While Renjiro was busy with the Jinchuriki, the other Konoha forces were busy. There was no way both sides were just going to stand by and spectate Renjiro and Killer B's fight. That is why Shiba wasn't flinching even as he was standing atop a pile of rubble that had once been part of the inner fortifications.
His voice cut through the stunned silence, sharp and commanding as a cracking whip. "FORM UP! DEFENSIVE RINGS! HYŪGA, FRONT AND CENTER! INUZUKA, FLANK SCREENS! YAMANAKA, MIND THE GAPS! MEDICS, REAR ECHOLON! MOVE! NOW!"
His words acted like a jolt of adrenaline. Decades of drilled discipline overcame the terror. Shinobi scrambled, not in panic, but with grim purpose. The Hyūga clan members, Byakugan veins bulging, stepped forward, forming the innermost ring, their palms already shimmering with chakra, ready for the Gentle Fist.
The Inuzuka handlers and their snarling ninken flowed to the flanks, creating a living screen of fang and claw. Yamanaka specialists positioned themselves strategically, eyes closed in concentration, preparing to disrupt enemy coordination.
Medics dragged the unconscious barrier corps members and the severely wounded further back, setting up triage stations amidst the debris. The formation wasn't elegant; it was a desperate, layered hedgehog defence, spines out.
Across the scarred land, the Kumo forces, momentarily halted by the bizarre disappearance of the barrier and the recent Rasenshuriken horror, began to surge again.
But the surge lacked its earlier, avalanche-like conviction. The three glassy craters were gaping wounds in their morale. The sight of hundreds simply erased lingered. Whispers of "Uzumaki" and "Red Demon" slithered through the ranks.
They still outnumbered the Konoha defenders significantly, perhaps three to one, but the numerical advantage felt hollow against the spectre of annihilation from the sky and the exhaustion gnawing at their cores. Hours spent hammering the barrier had drained their collective chakra reserves; many were running on fumes, their movements sluggish, their jutsu weaker.
Ayy saw it. He stood like a granite monument at the forefront of his army, his massive frame radiating fury, but his sharp eyes missed nothing. The hesitation, the sideways glances at the craters, the subtle slump in shoulders, his men were rattled.
Morale was crumbling faster than the ground beneath those Rasenshurikens. He couldn't let it fester. Victory demanded momentum, demanded blood, demanded his example.
"KUMO!" His voice boomed, amplified by chakra, a physical force that slammed into the ranks, silencing the fearful murmurs. He raised his fist, lightning crackling visibly around his knuckles.
"You see them?! Cowering behind broken walls! Hiding after their cowardly tricks! Their 'demon' is busy! He cannot save them now!" He pointed his lightning-wreathed fist directly at the Konoha formation. "LOOK AT THEM! TIRED! FEW! AFRAID! They burned their strength hiding behind light! We burned ours breaking it! BUT WE ARE STORM CLOUD SHINOBI! OUR STRENGTH IS NOT JUST CHAKRA! IT IS OUR WILL! OUR FURY! OUR LIGHTNING!"
He paused, letting his words sink in, his gaze sweeping over his men, meeting fearful eyes and stoking the embers of pride. "They think those craters break us? NO! They are the graves of our brothers! And we will AVENGE THEM! Not with fear, but with THUNDER!" He slammed his crackling fist into his palm "CHARGE! FOR KUMO! FOR OUR FALLEN! BREAK THEM!"
The effect was electric. Ayy's raw, charismatic fury, his embodiment of Kumo's relentless spirit, ignited the wavering force. A guttural roar, born of grief and rekindled rage, erupted from thousands of throats.
"FOR KUMO! FOR THE RAIKAGE!"
Weapons were raised, a forest of gleaming steel under the twilight. The ground began to tremble again, not from impacts, but from the massed surge forward. Ayy himself became the spearhead, a blur of dark skin and crackling lightning, leading the vanguard charge directly towards the centre of the Konoha defensive rings.
"INCOMING!" Shiba's voice was calm steel. "FIRST RANK! EARTH WALLS! NOW!"
Chunin and Jounin specializing in Doton slammed their hands onto the churned earth.
"Doton: Doryūheki!" (Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall).
"WHOOM-CRUMBLE!
Thick walls of compacted earth and rock erupted along the Konoha front line, not seamless barriers, but staggered, angled ramparts designed to break charges and funnel attackers. They rose just as the first wave of Kumo shinobi hit.
"CRASH-THOOM!" Lightning-infused fists and kunai slammed into the earthen barriers.
"ZZZT-BOOM!"
Raiton users unleashed bolts that scorched the earth walls but struggled to penetrate their thickness. Kumo's chakra exhaustion was evident; the blasts were smaller, less focused than they would have been hours ago. Konoha defenders, sheltered behind the ramparts, unleashed a withering hail of kunai, shuriken, and precise Wind and Water jutsu.
"SWISH-THUD!"
"FWOOSH-SPLASH!" Kumo shinobi screamed as they were cut down or blasted back.
"FLANKERS! INUZUKA! HIT THEIR WINGS!" Shiba commanded. Packs of ninken, guided by their handlers, surged from the Konoha flanks like grey blurs.
"Gatsūga!" (Dual Piercing Fang)
"WHIRR-CRUNCH-SCREAM!"
They tore into the sides of the Kumo charge, disrupting formations, and dragging shinobi down in a whirlwind of teeth and claws. Kumo shinobi, already straining their depleted reserves to face the front, struggled to respond effectively to the savage flank attacks.
"YAMANAKA! DISRUPT THEIR COMMAND!" Shiba ordered.
"Shintenshin no Jutsu!" (Mind Body Switch Technique) a couple of Yamanaka shinobi muttered.
Across the field, a Kumo chunin barking orders suddenly froze, his eyes glazing over, then turned and clumsily shoved the man beside him, causing momentary confusion. Another Yamanaka targeted a squad leader mid-hand-seal, making him stumble and fumble the technique, the resulting Raiton blast fizzling harmlessly short.
Ayy, smashing through an earthen wall with a lightning-coated fist "CRUNCH-SHATTER!, roared in frustration. "DISPERSED FORMATIONS! IGNORE THE DOGS! PUSH THROUGH THE CENTER! BREAK THEIR RANKS!"
His strategy shifted from overwhelming force to targeted penetration. Kumo shinobi began to spread out, using hit-and-run tactics, small groups trying to find weak points in the Konoha earthworks or overwhelm individual defenders with sheer numbers. The battle descended into a brutal, grinding melee across the shattered landscape. The air filled with the cacophony of war: the clash of steel on steel, the thud of bodies hitting earth, the growls of wounded ninken, and the constant, desperate shouts of commanders and the agonized cries of the dying.
Konoha held, but barely. Their formations were disciplined, their tactics sharp, and crucially, their chakra reserves, while not unlimited, were significantly less depleted than Kumo's. They hadn't spent hours battering a barrier. They defended with precision, using terrain (the rubble, the earth walls), teamwork, and specialized jutsu to maximum effect.
A Hyūga would pinpoint a chakra point, a Konoha chunin would follow up with a kunai. An Aburame's kikaichū swarm would disorient, allowing a Fire user to strike. But Kumo's numbers were relentless.
For every Kumo shinobi felled by precise Konoha tactics, another seemed to take his place, driven by Ayy's furious presence and the desperate need to break through before their energy gave out completely.
The Konoha lines began to bend, then buckle in places under the sustained, furious pressure. Shiba, his shadow subtly manipulating the battlefield, tripping attackers or binding them momentarily for a killing blow, felt the strain. They needed time. They needed Renjiro to hold Bee just a little longer.
Suddenly, it happened.
A ripple passed through the battlefield. Not a sound, but a sensation. Like the air pressure dropping violently before a cataclysmic storm. Every shinobi, regardless of side, regardless of how engrossed in their life-or-death struggle, instinctively flinched. Hands froze mid-seal. Blows stopped mid-swing. A collective intake of breath, sharp and startled, replaced the din of battle for a fractured second.
The source was a palpable wave of… wrongness. A suffocating, oily surge of malevolent chakra that washed over them from the east, miles away where Renjiro and Killer B duelled.
Shiba's head snapped towards it, his shadow techniques momentarily forgotten. Hyōma Hyūga, locked in a Gentle Fist exchange, stumbled back, his Byakugan veins pulsing erratically as he stared into the distance, his face draining of color.
"By the Sage..." he breathed.
Ayy, moments before poised to smash through a knot of Konoha defenders, froze. He turned, his lightning aura flickering uncertainly. His eyes, narrowed in combat focus, widened. He didn't need the Byakugan. Even across the miles, through the dust and twilight, he could see it.
Where Killer Bee had been, a monstrous silhouette was forming. No longer the humanoid figure wreathed in orange chakra. This was larger, and distorted.
The orange was darkening, deepening into a violent, blood-red hue, shot through with streaks of black. Multiple, distinct tails, not energy projections but seemingly solid, monstrous appendages, lashed the air like whips of pure malice.
The air around the distant figure shimmered with visible heat haze, distorting the landscape. A low, subsonic growl seemed to resonate through the ground itself, felt more than heard.
Ayy's blood ran cold. He recognized that transformation. It wasn't controlled. It wasn't Bee rapping. It was the beast breaking free. The fury on his face morphed into something akin to horror.
'Bee… you idiot…'
The thought was a cold knife in his gut. The Jinchuriki was losing control. And whatever was coming out of that maelstrom of chakra… it wouldn't distinguish between Konoha and Kumo. The carefully balanced, brutal calculus of the ground battle shattered in the face of an impending cataclysm. The Rasenshuriken craters suddenly seemed like mere scratches compared to the abyss of power now unfolding on the eastern horizon. The battlefield held its breath, united in a sudden, primal dread.
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