Powerful and confident steps tore through the overgrown parts of the Kusagakure forests. Men and women of Iwagakure were quite firm, strict, and always to the point. Usually, they took no luxury of enjoying their surrounding especially now that the surrounding was so completely different from their home. Iwagakure was a place where winds from the mountains carried rains of small rocks, a rocky country founded in a sweet spot surrounded by mountain ranges that provided natural protection. This ancient strategy of finding a safe place to live in an eye of stormy and sky-high mountains worked - even the Lightning Lord found his safe-house in the surroundings of the Inari mountain range in the Lightning Country desert.
The lands of the Grass village were completely overgrown, once in a while, the thick and endless forests ended but only to reveal a giant ravine. For a first time traveler, the entire landscape would've probably started to remind more of "land of ravines" or "land of bridges" as the grass was a rather unimpressive detail to make a name out of.
The dense forests that one wouldn't have been wrong to call a jungle were unrivaled by any other country. Still, the bare-chested figure of a middle-aged man with overflowing white hair and blood red facial tattoos encouraged his men to walk faster and make wider and more confident steps the more the jungles of Kusagakure resisted. It seemed like no tree branches and no insects even hurt the man or bothered him at the very least. His step remained firm and strong no matter how long he walked.
That would've been the man's downfall as with one loud slurping and breaking sound he stepped into some strange stony construction built from rotten wood. The Kaguya man curiously stared at the round hive that he had stepped into as his men lost all of their cool.
"Oh no, run, Tsuchikage-sama! These are the infamous Kusagakure killer hornets!" the men started shouting as swarms of the insects covered the already brief patches of visible sky and made the entire forest area black. Their buzzing sounded almost like some sort of intricate machinery working at full power. These were the killer insects that a clan of insect-using mercenaries had discovered and used to their full extent during the war.
While their usage of these hornets was relatively successful the insects were rather uncontrollable even using their own pheromones and were known to rebel and attack even their own masters. Iwagakure had enough trouble in the war as it was, the last thing they needed was a clan of idiots sending hornets that were just as likely to attack their own men as it attacked the enemy... That period was shameful to Iwagakure history as it was back then during the warring days that the country slipped into hardships.
The hornets kept trying to sting the Tsuchikage, thousands of the hand-sized insects trying to penetrate his skin. None of them prevailed, with each bite the insect just fell powerless to the ground as their own mandibles gave in and shattered. The man known as the Tsuchikage just arrogantly watched as the problem of the overly aggressive swarm of killer hornets just killed themselves trying to leave a dent in the man's skin. While his clothes did give in and the insects left many holes not even a scratch remained on his skin, it was almost like an autumn leaf had fallen on the man's skin - it felt like a tickle if anything else.
"Well... I guess the stories of the lethality of these insects were widely exaggerated, let's go, men, it's safe now." the Kaguya turned back at his men who kept staring at the man.
Despite the men having endless opportunities to know the man's seemingly infinite strength and durability, they ended up surprised each time. In so many years of this man's presence in the leading position, not a single time he felt challenged by anything - the knives of the assassins broke when plunged into his chest, the man won every wrestling tournament of many that he himself organized to improve the bombing Iwagakure economy. At some point, those tournaments just ended up being "who can last the longest against the Tsuchikage" sort of competitions as no wanderer from any country managed to challenge the man properly.
Kaguya Yaban seemed to be the perfect leader for the sinking ninja village. During the war Iwagakure initially seemed like sort of a top dog, over the times of peace they have assembled a powerful military and kept sending overpowering numbers of ninja into each battle. They also did not lack skill - their men were toughened by living in the mountains where the air was scarce and rains of rocks were constant.
Even the housewives of Iwagakure could've won some of the battles. The problems started when Iwagakure sensed their success - they started overextending and abusing their early successes. The overzealous country sent an immense military force to compete for even the least important patches of territory and least strategically important military objects. While Iwagakure scored many successes, the Third Tsuchikage did not put into consideration what toll his extensive military exploits had on the economy.
Iwagakure was a country that lived off of natural resources as the mountains were not the best soil for farming. Their entire income came from what they could find in numerous mines and what they won in the war, also tributes from weaker villages nearby like the Kusagakure where the delegation was now traveling to the Kage Summit.
When Iwagakure started to feel arrogant and wanting to feel the thrill of victory in every battle they managed to piss off every country, suddenly Iwagakure troops started appearing even in petty battles against two other villages. The villages started increasing their production of military technology as well and then Iwagakure started struggling to keep up. They also overextended and exhausted their mines draining them empty of iron and other minerals, even more, Iwagakure's infinite supply of gold no longer mattered because no country felt like trading with the arrogant war dog that felt obliged to involve themselves in every battle.
As the war progressed Iwagakure found itself more and more reliant on the gold they mined from their mines, countless accidents made even that exploit increasingly difficult - cave-ins happened day after day as with the increasing digging quotas came lack of basic carefulness, endless gas leaks happened choking down every miner in the section, as quotas increased explosives started getting used for mining gold and sadly greedy ninja were not the best handlers of hazardous and subtle tools like explosives.
Soon Iwagakure closed off their last veins of gold under endless rocky chambers of gas and vast layers of varied minerals and rocks piled on them. It would've taken too much to dig the obstacles out of the way and Iwagakure lacked both the manpower and resources to fund such a project - the war started choking the village and soon the entire Earth Country down. Not to mention that when devoting one's entire manpower to war not that many miners remained, while Iwagakure treated every loss of countless miners in careless accidents as "nothing to worry about" they started running out of human resources very soon.
Luckily the Earth Lord withdrew from the war before the Tsuchikage would employ children and women in the mines. The terms of peace treaties were even crueler, like countless daggers all striking at one's side at once, bleeding the arrogant country out.
After the death of the Third Tsuchikage, the current one stepped into his place - a confident young ninja who was too young as a chuunin to be employed in the war so he led the mines. As the incredibly strong ninja and a great patriot Kaguya Yaban saved many ordinary men from the mines and earned the love and adoration of all: men for being such a great symbol of manliness, women for being such a model beefcake and bringing their husbands home, children for being an icon of heroism and being the man who brought their fathers back home and also worked his oversized muscles off to gather enough gold so that their parents had enough to buy bread for dinner.
He was the hero of the people so if the already hated Ninja Council decided to elect another there'd have undoubtedly had been a revolution. Unlike Kumogakure, Iwagakure never had to regret such a hasty decision to choose a young and powerful ninja as the successor of leadership - Kaguya Yaban was the perfect Kage.
"I don't get it... Why didncha cut those buggies down with yer bones, Tsuchikage-sama!?" a chuunin scratched his head making his bandana slip off, the man just cursed and picked it up carelessly slapping it back onto his head.
Yaban started sulking and turned away curling close to the nearby tree. A fellow ninja that knew the Tsuchikage since the mining days punched the back of the chuunin's head making his bandana slip off again and forcing the ninja to pick it up and put it on again.
"Ye fool, Tsuchikage-sama may be a Kaguya but he doesn't possess the Shikotsumyaku bloodline, that's like... Most of the clan's members that don't, why did you think he had that ability anyway?" the man asked his comrade who just laughed out and scratched the back of his head.
"Oh... Sorry, sorry... I just... You know... Thought since Yaban-sama is the Raikage... And a Kaguya... Well..." the white-haired hunk stood up and looked back at his subordinate, he no longer looked that depressed after being reminded that he did not possess the bloodline, he just gestured that the men kept on moving.
"Tsuchikage is a bit depressed about the subject, he always felt like he was a loser for not inheriting the bloodline. That's why he worked extra hard, that's why the guys back during the mining days during the Second Great War looked up to him - he had the ancient heritage of the Moon People but he was just the same as you and I and he achieved everything he did not because of some bones shooting outta his body but because he just worked the hardest out of all."
The Tsuchikage looked back angrily and once again encouraged his men to keep on walking. Right after that, another ravine opened up - larger than the others before this one. The men couldn't help but sigh as walking over those ancient bridges every time felt like they were gambling with their lives. The men stepped onto the bridge and kept walking - this bridge was also the firmest of all they stepped onto before, probably because it covered the longest ravine so it had to be the greatest and the best in terms of construction.
As the men made their way to halfway of the bridge a loud blast echoed, the ninja looked back to the beginning of the bridge, then to the end and witnessed the most horrific thing - the start and the end of the bridge blew up, with an immense shaking the bridge started plummeting down to the abyssal ravine the end of which was completely invisible from the top.
As the bridge disappeared down into the endless hole, ninja gathered around each end of the bridge, they wore camouflaging cloaks and Kirigakure headbands and looked down. One of them reached his ear and contacted someone using his earset,
"Please tell Mizukage-sama that it is done - Tsuchikage and his delegation are disposed of! So strange, this was just too easy... Wait for a sec." he spoke as a loud rumble alerted the ninja, they looked down into the bottom of the abyss and noticed an unintelligible shadow below that was quickly approaching them. As it quickly dashed through them the men all stumbled backward, what appeared from the end of the abyssal fall was...
The entire bridge that had plummeted down with one man seemingly levitating and holding the bridge with the men from below. "Weightless Boulder Jutsu..." the Tsuchikage spoke as it didn't seem like this bridge at all troubled him, the men all leaped from the bridge to confront their attackers to the other side where the end of the bridge was. As the Iwagakure delegation engaged one half of the military force the Tsuchikage just tossed the entire bridge at the other crushing that entire part and making large chunks of the entire rocky forest to plummet down below. He then turned around and focused his attention on the Kirigakure military.
"Men, scatter! I'll take care of them all," he said as the men all dashed backward concealing themselves in the forest. The Tsuchikage kicked his body off of the air and dashed forward diving into the entire squad of ninja. One brave Kirigakure shinobi jumped off and decided to punch the Tsuchikage right in the face as he dashed at them seeing how the Kaguya was wide open. As the man's fist collided with the Tsuchikage's face a loud cracking sound made everyone around that area pout in disgust, the man screamed pathetically as he fell to the ground clutching his shattered arm.
The Kaguya stomped the ground sending powerful shockwave and making the entire area start to slide into the abyss below. Quite a lot of Kirigakure ninja fell to the ground crying out in pain as their leg bones were busted by the impulse that passed through the dirt being transferred into their lower bodies as it passed through. Those ninja all started falling into the abyss below, many others retreated further into the forest.
The Tsuchikage moved incredibly fast dashing through the forest and appearing near several ninja running in pairs and knocking them out just by slamming into them. Then the white-haired hero slammed the ground a couple of more times sending shockwaves and opening up fissures that swallowed smaller squads whole and knocked even more ninja down busting their legs. Two powerhouses of the Kirigakure military dashed up to the Kaguya who avoided their punches and then grabbed their arms lifting the men into the air as if they weighed nothing, he then swung them around as he jumped up and drove his knees into both of their backs finishing the men off instantly as they fell lifeless to the ground.
"What incredible strength!" a Tsuchigakure ninja gulped in awe, "So this is the strength that Tsuchikage acquired mining in the great gold mines?" he asked a fellow shinobi who just shook his head.
"What you see here isn't just physical strength. Yaban-sama was not only missing his clan's signature bloodline, he was also very bad at ninjutsu. That did not stop him though, he trained hard and increased his chakra pushing his body and powering his physical state as well." The man began explaining, as he did the Tsuchikage kept flashing through the battlefield knocking out one small squad of Kirigakure ninja after the other without even breaking a sweat just by dashing into them.
"So Tsuchikage-sama is like Chestnut Hanasaku of Konoha then? Has he somehow figured out her secret? After all even if one enhances one's physical attributes by just increasing their chakra level there's a heavy limit to everything, one that uses a jutsu to enhance their physical abilities will always best one that strengthened them naturally by increasing their overall chakra levels, right?" the first one asked still cheering on his Kage who got hit in the face with a katana only for the chakra enhanced blade to shatter into smallest bits.
Many more ninja tried to punch and kick Yaban but all of them collapsed to the ground rolling on the floor with broken bones. Even those that became powerful taijutsu specialists by training their chakra and increasing their physical limits to new heights couldn't handle hitting Yaban, leave alone being hit by him.
"No... Yaban-sama realized that this method that is common among taijutsu users will only take him this far. He went against his genes and started busting his body by training the secret Tsuchikage technique of boulder weight manipulation. All the leaders of the village were masters of this technique, all of them brought something new to the mix, Yaban-sama didn't want to become the leader - he just wanted to master the technique because it was in his way. After all, if he mastered what he was born without the ability to use that meant he could also break the known limits of the primitive strength boosting methods... While he did not realize his goals and break the chakra level strength boosting limits, he did raise the Weightless Boulder Technique to new heights. What you see before you is... A man who had combined natural strength and the ability to change an object's mass in mere moments. He can fly by making himself weightless, he can lift a mountain, if he wants to, by making the mountain weigh nothing and then undo his own technique after tossing it. It is safe to say that Kaguya Yaban became the strongest man alive..."
As the two ninja exchanged their admiration for the Tsuchikage the man just about finished up with the entire squadron of Kirigakure shinobi. The man dashed around the battlefield beating the men up, sending them flying with mere flicks and sometimes restraining his punches and just unleashing flurries of blurring punching combinations onto one man completely overwhelming them.
The man's strength was not what was impressive, it was his perfect absolute control over his ability - one moment he could punch as strong as a hammer, the next one he could punch the man so high that he reached the sky and disappeared in the clouds. The Kirigakure ninja started retreating but none of them really stood a chance, Kaguya Yaban was just faster, stronger and in control of the battle the entire time. Had Mizukage Shirona decided to send the entire Kirigakure military at him he'd have likely destroyed it all. And yet still, as completely overwhelming as Kaguya Yaban was... He was holding back and it was evident.
Finally, with the final dash close to the last enemy shinobi the Kaguya left the man spinning around from the intense speed that the Tsuchikage used to fly past him. Then the man simply landed from above pounding the man into the head and driving him deep into the Kusagakure soil leaving just a black hole as no one really knew where the shinobi ended up in. The entire Kirigakure military force sent after the Tsuchikage was destroyed! Suddenly a brown and golden flash blurred through the dark thickness of the Kusagakure forests. A man in a brown trenchcoat and shoulder-length golden hair appeared right in front of Kaguya Yaban cocking his hand backward for a punch.
"I've got you, Tsuchikage bastard!" the man with a black watch cap yelled out enthusiastically thrusting his powerful hand forward aiming right at Tsuchikage's face.
============================
If you want to support me and also access 30 advance chapters, join my patreon with the link patreon.com/EddyHazArd
Or just search "EddyHazArd" in the patreon searcher.