Twisted, coiling tree roots thick with sinewy strength burst through the rock face. Massive, flourishing trunks tore apart the earthen walls. An endless sea of trees swallowed Kyoichi's Earth Flow Rampart completely, and at the same time delivered an unprecedented shock to the minds of Konoha's Ino–Shika–Cho trio.
"How is this possible?"
"Is this Wood Release?"
"Am I under genjutsu? Otherwise, how could I be seeing something this absurd?"
They refused to believe what lay before their eyes.
To them, everything they were witnessing was utterly unreal.
"Konoha's seniors, snap out of it! None of you are under genjutsu. What you're seeing is reality, and there's no time to steady yourselves now. If you don't want to die, then move. And even if you do want to die, don't do it in front of us!" Kyoichi shouted.
At the same moment, the shadow clone he had left behind at Kogaku Temple was dispelled.
The refined senjutsu chakra surged back into his main body. In an instant, he entered Sage Mode. His eyes took on a red-gold hue, deep crimson markings spread around them, and a faint golden cloak of chakra draped itself over his body.
Immediately after,
He clapped his hands together.
"Sage Art: Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears!"
Thick stone lances, like the pillars of an ancient shrine, erupted from the ground, piercing and tearing through roots and trunks alike. Stone forest and tree sea interlocked viciously, barely halting the advance of the encroaching woodland.
Only then did Konoha's Ino–Shika–Cho trio finally snap back to their senses.
They were hardly inexperienced rookies. If not for the overwhelming symbolic weight that Wood Release carried for Konoha, they would never have been shaken so badly. After all, the "wood" in Konoha itself came from the First Hokage's Wood Release.
The moment his mind cleared, Nara Shikaku shouted, "Inoichi, Chōza, formation B!"
As he spoke, he pulled a pill from his ninja pouch and swallowed it. Dropping to one knee, he rapidly formed hand seals. The indistinct shadow beneath him writhed like an octopus's tentacles, slithering forward and merging into the darkness ahead.
The history of the Ino–Shika–Cho combination dated back to the Warring States period.
In those war-torn years, the ancestors of the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi clans had banded together for survival. Even clans as powerful as the Senju and Uchiha struggled merely to endure, let alone families of middling strength.
Children of clan leaders, not yet grown, were sent to the battlefield wielding blades taller than themselves. The cruelty of that era needed no further explanation.
For clans like the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi, failing to unite meant extinction. Countless clans vanished during those brutal decades. These three survived only by clinging together through more than a century of bloodshed.
Passed down to the present day,
Shikaku, Yamanaka Inoichi, and Akimichi Chōza were now the fifteenth generation of Ino–Shika–Cho.
Upon hearing Shikaku's order, Inoichi and Chōza moved without hesitation. Inoichi stepped behind Shikaku, placing his left hand atop Shikaku's head while forming seals one-handed with his right. Closing his eyes, he activated the secret art known as Ninjutsu: Mind Transmission Technique, connecting the consciousness of all three.
From that moment on,
No spoken words were needed. All communication flowed directly through their minds, the most efficient coordination possible.
"Ninjutsu: Partial Expansion Technique!"
Chōza formed seals.
In the next instant, his body expanded at an astonishing rate. Within just a few breaths, a giant over thirty meters tall appeared before the mountain gate of Kogaku Temple. His massive form overflowed the mountain path, a single step flattening nearby trees.
Kyoichi, Ringo Ameyuri, and Hōzuki Mangetsu were forced to reposition. Standing still meant being crushed beneath Chōza's transformed foot.
"I've got you now. Ninjutsu: Shadow Possession Technique!"
Shikaku roared.
He bit down and crushed the pill in his mouth. His chakra surged at an unnatural rate. The shadow that had already blended into the endless darkness writhed violently, extending at breakneck speed. Guided by intelligence provided by Inoichi, it locked precisely onto Uchiha Hatoha standing within the forest, binding their shadows together.
Hatoha's body stiffened instantly,
As if struck by a paralysis technique.
At the same time,
"Ninjutsu: Super Push!"
The giant Chōza swung his enormous palms downward. Pale blue chakra, dense enough to be visible, coiled around his hands as he slammed them toward the immobilized Hatoha.
This strike held nothing back.
What Shikaku had said earlier about capturing the intruder alive had been conditional on the enemy not being excessively dangerous. He had never imagined the trespasser would be an Uchiha, and very possibly the same one who had wiped out Sarutobi Takeo's group.
Once that realization set in,
Any thought of taking the enemy alive was extinguished.
Victory was not even guaranteed. To hold back would invite annihilation.
So if they did not want to be captured or killed,
They had to fight with full intent to kill.
Only by doing so could a miracle be forced into existence.
"Boom!"
Chōza's palms crashed into a ring of ethereal violet-black ribs.
Cracks spread densely across the chakra-formed bones, yet they did not shatter. Instead, as Hatoha poured in more chakra, the fractures rapidly healed, and flesh and tendons began forming over the ribs.
Even immobilized, Uchiha Hatoha was far from defenseless.
Susanoo required no hand seals. A single thought was enough.
"Tch. Still not enough," Shikaku muttered, brows tightly furrowed.
His body trembled slightly. Using Shadow Possession to restrain this unidentified Uchiha was an immense strain. The opponent's chakra reserves were monstrously vast. Without the chakra-enhancing pill, he would never have been able to hold him at all.
Even with the pill's boost, Shikaku felt like an ant trying to shake a towering tree.
Control could be lost at any moment.
Just then,
"Well done, Konoha veterans."
Kyoichi's voice sounded beside Shikaku and Inoichi, his presence unnoticed until now.
He brought his hands together once more.
"Sage Art: Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet!"
Ahead, a massive earthen dragon head burst from the ground, jaws yawning wide as it unleashed hundreds of mud bullets. Each projectile was the size of a millstone, screaming through the air with piercing shrieks as they slammed into the violet-black Susanoo with overwhelming force.