Under the extreme advantage of elemental nature, Lightning-Earth made the seemingly thick, sturdy Earth Flow Wall as fragile as crisp white pastry. The slightest touch sent it crashing down into dust and rubble.
Blue sky, green grass, and a towering bridge appeared through the dust before Kakashi, Nohara Rin, and Obito.
"Go!" Kakashi barked. The lightning in his hand still hadn't faded, chirping as his fingers spread like a tiger's claw beneath its power. He kept charging forward without slowing. Nohara Rin and Obito had long since learned to work seamlessly with Kakashi, and followed close behind.
Kakashi led, Obito brought up the rear, and Nohara Rin stayed between them. In a line, they escaped the encirclement in an instant.
Demon Leech leaped down from the tall Earth Flow Wall. One arm and half his body had hardened like rock. Using the force of gravity, he punched toward Obito. Obito didn't even look back; he casually flung three shuriken at Demon Leech.
The three shuriken struck Demon Leech one after another, some faster and some slower, but only rang against him. They didn't leave even a white mark.
Taking advantage of that brief opening, Obito performed another Great Fireball Technique.
Flames burst from his mouth and licked outward, forming a massive fireball that engulfed Demon Leech. Obito didn't dare linger. As soon as he unleashed the Great Fireball Technique, he sped up and leaped twice, bounding out of the encirclement like an antelope.
With a dull thud, something heavy seemed to hit the ground. The flames scattered, revealing a Stone Man scorched dark red from head to toe.
Demon Leech reappeared beside the flames. He glared at Obito, then at Kakashi and Nohara Rin. "What kind of monsters are the Hidden Leaf Village's shinobi? How is that kid so strong?" Then he felt relieved—their preparations had been thorough, and they'd brought plenty of manpower.
Numerous troops, good coordination, and the use of Earth Release to reshape the terrain and overwhelm the enemy with sheer force had always been the Rock Ninja's strengths.
Even if these three brats were geniuses, how long could they hold out?
Hardening Jutsu!
A Rock Ninja blocked Kakashi head-on, hardened his upper body, and charged straight at him.
This kind of charge was simple but effective. After hardening, the body underwent a transformation into rock, becoming as hard as stone. The drawback was that it lost the ability to move; the hardening had to be undone before the body could move again.
But for that very reason, once hardened, the affected parts weighed as much as stone and were just as hard.
A charge like that was no different from smashing a torso-sized boulder into someone. No ordinary person could withstand a blow from such a massive rock, and shinobi were no exception. But Kakashi was.
He saw the lightning in Kakashi's hand about to die out. The eyes, squeezed into slits by his plump cheeks, flashed with malice.
But that malice lasted only an instant before turning to terror!
The lightning in Kakashi's hand suddenly flared brighter.
Chirp, chirp, chirp...
Kakashi's speed suddenly increased as well. He closed in like a bolt of lightning. His hand, wrapped in brilliant light, slammed down. His momentum didn't falter, and more lightning spread across his body, making him look like a god wielding lightning.
Kakashi's hand pierced through the Rock Ninja, followed by his arm and torso. The Rock Ninja's hardened body was a transformation of Earth Release, so it naturally crumbled beneath Lightning Release.
His torso and both arms vanished in an instant. Kakashi's charge sent his two legs flying apart, one to the left and one to the right, landing more than five meters away.
Only then did the lightning in Kakashi's hand finally fade. He reached for the short sword on his back with his other hand and drew it upward.
White Fang left its sheath.
"Tweet!"
A whistle sounded, followed by answering whistles. One after another, rock walls rose from the ground.
Kakashi, Obito, and Nohara Rin changed formation, forming an inverted triangle. Obito and Kakashi ran side by side, with Nohara Rin behind them.
"Left!" "Right!" "Right!" Obito called out the directions without pause, and Kakashi ran where he told him.
The Rock Ninja intercepted them from time to time. This time, Kakashi stopped using Lightning Release and fought with his short sword instead. If he couldn't overpower an opponent in a brief clash, Obito supported him with Fire Release. Even against Rock Ninja who had hardened themselves, Fire Release was just as deadly.
"Don't use Hardening Jutsu!" Hikari and Demon Leech were overseeing the battle, so they immediately spotted the problem and issued the order.
Using Hardening Jutsu against this team was practically suicide. The most fearsome of them was the white-haired brat, Kakashi. The fact that he was keeping his Lightning Release hidden made him even more unsettling. They both knew he had enough chakra to use it.
Even if only once...
That single use would be enough to break their encirclement. The more Kakashi held back and conserved his chakra, the more cautious they had to be.
They had to wear down the team's chakra as much as possible. The two commanders exchanged a glance and silently reached an understanding!
They had to trade lives for chakra. The whistles changed once more, and after raising a single Earth Flow Wall, more Rock Ninja entered the maze they had created, kunai in hand. They had to go in because they had only so much chakra.
Now that the maze had taken shape, they no longer had the strength to use ninjutsu to force the three to keep moving, so they could only go in themselves.
And the price of wearing down the trio's chakra was their own lives. They were no match for Kakashi, and even Nohara Rin could take one out with a single kunai.
Rock Ninja bodies littered the maze. Panting, Nohara Rin said, "Kakashi, Obito, their goal is to wear down our stamina. If this keeps up, we'll never break through."
Nohara Rin glanced at the sky again. The Earth Flow Walls cut it into long strips.
They could no longer tell north from south, east from west. All they could see was blue sky.
"We can't even figure out which way we're going."
Kakashi frowned too, studying the sky as he thought. Just as he was about to speak, another group of Rock Ninja pressed in.
The fighting started again. The three-person team had no choice but to keep moving, trying to separate the enemy so they could take them down one by one while also searching for a way to break through. They didn't know that the Rock Ninja were already short on manpower. The two commanders, Hikari and Demon Leech, had also mixed in with the group of Rock Ninja—like vipers lying in wait.
Obito swung his kunai, deflecting more than ten shuriken, then threw two back. When he reached into his ninja pouch, he found that he'd run out of shuriken.
He'd filled the pouch to the brim—ten to a stack, a hundred in all. The heavy pouch was empty.
"Ah!" "Agh!"
But even those last two shuriken had drawn screams from two Rock Ninja.
One had a shuriken pierce through his eye socket and lodge directly in his brain, bursting his eyeball in a spray of blood. The other had a shuriken slice through his throat and around the large artery on the right side of his neck. The spinning shuriken nearly cut through his bone, but finally got stuck.
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