Having finished the hand signs, Sakura slammed one hand onto the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
As soon as she finished speaking, a thick cloud of white smoke exploded, and the giant Katsuyu slowly emerged from the mist.
Its soft body covered more than half of the training ground, and damp mucus dripped onto the ground with soft "tap-tap" sounds.
"Sakura, this is the first time you've summoned me. Is there a troublesome enemy?"
Katsuyu's gentle voice echoed in the air, its giant compound eyes looking at the two in the field.
Sakura stood atop its head, panting heavily; after all, summoning such a massive form was quite a drain on her.
"We're training. Katsuyu, help me defeat her."
"Training?"
Then Katsuyu looked down at Yui's small figure and at Tsunade in the distance with her arms crossed, and said, "Alright, I'll be careful and won't take her life."
Meanwhile, in the distance, Naruto, who was fighting Kenta using human wave tactics, saw Katsuyu's massive silhouette, and his eyes immediately lit up.
"It's Grandma Tsunade's summoned beast! I didn't expect Sakura to have learned this move too. I can't fall behind."
Immediately, all the clones attacked Kenta even more furiously.
Kenta's face turned pale at the sight of the dense crowd of clones; he now somewhat understood why Aoki Yoru had said that no one wanted to encounter an opponent like Naruto.
It was simply cheating; he would just wear you down to death.
Especially for a Taijutsu Ninja like him.
Unless one could clear the field with an absolute ultimate move like Kakashi, the only way was to find his original body.
Bang, bang, bang—
After taking out a circle of Naruto's clones with a Leaf Whirlwind, Kenta sighed, "I'd better finish you off quickly, or I'll be mocked by those two guys."
Outside the field, Aoki Yoru looked at Katsuyu's massive body and then at Yui with interest, muttering to himself, "So, how will you respond?"
One must realize that a summoned beast of Katsuyu's size, in Sakura's hands, instantly became a Kage-level combat force.
Without a comparable summoned beast, one would be at a great disadvantage.
Yui looked at the giant Katsuyu before her without a hint of panic. She quickly bit her finger, formed the hand signs for the Summoning Jutsu, and slammed her hands onto the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
A cloud of white smoke rose, and a giant lizard appeared opposite Katsuyu, its size no smaller than the slug's.
"When did Yui get a summoned beast?"
Aoki Yoru's face was full of confusion; after all, he hadn't heard them mention it.
"Kakashi-sensei, did you know?"
"Well, it's my first time seeing it too.
But before, after Yui finished a mission, she excitedly mentioned she had contracted a wonderful summoned beast. This must be the one."
"Is that so? She's really lucky."
Large summoned beasts like this are hard to come by; lucky ones like Jiraiya are few and far between.
Back then, to find a large summoned beast, he had traveled far and wide, finally finding Yatagarasu in the Land of Birds by sheer luck.
"However, the only lizard summoned beasts that appeared in the original story were Nagato's chameleon and the late 'Masashi Kishimoto's' Shuzaki Giant Lizard."
As Aoki Yoru looked at its appearance, it felt more and more like that Shuzaki Giant Lizard.
"But that giant lizard should have been dealt with during a mission by Naruto, Hinata, and Kiba after Sasuke's defection, right?"
Then Aoki Yoru shook his head; he could just ask Yui about it later.
Besides, since he took over the Mission Department and reformed it, perhaps that mission wasn't taken by Naruto's team.
If another team had taken it and gotten trapped, then it would make sense for Yui to have gone to the rescue.
After all, in the original story, Naruto being able to undo the summoning was just down to luck and protagonist plot armor.
At this moment, the two behemoths in the field faced off tensely.
A low growl rumbled from the throat of the Shuzaki Giant Lizard, and its long, forked tongue shot out like a bolt of lightning.
It was so fast the trajectory was almost invisible, instantly wrapping tightly around Katsuyu's soft body, the slime-covered tongue constricting fiercely.
Katsuyu stiffened slightly under the constriction, its massive body visibly tensing, and a low cry of pain escaped its mouth, as if it were being strangled.
But in the next second, its soft body seemed to melt, beginning to divide through the gaps in the lizard's tongue.
Countless tiny slugs slid out from the constricted area, covered in transparent mucus, and in the blink of an eye, they escaped the entanglement and scattered, leaving only the empty tongue to tighten in place.
Those small slugs arched through the air and converged again, restoring themselves to their original massive form.
Katsuyu's mouth bulged, and then it spat out a pale yellow liquid, spraying toward the lizard like a downpour.
"Tongue Tooth Sticky Acid!"
The pale yellow acid splashed onto the Shuzaki Giant Lizard like rain. White mist instantly rose from its hard scales, accompanied by a piercing "sizzle" of corrosion.
The lizard shrieked in pain, its body reflexively tensing, and its skin suddenly turned black, hardening into Earth-attribute skin.
The Shuzaki Giant Lizard seemed provoked, its eyes filled with killing intent.
"Alright, that's enough for this match."
Tsunade's voice rang out, stopping the conflict between the two summoned beasts.
Yui and Sakura nodded at her words and unsummoned their beasts.
Whoosh—
Yui appeared beside Aoki Yoru.
Aoki Yoru looked at her; though she was a bit messy, she wasn't disheveled. He smiled and said, "You've been hiding this well! When did you contract this summoned beast?"
Yui brushed the dust off herself and said with a smile, "Two years ago, while on a mission in the Land of Honey, I found a strange castle. The castle seemed alive, so I observed it from the outside and eventually found an opportunity to contract it."
Hearing this, Aoki Yoru showed an "as expected" expression; it really was that summoned beast of 'Masashi Kishimoto'.
"You're really lucky."
Yui smiled. "I can't compare to you. Yatagarasu is an extremely rare Flying Ninja Beast."
Then, she looked into the distance at Kenta, who was still fighting Naruto's Shadow Clones.
"It looks like Kenta won't be finishing anytime soon!"
"Naruto is the kind of opponent a Taijutsu Ninja like him wants to face the least. After all, his Chakra capacity is just cheating."
Aoki Yoru said with a playful smile, "If he doesn't use the Eight Gates, his Chakra will be drained dry very quickly."
In the original story, Naruto's Shadow Clones were all taken out by Sakura; otherwise, even Kakashi might have been worn down quite uncomfortably.
That was also why Kakashi set a time limit for the test back then; otherwise, Naruto would have kept going for seven days and seven nights.
At this moment, Kenta looked at the endless Shadow Clones with a pained expression.
There were just too many; he couldn't kill them all.
Then he took a deep breath. It seemed Yui's side was already finished; he couldn't drag this out any longer.
Bang—bang—!
To Naruto's stunned gaze, Kenta actually began to step up into the air, one pace at a time.
"Ah! You're cheating! You actually went into the air!"
On the field, thousands of Narutos were howling continuously.
The cacophony of voices filled the entire arena.