of golden light crossed the air.
Kizaru appeared above her.
"If I let you run off and interfere with Sakumo-san," he said lazily, lifting one leg as golden light gathered around it, "that'd be real troublesome, y'know."
He kicked down.
Unable to dodge in midair, Chiyo could only force herself into a defensive stance. Though her taijutsu was excellent by normal standards, there was no truly blocking Kizaru's kick.
She was smashed straight into the ground.
The earth exploded apart.
At the bottom of the crater, Chiyo lay motionless, her condition unknown.
"Uncle, I'll leave that side to you."
Without even bothering to confirm the result, Kizaru turned into a streak of golden light and shot off toward the other battlefield.
The force Chiyo had brought numbered over eight hundred shinobi—more than twice Konoha's numbers.
To reduce the casualties among their own people, Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru had personally taken the front, tying down dozens of Sunagakure shinobi at once. Combined with the Amegakure reinforcements arriving from behind, the situation had finally reached a fragile stalemate.
The battlefield was chaotic.
Because friend and foe were so tightly intermingled, Kizaru chose not to use Yasakani no Magatama right away. Instead, he descended with the Ama no Murakumo sword in hand.
A slash of golden light flashed out.
One Sunagakure shinobi was cut down instantly.
Kizaru glanced toward the three figures standing back-to-back in a triangular formation and smiled.
"Looks like I made it just in time, Tsunade-nee-san."
As he spoke, he casually swept his blade to the side, cutting through the enemies on the left in one motion.
"Kizaru!"
The moment they saw him, all three Sannin showed visible relief. Tsunade even called out his name directly.
A kunai tagged with an explosive tag came flying toward Kizaru from behind.
Boom!
The explosion swallowed him whole.
A second later, Kizaru turned his head from within the flames as if nothing had happened.
"Ooh... I almost got blown away there. How scary."
Still smiling, he dismissed the sword, raised his right hand, and fired a laser.
The beam pierced through the enemy in the distance and exploded, instantly swallowing all the Sunagakure shinobi around him.
"Ohh... looks like my explosion's a little stronger."
Ninja swords, kunai, poison senbon, explosive tags, and all kinds of ninjutsu came at him from every direction.
Faced with Kizaru's overwhelming presence, the Sunagakure shinobi continued to charge with desperate determination.
Kizaru didn't even move.
He simply stood there, enduring everything as if it meant nothing, while lightly waving one finger and firing laser after laser.
Each beam carved through the battlefield like a scythe of death, harvesting Sunagakure lives one after another.
"Damn it... where is Kazekage-sama?!" one Sunagakure shinobi shouted in panic.
"Kazekage?" Kizaru paused for a moment and answered in that same almost absent-minded tone, "That scary old man? I already killed him."
The Sunagakure shinobi froze.
The strongest Kazekage...
Dead?
No one wanted to believe it.
"You bastard! Don't lie to me!"
With a roar, one of them charged straight at Kizaru, poisoned kunai in hand.
He closed the distance in an instant.
But the blade stopped short.
A sword of light had already pierced through his chest.
Blood spilled from the shinobi's mouth. Even so, his hand still trembled forward stubbornly, trying to drive the kunai into Kizaru's throat.
But just before it could touch him, his strength gave out.
His arm fell limp.
With a light flick of his wrist, Kizaru shook the corpse off his blade and let it drop to the ground.
Then he raised the sword again and calmly looked over the battlefield with a faint smile.
The attacks gradually began to stop.
The Sunagakure shinobi surrounding him had either heard the news of the Third Kazekage's death or had been terrified by the slaughter before their eyes.
No one dared to move forward.
Kizaru took a single step.
The Sunagakure shinobi around him took three back.
No one knew who broke first.
But someone turned and ran.
Then another.
And another.
In moments, the entire rhythm of the battlefield changed as more and more Sunagakure shinobi began fleeing in panic.
Kizaru did not stop them.
That was exactly what he wanted.
As long as friend and foe remained tangled together, even he couldn't clear the battlefield cleanly. But once the Sunagakure forces broke formation and fled—
Then it became easy.
Kizaru's arrival had completely turned the tide.
Freed from pressure, the Sannin immediately led the Konoha and Amegakure forces forward, quickly gaining the upper hand.
And with the news of the Third Kazekage's death spreading, Sunagakure's will to fight collapsed even faster.
More and more of them began to retreat.
"The Yasakani no Magatama."
As the Sunagakure retreat turned into a full-scale rout, Kizaru rose into the sky, crossed his arms, and unleashed a storm of light in the direction of the fleeing shinobi.
"Don't pursue! Pull back, all of you!"
The moment she saw what he was about to do, Tsunade shouted for every Konoha and Amegakure shinobi to stop.
The shinobi who had wanted to chase the enemy immediately backed off, dragged away in some cases by their comrades.
Then all of them looked up.
Countless particles of light rained from Kizaru's hands, chasing down the fleeing Sunagakure shinobi one after another.
The chain of explosions shook the entire battlefield.
A technique with such range.
Such lethality.
On a battlefield, it was nothing short of a massacre.
The Amegakure shinobi who witnessed it couldn't help but feel thankful from the bottom of their hearts that Hanzo had chosen to surrender early.
If they had met Konoha's Golden Flash head-on on an open battlefield and taken a technique like this...
Not many of them would have lived to tell the tale.
Unlike Amegakure's quiet relief, the Konoha shinobi looked up with blazing excitement in their eyes.
For many of them, this was the first time witnessing Kizaru fight on a true battlefield.
What they felt first was shock.
What came after was pride.
Kizaru's strength represented Konoha's strength.
And the stronger the village, the more secure everyone's future would be.
That was why every Konoha shinobi present looked at the golden figure in the sky with unmistakable admiration.
"That bastard really knows how to make an entrance," Jiraiya muttered as he stared upward. "He looks way too cool right now."
Tsunade punched him in the arm without even looking at him.
"Shut up."
Clutching his arm, Jiraiya looked at Tsunade, who hadn't taken her eyes off Kizaru for even a second, and felt his heart break on the spot.
He didn't get to wallow in it for long.
After wiping out most of the fleeing Sunagakure shinobi with Yasakani no Magatama, Kizaru descended from the sky and landed in front of the Sannin.
"What a tiring day," he said as he stretched lazily after landing.
The Sannin all looked at him in silence.
There wasn't a single injury on his body.
Not even his clothes were wrinkled.
Their feelings were... complicated.
Tsunade stepped forward with a smile that felt a little too dangerous.
"Kizaru."
"Hm?"
"Thank you so much, Kizaru-san."
"Ooh... scary, Tsunade-nee-san."
With a lazy grin and a half-joking complaint, Kizaru vanished in a flash before she could say anything else.
"That irritating brat..." Tsunade muttered, planting both hands on her hips as she stared at the spot where he had disappeared.
Elsewhere, Hatake Sakumo cut down the final Sunagakure puppet master without hesitation.
Blood sprayed.
With calm precision, he returned the ninja sword in his hand to the sheath on his back.
Hanzo, who had arrived with the Amegakure reinforcements, had witnessed the entire battle from beginning to end.
And the more he saw, the heavier his heart became.
Another monster.
Just how many monsters did Konoha have?
"You are a fine swordsman," Hanzo said as he stepped toward Sakumo.
Hatake Sakumo gave a bright, easygoing smile.
"I just know a few tricks with a blade, that's all."
Hanzo looked at him carefully.
Then he asked, "May I know your name?"
"Hatake Sakumo."
There was no hesitation in his answer.
Hanzo nodded slowly.
"I acknowledge your strength. From this day onward... I shall call you Hatake Sakumo of Konoha—the White Fang."
His old habit had surfaced again.
He had given Sakumo a title.
At that exact moment, a streak of golden light shot over from the distance.
"Ohh! Konoha's White Fang? That's a pretty nice title, Sakumo-san."
Kizaru's voice arrived before he did.
Sakumo smiled helplessly.
Being granted a title by Hanzo was one thing.
Having Kizaru hear it immediately was somehow even more troublesome.
"Konoha White Fang..." Sakumo repeated it once, then smiled. "Yeah. That does sound pretty good."
And so, long before he would have received that name in the future, Hatake Sakumo obtained his exclusive title ahead of time.
"Kizaru," Sakumo asked, looking toward him, "is everything over on your side?"
"If nothing unexpected happens, then yeah... I should've won."
Kizaru answered easily, standing off to one side.
If Kizaru said he had won, then it meant the mission was complete.
Sunagakure had been defeated.
"Hahaha!"
Sakumo laughed out loud.
"Then I really lost badly this time!"
Hanzo looked at him in confusion.
Lost badly?
He glanced at the pile of Sunagakure puppet masters around Sakumo, then at Sakumo himself, who only had light injuries, and finally at Kizaru, whose clothes weren't even dirty.
Questions filled his mind.
No matter how he looked at it... where exactly was the loss?
--------------------------------------
Support me at patreon.com/Arthorain and read upto 50 Advanced Chapters and R-18 Content!
--------------------------------------
Update schedule: 7 chapters/week
Every 200 power stones = 1 Extra Chapter
By voting with [power stones], you can easily get double the number of chapters.