The granite armor on Yogan's body began to glow red inch by inch, and molten rock visibly surged beneath its surface.
As if responding to some unseen force or summoning, the lava spheres he had spat out earlier began boiling again. The craters where they had landed erupted anew, gushing fresh magma.
Hoshiyomi, who was trying to finish Yogan off, found himself in a difficult situation—in front of him was Yogan, with magma seeping from his body, and behind him were the now-erupting lava pools.
Yogan's body had already begun to completely melt into magma—his entire form gradually dissolving. He looked at the trapped Hoshiyomi and let out a hearty, unrestrained laugh.
"If I can take you down with me and stop the other Konoha shinobi from advancing, then even if I fall here, I'll have no regrets before my fallen Iwa comrades!"
With those final words, Yogan's body collapsed completely. A massive surge of magma erupted from within him, showing signs of merging with the lava behind Hoshiyomi.
If the two magma flows merged, they would form a molten lake nearly a hundred meters wide. With that width, even Hoshiyomi wouldn't be able to leap across in a single bound.
From the perspective of everyone watching, Hoshiyomi now appeared to be in a certain-death scenario.
Hoshiyomi looked at Yogan—now fully transformed into a pool of lava—and a trace of genuine respect flickered in his eyes. Sacrificing himself to halt Konoha's advance and buy time for his comrades to escape… Yogan truly was a hero.
But it was a pity—Yogan had miscalculated one thing: the Scorching Rock Burial he unleashed with his death was not enough to kill Hoshiyomi.
Because—Hoshiyomi still had a trump card left.
Just as the Konoha shinobi, fearing the worst, looked away from what they believed was a mutual death—Hoshiyomi's figure vanished from the lava field.
A second later, he reappeared near the already solidified Scorching Rock River, precisely where one of his Sword Shadows from Dance of the Startled Swan remained.
Although the battle with Yogan had felt long, it had in fact only lasted a little over ten minutes—far from the expiration time of the Sword Shadow. So Hoshiyomi had time to retreat calmly.
Looking at the stunned Konoha shinobi across the lava river, Hoshiyomi smiled slightly:
"Relax. I'm fine. Come over and prepare for the second cooling. If we're too slow, the Iwa forces might really manage to escape."
Only then did the Konoha shinobi come to their senses. They quickly crossed the already cooled lava river and regrouped with Hoshiyomi.
As for Hoshiyomi's sudden disappearance and reappearance—no one asked. That kind of ability was the so-called trump card of a Kage-level shinobi. The less others knew, the better.
If someone's loose tongue exposed such a trump card, and it endangered Hoshiyomi in future battles—the consequences would be unforgivable.
Glancing one last time at the lava river Yogan had left behind, Hoshiyomi turned to Jiraiya and said:
"I'm leaving the command to you. My chakra's a bit drained—I'm going to rest."
In truth, Hoshiyomi still had plenty of chakra left. He could have continued the pursuit without issue. But looking at that lava river… something in his heart just went still. The will to fight vanished.
Jiraiya didn't doubt him. He patted his chest confidently:
"Leave it to me!"
He knew better than anyone how much Hoshiyomi had done. This entire battle had practically been won by Hoshiyomi single-handedly.
From the surprise night raid on the Explosion Rekease unit base camp, to luring enemies with the Oboro Urazuki: Eleven Forms, to back-to-back instant kills of Iwa's elite units—
On this battlefield, Hoshiyomi had been an unstoppable force.
Without his overwhelming performance, the Iwa-nin wouldn't have collapsed so completely.
Even without post-battle statistics, everyone could roughly estimate that in this single operation, at least twenty Iwa shinobi of jōnin rank or higher had died by Hoshiyomi's hand.
Such results… not even the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, could easily surpass.
Having slain so many powerful opponents, no one objected when Hoshiyomi said he needed to rest. Everyone simply looked at him with eyes full of admiration as he walked away.
Only then, under Jiraiya's command, did the Konoha forces launch a new wave of pursuit.
…
A lava river a hundred meters wide wasn't something that could be cooled down easily. So the Konoha shinobi split into two groups to work in tandem:
Water Release users focused on rapidly cooling the surface of the magma;
Earth Release users built a sturdy earth bridge to allow their comrades to cross quickly.
With this strategy, things progressed much faster. In less than five minutes, Konoha's shinobi had crossed the lava river.
But five minutes was more than enough for shinobi to cover considerable ground.
Even so, the Konoha forces weren't discouraged. Fueled by the thrill of victory, they followed Jiraiya's lead in relentlessly pursuing the routed Iwa forces.
By the time Iwa collapsed, dawn had already broken. Jiraiya led Konoha's chase all the way until dusk, pursuing the fleeing enemies almost to Iwagakure's second camp before finally sounding the retreat.
On the return trip, they recovered the dead and wounded, tallied Iwa's casualties, and collected reusable supplies. All of that took considerable time.
It wasn't until late that night that Jiraiya and the exhausted but exhilarated Konoha shinobi returned to the main Konoha camp.
Even then, the expressions on everyone's faces were still glowing with satisfaction and pride. None of them had ever fought a battle so crisp and decisive.
They had completely overwhelmed Iwa from start to finish. The defeated Iwa-nin had been beaten until they cried for their mothers, forced to cut their losses like a lizard shedding its tail in order to escape.
They abandoned an entire division just to delay Konoha's advance long enough to survive.
Jiraiya, blood-soaked, lifted the flap of the command tent and stepped inside. With him were Minato, Kuugetsu, and a reporting shinobi.
Hoshiyomi had already bathed and changed into clean clothes.
His left hand had been treated as well. Though the medical attention wasn't on Tsunade's level, with a couple more applications of medicine, it would be fine in a few days.
Jiraiya burst out laughing as he looked at Hoshiyomi:
"Hahahahahaha! Hoshiyomi, you should've seen how pathetic Iwa looked at the end! Their battlefield commander almost pissed himself when he saw us catching up!"
But Hoshiyomi didn't show much reaction. He knew that once Iwa's morale collapsed, Konoha's victory was inevitable. What concerned him more now was the actual casualty report from the war.
Seeing Hoshiyomi's calm expression, Jiraiya remembered again that the entire operation's success hinged on him. And just like that, he lost the mood to brag.
After an awkward chuckle, he pulled the reporting shinobi forward:
"Alright, go ahead and report the battle stats to our Silver Moon of Konoha."