The moment the main gate was breached, the entire village of Iwagakure plunged into chaos.
The Tsuchikage and the Four-Tails' jinchūriki were both absent. The Anbu vice-captain and the elders had already been slain by the Third Raikage. The only figure left with any real authority in Iwa was the jinchūriki of the Five-Tails.
But at this moment, even the Five-Tails' jinchūriki had no good solution. He didn't dare to undergo full tailed-beast transformation — he had never gained the complete acknowledgment of the Five-Tails, and so he had no means of controlling it.
What's more, there was no way he could release the beast inside the village itself. Summoning the Five-Tails here would only add to the destruction rather than prevent it.
With no other choice, the jinchūriki could only shout empty words like, "Hold the line!" or "Lord Tsuchikage is already on his way back!" — but it was clear such words carried little effect.
Leaderless, Iwagakure fell into disarray. The shinobi of Kumogakure seized the opportunity and surged directly into the heart of the village.
The Third Raikage rampaged like a human-shaped beast of war, charging again and again through the Iwa shinobi ranks. The terrifying lightning armor raged across the battlefield, scattering their formations as if they were nothing.
At that moment, the entire village was teetering on the edge of collapse. Countless Kumo shinobi used the chaos to flood into the village, launching large-scale destruction.
By the time Iwagakure's forces regrouped and engaged Kumogakure's elites in close-quarters street combat, the village was already in ruins.
Fortunately, they had evacuated the civilians and the children of the ninja academy into underground shelters beforehand. Otherwise, Kumo's rampage alone would have caused massive civilian casualties.
Once the fighting shifted to the alleys, the Raikage's charges no longer had quite the same overwhelming effect. Iwa's shinobi, relying on their intimate knowledge of the terrain, began to recover some advantagxe.
The street battles dragged on without anyone knowing how long had passed — when suddenly, from the village gate came a piercing crack of thunder.
The moment they heard it, the Kumo shinobi halted their fighting and destruction. Each of them drew a handful of explosive tags from their vests and scattered them before them.
It was their designated retreat signal. That sharp thunderclap meant the Third Tsuchikage, Ōnoki, had returned. It was time to withdraw.
The Iwa shinobi noticed this as well. They launched a frenzied counterattack, trying desperately to slow the enemy down so that their Tsuchikage could arrive and crush the invaders.
But Kumo had come far too prepared. Amid the endless chain of detonations, they laughed as they disengaged and pulled out, leaving only a devastated Iwagakure in their wake.
High above, Ōnoki had already sensed the turmoil from a distance. His face was as dark as a fiend crawling out of the deepest hell. The speed of his Light-Weight Boulder Technique was pushed to its absolute limit.
He shot toward the village in fury, and finally spotted the retreating Kumo elite near the entrance to Iwagakure.
Seeing his village ablaze below, Ōnoki clenched his teeth so hard they ground audibly. With a sharp gesture, he raised his hand and summoned the blinding light of Dust Release.
"You black-skinned vermin… go atone for your sins in hell! Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique!"
At that moment, the enraged Ōnoki unleashed the Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique — the very jutsu Hoshiyomi feared most.
Unlike when the Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique manifested as a massive pillar of light, this time it appeared first as a tiny cube.
But when the Third Raikage saw that tiny cube, his expression changed drastically. He immediately rushed forward, shouting to his men:
"Scatter, all of you! Spread out as far as you can — minimize casualties!"
Vmmmm!
The tiny cube shot into the midst of the Kumogakure forces and began to tremble violently, swelling larger and larger. What had been no bigger than a palm's breadth expanded in the blink of an eye into a massive cube hundreds of cubic meters across.
Pure white.
For a moment, it was as if that was the only color left in all existence. The enormous cube drained the world of every shade, casting all things into dull insignificance before its radiance.
No one knew how long the blinding brilliance lasted. Only after it faded did the truth reveal itself — an empty void at the center of the cube.
Everything encompassed within it — Kumogakure shinobi, stone walls, earth, and even vegetation — had all been disintegrated down to their very atoms by the Dust Release. Erased from this world forever.
Even with Kumo's forces spreading their formation wide, the sheer size of the technique inflicted devastating losses.
Out of Kumo's three thousand elite, nearly five hundred vanished in an instant.
Even one as proud and unbending as the Third Raikage dared not provoke Ōnoki further. Turning to his surviving men, he barked:
"Board the ships. We're retreating."
Ōnoki, watching the Kumo forces withdraw, ached to unleash another Dust Release after them. But that was wishful thinking.
He had just fought a major battle, then flown at full speed for an entire day. His chakra reserves were already more than half-drained. After casting the technique just now, his tank was completely empty.
That was why he did not pursue the Raikage further — his will burned, but his strength had run dry.
With a long, heavy sigh, Ōnoki roared toward the distant Third Raikage:
"Raikage! This debt — I, Ōnoki, will repay tenfold!"
...
This time, Iwagakure's losses were catastrophic.
Kumogakure's surprise assault had annihilated the village's defending elite. Of more than ten thousand shinobi, only around seven thousand remained. Coupled with the fact that much of the village itself had been destroyed, the damage was catastrophic.
When Rōshi returned with his forces, the fires still raged in Iwa's streets.
Tears ran silently down his cheeks as he beheld the burning village. Because of his stubbornness, the village had been reduced to this in a single night. It was all his fault.
The thought broke him. With a dull thud, he dropped to his knees, spirit shattered, as if his very soul had fled.
Ōnoki, who was urgently directing shinobi to extinguish fires and take stock of the damage, glanced at Rōshi's broken figure. His lips trembled, but in the end, he said nothing.
What could he say? Seeing Rōshi wracked by such gut-wrenching remorse, he found no words of blame. And yet, offering comfort to that stubborn fool was something he could not bring himself to do either.
At last, he simply walked past him and addressed the others instead:
"Put out the fires and gather the bodies. Check the shelters — make sure the civilians and the children are unharmed. And recall the forces from the frontlines. With things as they are, keeping them there serves no purpose."
When the Iwa shinobi returning from the front arrived and saw their home, grief was written across every face.
Ōnoki scowled at them and raised his voice:
"Stop your wailing! You are shinobi of Iwagakure — inheritors of the Will of Stone! As Iwa ninja, you must stand firm, unyielding and immovable. What's the point of having a long face after facing a small setback like this? I'm telling you, whether it's Konoha or Kumo, we will eventually fight back!"
Hearing their Tsuchikage's words, the Iwa shinobi hastily wiped away their tears and found new resolve. Rōshi was the first to leap into action, leading by example despite his crushing guilt.
But no matter how he fought, the guilt in his heart could never be erased.