The desolate center of Sunagakure, usually filled with sand and wind, suddenly became lush and green. From afar, the Kazekage's office building now looked like a giant, freshly picked head of broccoli.
The "forest" confined within the limited space continued to grow and expand slowly, trying to increase its size as much as possible. Under its influence, the spherical building first lost its original load-bearing structure and began to collapse, then was propped up by various horizontally and vertically growing branches. Thus, it could only continuously crumble and shed debris, like a botched demolition of an illegal structure.
The spectacular sight and the rumbling sounds emanating from it caused the Sunagakure ninjas outside to stop in their tracks. For a moment, they didn't know what had happened.
But some Sunagakure ninjas had clear heads, because someone immediately shouted, "Enemy attack! Go and support the Kazekage!"
However, the connection between the Kazekage's office building and the outside world had been severed. Tenzo hadn't just used an offensive ninjutsu, but also a physical barrier ninjutsu… Ninja Art: Green Belt Isolation Technique.
"Fire Release! Use Fire Release to break open an entrance!" It was no easy task to enter the building, and one ninja offered this suggestion.
"But Lord Kazekage is still inside. What if we accidentally injure him…" Someone worried about the Kazekage's safety.
"We can't worry about that now. We must open a passage as quickly as possible!" The disorganized Sunagakure ninjas had numbers, but they lacked leadership for the moment.
However, even with the use of Fire Release, the rescue operation was still very difficult. Firstly, the large amount of debris would block the Fire Release from taking effect, and secondly, the Wood Release, full of vitality, was inherently difficult to ignite.
Sunagakure's numerical advantage was proving difficult to leverage at this point.
Habara didn't know the specific situation outside, but he knew that the team didn't have much time. Therefore, they had to act quickly. Anyway, the situation inside the building was this… either you kill me, or I kill you.
According to Orochimaru, Habara's predecessor had a deep connection with Sunagakure, and now it seemed it was time to "renew that connection."
The power of the combined Wood Release technique was extraordinary. Although it couldn't compare to the First Hokage's, such a technique was enough to instantly kill the ordinary ninjas in this building. It only took them a few seconds to clear the battlefield of small fry. The ninjas who could survive at this point were at least "elite mobs."
Tenzo continued to control the forest to spread, strangling the Sunagakure ninjas who were within sight and entangled by the branches.
Ninjas who could release area-of-effect damage techniques and control the battlefield were always priority targets. Therefore, the elite Sunagakure ninjas who could avoid or break free from the forest's attack in the first instance immediately began to focus their attacks on Tenzo.
However, these people couldn't get close to Tenzo at all, because an impenetrable wall of blades stood in front of him. The only ninja present who could instantly see through everyone's movements was "Sharingan Kakashi."
Although that Sharingan had brought Kakashi all sorts of problems, it had to be admitted that even among the orthodox Uchiha ninjas, few could use the Sharingan to this extent… Kakashi's title of genius was indeed not unearned.
"If you could use such a powerful technique, why didn't you tell me beforehand?"
But Kakashi's mood was understandable. He hadn't expected this mission to actually turn into an assassination of the Kazekage.
Tenzo's hands didn't stop moving. He just said in a very calm tone, "I thought we had a tacit understanding."
Kakashi: "…"
Tacit your ass understanding. Without telling him anything beforehand, how could he have any damn understanding!
Leaving aside the issue of teamwork, Habara's Six Directions Seal slowly opened. The Arc-Gradual Seven-fold Rhythm recompiled natural energy with his own chakra. First, blood-red lines appeared on his body, and then these lines were covered by a layer of flowing lightning… Increasing strength while minimizing the loss of speed, this was the so-called "Balanced Mode."
"Deep Forest Emergence" wasn't enough to kill enemies of the caliber of the Fourth Kazekage, Chiyo, and Ebizo. "Deep Forest Creation" might have been, but as the other Sunagakure ninjas attacked Kakashi and Tenzo, these three almost simultaneously targeted Habara.
No sense of fair play!
Because of Tenzo's "forest," the combat space inside the building was now limited to a small area in the center of the conference room. It was very cramped!
The gold sand scattered by the "forest" gathered again under Rasa's control. It transformed into a "heavy hammer," breaking through the layers of obstructing vines with a heavy momentum and directly smashing towards Habara's head.
At the same time, a special mechanical "clacking" sound reached Habara's ears, and then he saw two puppets, like slithering snakes, skillfully bypass the various obstacles and pounce on him from the other side.
Facing two enemies at once, Habara showed no sign of fear, because he knew that such attacks were nothing to him. Habara raised his right arm and directly blocked the golden hammer. Then, he seized control of the hammer from the Fourth Kazekage. Next, he retreated, and the hammer naturally fell under the force of gravity, smashing to the ground and turning into a pile of debris.
Simultaneously, Habara extended his right hand towards the two puppets. As if sensing something, he suddenly clenched his fist, and then the two puppets were crushed into a pile of scrap metal in mid-air… It was impossible for puppets not to have metal components, and as long as there were metal components, these precision ninja tools posed no threat to Habara.
So why did Sunagakure want to exterminate a certain unknown small ninja clan? Because this ninja clan's ability had a comprehensive suppressive effect on Sunagakure's "special techniques."
The ability to instantly destroy puppets was a minor matter. Habara's "attraction technique," or rather, "metal manipulation" ability, was completely superior to Sunagakure's Magnet Release. Although limited by his chakra amount, Habara couldn't perform any large-scale techniques, but he could easily seize control of the Fourth Kazekage's Magnet Release within a limited area.
Simply put, Habara had a racial advantage when fighting Sunagakure.
"Be careful, these people are all one-man armies!"
"One-man army is a bit of an overstatement, but I can demonstrate the technique that once knocked down the Nine-Tails."
In such a confined combat space, some area-of-effect ninjutsu had almost a 100% hit rate. In fact, to avoid accidentally injuring his own people, Habara even had to deliberately control the power and range of his ninjutsu… But regardless, the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken had already been formed in Habara's hand.
Then he threw this technique at the three highest-ranking Sunagakure ninjas.
"Retreat!"
Any ninja could perceive the threat of this high-density chakra ball. The Fourth Kazekage instantly dodged to the right, simultaneously protecting himself with a semi-circular wall of gold sand.
Chiyo dodged to the left. She shot a chakra thread from her left hand and wrapped it around a distant section of wood. Then, with a gentle pull, her body would quickly retreat.
"Ebizo!"
Before escaping, Chiyo extended her right hand to her brother, Ebizo.
Ebizo grasped his sister's hand, and then the siblings began to dodge. However, just as Chiyo began to move, she felt her hand lighten.
Chiyo raised her head and first saw Habara's cold gaze. Then, she realized that this Konoha ninja was pointing his hand at her.
Next, she looked down in the direction of her brother, only to find that her right hand had disintegrated and detached. Ebizo was only holding her hand…
Chiyo's right hand was a puppet prosthetic. Since it was a prosthetic, it was no wonder Habara could instantly dismantle it.
One protected his companion but prioritized protecting himself; one tried to protect her brother, but her actions were obstructed. Therefore, the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken directly struck Ebizo, instantly transforming into a dazzling ball of light.
Before the Rasenshuriken hit, Habara had already begun to charge forward rapidly. Seeing his movements, for some reason, Rasa didn't choose to attack first. Instead, he adjusted the direction of the gold sand barrier in front of him, trying to block Habara… He was worried about another Rasenshuriken. It seemed that this powerful technique had already intimidated him.
Habara, however, didn't dodge or evade. He lowered his body, his speed suddenly increasing again. Then, he saw him grip a mercury longsword with both hands, somewhat overestimating his own strength, and stab at Rasa's thick defensive barrier.
Then, the unbelievable happened. The barrier formed by the gold sand was easily pierced by the mercury longsword. However, due to its obstruction, Habara's blade deviated by an inch, only piercing Rasa's left shoulder.
Next, the gold sand barrier instantly collapsed, transforming into a palm that lunged at Habara.
Habara retreated, dodging Rasa's attack. And just as he retreated, a figure with intense lightning speed passed by him at high speed, heading straight for Rasa.
It was Kakashi Hatake. But could Kakashi's Chidori penetrate Rasa's defenses? Habara felt it was very risky. However, even if he wanted to remind Kakashi not to be reckless, it was already too late. Kakashi's speed was too fast.
Facing another surprise attack, the gold sand beneath Rasa's feet instantly transformed into a row of spears, seemingly about to impale the approaching Kakashi. However, Kakashi, who had closed in instantly, didn't directly attack. Instead, he circled behind the Kazekage at an extremely fast speed.
Then, Kakashi quickly took out more than ten explosive tags, either sticking them on the Kazekage's body or scattering them around him.
Explosive tags? Habara didn't know what Kakashi was doing. What was the point of this chaotic operation? You've already gotten behind him, why not just stab him with the Chidori?
However, the next moment, Habara's doubts were answered, because explosive tags were safer than Chidori, and more destructive than Chidori!
Habara noticed that the explosive tags Kakashi was using were somewhat different. The front of these explosive tags had the detonation formula of explosive tags, while the back of the explosive tags seemed to have some kind of summoning formula.
Habara understood in an instant, and then he advanced instead of retreating, simultaneously controlling a large mass of gold sand to rush forward. Then he transformed this gold sand into a hollow metal sphere, completely encasing Rasa within it!
A muffled explosion and frequent vibrations emanated from within the metal sphere.
Just now, Kakashi seemed to have launched a suicide attack, and if Habara hadn't seen correctly, Kakashi seemed to have used a forbidden technique called "Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags."
Why would Kakashi know such a technique? Well, now wasn't the time to discuss that. If it weren't for Habara's help, Kakashi would definitely have been caught in the explosion.
So Habara opened his mouth and asked Kakashi, "How many?"
"What?"
Kakashi still felt a sense of lingering fear from the near-death experience.
"How many explosive tags did you prepare?"
"Not many, only twelve thousand."
"Uh…"
What do you mean only twelve thousand? Would the total number of explosive tags used by both sides in a large-scale battle even reach twelve thousand? Of course, compared to a number like "six hundred billion," twelve thousand was indeed "only."
Habara's gaze towards Kakashi instantly became incredibly gratified.
Sometimes, being a bit reckless was actually a good thing. Kakashi actually understood the concept of "victory through overwhelming firepower." Truly commendable.
And Habara suddenly understood the saying, "If not a good prime minister, then a good doctor." He seemed to have cured Kakashi's illness… Of course, according to general opinion, Kakashi was actually sicker than ever, because his behavior had a suicidal tendency.
So, the question was, could the Fourth Kazekage's body withstand twelve thousand consecutive explosions?
Explosive tags were terrifying. What was even more terrifying were explosive tags that exploded continuously in a confined space… One person stuffed him into a sack, and the other one beat him with a club. These two cooperated quite well.
Konoha's peace envoy was truly a nuclear peace envoy.
Explanation:
"French blood" joke: reference to France's historical military surrenders.
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