In Konoha's Sixth Training Ground, Black Zetsu had no idea how long it had been running with Mayfly. Of course, it knew it hadn't actually gotten very far.
Due to the pervasive Wood Style sealing off the area, every meter of movement cost it a tremendous amount of chakra. If it hadn't drained several White Zetsu for sustenance along the way, it would have collapsed long ago.
Even so, once its supply of White Zetsu was exhausted, Black Zetsu couldn't keep going.
The war of attrition had worked, the four Hokage had used an almost unsolvable strategy to wear Black Zetsu down.
Sensing Black Zetsu's movements slowing, Hashirama immediately activated his Wood Style, pulling it out from underground.
The battle had been incredibly long, with the four Hokage fighting for nearly an hour before finally capturing Black Zetsu.
As Black Zetsu was dragged out of the ground, the mask on its face had shattered, revealing what lay beneath.
"It really is him…" Minato muttered in a somber tone. Even though he had suspected as much, seeing the face with his own eyes—the face of his former student, Obito Uchiha still weighed heavily on him.
At this moment, Tsunade arrived on the scene. This kind of tactical battle wasn't her style, so she had stayed back, leading the sealing team and preparing for the aftermath.
With the ambush a success, the sealing team, led by Sakura, quickly moved forward. They were armed with a sealing technique specifically designed by Aoba to deal with Black Zetsu.
The sealing methods had been meticulously prepared in advance. All the necessary seals were ready to deploy instantly, minimizing any chance of failure.
However, they were no longer dealing with just Obito, they were facing something far more complex and dangerous: Black Zetsu.
And, as expected, things didn't go entirely as planned.
Just as the sealing team approached, Black Zetsu, seemingly drained and nearly unconscious from Hashirama's chakra-draining Wood Style, suddenly awakened.
As a creation of Yin-Yang Release, Black Zetsu was fundamentally different from normal living beings.
Though the prolonged battle and Hashirama's Sage Mode-enhanced Wood Style had sapped its strength, rendering it briefly unconscious, Black Zetsu recovered in less than a minute.
It even pretended to remain weakened while analyzing the situation.
Realizing that it was on the brink of capture, Black Zetsu made its move.
The next second, it forcibly activated a spatial vortex.
Minato and Tobirama, anticipating this, immediately threw their Flying Thunder God kunai to disrupt the teleportation, attempting to repeat their earlier success.
The vortex was successfully disrupted, but Black Zetsu didn't stop.
Despite the instability of the vortex, Black Zetsu pushed it further, forcing itself into the spatial distortion.
"Something's wrong," Minato realized suddenly. Without hesitation, he used Flying Thunder God to charge forward.
"Ahhh!"
The next moment, both Black Zetsu and Minato screamed in pain. The unstable vortex, subjected to multiple interferences, had collapsed entirely.
The residual spatial turbulence ripped apart Minato's arm and part of Black Zetsu's body.
However, a significant portion of Black Zetsu, including most of its head and upper body, managed to force its way into the Kamui dimension.
"Medical team, get over here!" Tsunade rushed forward, immediately stopping Minato's bleeding.
Despite losing his right arm, Minato's face was grim, not because of the injury but because they had still failed to capture Black Zetsu. He couldn't help but feel he had let Aoba down.
After all, Aoba had started preparing for this operation a long time ago. He had gone to great lengths to resurrect the four Hokage, used himself as bait to lure Black Zetsu into Konoha, and set up layers of traps... Yet, in the end, Black Zetsu had still escaped!
"Don't think too much," Tsunade consoled him in a low voice. "It wasn't a complete failure. This outcome was also within that kid's calculations."
"What?" Minato asked, startled.
Tsunade chuckled. "Look at the ground. We did get something out of this."
Minato turned his head and saw his severed right arm lying on the ground, along with a portion of Black Zetsu's shredded body. Within the remnants of Black Zetsu's flesh, black, writhing organic material was still moving.
"So that's it. The real target was its body," Minato muttered, realization dawning.
....
On the northwestern front, this was Kakashi's first time serving as commander, and he opted for a cautious and steady approach. With Konoha already holding the advantage, Kakashi adhered to a methodical advance strategy.
At every location, the terrain was cleared with large-scale ninjutsu, systematically eliminating all traps and ambushes before proceeding.
The process was devoid of aesthetic flair but also entirely without flaws.
Among Kakashi's forces was a special ninjutsu unit equipped with chakra cloaks, which completely transformed the dynamics of shinobi warfare.
These units unleashed tireless, large-scale ninjutsu to blanket the battlefield, making it impossible for Iwagakure to hold their ground.
Initially, Iwagakure forces managed to put up some resistance, occasionally organizing counteroffensives.
However, executing such large-scale ninjutsu required chūnin or even special jōnin ninjas who constituted the backbone and elite of their forces. For Iwagakure, using these shinobi recklessly was unsustainable since fatigue quickly set in.
The two sides engaged in long-range exchanges over several kilometers. While it was initially thrilling, the Iwagakure ninjas soon found themselves exhausted.
Yet, strangely, Konoha's forces showed no signs of slowing down.
Their ninjas seemed inexhaustible, continuously launching large-scale ninjutsu with relentless volume.
By the third day, Iwagakure's forces couldn't take it anymore. If they continued this stalemate, they'd have to deploy their elite jōnin to maintain parity.
But if these elite jōnin expended too much chakra in this seemingly pointless exchange, they would be left defenseless in the event of a direct assault, leading to a catastrophic, one-sided slaughter.
Despite some within Iwagakure firmly believing that Konoha was bluffing and their forces were equally drained, the Iwagakure commander didn't dare to take that gamble. After all, it was Konoha that had initiated this strategy, so it was possible they had the means to sustain it.
What the Iwagakure commander didn't know, however, was that this decision effectively saved his forces from utter annihilation.
The truth was that Konoha's ninjutsu artillery unit consisted of only about twenty ninjas.
Each member was equipped with two or more chakra cloaks.
These ninjas had only one objective on the battlefield: to bombard the enemy positions with ninjutsu. Each day, they unleashed a wave of attacks, depleting a single chakra cloak's reserves.
By the next day, their cloaks would be fully recharged, and they'd repeat the process.
They didn't engage in charges, assassinations, or intelligence gathering. Their sole responsibility was artillery firepower coverage.
This special unit represented a new breed of shinobi, a shinobi artillery corps.
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Currently on Chapter 240 - The Mangekyō and Kushina