Let's rewind the clock just a little.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh—
Hundreds of shinobi breathed like bellows, yet they dared not slow down, burning their chakra to the limit and exploding their speed to a level they had never reached in their lives!
However, the azure light membrane that devoured the sky and earth behind them was expanding with the speed of lightning!
The cold breath of death was already pressed against the clothes on their backs!
Buzz!!!
Fortunately, just as everyone was a hair's breadth from being formatted into vapor, the terrifying energy boundary suddenly collapsed, rolling inward by a hundred meters.
Boom—
The violent power within the circle erupted!
The people outside the circle, though not consumed, were hit by a ripple of destructive force that followed, like an invisible giant tidal wave!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
All the fleeing shinobi, under this impact, were instantly sent flying like blades of grass in a gale.
For a time, the sounds of bodies hitting the ground mixed with the muffled groans of cracking bones were endless!
Everyone scrambled to their feet, limping and grimacing while rubbing their bruised arms and legs. Yet, their eyes were filled with the joy of "winning the lottery jackpot"!
They were actually still alive!
"My dearest friend, Kakashi!"
Might Guy's signature flash of movement appeared. His big hand, radiating with the heat of youth, slapped his friend's shoulder fiercely, causing Kakashi to stumble.
"Your youthful passion hasn't been extinguished, has it?"
Guy grinned, his pearly white teeth shining like new!
He himself was completely fine. After all, he was a taijutsu ninja, and while he couldn't guarantee much else, his running speed was absolutely top-notch.
He had even grabbed two "youthful protégés" and sprinted away with them!
This was the result of running 500 laps around the Leaf Village every day.
These ninjas, who had never even seen the Leaf Village at 4 AM, certainly wouldn't understand the youthful passion within it!
"I'm... I'm fine!"
Kakashi, rubbing his numb shoulder, poked his head out lazily to respond.
His strength was also formidable, so running away was child's play.
At this moment, the low murmuring around them turned into a buzzing uproar:
"Hey, that world-destroying power... was that the First Hokage's strength? It's horrifying!"
"As expected of the First Hokage. That one move alone could destroy the entire Leaf Village!"
"The God of Shinobi... lives up to his name!"
"The God of Shinobi?"
The Sharingan beneath Kakashi's headband rotated imperceptibly for a moment.
In his brief glimpse back, he had noticed the sudden collapse of the light circle's boundary.
If not for that, seven-tenths of the ninjas present would have been wiped out.
That "mistaken" boundary felt... "just right"!
Then he remembered the Ice Release from earlier that froze everything around them but deliberately avoided everyone.
Ice Release?
The First Hokage? The Second Hokage? There was no record of it in the archives!
The only one who fit the description... was Naruto, and the nascent Ice Release he used that morning to make a "summer-special cola slushie bucket"!
"The gap... is a little too big!"
He glanced at the huge trees in the distance that were frozen solid, looking like brittle wafer cookies. He was speechless for a moment.
"Hey! Kakashi!"
The fire of youth in Might Guy's eyes erupted like lava, and his knuckles cracked loudly as he clenched his fists, "How can the bugle call to charge be interrupted?"
That legendary clash just now had ignited his youthful passion!
This was the peak battlefield that youth was meant for! How could he miss even a second of it?
"Someone is punching a legend for the sake of the Leaf. That kind of spirit—"
His body trembled, and his passion surged, "If the hero falters, I, the Blue Beast, shall step in... and crush the enemy! I will protect the Leaf to my last breath!"
"Of course."
Kakashi's voice was steady. His fingertips unconsciously traced the hot tri-pronged kunai.
His goal remained unchanged!
The two of them set off again. This time, the ninjas following them were not blindly following orders; at the very least, they were all elite jonin.
Half of the invaders within the village had already been dealt with by the "Yellow Flash," and the other half had been swept away by the three hardworking giant toads.
Judging by the toads, Lord Jiraiya had also contributed quite a bit.
At this moment, there were only two battlefields left in the village: one on a rooftop and one in the Forest of Death—no, it was an ocean, no, that's not right either. After that light circle, it should now be called the Basin of Death!
These two locations were the final gambling tables for the continued existence of the Leaf!
And the outcome of this battle here was a matter of life and death!
They had come not to witness, but to turn their meager bodies into the last kindling to protect the Leaf!
Kakashi looked back.
Familiar figures stood like mountains!
Asuma, with his unlit cigarette, Kurenai, with her calm red eyes, the "gatekeeper gods" Izumo and Kotetsu standing shoulder to shoulder, and even the spectacle-wearing Ebisu was gripping a kunai!
Seniors, peers, juniors... the shining names in the Leaf's registry had all gathered here!
Swoosh!
Jiraiya's white robe fluttered down, his white eyebrows slightly raised!
"Yo, Kakashi!"
Before he could finish his greeting, his eyes swept over the scene like a hawk—the scorched glass plains, the deep ravines, the fragmented ice reflecting an eerie cold light. It was a scene of apocalyptic desolation!
Using the contours of the remaining giant tree roots, he was able to grimly confirm: was this hellish pit actually the Forest of Death?
What kind of power could have ravaged the earth to this extent?
At this sight, Jiraiya's pupils contracted violently, and his heart felt like it was plummeting into an icy abyss!
This was a battlefield no fledgling could contend with. Could Naruto have already...?
"Where's Naruto?" he roared, with an unprecedented urgency!
"Naruto?"
Kakashi's chin lifted slightly. In the sky at the core of the battlefield, a speck of golden light was suspended!
Seeing that figure, the tense string of his heart suddenly relaxed, "He's over there. That flying 'little sun'... he's a tough one."
Jiraiya squinted, locking onto the figure.
That stubborn golden light in the sky made his eyes sting!
Twelve or thirteen years old, yet possessing such astonishing talent!
He also inherited the hopes of Minato and Kushina. This future must not be extinguished!
Even if his opponents were the First and Second Hokage, two War Gods who stood at the pinnacle.
Jiraiya took a deep, scorching breath, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists!
He was ready to risk his old life!
"Why is that kid flying so high? Summoning Jutsu!"
Jiraiya's hand signs were not even complete,
When, high in the sky, a familiar and deadly brilliant halo erupted from Naruto's palm!
Was this the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken that kid had shown him that evening?
Following that—
A "ninjutsu storm" violently began its destructive prelude!
The five elemental attributes of Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, and Lightning, plus Ice Release, all six chakras were manipulated at his fingertips with masterful ease!
A tide of over four hundred top-tier ninjutsu, like an inexhaustible, world-destroying waterfall, was unleashed upon the two legendary figures below, delivering a non-stop, super-saturated storm of attacks for a full half-hour!
The mere shockwaves from this terrifying battle would have torn them to shreds.
At the edge of the glass plains—
Finally, Kakashi's Sharingan could no longer be maintained, and he fell directly to the ground!
But no one around him paid him any mind; they were all focused on the distance.
Jiraiya's jaw dropped in shock. His self-proclaimed vast knowledge of the ninja world, built over decades as a Sannin, was shattered to dust at this moment!
Similar to him, all the elite Leaf shinobi watching went from astonishment to dumbfoundedness, then to doubting their lives, and finally, they all had their understanding of a shinobi completely rewritten.
Everyone was pale, unable to believe their eyes!
There was only one question in the depths of their souls: Is this... even human?
"Is that chakra amount what you get after draining nine Tailed Beasts?"
When someone asked this question, everyone else surprisingly agreed!
They had been running wildly just moments ago.
In their minds, they had prepared for a tragic scene of providing support, sacrificing themselves, saying goodbye to a genius, and the end of the village...
There was only one word for it: miserable! miserable! miserable!
But when they rushed over and saw this?
Why was Naruto trolling the First and Second Hokage?
Suddenly,
The primeval wood release at the core of the deep pit began to run wild!
Vines, like a billion bloodthirsty demonic snakes, tore through the rock layers, ignoring the several-kilometer distance, and wrapped around the ninjas at the edge, trying to crush and devour them.
Everyone fought to block the attacks, retreating in disarray!
Their terrified peripheral vision was still fixated on the center of the battlefield, where the roaring tide of wood had grown to monstrous proportions, forming a giant, sky-piercing claw that viciously grabbed at the golden figure in the sky!
Buzz—
Instantly, a column of pure white light, with a boundary as sharp as a paper cutter, suddenly appeared and slammed into the ground, grazing everyone's noses without warning!
The light exploded and vanished in a flash!
The savage wood tide, which had been roaring and trying to swallow the sky, vanished completely, along with the thick earth from which it grew, in a thousandth of a second, without even a whimper.
The light column disappeared as quickly as it appeared!
The view cleared!
The man-eating forest that had been roaring like a tsunami was now just a deep, endless, dark abyss.
"Thi-this... this?"
Someone was so shocked they couldn't even form a complete sentence.
"That's... the Tsuchikage's Dust Release, isn't it?" someone else managed to identify the technique.
"How did that kid Naruto learn that?" Jiraiya looked at Kakashi, hoping to get some information from Naruto's jonin instructor.
But Kakashi was even more baffled than he was.
Dust Release? That's an even more advanced Kekkei Tota!
Where did that kid Naruto learn it? He couldn't have... taught it to him, right?