"Eight Trigrams: Air Palm!"
Facing the massive shuriken that tore through the air with a sharp whistling roar, Hyuga Arata poured chakra into his arm. His five fingers curled as he thrust his palm forward. The pressure of the wind pressed his clothes tightly against his arm, outlining the taut muscles beneath.
The compressed air pressure instantly surged toward the shuriken like an invisible vacuum shell. A sonic boom and explosive wind pressure rang in everyone's ears.
Bang!
The massive shuriken carried immense force. Arata was pushed back several steps uncontrollably, spiderweb-like cracks spreading across the ground beneath his feet. But he still managed to forcibly block the giant shuriken.
"The Eight Gates… Second Gate?"
Aburame Ryoma immediately noticed the bulging veins appearing on Arata's body and instantly recognized the technique he was using.
'This kid, being a member of the Hyuga clan, had actually gone to learn the Eight Gates, and had even opened the second gate?'
'No wonder he could block Toroi's attack. But that alone wasn't enough, after all, that was Toroi, a Magnet Release ninja.'
'Those shuriken were specially made, their weight terrifying in itself. Only Magnet Release could control them.'
"Cough, cough." Ryoma swallowed a pill and shouted as a warning, "Do not touch his shuriken with your body!"
Several other Root ninjas also made their moves, but Toroi would not give them the opportunity to form hand seals. Facing the force of two massive shuriken, it was extremely difficult for the Root ninjas to block them using only blades.
Meanwhile, the giant shuriken that had been halted in front of Arata suddenly began spinning again, producing the howling sound of a meat grinder. Like the fangs of a beast, it lunged at Arata once more.
Bzz! Bzz!
Veins crawled across Arata's temples as he immediately activated his Byakugan.
Within a single breath, in the corner of everyone's vision.
Arata's figure seemed to turn into an afterimage. While dodging, the continuous explosions of shuriken colliding with Air Palm echoed one after another.
Toroi watched Arata from afar while forming hand seals to manipulate the shuriken. When he noticed the Byakugan, his gaze flickered.
"Kid, are you from the main family or the branch family?" he suddenly asked.
That strength didn't seem like someone from the main family. Yet he could use Rotation, a secret technique mastered only by the main house.
But Arata didn't respond. It seemed he didn't even have the spare strength to do so.
Splurt!
Suddenly, a splash of blood sprayed onto the ground.
Arata's body abruptly froze. A wound had opened at the corner of his eye.
Blood slowly flowed down his cheek, gathering at his chin before dripping onto the top of his foot, warm and wet.
Seeing this, Ryoma's face darkened. He knew the boy couldn't hold on any longer.
According to intelligence, once someone touched Toroi's shuriken, the Magnet Release chakra attached to it would magnetize the body and mark the target. After that, any magnetic attacks would become impossible to dodge.
Ryoma knew Toroi's strength very well. As a wielder of a bloodline limit, Toroi was an extremely troublesome opponent even among elite jonin.
"If my internal organs weren't so badly injured, maybe I could cooperate with the others for a sneak attack… but now…"
Ryoma clenched his teeth.
His frontal combat ability wasn't strong. His strength lay in infiltration and assassination.
Bang!
Using the momentum of the giant shuriken, Arata pulled back and landed beside Ryoma. His voice was hoarse and anxious.
"Senior Ryoma! At the ten o'clock direction, three kilometers away, dozens of ninjas are approaching!"
Ten o'clock direction, so they weren't from Konoha. Most likely they were Cloud Village ninjas stationed at the border of the Land of Hot Water!
"Wait." Ryoma suddenly realized something and blurted out, "Three kilometers? You can see a radius of three kilometers?"
Once the Byakugan was activated, Hyuga clan members could normally see everything within one kilometer. The upper limit rarely exceeded two kilometers.
If focusing on a single distant direction, that range might increase several times.
But Arata clearly wasn't just looking in one direction, he was seeing everything within a three-kilometer radius.
That was terrifying.
"Senior! Now isn't the time for that!" Arata urged anxiously. "No matter what happened with the explosive tags, take Senior Todo and leave! If we don't go now, it'll be too late!"
Hearing this, Ryoma nearly coughed up blood.
'The explosive tags had nothing to do with me!'
'Why did everyone think I planted them?!'
'Although Lord Danzo had instructed me to act if necessary, I hadn't even had the chance to make a move yet!'
"Hmph! Not answering?" Toroi snorted coldly. "Then I'll cut off your limbs first and ask later!"
With that, he pulled out a scroll and snapped it open, summoning two more giant shuriken.
"Magnet Release: Twin Sparrow Be- "
"Not a chance!"
Just as Toroi prepared to throw the two shuriken, a furious voice filled with violent intent suddenly rang out.
Akimichi Todo, who had been unconscious earlier, had awakened under the protection and treatment of the ANBU. Seeing Arata standing in front of him, he immediately stuffed a green pill and a yellow pill into his mouth.
Secret medicines of the Akimichi clan, The Green Spinach Pill, which could instantly unleash 30% of the body's physical potential and increase strength to more than three times its limit, and the Yellow Curry Pill, which replenished blood and vitality.
The price was intense pain and weakness after the effects wore off.
But for now, it was enough.
"Expansion Jutsu: Super Push!"
BOOM!!
A gigantic palm descended from the sky and slammed toward Toroi.
The ground exploded with cracks like a collapsing mountain. The entire earth shattered under an unimaginable force. Several corpses were crushed along with their blood and bones, ground into fragments, and pressed into the soil.
"Troublesome guy."
Toroi appeared farther away, his eyes gloomy. He had already been forced to cut his connection to the shuriken and could only recall them.
"Senior Todo!"
Arata looked up at him, joy appearing on his pale face. "You, "
"Arata, listen to me."
Before he could finish, Todo interrupted him and said in a deep voice, "This was most likely the work of Iwagakure. You and the others must return to Konoha immediately and report everything to the Third Hokage!"
"Iwagakure?" Before Arata could speak, Ryoma's pupils shrank. "How could it be them?"
Todo cast him a cold glance.
Could it really have nothing to do with your Root?
"Do you remember those rogue Iwa ninjas we encountered on the road?" Todo explained.
"The scroll containing Hizashi's corpse was probably switched at that time."
"What?" Arata froze. Realization dawned on him, and his already pale face turned even whiter.
"So… it was because of me…"
"This isn't your fault." Todo looked at him with complicated eyes.
Just now, Arata had risked his life to protect him. And the strength and talent the boy had displayed had not escaped Todo's notice.
When he realized the explosive tags were hidden inside the coffin, his first instinct was to suspect Arata, who had carried the scroll.
But he quickly realized explosive tags were strategic military supplies.
They weren't something you could simply buy with money.
Even if someone had the money, Arata wouldn't have been able to purchase such a large quantity.
In fact, the moment he tried, the ANBU would have immediately appeared and interrogated him about why he needed so many explosive tags.
So Arata couldn't have planted them.
The only possibility was that the scroll had been swapped. The boy had simply lacked experience.
A talented young ninja with such good character must not die here today.
"Go," Todo said firmly.
"N-No! If we leave, then you, "
Before Arata could finish, a sharp whistling sound tore through the air.
"None of you are escaping today!"
"Go!"
Several giant shuriken flew toward them again. Todo roared and slammed out a chakra-coated palm.
BOOM!!
The ground beneath them trembled again with a dull thunderous vibration.
But this time, unlike before, the shaking didn't gradually fade.
Todo's strike seemed to break something. The vibration beneath their feet grew stronger and stronger.
Bzz! bzz!
"What's going on?" Everyone's expressions changed slightly.
Then, after the earth-shaking tremor came a deafening roar.
BOOM!
The ground beneath them suddenly bulged upward, splitting open with terrifying cracks over a hundred meters wide.
It was as if an invisible monster beneath the earth was twisting its body, desperate to break free from the cage confining it. Even through the ground, its immense power could be felt.
Heavy objects nearby were shaken into the air as if gravity had vanished.
BOOM! CRACK!!
After the ground arched into a massive curve, another thunderous explosion echoed through heaven and earth.
For an instant, everyone felt weightless, as if they had been thrown upward.
No, they hadn't risen.
The ground beneath them had collapsed.
"Retreat!"
Whether it was Toroi or the Konoha ninjas, they all stopped fighting and used Body Flicker to retreat simultaneously.
RUMBLE!!
They watched helplessly as a pitch-black fissure tore open beneath the inn. The earth split into huge stone slabs and collapsed downward, swallowed by the widening abyss.
The solid ground, once so firm, crumbled like soft dough being crushed between fingers.
Moments later, the tremors finally subsided, and the rising dust gradually cleared.
Before them appeared a bottomless black pit, like an abyss.
"What… is that?"
Everyone stared at the abyss in uncertainty, feeling as though a deep darkness was stirring within it.