The explosion boomed dozens of miles away, and the gale it kicked up sent the Cloud Ninja's clothes whipping and snapping.
"What happened? Go check it out, quickly!"
A trace of surprise crossed A's face. Then his expression darkened as he gave the order.
"An attack?!"
"Could Uzumaki Kuming have gone back on his word and decided to ambush our Cloud Ninja here?!" The thought had barely occurred to the Raikage when he quickly dismissed it.
"No. With his strength, he could have come straight for me. He had plenty of chances to kill me last night, too. He probably didn't cause the explosion."
"Then who did?!"
As A pondered, an Anbu from the Cloud Ninja hurried up to him and reported, "Lord Raikage, the road ahead has collapsed. We'll need Earth Style specialists to rebuild it."
"We haven't figured out exactly what caused the explosion yet, but the collapse was probably caused by it!"
The Anbu quickly relayed the information he had gathered. Then he watched the Raikage stride past him toward the site of the explosion.
"I'll go take a look myself," A said as he walked.
"Something like this happening at a time like this can't be a coincidence. Whoever did it is probably targeting our Cloud Ninja!"
Under the Raikage's command, a large group of Cloud Ninja Jonin surged to the front of the formation and saw the road ahead in ruins.
They were on a high mountain, and there was only one road back to the Land of Moon. But now the winding mountain path had been completely destroyed. The blast had triggered a landslide, and a hundred-meter stretch of road, buried beneath tons of boulders, had slid down the steep slope into the valley.
A Chunin could cross the gap with ease, but many