Watching this, Li Yi didn't continue the pursuit. He had already spent a lot of chakra, and there was no point chasing a cornered enemy. If he went after them now, he could easily walk into an ambush—and that would be trouble.
"We won! We won!" someone shouted. The Konoha shinobi present immediately broke into cheers. Before Li Yi arrived, their battles had always been stalemates, and sometimes they had even been at a disadvantage. After all, the Second Kazekage was far too powerful, and they had no one who could stand against him.
Now Li Yi's arrival had brought them victory, so of course they were all cheering.
"Lord Li Yi is incredible! He badly wounded the Second Kazekage. If not for him, I might've been killed by a Sand shinobi just now!" one Konoha shinobi exclaimed fervently.
Another nodded excitedly. Li Yi's arrival had turned the tide of the battle for them, and it also meant far fewer of their people would die.
What's more, they could bring the war with the Sand shinobi to a swift end. After all, no one liked war. War meant death.
"Whew. Li Yi, are you all right?" Mitokado Homura used the Body Flicker Technique to appear in front of him and ask.
Li Yi shook his head. "The Second Kazekage really lives up to his title. I still let him get away!"
Homura took one look at him, then patted his shoulder. "You did well enough."
Indeed, he had done very well. Without Li Yi, they would still be getting battered by the Hidden Sand Village. At least now the tables had turned.
At the edge of the Land of Wind, the Second Kazekage led his men there. He glanced back and sighed. Li Yi hadn't pursued them, but given Li Yi's ability to fly, even if he had chased after them, whether they could have kept him there was another matter.
The Second Kazekage had lost, but he had made arrangements. Waiting here were not only the contingencies he had set up and a large quantity of Gold Dust, but also the Hidden Sand Village's ultimate weapon: the One-Tails Jinchuriki.
"Bunpuku, come out," the Second Kazekage, Shamon, said with a sigh.
A young monk slowly emerged from the sand. Looking at Shamon, he said, "Second Kazekage, your injuries are severe!"
Shamon said nothing about that. "I'll be counting on you for a while."
Bunpuku nodded. As the Hidden Sand Village's ultimate weapon, there was no question about his strength. What's more, Shukaku had been sealed inside him since he was young, and after all these years, the two of them had grown quite close.
Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so easy for the Second Kazekage to study the Tailed Beasts.
Back in Konoha's camp, Li Yi was summoned to the main tent.
Mitokado Homura, Utatane Koharu, and Akimichi Kufū were all there. When Li Yi entered, the three of them greeted him. He was no longer the child he had once been; he had become one of Konoha's rare elite shinobi.
Li Yi had also become a squad leader in Konoha's Anbu. Given his achievements in this battle, he was more than qualified to become an Anbu Captain.
Don't underestimate the position of Anbu Captain. It was a high-ranking post. Konoha currently had only three Anbu divisions, and commanding one made him a powerful figure.
"Li Yi, how badly did you injure the Second Kazekage?" Homura got straight to the point.
Li Yi thought for a moment. "He should be seriously wounded. He definitely won't recover in less than a month or two!"
The Second Kazekage had aimed that final attack at Li Yi, intending to kill him, but ended up taking the damage himself. On top of that, he had used his ultimate technique to extinguish Li Yi's flames. He must have expended a tremendous amount of chakra. He probably wouldn't recover for months.
Homura was instantly delighted. The tide of the war had turned. The Second Kazekage had kept them pinned down, but now that he was seriously wounded, the Sand shinobi would surely retreat to the border. It would be their turn to attack.
"The Sand shinobi still haven't brought out the One-Tails," Koharu said gravely.
They had been locked in battle with the Second Kazekage for so long and still hadn't seen the Jinchuriki. They were worried that the enemy would unleash him when they attacked.
They shouldn't underestimate a Tailed Beast. It wasn't something an ordinary shinobi could handle.
The three of them looked to Li Yi again. After all, he had dealt with the Two-Tails Jinchuriki, and the Two-Tails had been a Perfect Jinchuriki. Surely he could handle the One-Tails too.
After all, among all the Tailed Beasts, the One-Tails and Two-Tails were the weakest.
You could even say that the Tailed Beasts' strength was determined by the number of tails they had. Just look at the Nine-Tails: even split in half, it could still crush all the other Tailed Beasts.
And the Nine-Tails had simply been unlucky enough to encounter Uchiha Madara first and then Hashirama Senju. Give it anyone else and see what happened. Even the Second, Senju Tobirama, famed for his incredible speed, had been taken down by Kinkaku and Ginkaku, who possessed some of the Nine-Tails' chakra.
So when a Tailed Beast appeared, it wasn't something an ordinary shinobi could deal with.
"If the One-Tails shows up, I should be able to handle it," Li Yi said without hesitation. He wasn't boasting. He really wasn't worried about the One-Tails. Even though the Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails were powerful, it still wouldn't be easy for them to hurt him.
He might not be able to beat them, but he could escape. The other Tailed Beasts who posed a counter to him were Isobu, who wielded water-based abilities; Kokuō's Boil Release; and the Six-Tails' corrosive water. But Li Yi wasn't the sort to rely on brute force alone. A shinobi had to know how to use strategy.
Hearing Li Yi volunteer to deal with the One-Tails, Homura and the others breathed a sigh of relief. Now they could confidently smash the Sand shinobi and bring the fighting here to an end.
The Sand shinobi had been holding them up for a long time. If this dragged on, the shinobi of Iwagakure and Kirigakure would recover, and Konoha would be in trouble.
The three of them then began discussing how to attack the Hidden Sand Village. Li Yi listened for a while, then lost interest. Their strategy wasn't particularly sophisticated: they just needed to crush the enemy head-on and keep them from escaping into the desert, ending the war in a single decisive battle.
Once the Sand shinobi made it into the desert, they would be truly difficult to defeat.
Why did no one attack the Hidden Sand Village? Why did they always go after Konoha instead? Because the Hidden Sand Village was surrounded by desert. Even dogs wouldn't go there—what was the point of attacking it? Resupplying would be difficult, and if things went wrong, the Sand shinobi might even kill you with an ambush.
Even if you did take it, what would that get you? Could you mine all over the place like Rasa? You'd need to be a good miner first. Without their sand-control techniques, it would all be pointless.
In the end, Homura and the others settled on a strategy. They would launch their attack the next day.
Before you continue