"Break out! All Cloud shinobi, listen up! Break out at any cost and regroup outside Konoha!" Darui's shout rang through the crowd.
Plenty of Cloud shinobi understood the situation. They kept blocking the weapons flying at them from every direction.
The Cloud shinobi had no intention of staying to fight. They charged straight for the perimeter.
Weapons clashed in a deafening din, punctuated by screams. Many Cloud shinobi could not withstand the barrage of concealed weapons.
After only a few minutes, the Cloud shinobi leading the breakout had already engaged the Konoha shinobi surrounding them.
Several members of the Konoha leadership, who had long been itching to fight, rushed at the Cloud force.
Mitokado Homura was particularly fierce. He bore the greatest responsibility for this war, and he charged to the front at once, fighting without regard for the attacks of the Cloud shinobi trying to break through.
The two kunai in his hands moved like poisonous snakes. Within minutes, several Cloud shinobi had fallen to him, most killed in a single strike.
At the critical moment, Homura unleashed everything he had, fighting beyond his usual limits.
Wounds appeared across Homura's body as well. Behind his glasses, his eyes remained unnervingly calm.
Ignoring the Konoha shinobi blocking their path, the Cloud shinobi fought desperately to get out. The successive assaults had dealt a severe blow to their morale.
Darui's plan was to break out as quickly as possible, regroup, then advance steadily and take Konoha in one decisive push.
The fighting lasted into the afternoon. The Cloud shinobi who escaped gathered in the forest outside Konoha.
A recount showed that only nine hundred of the three thousand shinobi had escaped. More than two thousand had been lost in Konoha—two-thirds of the force. The losses were devastating.
The Cloud Jonin looked