The mont the cry of "Enemy attack!" rang out through Iwagakure, that white light had already descended.
There was no earth-shaking explosion, no mountain-toppling roar.
There was only annihilation.
The annihilation of the ninja standing guard at Iwagakure's gate.
The annihilation of the gate itself.
"I… I…"
Far off in the sky, Ōnoki floated there, staring at the scene before him with eyes red from shock and grief.
Even in his dreams, he never could have imagined that the first one to break through Iwagakure's gate… would be himself.
"Bastard!"
"You bastard!"
Ōnoki wanted to scream at the heavens, but he couldn't even do that. Kabuto's Impure World Reincarnation had already reached an extrely advanced level. Once the control formula was implanted, every movent he made had to obey Kabuto's will.
The only thing he could still freely control was his own mouth.
And what good did that do?
"Enemy attack!"
With the gate of Iwagakure erased, the village—which had already been on high alert—finally reacted.
Ninja started rushing toward the gate one after another. Even Kitsuchi, who had now inherited the position of Tsuchikage, was racing there as well. And when they finally arrived, they saw who the enemy was.
"F-Father?"
When Kitsuchi clearly saw Ōnoki floating not far away, his eyes were filled with disbelief.
He rembered perfectly well that his father was dead.
So why was he suddenly standing there again, and why had he just blasted open Iwagakure's gate?
"How is that possible?"
"Wasn't the Third Tsuchikage already dead?"
"I rember his coffin is still in the village…"
Kitsuchi wasn't the only one. More and more ninja recognized the man floating above them.
"No. That's not really the Third Tsuchikage."
Rōshi narrowed his eyes as he looked up at Ōnoki.
He could sense sothing strange about the chakra radiating from him. At the very least, it was clearly different from the chakra signature Ōnoki used to have.
"Kill !"
"I was dragged back from the Pure Land into the shinobi world by an evil jutsu!"
"My body may look old, but it's not as frail as it used to be anymore. All the sickness and weakness are gone!"
"I only have maybe twenty or thirty percent of my old chakra. I can still use Dust Release, but I don't have enough chakra to keep using it constantly. Rōshi, Han, Deidara, Kitsuchi—find a way to kill !"
Dust Release light gathered in Ōnoki's hand once again.
Why, even facing his own son and the ninja of his own village, did things have to happen under these circumstances?
At that mont, Ōnoki truly wanted to skin Kabuto alive.
The problem was… he didn't even know Kabuto's na.
"A forbidden jutsu… that drags the dead back from the Pure Land?"
As the light of Dust Release flared again, the Iwa ninja began throwing up layer after layer of earthen walls. The huge stone barriers dissolved the instant they touched Dust Release—
but with enough of them stacked together, they still managed to stop the attack from erasing everything ahead of it.
"How can a jutsu like this even exist in the shinobi world…"
Kitsuchi stared up at the floating Ōnoki in disbelief. Just seeing his father's face already cut his fighting spirit by thirty percent.
Because that was his father.
That was Iwagakure's Third Tsuchikage.
"I'll handle it!"
Other people might still hesitate because of Ōnoki's identity, but Rōshi felt no such hesitation at all.
He and Ōnoki had been at odds for a long ti. Rōshi had left the village years ago precisely because he disagreed with Ōnoki's ideals. If he hadn't heard that Iwagakure was attacked by Akatsuki and that Ōnoki had died, he might never even have returned.
And now that Ōnoki stood before him again, Rōshi had only one thought:
Send him back to the Pure Land with his own fists.
Boom—!
As soon as Rōshi shouted, a massive sphere of lava ca hurtling toward the sky beside him. Streams of blazing orange-red magma carved a dazzling trail through the air.
As the Four-Tails jinchūriki, Rōshi possessed the sa Lava Release as Uchiha Chizumi.
In fact, before Chizumi beca famous, Rōshi had been the shinobi world's true representative of Lava Release.
Faced with the incoming lava teor from below, Ōnoki made no move to dodge.
Or rather, he couldn't. The one controlling his body was no longer his own will.
"Well done…"
As he watched the lava teor about to crash into him, a trace of relief finally appeared in Ōnoki's eyes.
But before he could even finish those words, his hands ca together again.
A Dust Release cube ford in his palms.
"Everyone, scatter!"
Kitsuchi hadn't expected his old father's corpse to use Dust Release this quickly. The mont he saw that familiar white glow, he roared.
But it was too late.
The white light descended once more.
This ti, there were no walls to block it.
Three Iwa chūnin who hadn't managed to retreat in ti vanished soundlessly in the white light, without even leaving behind a scream.
"Damn it!"
Han roared from the other side.
Steam and chakra exploded from his body at the sa ti, and he shot toward Ōnoki like a cannonball.
Han was huge, and his taijutsu was among the best in Iwagakure. Even against the Third Tsuchikage, he had no intention of backing down.
Boom!
Han was too fast.
With the power of Steam Release boosting him, his speed briefly rivaled even the Raikage, the world's greatest taijutsu specialist. Ōnoki had only just unleashed Dust Release and had no room to dodge.
With a deafening crash, Han's punch landed squarely in the center of Ōnoki's chest.
"Is… is it over?"
On the ground, Kitsuchi and the others stared upward. Seeing Ōnoki's chest blown open, their faces looked grim, but they still let out a long breath of relief.
The psychological burden of fighting the Third Tsuchikage had been enormous for Iwagakure.
But now… it should finally be over, right?
"How could it possibly end that easily?"
"Impure World Reincarnation gives the dead a kind of immortality."
"No matter how many tis their bodies are destroyed, no matter how severe the injury, an Impure World Reincarnation body can regenerate in an instant!"
In a nearby town close to Iwagakure, Kabuto watched the hole punched through Ōnoki's chest and only smiled coldly.
He truly had wanted to test just how much of Ōnoki's forr strength remained.
But at the sa ti, he also bore deep malice toward Iwagakure.
After all, the mother in his heart—Nono Yakushi—had died because of Iwagakure.
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