Shimura Danzō was definitely not the kind of ninja who could cut his way through an entire battlefield alone. He fell short in both strength and courage; he was neither the Konoha White Fang nor the Yellow Flash.
Danzō was only an Elite Jonin. Aside from the unorthodox self-modifications he made later, his overall abilities were actually inferior to Kakashi's in his later years.
Well, saying "inferior" seemed a little insulting to Kakashi. There were very few Jonin who could consistently get the better of him.
As for battle sense and adaptability in combat, there wasn't much to say. Danzō simply had a style all his own—he could use Izanagi like the Substitution Technique, and he had even tried to pierce Susanoo with a kunai.
In that regard, he was actually a lot like Sasuke Uchiha. During the Pacific War, when Sasuke had been backed into a corner, he had even tried to leap at the Yata Mirror with a melee weapon in hand.
In short, Shimura Danzō's personality alone meant he would never choose to face the Second Kazekage by himself. He had to bring his "underlings" along.
Over in the Land of Rivers, the Second Kazekage, who had remained still all this time, was finally about to make a move.
The Second Kazekage had held back at first to give Konoha enough time to respond. By now, the Konoha camp had surely received the relevant intelligence, so the Second Kazekage was going to start pushing Konoha to act quickly.
When facing an enemy like him, Konoha's commander couldn't afford to hesitate, could he? No problem—the Kazekage could make the decision for Konoha.
In the eyes of the Konoha Ninja around him, the Second Kazekage, who had been standing motionless, suddenly raised his left arm, trembling as he held it out.
That single movement was enough to make the surrounding Konoha Ninja tighten their grips on their kunai.
"Be careful! His chakra flow is changing rapidly!" someone shouted.
Some Konoha Ninja could easily see the changes in their enemy's chakra. But what good did seeing them do? Could they stop his jutsu?
"Is it the Byakugan? Those Hyuga ninja are a real nuisance," the Second Kazekage, Shamon, thought to himself.
As he thought this, the trembling in his outstretched arm suddenly stopped. He swept it forward with one hand, and the ground beside him surged violently, as if a spring had appeared out of nowhere.
Only what poured from this spring wasn't water. It was sand.
First it welled up, then it burst forth and surged onward.
At the Kazekage's command, the sand cascaded forward like a tidal wave, crashing toward the Konoha Ninja. The attack swept over those who couldn't escape in time like a landslide and a tsunami. Then the sand began to contract violently, like a towel being wrung out.
Was this Sandstorm Funeral?
The unlucky Konoha Ninja immediately lost every last bit of vitality. They would be quiet for the rest of their lives.
This method of controlling sand was extremely versatile in both offense and defense. It was difficult to call it a mere ninjutsu; it seemed more like a special form of chakra transformation and application.
Its origins could be traced back to Shukaku, the One-Tail. The Second Kazekage had studied the One-Tail's chakra in depth.
"Fall back! Fall back! Don't get close to him. Attack from a distance..."
It was easy enough to see that there was no way to fight an enemy like this at close range. The principle was simple, but putting it into practice was difficult... The Kazekage's attacks clearly had greater range. To reach him with ordinary ninjutsu, they would first have to enter his attack range.
For an average ninja, mid-range ninjutsu had an attack range of only five to ten meters. Anything beyond ten meters could be considered long-range ninjutsu, though even then the range rarely exceeded twenty meters.
In other words, ninja were all short-armed fighters. Most ninjutsu had less range than a shuriken.
The Konoha Ninja retreated while attacking with throwing weapons, but their attacks were easily stopped by the flowing wall of sand.
Yuzuru watched from farther away. The Kazekage's method of attack clearly belonged to the same branch as Gaara's, but compared to Gaara's fine control, the Second Kazekage—the starting point of the technique—was much cruder.
Although the Kazekage wasn't a Jinchuriki, Yuzuru had reason to suspect that he had "borrowed" some of Shukaku's chakra.
"Captain, what should we do? Our squad specializes in close combat..." Shinnosuke Kohinata asked.
As he spoke, he casually flung a kunai toward the enemy, an Exploding Tag attached to it. As expected, the Kazekage blocked it.
The kunai and Exploding Tag sank into the sand like stones into water. Not even an explosion could be heard.
"The enemy has already attacked. We have to join the fight, no matter what," Kiba Inuzuka said.
If the Eleventh Squad joined the battle, they might as well be walking to their deaths. But they had no choice. Only two options lay before them: stand by while their allies were in danger, or try to help and likely die.
Simply fleeing the battlefield was clearly not something this captain was considering.
Fortunately, they didn't need to launch an attack themselves just yet. Shinnosuke Kohinata's attack had drawn some of the Kazekage's attention, and then they understood the true situation on the battlefield... The Kazekage really was surrounding all the Konoha Ninja by himself.
Because...
Sand surged, and one "sand soldier" after another emerged from it. Some were something like "sand clones," while others were the corpses of Konoha Ninja who had just been killed.
They were being controlled.
"Puppet Technique..." Kiba Inuzuka's expression darkened.
The Puppet Technique had developed along a line from the Second Kazekage, Shamon, to Monzaemon, and then to Chiyo. The technique had originated with the Second Kazekage and reached maturity with Monzaemon.
Usually, the trouble with the Puppet Technique was that you couldn't get close to the Puppet Master until you dealt with the puppets, and that the puppets were covered in poison. But what Kiba Inuzuka found hard to accept now was that the Kazekage was making puppets out of the corpses of Konoha Ninja.
A ninja's body was fragile and not a good material for puppets. The Kazekage was clearly doing this just to disgust them.
The psychological effect was immediate. Someone in the squad grew angry at once.
Might Duy first watched the blood-soaked Konoha Ninja staggering around like zombies, then turned his gaze toward the Kazekage. In a tone unlike his usual one, he said:
"Looks like the Kazekage doesn't have much magnanimity."
Uh, how did he come to that conclusion? If manipulating corpses meant someone had no magnanimity and wasn't fit to be a Kage, then what did that make the Second Hokage? He didn't just manipulate corpses—he even manipulated souls.
As they spoke, the sand soldiers and puppets closed in around them.
"Get ready to—"
The captain hadn't finished speaking when someone on the other side was already powering up.
"Eight Gates: First Gate, Gate of Opening—open!"
"Second Gate, Gate of Healing—open!"
"Third Gate, Gate of Life—open!"
"Fourth Gate, Gate of Pain—open!"
"Fifth Gate, Gate of Limit—open!"
Might Duy was being a little too impassioned. To the astonished gazes of the other squad members, he opened five gates in a row.
Yuzuru thought, He's going all out right from the start? That's really not necessary. They could test the enemy's strength a little at a time.
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