Minato left with Kakashi and Nohara Rin. He wrapped an arm around each of them, flashed away in an instant, and disappeared. The next moment, he was back on the main battlefield.
The terrain had been completely transformed. Towering balls of earth stood amid the bodies of Rock Ninja scattered everywhere. A dry, charred smell filled the air, and the ground beneath their feet was hot.
"What happened here?" Kakashi asked in surprise, lifting one foot off the ground.
"This is what's left of the Fire Style..." Minato said. "Kin is practically a born battlefield artist. A group of wounded shinobi, relying on their still-rough Fire Style, not only repelled the Rock Ninja's first assault but also dealt them a devastating blow in the battle just now.
"With one army facing another, they broke through the Rock Ninja's defenses shortly after the initial clash of ninjutsu and gained the upper hand..."
Minato couldn't help but marvel. He had played a major role in the battle too, using Flying Thunder God to pick off important enemy targets and setting a record by killing fifty-two Rock Ninja in seven seconds.
But Minato believed that even without his support, victory in this battle had been all but certain under Uchiha Kin's command.
It would only have been a matter of whether it was "difficult" or "easy."
He was the one carrying out the fighting on the ground.
Uchiha Kin, however, was the one commanding the entire army!
The battle had only just ended—and it had come to an abrupt halt the moment the explosion at Kannagi Bridge rang out.
The Rock Ninja's lifeline—their supply route—had been destroyed. With their supplies cut off, they had immediately chosen to retreat.
It was their only choice!
"The fighting here was intense," Nohara Rin remarked. This battlefield had affected her more than most. From the Third Great Ninja War until today, she had never seen a battlefield so horrific, so gruesome, so nauseating.
"To create an opening for you to infiltrate, we kept the fighting here extremely intense. The goal was to pin them down and draw the Rock Ninja from Kannagi Bridge here as reinforcements, making it easier for you to sneak in."
As he spoke, Minato led Kakashi and Nohara Rin toward the rear.
The Hidden Leaf shinobi were cleaning up the battlefield. Uchiha Kin sat cross-legged with a scroll in front of him, writing and drawing on it as people reported to him. He looked up, saw the three of them, and called out, "Minato, you're just in time. I need your help!
"We're running out of scrolls for collecting the bodies. We need to make some more. The thing is... we're short on sealing specialists!"
He was swamped with the aftermath of the battle. There were bodies to collect, wounded to treat, casualties to tally, one task after another. He had no time to exchange pleasantries with Minato. After speaking, he glanced at Kakashi and Nohara Rin. "Looks like Obito's out of commission for now." Then, pretending not to know, he asked, "Obito?"
"Obito sacrificed himself," Kakashi said. Uchiha Kin fell silent and continued with his work. Only after a long while did he murmur, "Oh."
A few dozen seconds later, he seemed to remember something and said to the two of them, "Go get some rest. I'm a little busy here..."
By the time the battle ended, night had already fallen. In the short time since, it had grown completely dark.
Uchiha Kin found a moment to use the Shadow Secret Technique. He briefly swept in a narrow arc toward Kannagi Bridge and got in touch with his shadow clone, Nara Tama.
"Huh?" After receiving Nara Tama's memories, Uchiha Kin was utterly speechless. "It wasn't the Mangekyo, but the Sharingan? All that effort I went to was for nothing... My calculations were sound, but I remembered it wrong. What a pity...
"Still, I did implant nerves in Obito's body, so it wasn't all for nothing. But taking that eye won't be easy now."
He didn't want to reveal himself to Uchiha Madara and Black Zetsu.
After thinking it over, he felt conflicted again. Honestly, if I didn't know what Obito would become in the future, I'd feel pretty sorry for him.
At the other end of the Shadow Secret Technique, Nara Tama severed the connection and glanced up at the sky. The dark night was cool and tranquil as water. Without the war, it would have been beautiful and peaceful.
"I should leave this battlefield first. The Three-Tails... I need to head to the eastern front..." He carefully hid himself in the shadows, gliding through the night as he left the battlefield and made his way toward the eastern front.
They worked until well after midnight, around three in the morning, before the entire battlefield had finally been cleared and the casualties tallied.
Excluding Minato Squad, the Hidden Leaf had sent 312 people into battle, with 37 killed. The number of Rock Ninja who had fought was unknown, but as many as 3,677 had been killed—one hundred times the Hidden Leaf's losses.
It was an outrageous casualty ratio.
Aside from the dead, the Hidden Leaf had no wounded.
Uchiha Kin had swept across the battlefield with his Nerve Secret Technique, treating the Hidden Leaf shinobi in an exceptionally simple, crude, and effective way. As long as they hadn't been unlucky enough to die instantly from an enemy technique—
For example, being crushed flat by an Earth Mausoleum Ball, or buried alive and squeezed into a pulp by the immense pressure underground—as long as they still had a breath in them, Uchiha Kin could "improvise" and replace their parts, keeping them alive!
If an arm was injured, he'd use the Mystical Palm Technique for a minor wound. If it was too severe to heal at once and the arm couldn't be used, he'd simply chop it off, find a Rock Ninja's arm, and graft it on. In an instant, they'd be back on their feet, full of energy!
The Hidden Leaf's three hundred or so shinobi were practically an army of the undead. By the end of the battle, the Rock Ninja were terrified!
They had more people, and wills as solid as rock... but these enemies just wouldn't die.
Minato walked over, looking exhausted, and sat down beside Uchiha Kin. He wanted to talk with him for a while.
People could be strange sometimes. If Uchiha Kin were still the Medical Ninja from the field hospital, Minato Namikaze probably wouldn't have come over so casually to sit beside him and talk at a time like this. Minato said, "This really was an incredible victory!
"The Rock Ninja may be lacking as individual fighters, but they've always excelled at large-scale battles and using sheer numbers. That's always been a headache for the other hidden villages...
"I never expected them to suffer such a heavy loss at your hands!"
"Just wait," Uchiha Kin said. "The Rock Ninja will send someone to negotiate with us soon. When that happens..."
"When it comes to negotiations..." Minato Namikaze said, "Kin, you won this battle. So you should lead the negotiations this time. I'll serve as your guard, protect you, and keep the other side in check."
Minato Namikaze also explained his reasoning—
"You're far better than I am at understanding the international situation, so you're the best person to lead the negotiations."
"Then I won't stand on ceremony!"
Uchiha Kin smiled.
Before you continue