Silence.
Deathly silence shrouded the entire canyon before Iwagakure's main gate.
That blast from the "Dust Release: Light Cannon" had erased half a mountaintop. The acrid stench of vaporized rock still hung in the air.
Chiya's declaration-"Next time, every last one of you disappears"-had been no idle threat.
Ryūjin Jakka still steamed in his hand, its tip pointed at the ground, but the aura radiating from him was even more suffocating than that blast.
Gulp.
Someone swallowed, the sound piercingly loud on the empty battlefield.
The Stone Ninja's hands trembled around their kunai. Cold sweat streamed down their foreheads, but none dared wipe it away, even when it ran into their eyes.
That was the Third Tsuchikage!
That was Ōnoki of Both Scales!
Had he really just been sliced apart? His waist was gone?
And now that Uchiha brat, Sasuke, was holding him like a dead dog?
It was too surreal. It defied all reason.
"What are you all standing around for?!"
A furious shout suddenly shattered the suffocating silence.
It came from a tall, powerfully built man with a brutish face.
Kitsuchi.
Ōnoki's son, Kurotsuchi's father, and Iwagakure's strongest fighter apart from the Tsuchikage.
His eyes were bloodshot, veins bulging along his neck as he stared fixedly at Chiya in midair.
He knew that if they lost their nerve now, Iwagakure was truly finished.
Once morale broke, the whole army would collapse like a landslide.
"Lord Tsuchikage isn't dead yet! If we can hold him off, we still have a chance!"
Kitsuchi swung his thick arm up, pointed at Chiya in the sky, and roared:
"He's just one man! His chakra has to run out eventually!"
"Don't let him scare you! Iwagakure's ninja die fighting, not cowering!"
"All units, hear my command! Form hand seals!"
That shout actually worked.