A deafening explosion erupted from the cave behind them!
Captain Yellow Dog, a veteran of the Fire Release corps, if an explosion was that massive, it had to be his doing.
Yoru didn't know the principles of Fire Release; did it consume oxygen? If so, wouldn't everyone in the cave suffocate? In fires, over ninety percent of deaths came from poisoning or asphyxiation, few actually burned to death.
Keeping a safe distance, Yoru withdrew from the cave's perimeter. He'd already warned Captain Yellow Dog ahead of time, he'd done all he could. Now, if the sky fell, it was up to the tall ones to hold it up.
Two Stone-ninja who had been burrowing underground were swiftly dispatched by an ANBU squad, but across the forest ahead, two more Stone teams appeared.
Yoru formed a shadow clone and stationed it before Purple Cat. The clone would protect her, while she prepared to use her Mind Body Switch Technique.
Only the two of them remained from their squad. Both lives mattered.
No time to worry about exposing Purple Cat's Yamanaka heritage, survival came first.
Yoru drew his blade and charged straight toward the Stone-ninja. Kunai hissed through the dark, ten, maybe more. He raised his sword, batting them aside with swift, precise slashes.
The Stone team captain's eyes widened. This ANBU fox's fundamentals were flawless, such reflexes were anything but ordinary.
Two Stone-ninja moved to intercept, while their captain stayed behind, weaving hand signs for a jutsu.
Steel gleamed and danced in the night.
Under the flowing rhythm of Cloud Style Swordsmanship, Yoru cut decisively toward the left, his blade finding flesh. One down.
The second enemy seized his chance, his kunai flashed toward Yoru's exposed side.
Yoru hadn't recovered his stance yet.
These were Ōnoki's men, the elite.
He could trade a wound to counter-kill, but just then, the Stone-ninja froze mid-strike.
Purple Cat collapsed to her knees. She'd taken control of him. Yoru didn't hesitate, his blade cut through the possessed Stone-ninja in a clean arc.
But the enemy captain's jutsu was already complete! Hundreds of stones shot forward like bullets, screaming through the air.
Yoru was ready. He pressed one hand into a seal, Earth Substitution Technique! The rocks struck him dead-on, yet instead of a scream, there came a dull splash.
Splurt! Splurt! Splurt!
Yoru's body turned to mud, scattering under the assault.
The Stone captain's jaw dropped. A Konoha shinobi using advanced Stone-style Earth Release? Impossible.
Even he couldn't perform Earth Substitution, that was an A-rank technique! Instinctively, he leapt into the air. After Earth Substitution came the standard counter, underground ambush.
Sure enough, a kunai shot up from beneath him. He barely twisted aside in time, smirking in relief, dodged!
Then he saw it. A slip of explosive tag wrapped around the kunai's hilt.
Boom!
The explosion hurled him through the air. From afar, Yoru pulled another kunai and flicked it. It whistled through the dark, striking the Stone-ninja captain in the throat. The fight was over.
When the last enemy fell, Yoru rushed back to Purple Cat. His blade had moved fast, he prayed her spirit had returned in time. He didn't want to accidentally cut her down.
Seeing her conscious and safe, he exhaled in relief. Then, springing up a tree, he looked toward the distant battlefield.
Gold staff, Dust Release, Wind Release, Fire, Earth, chaos everywhere.
But none of that mattered.
He saw her.
From the valley below, Uzumaki Mito stepped forward, unaided.
The frail old matriarch was nowhere to be seen. Her posture straightened; her presence commanded the night.
Hands pressed together, her chakra began to surge, boiling, tangible, alive.
An ominous energy swept through the mountains.
The air grew cold, yet bloodlust ignited in every heart that felt it.
That was… Nine-Tails chakra.
From Mito's body, waves of red chakra pulsed outward, coalescing into the head of a monstrous fox.
More and more chakra flowed, until a half-transparent Nine-Tails loomed over the valley.
Chains bound its limbs and torso, thick links of iron threading through shoulder and hip.
A form unseen even in the original chronicles, a tailed beast cloak form unique to the Uzumaki.
Only the finest sealing masters of that clan could weave adamantine chains into a vessel of such control.
The Nine-Tails lifted its head, a glowing sphere began to form in its jaws.
Ōnoki's horrified scream cut through the night:
"It's a trap! Uzumaki Mito isn't dying at all!"
Yoru's heart jolted. Now it all made sense, this wasn't the night to transfer the Nine-Tails.
This was Konoha's banquet of slaughter, laid out for their enemies.
Few factions were powerful enough to meddle in a tailed beast transfer, and Hidden Stone Village was one of them.
Bait them with false intel, and they'd take it. Every time.
Draw them in, then show them what true power looked like.
Ōnoki's five-tails Jinchūriki, Han, was still cloaked in three tails of boiling steam, but before the Nine-Tails, he was nothing.
Han's Tailed Beast Bomb was no bigger than a fist. The Nine-Tails', a mountain-sized sphere tens of meters wide.
The gap was hopeless.
Hidden Stone Village's sealing arts were trash compared to the Uzumaki's.
Uzumaki Mito, after decades as a perfect Jinchūriki, had long mastered the art of using the Nine-Tails itself.
Konoha's army tonight was small, and that was the point.
Less manpower meant fewer targets to protect. And every one of them now ran for their lives.
The Stone-ninja didn't give up; walls of earth erupted, stacking into bulwarks.
But before the Nine-Tails' colossal Tailed Beast Bomb, they crumbled like a child's house of cards.
"Run!" Yoru shouted, grabbing Purple Cat's hand. "Run, now!"
They sprinted, chakra flooding their legs, bodies blurring with Body Flicker.
Purple Cat wasn't far behind, her own flickers keeping pace.
Then, just seconds later, a blast like the wrath of a god tore the night apart.
Yoru tackled her to the ground, pressing them flat.
The shockwave ripped through the forest, uprooting trees, tilting trunks forty-five degrees.
They were a full kilometer from ground zero, yet even here, the air felt like a storm of blades.
At the center of it… the Hidden Stone army must've been annihilated.
Ten seconds, maybe fifteen, and the tremors finally faded.
Yoru stood shakily, climbed the slanted trunk, and raised his binoculars.
The Stone position was gone, just a crater remained.
Hovering above it, Ōnoki, his flight technique keeping him aloft. In his grip, the unconscious form of Han, the Five-Tails' host.
Below, only scorched earth. Nothing survived.
Ōnoki's furious roar echoed across the ruins:
"Shimura Danzō! I'll kill you for this!"
Clearly, he thought the trap had been set by Konoha's ANBU, by Danzō himself.
Spies and counterspies, intel and deception, that was ANBU's business, after all.