The morning sun hung high in the sky. Beneath its gentle light, a team of more than ten people stood amid the ruins, continuously waving at a group of people on the steep cliff not far away.
Rather than a cliff, it was more like a mountain range. It stretched across half of what had once been Konoha's commercial center, and Kage Rock had vanished completely. Everywhere among the ruins stood enormous oval barricades woven from densely tangled wooden vines, looking from afar like massive shields.
Naruto stood quietly atop one such shield, watching everything before him.
The mountain platform where Kage Rock had once stood had completely collapsed, but the mudslide caused by the landslide had been forcefully blocked by this rising mountain range. In the end, only half of Konoha's commercial district had been buried, though all the Explosive Tags spread throughout the commercial center had still detonated.
"Naruto, is this the Wood Release you mentioned?"
Minato Namikaze, inside the Sealed Space, was somewhat uncertain after seeing those wooden vines. He had read records about Wood Release, but these things seemed both similar to and different from the Wood Release he knew.
"Tch. This counts as Wood Release? It's just a pile of wood. It's nowhere near as good as that brat Hashirama Senju!"
Kurama in the seal looked utterly disdainful.
When Naruto had come over and said he had discovered Wood Release, Kurama had immediately become extremely vigilant. It had thought Konoha had truly produced another Wood Release expert like Hashirama Senju, but it had never expected to see something like this.
It had a profound impression of Wood Release. Back then, Hashirama Senju had bound it with a casual press of his Wood Release, and before it even had a chance to speak, Hashirama's wife had