Outside Konoha.
Because of the explosive tag cloud that blotted out the sky, thousands of Konoha shinobi were forced into a long formation, with the battlefield stretching almost endlessly toward both flanks.
Across this narrow battlefield, the air was thick with the pungent smell of gunpowder. The ground was riddled with craters from the explosions, along with Konoha shinobi strewn haphazardly everywhere.
Explosions, battle cries, and the groans of the wounded intertwined, making the battlefield unbearably noisy.
Yet under the desperate resistance of several thousand Konoha shinobi, the explosive tag cloud's advance had been halted.
The explosive tag cloud, which had previously covered the sky and seemed to stretch beyond sight, had also been whittled down by the Konoha Shinobi Army to only a tenth of its original size. The battle had reached its fiercest stage as Itachi, disguised as Hyuga Kagami, led the elite shinobi of the Konoha Shinobi Army in a final battle against Konan, who controlled the explosive tag cloud.
Even setting aside the hundreds of billions of explosive tags in the air, Konan herself possessed Kage-level strength. Coupled with her rare ability to fly, she was among the most troublesome of all Kage-level fighters.
If the explosive tags filling the sky were included, Konan could almost sweep aside the vast majority of Kage-level fighters in a one-on-one battle.
In the original timeline, Obito had barely endured Konan's sea of explosive tags only by consecutively using Kamui and Izanagi, and he had ultimately defeated Konan at the cost of severe injuries.
If it had been any other Kage-level fighter who did not understand space-time ninjutsu, it was difficult to imagine anyone surviving Konan's attack with that sea of explosive tags.
However, after the earlier interception by Shisui's team and the resistance led by Itachi's Konoha Shinobi Army,