Chapter 423 – Extraordinary Shinobi (Part 2).
"What… what just happened?!"
"That was terrifying! Did the earth collapse or something?!"
"No—someone's fighting! If Captain Fugaku hadn't protected us, we'd probably all be dead!"
"That kind of power… can a human really reach that level?!"
"…"
Inside the Konoha camp, countless shinobi were overwhelmed by the apocalyptic shockwave.
Fear finally broke through their composure.
Everyone understood one thing very clearly—
If Uchiha Fugaku hadn't blocked the attack, none of them would be standing here comfortably.
They probably wouldn't all have died.
After all, shinobi were quick to react.
The earlier explosion had already warned them, and many had retreated further back.
But even after retreating—
The sheer force of the shockwave nearly shattered their spirits.
This battle was simply on another level.
Even their strongest warrior here, Uchiha Fugaku, seemed strained just blocking the aftermath.
So what about the ones actually fighting?
Who on earth was battling out there?
What exactly had happened to produce such a terrifying phenomenon?
The only good news—
The battle seemed to have erupted from the Cloud camp.
---
"Hey, Saito," Uchiha Kawa nudged the Hyūga shinobi beside him with his elbow.
"Can you see anything? Even a blurry outline—what's going on out there?"
"Yeah," Uchiha Ryūei frowned deeply.
"Is this really something humans could cause?"
Hyūga Saito had already activated his Byakugan.
His gaze was fixed on the distant battlefield.
Cold sweat trickled down his forehead.
"I… I can see something…"
"It's the Eight-Tails… and…"
"And what?!" the surrounding shinobi asked anxiously.
Other Hyūga clan members had also activated their Byakugan, but their reactions looked much the same.
"It's… probably someone from the Uchiha clan," Saito said after taking a deep breath.
"If I'm not mistaken… that's Susanoo."
"And judging by the size… it's over a hundred meters tall."
"Even larger than Captain Fugaku's."
"And it's black."
"I think… it's the same person who attacked Konoha back then."
---
A black Susanoo.
Over a hundred meters tall.
A tailed beast.
The moment these clues came together, everyone instantly realized what was happening.
That mysterious Uchiha figure.
Every time he appeared—
A tailed beast followed.
Back during the Nine-Tails incident, Konoha had nearly been destroyed.
If the Military Police, the Fourth Hokage, and fighters like Uchiha Kei and Uchiha Fugaku hadn't acted quickly to seal the beast—
The consequences would have been unimaginable.
Then there was Kirigakure, where the Three-Tails had been controlled and unleashed, causing catastrophic losses.
And now—
It seemed the same disaster had descended upon Kumogakure.
Many Konoha shinobi secretly felt a bit of schadenfreude.
After all, the Cloud had started this war.
But when they thought about it carefully—
They realized they hated that mysterious man even more.
The one who had once unleashed the Nine-Tails inside their own village.
---
Eventually, the shockwaves from the massive explosion began to fade.
The gigantic earthen wall now stood shattered and broken.
On top of it stood Uchiha Fugaku, still wrapped inside his heavily damaged Susanoo.
Everyone knew just how close they had come to disaster.
Fugaku took a slow breath.
That blast had been dangerously close.
His eyes remained fixed on the distant battlefield.
He didn't care what happened to the Cloud shinobi.
The only thing on his mind was Uchiha Kei.
That explosion must have been Kei's doing…
But how is he now?
Fugaku frowned deeply.
He hesitated.
Should he go check?
The battle over there was far too terrifying.
Even from over ten kilometers away, they had been caught in the shockwaves.
Who knew what the battlefield itself looked like?
And what about the Fourth Raikage and the Eight-Tails' jinchūriki?
Had Kei killed them?
Even if Kei managed to take both of them down at the cost of his own life—
That would still be a catastrophic loss.
For Konoha, it would already be devastating.
For the Uchiha clan, it would be completely unacceptable.
The deaths of those two enemies would only damage the mysterious organization's reputation and disrupt Minato's plans.
But none of that compared to the value of Uchiha Kei.
---
"Captain Fugaku…"
Just as Fugaku stood there deep in thought, Nara Kyōhei leapt onto the earthen wall beside him and spoke quietly.
"Should we…?"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Instead, he made a gesture suggesting deploying troops.
Clearly, Kyōhei saw an opportunity.
Perhaps even a chance to end the war.
At the very least, they could advance under the guise of "support," search for the Raikage's body, or possibly confront the mysterious man who once attacked Konoha.
But such an operation required Fugaku's approval.
Because here—
The only one capable of facing those monsters was Uchiha Fugaku.
---
"Alright. Assemble the troops," Fugaku said after forcing himself to calm down.
"Forget the supplies. They're probably beyond saving."
"And the Cloud camp is likely in worse condition than we are."
"The enemies we might face are extremely dangerous, so…"
"I understand," Kyōhei nodded.
"Give me three minutes. I'll have the forces assembled."
Then he hesitated before asking quietly:
"Captain Fugaku… this could bring us unimaginable gains."
"But only if…"
"Relax," Fugaku interrupted.
"I never act recklessly."
"I'm confident."
"And the Hokage entrusted me with one of his Flying Thunder God kunai."
"He can reinforce us at any time."
Although Fugaku was extremely anxious inside, he forced himself to appear calm.
"Move quickly," he continued.
"I'm worried that if we arrive too late, the Raikage and the Eight-Tails' jinchūriki might already be dead."
"Then this trip would be pointless."
"I'd much rather capture them alive and interrogate them."
"Understood," Kyōhei replied.
"I'll gather the troops immediately."
Now Kyōhei felt completely reassured.
With Fugaku's guarantee, the operation should be safe.
And if they succeeded—
Everything would change.
What he didn't know was that Fugaku had already made up his mind.
Nor did he know that Minato had issued a similar instruction elsewhere.
---
Fugaku ignored Kyōhei after that.
His gaze remained fixed on the distant battlefield—
The very center of the explosion.
Uchiha Kei…
Don't you dare die.
---
"Cough… cough…"
The Fourth Raikage slowly crawled out from the ruins.
The chakra in his body was almost completely exhausted.
He looked miserable.
Burn marks covered his body.
He could clearly feel multiple broken bones.
Nearly every muscle had been damaged.
Worst of all—
Blood continued flowing from his chest.
Earlier, the mysterious Uchiha had pierced his chest with Four-Finger Hell Stab.
Ignoring the blood he coughed up, the Raikage staggered forward.
He moved toward the battlefield—
Toward the Eight-Tails.
Toward the black monster.
He knew he had lost this battle.
And the price of defeat was unimaginable.
The Cloud camp had housed eight thousand elite shinobi.
Under such a close-range blast—
Very few of them could have survived.
Even he had barely survived by exhausting all his chakra.
And now he was at his absolute limit.
"I can't die yet… I can't die…"
The Raikage staggered forward, muttering to himself.
"I have to kill them…"
"Even if I can't…"
"At the very least… I must die before my brother."
After taking a few steps, he suddenly collapsed.
His only remaining arm had long been broken.
Yet he forced himself upright using that single arm.
Every few steps he took left a trail of blood on the ground.
But he never stopped.
He kept moving forward.
He hadn't traveled very far.
But even that short distance had already drained nearly all of his strength.
When the Fourth Raikage finally reached the place where Killer B and the mysterious Uchiha were fighting, he could no longer keep going.
His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the ground.
Even so, he stubbornly lifted his head, staring toward the two monsters locked in battle once again.
But he was far too weak.
Blood from his wounds flowed down across his forehead and into his eyes.
He was exhausted.
So exhausted that he could barely keep his eyes open.
No matter how much he tried to hold on, his body refused to cooperate.
Finally—
With an angry roar, he lost consciousness.
---
The smoke slowly dispersed across the battlefield.
Inside the Cloud camp, in an open area, coughing sounds echoed from within a massive circular structure made of wood.
Around it lay the corpses of countless Cloud shinobi.
Their deaths were horrific.
But it was clear that most of them had been killed instantly by the shockwave from the terrifying explosion earlier.
Some of the unluckiest victims had even been vaporized completely.
Not even a body remained—only dark scorch marks where they once stood.
After all, this was the Cloud camp, the location closest to the explosion's epicenter.
The devastation they suffered was unimaginable.
Corpses were scattered everywhere.
The phrase "a field of the dead" could hardly describe it fully.
It was difficult to believe that such destruction had been caused merely by the overflowing energy from a single clash.
But reality was cruel.
To beings like Uchiha Kei and a fully transformed Killer B, ordinary shinobi were no different from ordinary civilians.
After all—
A tailed beast was essentially the nuclear weapon of a ninja village.
A strategic-level weapon.
Once deployed, the damage it caused was nearly impossible to measure.
For most shinobi, these creatures were nightmares.
Defeating a tailed beast required unimaginable manpower and resources—and often catastrophic casualties.
The world was no longer in the late Warring States Era when monsters capable of destroying entire villages alone still existed in greater numbers.
Now—
Such individuals were exceedingly rare.
---
Crack… crack… crack…
Suddenly, the massive wooden ring began to split apart.
Moments later, a figure emerged from inside.
He wore a black cloak and a white mask etched with strange spiral patterns.
It was Imai Kenta, the man who had infiltrated the camp to hunt down the Cloud shinobi.
He glanced around at the devastation before letting out a sigh.
"That was way too dangerous…"
His voice was low and hoarse.
"I almost died there. If it weren't for Wood Release…"
It truly had been dangerous.
If he hadn't mastered Wood Release, and hadn't used it to shield himself the moment he sensed something was wrong—
He would now be no different from the dead shinobi scattered across the ground.
"Damn it, Uchiha Kei… you didn't do that on purpose, did you?"
Kenta rubbed his chest, which still throbbed painfully.
Even with Wood Release protecting him, the shockwave had nearly crushed him.
For a moment, he wondered whether Kei had intentionally tried to kill him.
But after thinking about it, he dismissed the idea.
Kenta often judged others with the worst possible assumptions.
But he knew perfectly well how vast the gap between him and Uchiha Kei truly was.
If Kei wanted him dead—
There would be no need for complicated tricks.
Judging from that battle alone, even ten of him, completely unprepared, would be crushed effortlessly.
Besides—
They shared enormous mutual interests within Konoha.
Someone like Kei would never casually destroy that kind of alliance.
So the only explanation was—
Even that idiot probably hadn't expected the fight to escalate to such a terrifying level.
Shaking his head helplessly, Kenta formed a hand seal.
In the next instant, he teleported.
He appeared atop a towering black Susanoo.
It was one of the Flying Thunder God markers he had left behind.
---
"Hey! You almost got me killed, you know that?!"
The moment he appeared, Kenta shouted loudly, venting his frustration.
"Damn it—if I hadn't reacted fast enough, I'd be dead already!"
"You had Wood Release protecting you," Uchiha Kei replied with a slight pant.
"I doubt you'd die that easily."
He slowly lifted his head.
A thin streak of blood had begun running down from his left eye.
"Enough complaining."
"The Eight-Tails isn't dead yet."
"Let's deal with it first."
"It's still alive?!" Kenta froze.
Then his expression changed as he suddenly sensed something—
The chakra of the Eight-Tails.
Although weakened, it was still unimaginably powerful.
Clearly—
Despite the catastrophic explosion, the Eight-Tails had survived.
"Yeah," Kei nodded calmly.
"It's a perfect jinchūriki. And the Eight-Tails has excellent survival instincts."
Then something astonishing happened.
The bloody tear running from Kei's left eye slowly flowed backward, disappearing as if time itself had reversed.
Both Hyūga Ayaka and Imai Kenta stared at the scene, slightly stunned.
But neither of them spoke.
They simply looked silently at Kei.
"Come inside," Kei said calmly.
"It's still alive, but it's barely holding on."
"As for me…"
He gave a faint smile.
"I'm still in pretty good condition."