At the same time.
At the edge of the battlefield, Nara Shikaku, who was in charge of commanding this battle, stared at the vines filling the sky as if he had thought of something, and his eyes widened despite himself. "How is this possible?"
Although he had never witnessed the First Hokage's glory himself, the Nara clan had moved to Konoha very early, and they had always kept records of all the major and minor affairs in the village.
Naturally, the First Hokage—Hashirama Senju, revered by all as the "God of the Ninja World"—was a key subject of those records.
As such, the clan had also recorded his Wood Release abilities in detail.
Though the scene before him was not as exaggerated as the records described when the First Hokage used Wood Release, the fact that it could suppress the Nine-Tails—even a Nine-Tails in poor condition—was still shocking enough.
However, as far as he knew, the village's experiment to reproduce Wood Release should have failed. Later, he had heard that when the Anbu took over Root's legacy, they had also obtained an experimental subject with Wood Release.
But that experimental subject simply did not possess this kind of power.
Then...
"Who exactly is this mysterious person before us?"
Nara Shikaku's heart was filled with doubt. His gaze locked tightly onto Qian, as though he wanted to see through his disguise and uncover his identity.
Just then, two figures appeared beside him.
One of them held an iron staff and had a sturdy build. It was the Akimichi Clan's Clan Head from Konoha's previous-generation "Ino-Shika-Cho" formation, the "Cho"—Akimichi Choza.
As for the other, his figure was relatively thin, and merely standing there gave people a deep, unreadable feeling.
He was none other than the current Clan Head of the Yamanaka Clan—Yamanaka