Chapter 76: The Battle Begins
In the dense forest, hundreds of Cloud ninja were moving at high speed.
The man in the lead, his hair half-black and half-white, had a pair of demonic, three-tomoe Sharingan.
They had likely already been spotted by Konoha's scouts. The Byakugan was difficult to avoid. But Blue Bee didn't care. Because they were fast enough.
Standing on a giant tree, he looked out at the Konoha camp in the distance.
From the commotion, it seemed they had received some warning, but they were clearly not prepared.
"Well then," he said, "let's start with a greeting."
A torrent of chakra erupted from his body, and a dark red tailed beast cloak enveloped him. A massive ox skull formed over his head.
A huge, black and red sphere appeared in the mouth of the skull. It hung there for a moment, then shot forward.
In the Konoha camp, Hiruzen Sarutobi was listening to a report when the tent flap was thrown open. "Lord Hokage!" an ANBU agent said, his voice filled with panic. "A message from the front! A Cloud force has been spotted in the Mount Tenmoku area! They're heading this way! They're very fast!"
"What?!"
Before Hiruzen could even react, a terrifying explosion ripped through the center of the camp. Trees were uprooted, the earth was torn asunder, and an area of several hundred meters was leveled.
Countless Konoha ninja were killed or injured in an instant.
Hiruzen himself was thrown back by the massive shockwave. He managed to summon Monkey King Enma, who transformed into the Adamantine Staff, and stabbed it into the ground to stop himself.
When the storm had passed, a stunned silence fell over the camp, broken only by the groans of the wounded.
Hiruzen's pupils trembled. "How?! Dammit!"
But his only answer was another Tailed Beast Ball.
The enraged Konoha ninja finally reacted.
"Earth Release: Multiple Earth-Style Wall!"
Dozens of Earth Release users combined their efforts, and dozens of massive earthen walls shot up in the path of the Tailed Beast Ball. But the walls were like paper, shattering one after another.
At the last moment, Hiruzen arrived. He slammed his palms on the ground. "Summoning: Rashomon!"
A giant, demonic gate rose from the earth and blocked the now-weakened Tailed Beast Ball. But the resulting explosion still vaporized the main gate of the Konoha camp.
Hiruzen was still radiating heat from the blast, smoke rising from his clothes, but he paid it no mind. He shot to the front of the camp, Adamantine Staff in hand, and stared at the hundreds of figures in the forest.
Hundreds of Cloud ninja. Some stood with their arms crossed, some leaned against trees, some had their swords drawn, some were cracking their knuckles.
They had already declared war. The declaration had been delivered. Hiruzen didn't waste his breath asking why they had attacked. He just couldn't believe they had come so fast, so hard.
The enraged Konoha ninja gathered at his side, among them the powerful White Fang.
Blue Bee, in his tailed beast cloak, looked at him with his tailed beast eyes and began to form another Tailed Beast Ball.
"You dare!"
Hiruzen didn't hesitate. The Tailed Beast Ball's destructive power was too great. A few more, and the entire camp would be destroyed. Against such an attack, only a few of the strongest could survive. He had to stop the Cloud's Jinchuriki, no matter the cost.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
"Earth Release: Earth Flow River!"
The ground turned into a massive river of mud, surging towards the forest.
"Ninja Art: Earth Dragon Flame Stream!"
An earth dragon and a fire dragon appeared, merging into one and charging at the Cloud ninja.
But to his surprise, they all dodged. The hundreds of them scattered as if they had anticipated the attack. His massive combination ninjutsu, which had always been so effective on the battlefield, had not hit a single person.
Another massive Tailed Beast Ball came hurtling towards them. The Konoha ninja combined their efforts again, but this time, instead of just blocking, they used their earth walls and Rashomon to redirect its trajectory.
Blue Bee watched it disappear into the sky, unfazed. He knew the Tailed Beast Ball was not unstoppable. The Mist, for example, had not just stood there and taken it. They had their own ways of dealing with it. But his strategy then had been to bombard them at random times and from random locations, making them impossible to defend against. You could be asleep in your bed and wake up with a Tailed Beast Ball in your face. They couldn't catch him, and they couldn't move their village. It had been a war of attrition.
But today, against the Konoha camp, his strategy was different. His mission was not to fight, but to provide fire suppression.
His voice, from under the tailed beast cloak, was a ferocious growl.
"Then how about this?"
Countless small, head-sized Tailed Beast Balls shot from his mouth in a continuous stream. Each one was powerful enough to level an area of dozens of meters.
The barrage was impossible to completely block. The Konoha camp suffered heavy losses. The younger, less experienced ninja were especially vulnerable. For them, a battle was still a matter of trading kunai. Against a Jinchuriki and a Tailed Beast Ball, they were just sitting ducks.
Hiruzen suddenly realized that without sufficient strength, a Chunin or Genin didn't even have the right to face a Jinchuriki.
"Stop the Jinchuriki at all costs!" he roared, charging forward.
But someone was faster. Sakumo Hatake shot past him, a streak of white light.
In the Cloud's ranks, Dodai, seeing the Konoha ninja charge, remained calm. "Execute the battle plan," he ordered.
He then formed a series of hand seals. "Lava Release: Rubber Shield!"
A large amount of liquid rubber spewed from his mouth, his Kekkei Genkai. He quickly coated the steel shields of five of his comrades, creating rubber-coated steel shields. He took one himself and, with the other five, charged forward.
Sakumo, seeing them charge with their strange weapons, was taken aback. In all his years of fighting, he had never seen a ninja use a shield. Was that even allowed?
The six of them surrounded him. He swung his sword, cutting a deep gash in one of the shields, but the recoil was immense.
This feeling is wrong!
Sakumo, who had never seen Lava Release before, immediately knew that this was no ordinary material. An ordinary shield, even a steel one, he could have cut in two. This strange material was likely infused with chakra. He couldn't break it easily.
The rubber on the shield, under Dodai's control, began to flow, gradually filling the gash he had made.
Sakumo decisively disengaged, trying to circle around them, but he found that they were incredibly fast, sticking to him like shadows.
"We're pretty confident in our speed," one of them said with a grin. "We'd love to have a proper duel with you, but our orders are to tie you up."
This was their strategy, determined long ago. Five speed-type taijutsu users, with special Lava Release shields, would surround and contain Sakumo Hatake, preventing the White Fang from wreaking havoc.
And as Sakumo was being held back, the scattered Cloud ninja, instead of retreating, charged forward, meeting the Konoha ninja, led by Hiruzen, head-on.
"Victory to the Cloud!"
"Let's teach these Konoha bastards what a real fight is!"
And Blue Bee never stopped. The Tailed Beast Balls spewed from his mouth as if they were endless. He would occasionally dodge an incoming ninjutsu, but his barrage of small Tailed Beast Balls had become a filter, constantly bombarding the Konoha camp, even adjusting its angle to support his comrades.
An old, gray-haired Cloud ninja, caught up in the fervor of the battle, tore off his shirt, revealing a body of corded muscle. "I am the Steel Release ninja, Tetsuo Okine!" he roared. "Konoha ninja, come and die! Waaaaa!"