White Zetsu Attack, Naruto Leaves Training

After the wood shavings incident, the Allied Forces headquarters raised its alert level to the maximum. The special investigation team led by Kakashi worked day and night, combing through ancient Wood Style records from the Five Great Nations, but that lead was like a fish sinking into deep water—its scales occasionally flashed before it vanished back into the darkness. Meanwhile, patrols around the camp doubled in frequency. Every patrol squad was assigned at least two sensory-type shinobi, and any abnormal Chakra fluctuation had to be reported to headquarters within ten seconds.

But the enemy did not give them ten seconds.

Before dawn on the sixth day, a patrol squad thirty miles northwest of the camp reported finding unidentified enemies. The report lasted only four seconds before communications cut off. It was not interference—the sender, a Chunin from the Cloud Village, had been dragged underground by something after saying only, "Found enem—"

When the reinforcements arrived, there were no bodies and no bloodstains, only a patch of churned earth that looked as though it had been plowed. The jonin leading the team crouched down to inspect it and saw faint wriggling on the surface, as though something were slowly moving beneath the ground. He immediately ordered everyone off the ground and into the nearest trees. His judgment saved half the reinforcement squad. The other half were seized by the ankles by pale arms that burst from the earth the instant they jumped, then dragged deep into the soil. Seconds later, those pale arms emerged elsewhere, clutching forehead protectors and ninja tool pouches stripped from the dead.

That was the Shinobi Allied Forces' first direct encounter with White Zetsu.

When word reached the camp, the Raikage immediately ordered the entire army into combat readiness. But White Zetsu's methods of attack were unlike