"Your reputation is well deserved, sir. What incredible speed!"
Several figures were locked in a fierce struggle on a patch of flat ground. They were deep in the woods, a place that should have been thick with vegetation. Judging by the devastation around them, though, it was clear these people had no respect for the environment...
The speaker was a man radiating a chilling aura. It was obvious that he was a foreigner to the locals here: his skin was so excessively yellow-brown that it was almost dark brown!
His clothes also differed greatly from those of Iwagakure and Konoha, and the Forehead Protector tied around his head revealed his identity at a glance—a Cloud Ninja!
But although he radiated a chilling aura, he was anything but cold when he attacked. In fact, he was excessively hot-blooded. He formed a few hand seals, and amid a series of rumbling booms, a vast swath of lightning appeared and crashed toward his enemy...
Lightning Release was the mainstay of Kumogakure, and it seemed this man was no exception...
"I can't believe you Cloud Ninja actually joined forces with Iwagakure."
A figure kept flickering about at an unbelievable speed. The Cloud Ninja's fierce barrage had not landed a single hit; he dodged every attack.
Needless to say, the only person with speed this absurd was the Yellow Flash, Namikaze Minato...
He was facing attacks from five ninjas: three from Iwagakure and two from Kumogakure. All five were undoubtedly elite Jonin, and the proof was that there wasn't a single body on the ground!
Kumogakure was said to have the strongest offensive power of the Five Great Shinobi Villages. These two Cloud Ninja had used Lightning Release Chakra to strengthen their bodies and boost their speed. They had also infused their weapons with an intensely powerful flow of chakra. The dazzling lightning could practically blind an ordinary person.
The three Rock Ninja, on the other hand, lacked such speed, but possessed absurd defensive power and strength. One of them clearly had a bloodline ability to rely on; nearly every punch he threw came with an explosion, and he could smash a huge hole in the ground with a single blow...
Even as a fellow Jonin, Minato was so formidable that he had still been forced into a disadvantage for the moment. He wanted to escape, but he hadn't left coordinates anywhere else beforehand, and the Flying Thunder God Technique had a limited range. Naturally, he couldn't use it to leave.
But that wasn't what bothered him most. Whenever he tried to counterattack, the Cloud Ninja would fly backward, leaving the three Rock Ninja to press in. Wind countered lightning, but it was far less effective against earth. Unless they stood still and took Minato's attacks head-on, ordinary attacks were practically useless against their mastery of the Hardening Technique.
Minato dodged another sudden attack from a Cloud Ninja, and the cold light in his eyes grew more intense. Even the most patient person had a limit; their utterly disgusting fighting style had already made him plenty angry.
Did these people think he could only use the Flying Thunder God Technique?
"Keep it up! Don't let him move!"
Suddenly, a Rock Ninja at the rear shouted and slapped a hand against the ground.
"Earth Release! Earth Style: Earth Flow Burial!"
"Rumble, rumble..."
To everyone's astonishment, the entire stretch of earth flipped upward like a towering wave, then came crashing down toward the spot where Minato stood!
"Damn it!"
"Zuomen, you bastard!"
Seeing the massive wave of earth and stone bearing down on them, the two Cloud Ninja who had been fighting Minato turned black with rage and cursed loudly. Then they turned and ran...
What the hell? If they didn't move, they'd be buried alive! They couldn't use Earth Release!
The "wave" made of earth and stone was enormous. It was going to engulf all three of them...
"So you knew I'd marked the ground... But that still wasn't enough!"
Looking at the landslide covering the sky, Minato merely sneered. His entire body vanished from where he stood.
When he reappeared, he was directly behind the Rock Ninja who had used the technique!
They had been fighting here for a long time. Minato had stepped on nearly every inch of the area, leaving countless marks. In other words, everywhere Minato had stepped, he had left a mark!
That Rock Ninja had flipped up the entire ground precisely for this reason: by tearing away the surface, he could erase the marks. Unfortunately, he couldn't reach the ground behind him...
The Flying Thunder God Technique might not have been the strongest Space-Time Ninjutsu, but it was definitely one of the most troublesome!
After teleporting successfully, Minato didn't waste a moment. He raised the Kunai in his hand and stabbed it toward the Rock Ninja's temple. Even before it reached him, the whistle of the blade through the air left little to the imagination...
"Not a chance!"
The other two Rock Ninja had started rushing toward their comrade the moment Minato vanished, and they arrived just in time.
Both men flicked their wrists at almost the same moment, causing two short blades to spring from each of their sleeves. Then they drove them viciously down toward Minato!
"Clang!"
All four blades missed. Minato leapt into the air, dodged the attack, and landed in the distance. But the two Cloud Ninja caught up again, and he was soon locked in combat with them...
This was why Minato had been unable to use any other ninjutsu so far: he simply couldn't spare a hand...
But compared with him, the Rock Ninja and Cloud Ninja Jonin were even more frustrated and anxious, because they had been fighting for far too long!
And this was exactly what the group of Sunagakure Ninja who had just arrived saw...
"What's going on? Why are there so many of them!? And Cloud Ninja, too!"
From a distance, across the battlefield, Tsang Yeh's expression was extremely grim.
"Cloud Ninja counter Rock Ninja. They should be sworn enemies. How did the Rock Ninja end up working with them?"
The Sunagakure Ninja had all dropped to the ground as soon as they spotted the figures. A few of them, Qi included, were even shoved down by the Sunagakure Ninja nearby, nearly getting a mouthful of dirt...
"Sir, something's wrong here. The situation at Iwagakure is nothing like this!"
A Special Jonin from Sunagakure spoke in a low voice.
"What do we do now?"
The alliance between the Rock Ninja and Cloud Ninja was truly terrifying: five genuine elite Jonin. If they killed Minato, they would be more than enough to wipe out their entire team.
Take those three Rock Ninja, for instance. If they worked together to use a powerful Earth Release technique, they could bury at least half of the team in the earth to fertilize the ground...
Anyone who used elemental techniques had to worry about the interactions between the different natures. It didn't matter how powerful a fighter was; the rules were the same. After all, these were the most common types of ninjutsu, and on a battlefield they could be disastrous.
The Sunagakure Ninja, who specialized in Wind Release, weren't exactly countered by the Rock Ninja, who specialized in Earth Release, but they had very few advantages, either. Otherwise, they wouldn't have allied with Konoha.
Only a hodgepodge like Konoha had nothing to fear. It had experts in almost every kind of technique. Konoha's Ninja Army never restricted itself to a single type of elemental technique in battle. You could find users of all five basic natures there, not to mention all sorts of secret techniques that didn't even fall under the category of elemental techniques.
There was a saying: "Those with a clear conscience fear no ghosts knocking at their door." But these Sunagakure Ninja were the exact opposite. They had come here to do something underhanded, and they were going behind everyone's back...
They had planned to kill the Rock Ninja along with Minato, then claim afterward that Minato had killed them, all while working with their contacts on the Iwagakure side. Now that they had seen this lineup, how could they not feel guilty? Iwagakure and Sunagakure were openly enemies, and the agreement they had made in secret could never see the light of day...
Looking at the scene before them, no matter how they considered it, it seemed that once Minato was dead, they'd be next. Unless Minato could take all five elite Jonin down with him—or, even more incredibly, defeat them outright. After all, Minato wouldn't attack the Sunagakure Ninja of his own accord...
And they guessed, perhaps, maybe, probably—even certainly—that after the Rock Ninja finished them off, the leader of the Sunagakure Militant Faction would receive the very same excuse they had originally planned to give the people of Iwagakure!
Damn it, this joke... had gone way too far...