Cloud Village's Devastating Casualties

Unraikyo, a training ground specifically for Jinchuriki, could no longer be called a "gorge."

The combined explosions of the Tailed Beast Bomb and Mini Spiraling Ring were far from as simple as one plus one equaling two.

Several mountain peaks within kilometers of Unraikyo had been flattened, while a massive crater over a thousand meters wide and more than a hundred meters deep had appeared at its center.

The river, severed in half, surged into it while carrying rubble in its torrent.

Inside the crater, the exposed rock layers had been baked by extreme heat into a glass-like crystalline state.

Gyuki's mangled body struggled up from the ruins, and the crystallized earth around it cracked and collapsed.

"Cough... Big Bro, you ain't dead, right~?" Killer B spat out a mouthful of blood, yet still did not forget his rap-like cadence.

In his Tailed Beast form, Killer B had shielded Raikage A with his body, but the terrifying force of the explosion had torn his back into a bloody mess, the wounds exposing bone.

"B!" Raikage A hurriedly caught Killer B as he reverted from his Tailed Beast form.

If Killer B had not shielded him in his Tailed Beast form just now, the one lying on the ground severely injured would have been Fourth Raikage A!

Raikage A hoisted Killer B onto his back and sped toward Kumogakure.

The explosion from moments ago still replayed in his mind, leaving him shaken.

The village...

When Raikage A reached Kumogakure's outskirts and stood atop a mountain peak, he saw that the center of the village looked as though someone had wiped it away with an eraser. The Raikage Building had vanished completely.

Several mountain peaks, including the one housing the Raikage Building, had been blown apart at their middles.

Cloud Village ninja had suffered devastating casualties. Thick smoke billowed throughout the village as medical ninja rushed through it, frantically rescuing people.

The ceaseless cries of agony pierced through the smoke and dust, filling the Fourth Raikage with deep guilt.

"Lord Raikage!" Two figures landed beside Raikage A.

He looked closely and saw Yugito Nii and Dodai.

"Killer B!" Yugito's pupils trembled slightly when she saw the severely injured Killer B.

As a Jinchuriki herself, Yugito knew Killer B's strength extremely well.

With the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki absent, Killer B, the strongest Jinchuriki of this era, had actually been beaten into such a state by the enemy!

"B protected me..." Raikage A clenched his fists.

After his father, the Third Raikage, had died, he had feared that his brother Killer B would suffer a similar siege, and so had forbidden Killer B from leaving the village.

Yet today, when a mysterious enemy had attacked their doorstep, it was once again this brother who had shielded him from that terrifying explosion!

"What happened with the explosion in the village? Where are those two enemies?" After handing the severely injured Killer B over to the arriving medical ninja, Raikage A questioned Dodai.

This Elite Jonin, deeply trusted by the Third Raikage, spoke with a grim expression. "By the time I arrived, the battle had already ended."

"Where are Darui and the others?!" Raikage A roared hoarsely.

"Darui, Shi, and Samui only suffered minor injuries. But Mabui was too close to the center of the explosion and could not evacuate in time. She is still undergoing emergency treatment..." Dodai's single eye reflected the ruins at the village's center.

"Of the other ninja who participated in the battle, two Jonin have been confirmed dead. Two Jonin and three Special Jonin were severely injured. Seven Chunin have been confirmed dead, while sixteen Chunin had their chakra drained dry, and their survival remains uncertain."

"Furthermore, this explosion destroyed the center of Kumogakure. The casualties are estimated to be no fewer than two hundred."

Kumogakure had been built atop mountain peaks rather than on a plain like Konoha, so the mountains had absorbed much of the explosion's force and shockwave. Moreover, as a ninja military base, most of Kumogakure's residents were ninja with chakra, and they were included among the battle losses.

Even so, the grievous toll of seven Jonin and Special Jonin, over twenty Chunin, and more than two hundred Genin villagers dead or wounded was enough to rival a crushing defeat in a major war!

Had the Cloud Village's main ninja forces not been fighting Konoha's ninja troops in the Land of Moon and the Land of Hot Water, the casualties this time might have been even greater.

And Killer B, the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki—the Cloud Village's "strategic nuclear weapon"—had also been severely injured!

Boom!

Fourth Raikage A slammed a fist into the nearby mountain, blasting a crater two meters wide into it!

"Have those two enemies been captured?!" Raikage A ground his teeth, wishing he could immediately tear them to pieces.

But Dodai shook his head with a grave expression.

He then voiced a speculation. "According to Darui and Shi's descriptions, when the explosion had just begun, those two floating enemies disappeared. They... probably were not human... They were Summoned Beasts!"

"What?!" Learning that the mysterious enemies who had held back dozens of Cloud Village elite ninja were actually Summoned Beasts made Raikage A's eyes widen with fury.

"How did they enter the village?" Raikage A's knuckles turned white as his anger grew.

Dodai said, "I sent people to question the guards stationed at the village gate today, as well as the ninja who encountered that mysterious person alongside Killer B. We also interrogated the merchant caravans that entered the village today."

"Preliminary findings indicate that the enemy used genjutsu to control a caravan leader and entered the village under the name 'Danzo.' This is a sketch of him." Dodai handed the Raikage the gathered intelligence and a sketch.

For Dodai to have preliminarily organized the intelligence in such a short time was already no easy feat.

Seeing the sunny, cheerful young man in the sketch only made Raikage A angrier.

"Immediately mobilize all of the Cloud Village's intelligence networks! We must find this bastard!" Raikage A crushed the sketch into a ball and gritted out, "Post a bounty at the Bounty Station! Seventy million ryo! Anyone who provides useful leads will receive a reward of ten million ryo after the Cloud Village verifies the information!"

A bounty of seventy million ryo was already higher than the bounties on many Tailed Beast Jinchuriki.

The Six-Tails Jinchuriki Utakata's bounty was only fifty million ryo.

Of course, Raikage A did not expect to kill this mysterious enemy through a bounty. The most important purpose of issuing it was to spread the information, draw the attention of other villages to this mysterious person, and cause him some trouble.

The Cloud Village had spies in every other village. If this mysterious person clashed with another village or did anything else, the Cloud Village would be able to obtain intelligence leads.

"Yes!" Dodai immediately ordered a trusted ninja to handle the matter.

"Also..." Raikage A looked at the large empty stretch of the village in the distance and said unwillingly, "Make peace with Konoha."

Rumble...

The dark clouds scattered by the explosion gathered above Kumogakure once more. Even the falling raindrops seemed to carry the pungent stench of gunpowder smoke as they washed over the Cloud Village's wounds.

The pain of war shrouded all of Kumogakure.

In the fifty-fourth year of Konoha, news of Kumogakure's attack by a mysterious ninja spread like wildfire.

The various ninja villages dispatched spies to investigate the Cloud Village's losses.

Before long, Kumogakure agreed to the Hidden Leaf Village's ceasefire terms. The final conflict of the Third Shinobi World War had finally ended, and the Shinobi World was about to welcome a brief peace.

At the same time, a mysterious ninja named "Danzo," codenamed "Asura," was posted in the Underground Black Market with a bounty as high as seventy million ryo!

Even providing useful information could earn a reward of ten million ryo!

Meanwhile, in Root's base far away in Konoha.

Seeing Danzo's bounty on the updated Bounty Station list brought by his subordinate, Shimura Danzō flew into a rage and tore the brand-new bounty poster to shreds.