Tsunade stood her ground, muscles coiled like over-caffeinated springs, but well—her confidence was on a budget vacation. A quick glance around the battlefield was all it took to feel a bit... inadequate.
Up in the sky, Azula was having the time of her life, painting the clouds with fire and thunder against Onoki and Satō in a dazzling aerial ballet.
Meanwhile, on the ground, Sakumo and 'A' were moving so fast they were probably violating a few laws of physics, a blurry mess that was strictly a 'Do Not Intervene' zone for anyone who valued their limbs.
But her against the Mizukage was a classic. The kind of throw-down you'd read about in Traditional Ninja Monthly. Good, old-fashioned, boots-on-the-ground fisticuffs with a side of impending doom.
The intel said the Mizukage was a Ninjutsu specialist, a veritable maestro of Water Release. Tsunade was no slouch with Water Style herself, but comparing her to the Mizukage was a bad idea.
Water was his main instrument; for her, it was a handy squirt gun. Her true symphony was composed with her fists and feet, a percussive masterpiece of broken bones.
This, of course, meant their brawl was the only one with 'open seating' for any bored Jonin to waltz in and try a sneak attack. And let's not forget, every single ninja present had at least a Jonin-level membership card.
Yet, amidst the swirling vortex of "oh-crap," a warm, fuzzy feeling bloomed in her chest. Weird, right? It was happiness.
Azula and Sakumo had essentially looked at this chaotic mess, pointed at her, and said, "You. You handle the water guy and the rest. We trust you not to get completely folded."
It was the kind of vote of confidence that was both terrifying and incredibly touching.
"Well, if that's the case," Tsunade muttered, a fierce grin stretching across her face, "let me show you what I'm fully capable of."
An inexplicable shiver, the kind you get when you step in something wet with socks on, ran down the Mizukage's spine.
"This technique," she announced, her voice cutting through the din, "is something my grandma, Azula, the Nine-Tails, and I started creating five years ago. It's still... a work in progress."
She bit her thumb, because what's a high-stakes ninja moment without a little bloodletting? With the blood, she began drawing what looked like a toddler's angry crayon masterpiece all over her arms.
"It's incomplete, comes with side effects, but since I'm currently the weakest link in this terrifying chain of my comrades, you leave me no choice. Mizukage-sama... I hope you are ready."
She slammed her palms together. "Forbidden Art: Scarlet Beast Seal!"
The change was instantaneous and utterly terrifying. Her chakra didn't just flare up; it went completely berserk, like a jinchuriki who'd just stubbed their toe in the middle of the night. It was a feeling every seasoned ninja in the vicinity was intimately, and unpleasantly, familiar with.
But that wasn't the worst part. An aura erupted from her—a swirling, violent miasma of scarlet and blue chakra that enveloped her without quite touching her, like a predator politely refusing to dirty its paws.
The psychological impact was… creative. Several of the less-experienced Jonin immediately lost their will to fight, collapsing under a sensation words can scarcely describe.
It felt as if their heads had been violently locked between the jaws of a mythical beast, their necks pressed against its razor-sharp teeth. One wrong twitch, one single gulp, and it would be a permanent case of decapitation.
These were ninja. They'd signed up for a career with a life expectancy shorter than a mayfly's. Death was an occupational hazard. But this was different.
It wasn't the fear of a clean shuriken to the heart; it was the primal, pants-soiling terror of being eaten. And as the cold sweat poured down their backs and a suspicious yellow liquid began to trickle down a few legs, the effectiveness of this intimidation tactic was, ahem, crystal clear.
Even the Mizukage felt a bead of sweat trace a path down his temple. But a Kage's job isn't just to look cool in a hat.
"Any of you who don't have the stomach for this, fall back!" he barked, his voice a steady anchor in the storm of fear. "But remember! The faster we put her down, the faster we can go help your own Kages!"
This was, of course, a tactical plea directed at the ninja from other villages, a not-so-subtle 'stop being dead weight.' As for his own Hidden Mist guards? Anyone he'd brought here had already made peace with their mortality the day they graduated. The last thing they feared was a nice, clean death for their village.
It must be said, the Mizukage stepping up like a boss did wonders to prevent a full-scale mental meltdown. He didn't waste another second.
"Water Release: Wild Wave!"
He didn't even need to spit. Water obediently condensed from the very air itself, a truly impressive display of hydro-sorcery.
It was a massive, roaring tidal wave, and if Tsunade wasn't careful, she was going to get more than just her feet wet. She was going to be the star of her own personal, very violent aquarium.
But before the wave could even fully form, Tsunade launched herself forward. She became a human cannonball, a blur of motion that shot straight through the churning wall of water.
The Mizukage's eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock. "She what now?!"
Even in her chakra-amped, bestial state, a sliver of reason remained, and with it, the echo of Azula's daily, sage-like advice: "Don't monologue. Don't gawk at the flashy jutsu. Just punch the guy in the face while he's still casting."
Wise words.
Seeing their Mizukage's impending facial reconstruction, the other elites scattered like roaches when the lights flip on. Tsunade had blown through the wave, but it had stalled her for a precious few milliseconds—just enough for them to leap to safety.
Her punch missed. But the air pressure from that missed punch did not.
It wasn't a gust of wind. It was a demolition crew. With a sound of tearing timber and grinding stone, the entire small building where the Kage summit had been held moments earlier was literally uprooted from its foundations and sent flying backwards in a cloud of splinters and dust.
From the sidelines, a Sunagakure puppeteer stared, his jaw attempting to detach itself from his face. He audibly gulped, the sound echoing in the sudden silence.
"What. The. Actual. Fudge," he whispered to himself, his mind racing. He was a puppeteer! His entire combat strategy was "send the wooden guys to get hit!"
If he had taken that punch... it wouldn't have been a death. It would have been an erasure. One of the worst, messiest, and most final ways to check out of the ninja world.
...
On the other side of the battlefield, Sakumo Hatake's instincts screamed a second before his senses did. The growing heavy pressure that had nothing to do with the Raikage's crackling lightning shocked him.
He risked a glance away from his hulking opponent, his eyes widening a fraction. Tsunade's aura was no longer a mere flow of chakra; it had become a visible, roiling tempest of raw power that twisted the light around her.
It felt less like a ninja technique and more like standing too close to a waking Tailed Beast—primal, immense, and dangerously unstable.
He knew of this technique. She had called it incomplete, a theoretical last resort that risked tearing its user apart from the inside out.
To see her unleash it now, here, without hesitation, filled him with emotions.
A wry, almost hysterical thought bubbled up in his mind: Well, of course. She's the God of Shinobi's granddaughter and Azula's best friend.
His gaze snapped back to the Third Raikage, 'A,' whose own Lightning Release Chakra Mode hissed and spat like an angry storm cloud.
Until this moment, Sakumo had felt a shred of confidence behind his desperation. Azula's attacks, for all their power, had been like waves against a cliff—it moved him, but the cliff remained. Now, that confidence evaporated.
He knew, with the absolute certainty of a shinobi who has danced with death one too many times, that a single careless moment—one direct hit from the Raikage—would shatter more than just his bones.
His own defenses, a unique and innate coating of lightning-natured chakra that enhanced his speed, now felt pitifully inadequate. It was a part of him, yes, but the Raikage's armor was a masterpiece, a legend given form.
Every time his White Light Chakra Sabre, coated in energy destructive enough to qualify as an A-rank jutsu, connected with the Raikage, the sensation was profoundly disheartening.
It was less like striking metal and more like trying to chip a diamond with a wooden stick.
He remembered Azula's theory, presented to him once over a scroll and a pot of tea. She had posited that the Raikage's armor wasn't just chakra anymore; it had transcended into a force field, something she called a magnetic domain that repelled all threats on a fundamental level.
At the time, Sakumo had chuckled, thinking it the kind of wild exaggeration Azula was known for. But now, facing the immovable object, he understood.
How could she, who had seemed to underestimate the Third Hokage, yet praise the Third Raikage, be so simple as exaggeration?
The realization was a bucket of cold water, washing away the last vestiges of his pride. His own techniques, powerful as they were, had been developed with a partner. The Raikage had forged his path alone. A grudging, immense respect welled up within him, cutting through the battle-focus.
"I have to admit," Sakumo said, his voice cutting clearly through the crackle of lightning, "that amongst all the opponents I have confronted, you are the strongest."
The Raikage, 'A,' merely grunted, his expression an unimpressed mask. He was the Third Raikage, the supreme leader of his village; the approval of a Konoha jonin, however respected, was not something he needed to cherish.
Sakumo, whose roots lay in the more formal world of samurai, instantly realized his compliment could be misconstrued as condescension.
But the words were out, and the diplomatic part of his mind, the part that remembered he was not just a fighter but a representative of Konoha, seized the opening.
"So, Raikage-sama," he continued, his grip tightening on his sabre, "can you at least tell us the reason for this… unannounced meeting?"
He pushed down a surge of frustration, channeling it into his voice. "Back then, our Hokage and your predecessor signed a peace agreement. A hard-won peace, before misfortune and rebellion struck your village. But even so, we in Konoha did not pursue the matter. We have abided by the agreement."
He met the Raikage's steely gaze, his question hanging in the charged air between them. "Is Kumogakure now allying with the other three great villages to shatter that peace?"