Tearing Through the Arena, Breaking Out in a Frenzy

Nawaki did not stop.

The light in the passageway dimmed, and the arena's clamor fell behind them. Mikoto and Kushina followed on either side, and the three of them picked up speed the moment they rounded the corner outside the passage.

They did not get far.

At the end of the passage, three people in ordinary shinobi uniforms blocked the exit. Their expressions were identical, their positions identical, even their breathing rhythms identical.

Root.

"Nawaki Senju, please stop—"

Nawaki did not stop.

The instant his right foot struck the ground, the stone slabs shattered. A wooden stake as thick as a bowl shot from the earth, slammed into the man in the middle's chest, and nailed him to the passage wall.

"So you couldn't even be bothered to say 'make way,' huh?" Kushina poked her head out from behind Nawaki's shoulder and took a look.

The two Root shinobi on either side drew their blades at the same time.

Mikoto's hands were faster than their swords.

Two flashes of cold light. Between the short blades leaving and returning to their sheaths, both men's wrists had already been dislocated, their kunai clattering to the floor. Mikoto kicked them away one by one, clearing the passage.

The three of them rushed out of the exit.

The sunlight was blinding.

In the plaza outside the arena, the crowd was buzzing as they discussed what had happened at the opening. No one noticed the commotion at the passage entrance.

Nawaki looked up.

In the direction of the Senju Clan Compound, the sky was perfectly clear. No smoke, no flames.

But his Sage Body's senses could not lie—at least eighty chakra signatures were colliding violently over there, two of them grotesquely warped.

"Move."

The wooden roots beneath their feet had only just begun to push up through the ground—

Killing intent exploded.

Not from three people. From thirty.

Around the outer stands of the arena, atop the rooftops on both sides of the plaza, even behind the dumpling stalls, dozens of figures simultaneously tore away their disguises and lunged in from every direction.

They were all Root.

Gray masks, standard-issue short blades, silent coordination.

They formed a fan-shaped encirclement, sealing every exit from the plaza.

The nearest one was less than eight meters from Nawaki.

Inside the arena, Orochimaru's voice rang out through an amplification technique. "All spectators, please remain in your seats. The disturbance outside is already being handled—"

He sounded like he was reading a weather forecast.

Nawaki stopped.

Not because he had been blocked. Because he chose to stop.

He tilted his head slightly, looking at the gray masks closing in from every direction.

"Danzō really went all out."

More than thirty Root expendables. This was not the scale of simply "blocking him on the way." This was a formation meant to keep them here even at the cost of exposure.

Which meant—the forces Danzō had deployed at the Senju Clan Compound were even greater than Bai had estimated.

Kushina clenched her fists, a faint red glow seeping through the gaps between her fingers.

Mikoto's Sharingan was fully activated, its three tomoe slowly turning.

"Nawaki." Mikoto's voice was ice-cold. "Will fifteen seconds be enough?"

"More than enough."

Nawaki pressed his hands together.

The chakra of his Sage Body spread out from the surface of his body.

Several nearby civilians in the plaza went weak in the knees and collapsed. It was not genjutsu, nor was it killing intent—it was pure biological instinct. When those at the bottom of the food chain faced an apex predator, their bodies reacted before their minds did.

The Root expendables froze for 0.3 seconds.

Training could suppress fear, but not their heartbeats.

0.3 seconds. Far too long for Nawaki.

"Wood Release: Cutting Technique."

There was no warning.

Dozens of holes exploded across the plaza's stone floor at once, wooden spikes shooting up from underground at such vicious angles that every one of them precisely targeted a gray mask.

The closest expendable was still holding his sword-swinging posture. A wooden spike pierced up through the sole of his foot and burst out through his shoulder blade, nailing his entire body in midair, his feet hanging half a meter above the ground.

The screams did not even have time to merge into a chorus.

Because the wooden spikes kept growing after piercing through their bodies.

Tiny branches spread outward from the wounds, winding around limbs and wrapping around torsos. Within three seconds, every nailed-down Root expendable had grown a layer of wooden shell over their bodies, sealing them inside like bark.

Alive. Not dead. Nawaki had done it deliberately.

Thirty-seven wooden spikes. Thirty-seven human-shaped tree stumps. Neatly arranged across the plaza like a patch of freshly planted saplings.

At the edge of the plaza, an old woman selling dumplings stared at the "tree stump" three steps away from her, and the bamboo skewer slipped from her hand.

The whole process took less than five seconds.

At the arena entrance, shinobi and civilians who had come out to watch the excitement gradually packed into the doorway. The people in front wanted to retreat, but those behind kept pushing forward, clogging it into a mess.

Everyone saw it—

In the center of the plaza, a twelve-year-old boy stood amid a field of "tree stumps," his hands still pressed together.

Silence.

Absolute silence.

Nawaki lowered his hands and swept his gaze over the surroundings.

"Danzō." He did not shout in any particular direction. His voice was not loud, yet everyone in the plaza heard him clearly.

"I took care of the pieces you planted in the arena for you. They're not dead, but whether you can still use them depends on how you behave tonight."

No one answered.

Nawaki lowered his head and stomped hard with his right foot.

Boom—

The entire plaza floor bulged upward, and a massive Wood Dragon burst out from the rubble. Its body was three meters thick and twenty meters long, its wooden scales gleaming dark brown beneath the sun.

The dragon lowered its head before Nawaki.

Nawaki jumped onto it.

Kushina and Mikoto followed close behind. Two railings automatically rose along the Wood Dragon's spine, holding all three of them securely in place.

The arena dome's shadow fell across the Wood Dragon.

Nawaki raised a hand.

The Wood Dragon raised its head.

"Go."

The dragon's body shot upward, smashing through the arena's outer wall and sending rubble flying. Its enormous form soared into the air, passing above the stands—

Three thousand people in the stands looked up.

The Wood Dragon's shadow swept across the entire arena, and the pressure of its passage overturned the front-row seats. The Hidden Sand delegation's hoods were blown off, revealing faces frozen in shock. The brawny men from Hidden Cloud gripped their armrests, their knuckles creaking.

One of the three people from Hidden Mist instinctively stood up, only to be forcefully pressed back down by the person beside him.

On the podium, Orochimaru looked up as the Wood Dragon vanished above Konoha Village's rooftops, his tongue slowly sliding around his lips.

"...Worth it," he murmured, saying something no one understood.

In the shadows of the stands.

Minato remained in his seat, head tilted back as he watched the Wood Dragon's silhouette grow smaller and smaller in the sky.

On the dragon's back, a patch of red stood out beneath the sunlight—it was Kushina's hair.

She was leaning over the railing and looking down, the wind whipping her red hair into a wild dance.

Minato's hands rested on his knees, his fingers interlaced as they slowly tightened.

"Jiraiya-sensei told me not to move," he said to the empty air.

Then he stood up.

The Senju Clan Compound.

The ground was trembling.

Danzō stood twenty meters outside the compound gates, his left hand raised before him. The Amaterasu Cage barrier had already activated, a translucent dark-red curtain of light covering an area three hundred meters wide.

Behind him, eighty-six Root expendables stood in three separate groups. Two Wood Release test subjects stood at the very front, the wooden tissue on their right arms creaking as malformed branches spread outward.

Everything was ready.

But Danzō's expression was wrong.

Because the compound gates were open.

Three minutes earlier, the Four Red Yang Formation had been forcibly crushed by the Amaterasu Cage's counter-sealing. Root's vanguard had rushed into the compound immediately.

There was no one in the courtyard.

No one in the main house.

No one in the hidden chambers.

The entire Senju Clan Compound—was empty.

The vanguard captain knelt before Danzō, his voice trembling.

"Reporting, sir... no targets were found within the compound. Tsunade, the Nine-Tails jinchūriki, and Mikoto Uchiha are all absent."

Danzō slowly lowered his left hand.

Empty.

They had not fled. If they had fled, they would not have left the gates open.

It had been deliberately left empty.

Nawaki knew.

It did not matter when he had found out. What mattered was—he knew, and he had deliberately left the compound empty.

What did that mean?

Danzō's thoughts raced. His gaze swept over the empty courtyard, over the tightly shut windows of the main house, then finally fell beneath his feet—

The soil beneath him.

It was soft.

Wrong.

Far too soft.

Danzō's pupils contracted sharply. He looked down—

On the surface of the soil, an extremely fine thread of green, almost impossible to see, was seeping up from below.

Not grass.

Wood Release chakra.

The entire ground was saturated with it.

He was standing on—

"Everyone, retreat—"

Danzō's roar had not even left his throat.

On the distant horizon, the outline of a Wood Dragon tore through the clouds and dived straight toward them.