The Second Raikage quickly formed hand seals:
Water Release: Water Treading Wave—
A massive wave rose from the ground behind A, the Second Raikage. By his rough estimate, it was at least ten meters wide and ten meters tall.
They were in the middle of a forest, far from any water source. The nearest one was at least a kilometer away!
He was a monster!
Yuya gritted his teeth, waiting for the huge wave to crash into the golden boulder.
But the instant they made contact, the gold coating on the boulder's surface quickly peeled away, revealing the enormous stone beneath...
"What?!" The Second Raikage's eyes widened. He immediately understood: there was no way a boulder that huge could be entirely made of gold. The kid had been bluffing!
Yuya brought his hands together.
Earth Release: Earth Sealing Formation—
Under the influence of Yuya's chakra, the boulder in midair shattered into chunks. They broke through the wave and trapped the Second Raikage beneath a pile of stone.
Yuya turned and kept running. The wave crashed down behind him, sweeping Shimura Danzō and the others apart. All right, they'd backed down before, and now they couldn't help even if they wanted to.
Kagami Uchiha was slammed against a tree trunk by the wave and nearly drowned in it.
Fortunately, they were on dry land, with no water source nearby. Otherwise, getting swept up in it really would have drowned him.
With a crash, the Second Raikage broke through the stone seal, his murderous intent growing even stronger.
For someone so young to have this much strength—what would happen if he were allowed to keep growing?!
That kid had to die here today!
As before, the Second Raikage didn't even glance at the gravely wounded Kagami Uchiha. Lightning crackled over his body as he charged after Yuya at high speed.
Yuya felt awful. He'd known that the Earth Release sealing jutsu he'd only learned a few days ago wouldn't hold the Second Raikage, but this was ridiculous!
Had it even trapped him for three seconds?!
Not even one, right?!
Yuya cursed his luck, but his hands kept moving. He pulled out another scroll, took a piece of gold from it, and used his ability to shape it into a cone. Then he turned and sent it hurtling toward the approaching Second Raikage.
The Second Raikage sneered at the golden cone, about as long as an adult was tall, with a sharp point.
Again?
He formed a hand seal and spat a stream of Water Release at the oncoming cone.
But this time, the golden cone didn't lose momentum when it hit the water. It didn't turn into stone like before, either.
It kept hurtling toward the Second Raikage.
What?!
The Second Raikage was shocked, but he knew it was already too late. He reached out and grabbed the cone by its tip...
So heavy!
With a sharp scrape, the Second Raikage managed to move his body out of the way, dodging the blow, though it shaved off some flesh from his shoulder.
The Second Raikage stared grimly at the golden cone on the ground, then looked at Yuya with a trace of scorn. "I see. This thing is different from that trick you pulled earlier, when you made stone look like gold. This is real gold, isn't it?"
Yuya looked at the Second Raikage. When he saw the man waiting for an answer, he turned and ran.
For fuck's sake, did he think Yuya was an idiot who'd answer every question he asked?!
Furious, the Second Raikage cloaked himself in Lightning Release chakra once more, pushed off the ground, and raced after Yuya.
Yuya flung out another scroll. A cone as tall as a person took ten tons of gold. Of course he could use more, but then it would be too large and easy to dodge.
Against someone on the Second Raikage's level, a bigger target was useless. He was too agile.
"It's no use!" the Second Raikage roared. Moving like he had teleported, he appeared at Yuya's side.
Yuya's pupils shrank. On reflex, he moved the gold he'd just pulled out to his side, blocking the Second Raikage's powerful punch.
The punch struck ten tons of gold, crushing and deforming it.
Yuya was also hit in the chest by the stray Lightning Release chakra. His body went numb in an instant, and he caught the smell of his own scorched flesh...
"Ha!"
The Second Raikage punched the golden cone away, sending it—and Yuya—flying backward. Yuya turned the gold into liquid to shield himself, but when he crashed into a tree, he felt as if his internal organs had been badly damaged.
From the moment the Second Raikage appeared until now, Yuya hadn't even taken a single direct hit from him. Even after he'd just let his guard down, he'd still ended up gravely wounded...
The gap between them was too great...
The Second Raikage stared coldly at the boy who had bounced off the tree and now struggled to get back up.
Sorry, kid.
If you wanted someone to blame, blame yourself for not being from Kumogakure.
The Second Raikage wasn't the type to waste time taunting an opponent who couldn't move.
Now that he'd chosen his target...
He had to finish Yuya off himself...
Yuya's vision blurred. Was he really going to die here today...?
Clang!
A kunai, also cloaked in chakra, blocked the Second Raikage's attack in front of Yuya.
Yuya felt relieved. You took long enough, Uncle...
He passed out, at ease.
Senju Tobirama felt relieved, too.
He'd suspected as much, but he hadn't thought that bastard Second Raikage would actually make Yuya his target.
Fortunately, he'd managed to finish things on his end with everything he had.
Then the Flying Thunder God Mark he'd placed on Yuya had brought him back.
Otherwise, he really wouldn't have been able to stop the Second Raikage.
"You bastard?! Impossible! There's no way my brother could've been taken down so easily by you!"
In Kumogakure, each Raikage had a brother who fought alongside him like family. The Second Raikage's brother was the current Eight-Tails Jinchūriki.
The Second Raikage trusted his younger brother. At most, only a minute or two had passed. How could his brother have been defeated so quickly?
Senju Tobirama's face remained calm. "The Eight-Tails is enormous. That's why I was comfortable coming here."
The Second Raikage's eyes widened in fury. "What do you mean?"
A scornful smile suddenly appeared on Senju Tobirama's face. "Tell me, which would cause a bigger explosion: one Explosive Tag detonating a hundred times, or a hundred Explosive Tags detonating a hundred times each?"
The Second Raikage froze for a moment. Then he heard a thunderous explosion.
How could he not understand? He glared at Senju Tobirama. "You bastard, you actually—"
Senju Tobirama looked at the Second Raikage coldly. "Do you still have time to waste here with me? I didn't hold back. Even the Eight-Tails couldn't withstand more than a hundred Explosive Tags going off for a full minute, could he?"
As he spoke, Senju Tobirama glanced at the Second Raikage's shoulder, where a chunk was missing. "And you... you're injured, too?"
The Second Raikage fell silent, weighing his options. If he ignored the Eight-Tails and his brother's life, and focused entirely on killing Yuya, he could definitely do it.
Senju Tobirama was alone, and he had to protect an unconscious deadweight. How could he possibly manage that?
But the question was...
Was it worth it?
The Second Raikage thought for a few seconds, listening to the unending explosions. He gritted his teeth, turned around, and ran toward the center of the blasts.
After all, never mind that the Eight-Tails' Jinchūriki was his younger brother—the Eight-Tails itself was too valuable to abandon.
The Eight-Tails would be reborn after it died, but what if it came back in another country and was captured by someone there?
A didn't think anyone who captured it would hand it back.
And was there a part of him that wanted to save his younger brother...?
The Second Raikage didn't want to admit it, but he probably did.
Senju Tobirama watched the Second Raikage leave and breathed a sigh of relief.
At least that kid Yuya was safe.
One look at the two enormous golden cones on the battlefield told Senju Tobirama what had happened.
That kid Yuya was pretty capable, it seemed.
But...
There was no way he was letting the little guy take those two golden things back.
June 22, Year 19 of Konoha.
The Second Raikage personally led an elite squad on a decapitation mission against Konoha's main force. The mission failed, and the Eight-Tails' Jinchūriki was gravely wounded.
Konoha lost 148 shinobi. Another 103 were seriously wounded, and 781 sustained other injuries.
After the ambush, Konoha could no longer advance farther into the Land of Lightning. With no other choice, the shinobi withdrew to the front lines in the Land of Fire to recuperate.
Still, one thing was worth noting: during the attack, Kamigane Yuya, at the age of thirteen, had stood his ground against the Second Raikage and inflicted a serious wound on him. The Second Raikage later argued fiercely that the kid had only caught him off guard with one attack, and that he hadn't been seriously wounded at all.
But when asked whether Yuya had indeed injured him, the Second Raikage—who disdained lying—still nodded and admitted it.
For a time, the entire Shinobi World remembered Kamigane Yuya, the thirteen-year-old who had seriously wounded the Second Raikage. (Second Raikage: "I only lost a chunk of flesh! And I had Lightning Release chakra protecting me, so at most it was a minor injury! A minor injury! You dishonest media outlets!")
Even ordinary citizens of Konoha heard his name for the first time.
Later historians discovered that during this war, the Second Raikage had gravely wounded Kamigane Yuya, the future Third Hokage, but Senju Tobirama had stopped him from trying to kill Yuya.
Kumogakure—or rather, the other great nations of the Shinobi World—had lost their only chance to bring Konoha to its knees and let their own villages rise.
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