Neither Ōnoki nor Genma wanted the other to appear on the battlefield.
Their destructive power was simply too terrifying. Ordinary ninja stood no chance against them.
If Ōnoki drained his chakra reserves and pushed himself to unleash large-scale Dust Release, even Jiraiya and the others could not stop him. They could only flee using the Reverse Summoning Technique and Summoning Talismans.
And so the standoff continued.
Genma actually thought they could bring Sarutobi Hiruzen to the battlefield. Whether he replaced Genma in the standoff with Ōnoki or personally led a charge, he could quickly break the deadlock.
For some reason, though, Jiraiya and the others had no such intention.
Another three days passed in a flash.
Yamashiro Aoba brought news: Kusagakure wanted an alliance with Konoha and hoped Konoha would help resist Amegakure's invasion.
Konoha agreed to the alliance, but reinforcements would have to wait until they had repelled Iwagakure.
"I heard Kusagakure is losing ground everywhere. Amegakure seems intent on wiping them out in one go."
Yamashiro Aoba sighed, then asked, "Genma, do you think that's possible?"
Genma considered it before saying, "There's a fairly good chance."
"Without Iwagakure holding him back, Hanzo can take action himself. Kusagakure has no answer to his deadly poison."
Kusagakure excelled at studying other villages' ninjutsu, but countering Ibuse's biological poison was not its specialty.
Even Konoha, with someone like Tsunade, had been unable to develop a true antidote.
They had only made progress after obtaining cell samples from Ibuse. Kusagakure could forget about that.
What puzzled Genma, however, was that information about Iwagakure's dealings with Amegakure was not hard to obtain. Why had Konoha not stopped them?
Or had they tried and failed?
Their current approach essentially meant abandoning Kusagakure anyway. In that case, they might as well trade Kusagakure for continued