A Man of Temperament

Shimura Danzo was by no means a ninja who could single-handedly sweep across the battlefield. He lacked the strength and the boldness; he was neither the "Konoha White Fang" nor the "Yellow Flash."

Danzō was merely an elite Jonin. Excluding the self-modifications he later underwent through unorthodox methods, his personal overall skill level was even inferior to that of Kakashi later on.

Alright, perhaps the word "even" is a bit insulting to Kakashi; there weren't many Jonin who could consistently outperform him.

As for combat intelligence and operational adaptability, there was nothing to be said. One could only say Danzō had a unique style—he could use "Izanagi" as a Substitution Technique and even attempted to pierce Susanoo with a kunai.

In this regard, his performance was actually similar to Sasuke Uchiha's. During the Pacific War, when Sasuke Uchiha was pushed to a desperate situation, he too had resorted to wielding cold weapons and leaping to attack the Yata Mirror.

In short, purely due to his personality, Shimura Danzō would not have chosen to face the Second Kazekage alone. He had to bring his "minions" along.

On the side of the Land of Rivers, the Second Kazekage, who had been maintaining his silence, was finally making a move.

The Second Kazekage's initial inaction was to give the Konoha side enough time to react. By now, the Konoha camp must have received the relevant intelligence, so the Second Kazekage would now proceed to urge Konoha to act quickly.

Facing an enemy like him, the Konoha commander couldn't possibly remain indecisive, right? It's fine, the Kazekage could make the decision for Konoha.

In the eyes of the surrounding Konoha ninja, the Second Kazekage, who had been quiet all along, suddenly began to tremble as he raised his left arm.

This action alone immediately caused the surrounding Konoha ninja to tighten their grip on their kunai.

"Be careful! His chakra flow is changing rapidly!" someone shouted loudly.

Some Konoha ninja could easily see through the chakra changes on an enemy, but what was the point of just seeing through it? Could they withstand the enemy's techniques?

"Is it the Byakugan? Hyuga ninja are such a hassle," the Second Kazekage, Shamon, mused inwardly.

Thinking thus, the arm he had raised stopped trembling. Immediately after, he swung his hand forward, and in the next moment, the ground beside his body surged violently, as if a "spring eye" had suddenly appeared out of nowhere on the ground.

Except, what gushed out of this spring eye was not spring water, but fine sand.

First, a surge, then an eruption and a torrent.

Under the Kazekage's command, the sandfall, surging like ocean waves, immediately rushed towards the direction of the Konoha ninja. The mountain-collapsing, sea-roaring attack instantly engulfed the Konoha ninja who couldn't escape in time. Then, the sand began to contract violently, as if it were a towel being wrung dry.

What is this, Sandstorm Funeral?

Those unlucky Konoha ninja immediately lost all vitality and fell into eternal silence.

This method of controlling sand for attack was extremely comprehensive in both offense and defense. It was difficult to call it a simple ninjutsu; it was more like a special transformation and usage of chakra.

If its origin were to be traced, it could be traced back to Shukaku, the One-Tailed Beast—the Second Kazekage had deeply studied Shukaku's chakra.

"Fall back, fall back, don't get close to the opponent, attack from a distance..."

It was impossible to engage in close combat with such an enemy. This judgment was easily made, but while the principle was simple, putting it into practice was difficult... The Kazekage's attack range was clearly longer. For most ninjutsu to reach him, one had to first step into his attack range.

For ordinary ninja, so-called mid-range ninjutsu had an attack range of only five to ten meters. Anything beyond ten meters could be considered long-range ninjutsu, and it would rarely exceed twenty meters.

This meant that ninja were actually short-limbed, and the range of most ninjutsu was shorter than the range of shuriken.

The Konoha ninja retreated while using throwing tools to attack, but such attacks were easily blocked by the flowing sand wall.

Yuzuru observed from a distance. The Kazekage's attack method was clearly in the same series as Gaara's later on, but compared to Gaara's refined control, the Second Kazekage, as the starting point of the technique, was much rougher.

Although this Kazekage was not a Jinchuriki, Yuzuru had reason to suspect that the opponent had "borrowed" Shukaku's chakra.

"Captain, what do we do? Our squad is purely close-combat..." Shinnosuke Kohinata asked.

As he spoke, he casually threw a kunai towards the enemy's direction. The kunai also had an Exploding Tag attached to it, but this attempt was, as expected, blocked.

The kunai and Exploding Tag sank into the sand, disappearing like a clay ox entering the sea, without even a sound of an explosion.

"The enemy has started attacking, we have no choice but to join the fray," Kiba Inuzuka said.

The participation of Squad Eleven was tantamount to suicide, yet they had no choice but to do so because there were only two paths before them: either remain unmoved while their allies were in danger, or attempt to rush to their deaths.

Directly fleeing the battlefield was clearly not within the captain's considerations.

Fortunately, they didn't have to attack proactively next. Shinnosuke Kohinata's previous attack had attracted some of the Kazekage's attention, and then they understood the true battlefield situation... It was indeed the Kazekage alone surrounding all the Konoha ninja.

Because...

Sand waves surged, and "sand soldiers" emerged from the sand. Some of them were clone-like entities similar to "sand clones," while others were the corpses of the Konoha ninja who had just died.

They were being controlled.

"Puppet Technique..." Kiba Inuzuka's expression turned grim.

The developmental lineage of the Puppet Technique was the Second Kazekage Shamon—Monzaemon—Chiyo. The technique originated with the Second Kazekage and matured with Monzaemon.

Under normal circumstances, the trouble with the Puppet Technique lay in the fact that one couldn't get close to the puppeteer before dealing with the puppets, and that the puppets were often poisoned. However, Kiba Inuzuka found it somewhat difficult to accept that the Puppet Technique was being used because this Kazekage was tampering with the corpses of Konoha ninja.

The physical bodies of ninja were not good materials for puppets. The opponent was clearly doing this to be disgusting.

And this psychological attack was immediately effective; someone in the squad immediately became angry.

Might Duy looked at the blood-soaked Konoha ninja moving like zombies, then shifted his gaze towards the Kazekage. Then, he spoke in a tone different from his usual one:

"The so-called Kazekage seems to lack magnanimity."

Uh, how was that judged? If manipulating corpses meant lacking magnanimity and being unworthy of being a Kage, then what about the Second Hokage? He not only manipulated corpses but even souls.

As he spoke, the sand soldiers and puppets had already surrounded them.

"Prepare to meet..."

Before the captain could finish speaking, someone over there was already unleashing their inner power.

"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 a bit too impulsive. Under the astonished gazes of the other team members, he opened five gates in a row.

Yuzuru thought to himself, Going all out from the start? It's really not necessary, we could test the combat strength slowly.