The eruption of two tailed beasts in the arena's center was the only signal needed.
Across the Konohagakure, everyone with their own agenda began to move.
"Sunagakure, full assault!" At Baki's command, waves of Suna ninja clad in Chakra Armor charged the Konoha ninja, with no regard for their own safety.
The moment the lines clashed, the Konoha ninja realized their greatest advantage had been nullified. The ninjutsu they had always relied on for overwhelming force was being utterly crushed.
The terrifying defensive power of the Chakra Armor was on full display. It absorbed ninjutsu. Barring genjutsu, it had no obvious weakness, and genjutsu specialists were rarely effective on a battlefield this chaotic. Most importantly, the armor allowed its wearers to fly.
Not everyone is a protagonist. Not everyone has plot armor.
The Suna army quickly seized the advantage.
"War has finally begun. And the darkness that follows is the deepest of all." Shinno casually dispatched a Konoha ninja before turning his gaze to the two colossal beasts rampaging across the village. A thrill he couldn't name surged in his chest. 'I can feel it,' he thought. 'It's close. Just a little longer, and the one thing I have spent my entire life searching for will appear.'
Shinno laughed, but in the next instant, his expression froze.
'So fast… This is it. This is more than enough.'
A black vapor began to seep from his skin as he surrendered himself to its power. It was a condensation of pure negative energy, Dark Chakra.
By sheer chance, he stood on the very spot Naruto had occupied moments before. Here, the negative energy was especially thick, dozens of times stronger than anywhere else. It was the undiluted malice of Konoha's villagers.
And now, Shinno would put it to use.
"Come forth. Zero-Tails."
A creature the size of a double-decker bus, its body as sleek and slick as an enormous loach, materialized before him. A white mask was fixed to its face, engraved with the kanji for "Zero."
Zero-Tails.
"Dark Ninjutsu: Zero-Tails Jutsu!"
Shinno leaped, landing atop the beast's head.
"Forbidden Medical Jutsu: Body Revival."
As Dark Chakra poured into him, his white hair bled to black, and his frail, aged body regained its youthful vigor.
The Zero-Tails was a monster born from humanity's darkness and malice. The denser the hatred, the larger it grew. Fed enough darkness, it wouldn't take long for it to rival a true tailed beast.
"I can feel the power inside me growing without end." Savoring the rush of Dark Chakra, Shinno already craved more.
Where could one find hatred and malice that surpassed even that of a battlefield?
There was such a place.
Shinno's gaze fell upon it by chance. Like a tiger catching the scent of blood, his eyes gleamed as he stared toward the location.
"There's plenty of nourishment for you there. Let's go wreak some havoc."
He drove the Zero-Tails on a rampage through Konoha. Konoha ninja, Oto shinobi, Suna forces, anyone who blocked his path was slaughtered. Countless civilians died without ever knowing what hit them.
His destination was the place Naruto called "home."
A place perpetually shrouded in the malice of Konohagagure's own villagers.
The wicked were now being ground down by the wicked. Konoha's villagers were finally tasting the bitter fruit of the hatred they had sown.
--**--**
"What the hell do you want from me?" Mizuki snapped. The strange, bandaged man before him had been pestering him endlessly, muttering some bizarre nonsense. "Do you have a death wish?"
As one of Orochimaru's top agents in konoha after Kabuto's departure and being part of Orochimaru's experiments, Mizuki had more pressing matters to attend to. He was the commander of the Oto ninja for this invasion, he didn't have time for this.
"Hahaha, I had actually come for Kakashi," Hiruko chuckled, a wide grin spreading across his face. "But I never expected to find a second Sharingan user here. Don't think you can hide it from me, I can smell a Kekkei Genkai on you."
"You want the eyes Lord Orochimaru-sama granted me?" Mizuki's two-tomoe Sharingan spun to life as his body swelled, transforming him into a three-meter-tall tiger-man.
"Then you'll have to trade your life for them."
He lunged. "Let me show you the greatness of Orochimaru-sama's supreme masterpiece!"
--**--**
"Whoa!" Deidara sat astride his giant clay bird, pointing excitedly at the rampaging One-Tail and Seven-Tails in the distance. "Sasori-danna, aren't those two tailed beasts, yeah?"
After Sasori confirmed it, Deidara's eyes lit up. "How about we nab them in the chaos, hm? The leader would totally praise me for it!"
"Don't do anything unnecessary," Sasori snapped, his annoyance clear. "It's not time to collect the tailed beasts. Our mission is to eliminate Konoha shinobi."
"Tch, boring, hm." Deidara fished a handful of clay from his pouch and fed it into the mouths on his palms. "These little guys are still the best way to have some fun."
With a flick of his wrist, a dense swarm of miniature clay spiders rained down, scuttling toward a group of Konoha chunin on the ground below.
He raised his index and middle fingers. "Katsu!"
*Boom.*
The chunin were instantly reduced to ash, not even scraps remaining from the carpet bombing.
"Hahahaha! Behold! This is my art, hm! An explosion is art!"
*Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Another wave of clay spiders dropped from the sky.
"Art is an explosion!"
*Boom! Boom! Boom!*
In moments, the district below was swallowed by a sea of fire.
"Hahaha, Sasori-danna, hurry and look at my fireworks! Aren't they beautiful, yeah?"
Had Deidara ever witnessed Naruto's attack that destroyed Kusagakure, he might have found a new definition for ultimate art.
"Idiot," Sasori muttered, glancing at Deidara's handiwork with open disdain. "What's so great about something that vanishes in an instant?"
Several Konoha ninja sprang from the rooftops, their blades gleaming as they leaped toward Deidara.
Sasori's fingers twitched, and several human puppets appeared around him.
"True art is eternal beauty."
The puppets effortlessly blocked the ninjas assault before launching countless poison-tipped needles from their bodies, harvesting lives in an instant.
"Like my puppets."
"Sasori-danna, you're gonna make me mad talking like that," Deidara pouted. "Only the brilliance of a single instant is true art!"
*Boom.*
In the sector they were assigned, every Konoha ninja had been wiped out.
--**--**
On the other side of the battlefield.
"This one's worth 100,000 ryo. This one, 300,000. And this one… A whole 1,000,000 ryo." Kakuzu moved through the battlefield like a shopper at a market, picking and choosing his targets. A large black bag was slung over his back, and he continually stuffed bodies into it.
As he worked, his expression was one of pure, engrossed satisfaction.
"This one… tch, worthless. Bad luck. How pathetic, didn't make anything of your life!"
"Kakuzu, are you done yet?" his partner shouted, his voice laced with anxiety. "The Konoha ninja are about to swarm us!"
"Three Million Ryo," Kakuzu glared at his partner, his eyes narrowed as he addressed the man by his bounty. "If you interrupt my work again, I'll kill you next. No one interferes with my money-making. No one."
His eyes suddenly lit up. "Hey, this one, five million ryo!"
Kakuzu's voice practically sang with excitement.
--**--**
Konohagakure was in utter chaos. It was besieged by the forces of Sunagakure and Otogakure, ravaged by two tailed beasts and a third monster of equal power, and hunted by a squad of ninja in black robes with red clouds whose strength dwarfed the norm.
The towering tree that was the Konohagakure was being chipped away, piece by piece, from all sides.
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