Chapter 449: Riori Uzumaki's Famous Battle
While White Cat and the other two squads were tangling with the Suna-nin, Ishiro was standing on a tree not far from the town, quietly observing their battle through his Mind's Eye.
However, he hadn't come here to act as a guardian for them.
After they had left, Ishiro remained where he was, unmoving. The person he was waiting for had not yet appeared.
After another ten minutes or so, a figure cautiously approached the town from underground.
It was a White Zetsu clone.
After carefully scouting and confirming that there were no more ninja in the town, the clone investigated the area around it, focusing on the few places where the battles had just occurred.
It had to be said that the clone was quite professional. Judging by the locations it drilled in and out of, its analysis of the battle situation was likely not far off.
"I wonder if Black Zetsu, or the main White Zetsu body, taught them this? Or is this just an innate ability of the clones?" Ishiro guessed in his heart.
Without alerting it, he stood quietly on the tree, observing with his Mind's Eye as the clone bustled about gathering intelligence.
After another while, the clone finally finished its investigation. It then quickly dove underground and left in a certain direction.
Ishiro did not move, still standing quietly in the same place.
His sensory range was large enough. Unless this clone teleported far away, it simply could not escape his lock. The Zetsu clone had to check the villages near this town, and all these villages were within his sensory range.
The "all-map vision" was not just for show. Right now, he could clearly see what White Cat's squad of four was doing.
The clone's counter-tracking awareness was also quite strong. On the way to the next target, it changed direction several times and doubled back several times, constantly on guard for someone following it.
A few more minutes passed before the clone finally left the area completely, heading for the nearest village garrisoned by Suna-nin.
Only after the clone had reached that village did Ishiro take a wide detour, then leisurely arrived at the village's edge.
He didn't get too close, still observing from a distance in the shadows.
By the time he arrived, the Zetsu clone had just barely finished its inspection.
Subsequently, Ishiro followed this clone through all the nearby villages.
Only after it had completed its reconnaissance, dived deep into the earth, and headed off in a single direction, completely leaving his sensory range, did Ishiro reveal a smile.
Unsurprisingly, this clone should be returning to the new base to report to the main White Zetsu body.
Ishiro took out the map from his ninja pouch on which he had drawn the line in his office. Then, using his current position as a baseline, he drew another line in the direction the clone had just departed.
The two lines intersected at a single point. If he wasn't mistaken, that location was Obito's newest base.
"You're really something, Obito Uchiha," Ishiro sneered.
However, just two lines were not enough insurance. He did not go directly to the location he had pinpointed on the map but instead used his Light/Heavy Boulder Technique to fly quickly towards the Land of Moon. That was the main battlefield for the Iwa Anbu's operation against the Kumo-nin. White Zetsu would definitely go there as well.
Although he had been delayed for some time in the Land of Bears, the Land of Moon was relatively far from the Land of Earth, and this Iwa operation would not be short. He should still be able to make it in time.
Sure enough, when Ishiro arrived at the Land of Moon, a large-scale battle was still underway.
With his "all-map vision" open, Ishiro easily found the only place in the country where a battle was taking place.
Unlike the scattered Suna forces, the Kumo ninja in the Land of Moon, influenced by Ishiro's infiltration of their village, had gathered together. They were wary.
The dispatched Iwa Anbu and the Kumo-nin were engaged in a medium-sized group battle. A hundred Kumo ninja were holding a defensive position in a temporary camp, while about two hundred Iwa ninja were besieging them.
Of course, this was the starting number. By the time he arrived, the number of Kumo ninja had already been reduced to about fifty, while Iwa had lost less than ten. The casualties on the Iwa side were mainly from the beginning, when they hadn't expected Kumo to be concentrated and had suffered from their own underestimation.
In this offensive and defensive battle that had lasted the better part of the day, one person's performance was exceptionally brilliant. This person was Riori Uzumaki.
If it weren't for her, the Kumo casualties would not have been this severe. And if the Iwa-nin still wanted to control their own casualties, they might not have even been able to take the Kumo camp.
For Riori, she hadn't even done anything special. Her squad, Shiden's, had arrived at the Kumo camp after finding nothing in their target town. When Riori saw that conspicuous target, she had, without a word, created over a hundred shadow clones. Each clone had then used her only Fire Release ninjutsu on the Kumo camp: the Great Fireball Technique.
The Kumo-nin were dumbfounded on the spot. In their eyes, a huge sea of fire was rapidly spreading towards their camp. As Kumo ninja, they were not good at defensive jutsu. They couldn't completely block the first wave. Fortunately, their speed was generally fast, and apart from a few unlucky ones, most of the ninja dodged through the gaps between the fireballs.
They had originally wanted to counterattack after this wave, but Riori didn't give them a chance. The little girl probably felt that her attack just now had not been effective because there were too few fireballs. So she created another hundred shadow clones.
Two hundred Riori Uzumakis launched two hundred Great Fireballs at the camp at the same time.
This attack was carried out five times in succession. Only when her teammates told her that her attack didn't seem to be very effective did she give up and stop. After that, the other Iwa squads arrived one after another and started a war of attrition with Kumo. They had no choice; Kumo had been thoroughly spooked by her operation.
Both sides went back and forth, fighting vigorously.
Until, at a certain moment, the sound of an explosive tag going off attracted the attention of Riori, who was just throwing shuriken. She seemed to have remembered something. She once again created several hundred shadow clones. Then, her main body gave each of these clones a single explosive tag.
Afterward, the several hundred Rioris charged at the Kumo camp all at once.
After losing dozens of shadow clones, the rest finally broke into the camp. These clones didn't do anything else either; they just ignited the tags in their hands and rushed at the ninja inside.
Boom boom boom boom!
From then on, the Kumo camp was never quiet again. Several hundred explosions in a row directly destroyed all of the camp's defenses. The dozens of casualties on the Kumo side also came from this.
Riori still wanted to send in a second wave of human bombs to quickly end the battle, but she was stopped by Shiden. There weren't many Kumo ninja left now, and those who were alive were mostly injured. It wasn't worth wasting explosive tags. Moreover, those who still had the strength to fight were powerful ninja; they weren't people who could be dealt with by human bombs.
However, Shiden did not let Riori remain idle. Instead, she patiently taught her how to arrange the positioning of her clones and how to coordinate their attacks.
In truth, the fact that Kumo had been able to hold on until Ishiro's arrival was thanks to Riori's low IQ. Shiden had spent the better part of the day just making her understand how to attack.
When Ishiro arrived at the battlefield, this was the scene he saw: several hundred Rioris were arranged in a phalanx. Shouting in unison, they launched a wave of attacks on the Kumo camp.
Through his Mind's Eye, he could sense them standing in five rows. They unleashed their Great Fireball Technique row by row, from front to back. When the last row had finished, the first row would start the second wave. In total, five waves, twenty-five ranks of fireballs, swept neatly towards the Kumo camp.
The Kumo-nin had probably never seen Great Fireballs used in ranks as a unit of measurement. When these twenty-five ranks were finished, there were not many living people left in the camp. Only three powerful elite jonin were still standing, and outside the camp were six jonin who had been clever enough to escape.
Although he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, through his Mind's Eye, Ishiro could sense that the three remaining elite jonin were standing in place, motionless. He could guess their despair and bewilderment. He believed that with their eyesight, they should have been able to tell that her individual strength was not strong; probably an ordinary chunin could have taken her down. This could be seen from her imperfect fireball array at the beginning. But why could such a chunin bring about a disaster of annihilation for their hundred-strong elite force?
Riori couldn't really participate in the subsequent battle. But this didn't mean she was out of trouble. On the contrary, the three remaining Kumo elite jonin, after a brief moment of grief, did not choose to flee. Instead, they exchanged a glance and, with a tacit understanding, charged towards her.
After casting the five rounds of fireballs, the hundreds of shadow clones had disappeared. Only one Riori was left. The three Kumo elites gave up their chance of survival; they were going to use this opportunity to kill her.
If she had been alone, their idea might have come true. But Shiden was by her side.
Shiden just said one sentence, and the three of them fell into despair.
"Riori, use the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique! Hide yourself well! Don't let them find you!"
"Mm-hm!" Riori, following a familiar path, once again created several hundred shadow clones.
The three Kumo elites, seeing this, showed a clear pause in their steps. But in the end, they still chose to charge towards the Rioris.
The result was predictable. The three, who didn't care about anything else and were just killing Riori's clones, were quickly killed by Shiden and the others. By the time they died, they had only cleared out about a hundred clones. They didn't even know where her main body was.
From a long way off, Ishiro could feel their despair.
As for the six jonin who had escaped, they had been surrounded and killed by the Iwa-nin one step ahead of the three.
After the battle, Shiden let out a light breath. "Alright, Riori, you can dispel your clones now."
"Okay-dokey!" the hundreds of Rioris replied in unison.
But after a long while, they were all still there. No reaction.
These Rioris looked at me, and I looked at you. They were all a bit strange.
Then, before the Iwa-nin could ask, they began to chat among themselves.
"Are you the real one?"
"I'm not. Are you?"
"I'm not either!"
The entire field was filled with the sound of Rioris asking each other who the clone was.
Ishiro: ...
Shiden: ...
The other Iwa-nin: ...
Ishiro had originally wanted to go out and chat with Shiden for a bit, but now he just gave up.
Too embarrassing!
After a long while, Shiden finally recovered from her stupor. She loudly called for all the Rioris to stop. "Riori, all shadow clones, dispel yourselves!"
"Okay-dokey!" all the Rioris replied in unison again.
The next moment, a large cloud of smoke rose. After the smoke cleared, only one bewildered Riori was left.
Looking at her expression, it wasn't hard to know what she was thinking: "Huh? Why am I still here? Why didn't I disappear?"
Everyone: ...
Because the battlefield had been ravaged by Riori's twenty-five ranks of fireballs, there wasn't much to clean up. Shiden and the others soon left the Land of Moon and returned to the Land of Earth.
Ishiro let out a light breath and began to wait in the shadows.
A long time later, the White Zetsu clones finally came. Unlike in the Land of Bears, a full dozen of them arrived this time.
They first carefully scouted the entire area. Only after confirming that there were no ninja did they begin to gather intelligence. Their efficiency was clearly much higher.
Before long, they had finished.
Finally, the dozen or so clones all escaped into the ground and left in a certain direction using Earth Release. They also did not take any detours but continued to flee in that direction, until they finally left his eighty-kilometer range and completely disappeared.
(End of Chapter)
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