Naruto gasped. “No way! Them, too?!” He stared hard at their bodies. They were all injured somewhere—probably injuries from the explosion of Tadaichi. Blood oozed out of their wounds, and just like before, it was frothing. A chill ran up Naruto’s spine. “Shikamaru! They’re all gonna explode!”
“What?! If we have several explosions like that one at the same time, this whole area could be sent flying!”
There were nine Konoha ninja left. Their bodies began to transform and swell up, as if things inside were pushing outward.
Shikamaru clicked his tongue. “Can you make some wings with Art of Expansion?!” he yelled at Choji.
“G-got it!” Choji opened a bag of chips he had hidden on him, and shoved them all into his mouth. As he hurriedly chewed them up, he concentrated his power in his body. “Aaaaaaah!”
The secret technique of the Akimichi clan. In the blink of an eye, Choji’s body became enormous, and butterfly wings sprouted on his back. This technique used a vast amount of chakra. Choji’s cheeks, usually swollen, were carved out in sharp relief.
“How long ‘till they explode, Naruto?!”
“Maybe ten seconds!”
Nine, eight, seven—
“Got it! Everyone, behind Choji! Hold onto something solid!”
Six, five, four—
“Choji, now! Flap those wings with everything you’ve got!”
“Aaah!” Having quickly grasped Shikamaru’s intention, Choji braced himself and flapped the massive, chakra-made butterfly wings. He sent all of his own chakra out on the wind they created.
Three, two, one—
Booom! The noise of the explosion. And again and again. A series of these, and the bodies clinging to the wall were ripped apart all at once.
Shikamaru checked the front, and then yelled, “Here it comes!”
When the shock wave came toward the village of Konoha, it collided with the wind radiating outward from Choji’s massive body. The wind hit the shock wave, and the two fought.
“I got your back!!” Naruto shouted. “Here we go, Kurama!”
Right!
To reinforce Choji’s wind, Naruto called up the nine-tailed Kurama, once a source of hatred, now his partner. Power raced through his body, generating a Wind Release: Ransengan that he sent flying toward the shock wave. This new wind pushed back the shock wave to protect the village.
“All right. Nice!”
After wrestling with Choji’s wind, the shock wave was bounced back beyond the village with the added force of Naruto’s Wind Release: Ransengan. The trees of the forest just outside the gates were whipped around by the combination of wind and shock wave and flattened.
“Hah, hah … Did that. Do. The trick?” Choji released his jutsu, breathing hard.
Part of the wall enclosing Konoha was destroyed, but there appeared to be no damage to the village. The flames rising up inside the village had also been blown out.
Shikamaru patted Choji’s shoulder. “Nice work.”
Sakura raced over to the broken wall, but her shoulders dropped with regret. The bodies had been turned into hunks of flesh beyond repair. Ino also bit her lip.
“At any rate, we gotta report to the Hokage. Sai, sorry, can you take us with your Cartoon Mimicry?” Shikamaru quickly gave instructions. Naruto also moved to follow Shikamaru.
“Naruto!”
Just as Sai pulled out his brush, they heard someone suddenly call out Naruto’s name. They looked in that direction and saw a man with wide-framed sunglasses and spiky black hair swept up and back running over to the scene.
“Huh? Who’re you again?” The man looked familiar, but his name wouldn’t come out.
“Yamashiro Aoba!”
“Yamashiro Aoba?”
“We went to Turtle Island in Kumogakure together!”
“Ohh! Yeah, right! Huh? What? You going to Turtle Island again?”
“Not that! I’m a messenger from the Hokage!” Aoba shouted out the main point, sensing a danger that the conversation would continue to go in this strange circle.
“From Master Kakashi? What’s he say?”
“Earlier, intruders were detected by the barrier. They number thirty.”
“What?!” they all cried out in surprise. Thirty—three times the attack just now.
“Does that mean new intruders?” Sakura asked. “They were detected this time?”
“Yes.” Aoba nodded. “They’re heading this way now.”
Naruto felt eyes on him from the woods on the other side of the destroyed wall. “There!”
From the dark woods, first, a lone man. He was followed by one more, and then another.
“That may be …” Sakura murmured, a bewildered look on her face.
They were wearing ninja uniforms. But they were a mix of Kirigakure and Kumogakure uniforms. The marks of those two villages were also carved into their forehead protectors.
“This looks like it’s gonna be a drag,” quick-thinking Shikamaru grumbled. “Naruto, you guys were with the Sixth—Master Kakashi, right? You heard that someone had invaded the village, and you came running to the scene. From all this so far, I’m guessing that the barrier team didn’t notice the first intruders until they were in the village.”
“Y-yeah.”
Shikamaru talked as though he had actually been there himself. “Although they were being controlled by someone, Tadaichi and the others were Konoha ninja. That’s why they were able to slip through the barrier without being noticed. They were probably just a teaser, at best.”
The army corps of mind-controlled ninja was slowly approaching. Dull eyes that gave no impression of will. This was the main force.
“On top of that, there’s a good chance that these guys here now are the missing ninja from Kiri and Kumo. Honestly, it’s just one thing after another.” Shikamaru scratched his head.
“Shikamaru—the trigger that makes them explode is probably getting hurt. Their wounds emit a strange chakra and starts the transformation of their bodies.” Just like Naruto had noticed their wounds, Sakura had also apparently picked out the trigger for the explosions.
“In which case, we can’t be careless with them.” A serious look rose up on Shikamaru’s face as he stared at the approaching ninja.
And this situation was not just happening in Konoha.
“Why would the ninja from the alliance training corps be here?”
Unlike Konoha, where few of its own ninja had shown up, Kirigakure had had several dozen of their own thrown at them right from the start, and these ninja had made it into the interior of the village. Fighting to defend Kiri’s key facilities, Chojuro gritted his teeth at the smoke rising up in every direction.
“Chojuro, the evacuation of the elderly and the children is complete,” The Mizukage appeared before him to report the end of the evacuation. “I’m going.” She started to run off to the central area of the battle. “Tell them to follow me. I have a duty to protect the people of the village. That … means them too.” She looked at the smoke wafting up in tufts, unlike the fog that always hung over the village. These mind-controlled people were also ninja of Kirigakure.
“I’ll protect you, Lady Mizukage—the village of Kirigakure … absolutely!”
“Mm, I’m counting on you.”
“Boss! Please leave this to us! Sorry!”
“Ngh!”
Similarly, the ninja of Kumogakure also stared at their completely changed comrades. The Raikage was itching to join in the fight, but Darui, the Raikage’s right hand, saw that there was a risk of causing more damage if he did, so he was holding the village chief back.
“Shouldn’t we be calling Killer B?!” Omoi brought up his mentor Killer B, imagining the worst-case scenario.
“There’ll be too much chaos!” all the ninja around him shouted.
“C, haven’t you detected the true identity of the enemy yet?!” Darui turned his gaze on the sensor ninja C.
C frowned and shook his head from side to side.
Their opponents were ninja under a genjutsu. And if you hurt them, they exploded. They had no will of their own. What on earth were they supposed to do?
“Naruto!”
A new voice rang out. He turned around and saw a woman running toward him, long hair swinging.
“Hinata?!”
“After you noticed Tadaichi’s explosion and jumped back, I called her through Ino,” Shikamaru said to the stunned Naruto.
Born into the main family of the Hyuga clan, Hinata was the possessor of the byakugan. She had a wide field of vision and the ability to see through things, among others.
“Hinata, it seems like everyone’s under a genjutsu. Is there someone controlling them somewhere?”
“Understood. I’ll look.” Hinata—now also Naruto’s wife—focused her power in her eyes. The blood vessels popped up one after another and then her eyes opened.