Back In Konoha...
Even one-on-one, the fight wasn't going Hiruzen's way.
Rasa wasn't an overwhelming opponent on his own merits—Hiruzen had beaten stronger shinobi in his prime without breaking a sweat—but his prime was decades behind him now, and the exhaustion from fighting two Kage at once hadn't magically disappeared just because Izumi had pulled one of them off him. Enma absorbed another strike meant for his ribs, wood groaning under the impact.
The most problematic thing was damage control. He couldn't unleash anything too large inside the village, while the enemy had no such concerns.
"You're slowing down," Rasa observed, sand coiling back for another strike.
"So are you," Hiruzen shot back, though both of them knew it wasn't true in equal measure. He swept Enma around in a wide arc, forcing Rasa back a step, buying himself half a breath he badly needed. "You didn't have to do this, Kazekage. Do you know the consequences of this?"
"The consequences of inaction are already being seen by our village, Hokage. We are starving, our economy is breaking day by day. No—this is the only way." Rasa's sand surged forward again, faster this time. "You won't understand. Hidden Leaf has always occupied the most fertile land among all the hidden villages, with the full support of your Daimyō behind it. You can't understand what it feels like to be suffocated inside your own village."
Hiruzen didn't answer. He was already calculating how much longer his body could keep this pace before it stopped being a fight and started becoming a formality.
His eyes darted toward where the Mizukage was fighting Izumi Uchiha.
Hiruzen had to admit he'd really underestimated that girl. To fight off a Kage this well, and not even once had she shown any Mangekyō ability—either she still had those eyes, or she simply hadn't needed them yet.
Terumi Mei was thinking something along those same lines. She'd learned quickly to keep her distance from the Uchiha girl.
After the first exchange left her arm bruised to the bone—an intentional act, a test of her own theory—she'd become certain the woman in front of her had to have some connection to Tsunade. She'd shifted her entire approach after that, peppering the air between them with Lava Release and superheated mist rather than letting Izumi close in again. It worked, mostly.
Izumi weaved through molten globs that scorched the stone where they landed, Sharingan tracking each new technique a half-second before it fully formed, but half a second wasn't always enough against someone throwing that much ordnance from a safe distance.
"Smart," Izumi admitted, ducking under a wave of boiling mist. "Doesn't help you, though."
She let her eyes do the rest. The moment Mei's concentration flickered—just the barest instant, gathering chakra for her next technique—Izumi's genjutsu slid into the gap, subtle enough that Mei didn't register it until her own hand seals faltered mid-formation, her vision doubling for one disorienting second.
One second was enough. Izumi closed fifteen feet of distance before Mei's head cleared, Star Rage already gathering in her fist—
Mei broke apart into Boil Release an instant before the punch landed, reforming ten feet back, breathing hard.
This was arguably the thing Izumi hated most about ninja in general. They were too damn slippery. Not one of them would just fight face-to-face the way she preferred.
The Boil Release lashed onto her skin like acid, corroding it in a matter of seconds. It felt like her body was melting. Pain rang out across every inch of exposed skin.
"Seems like Uchiha nowadays don't have very good eyesight. Can't even tell a clone apart from the real thing... fufufu..." Mei chuckled, watching the young woman's fury build.
"Third time's usually when it works," Izumi said, irritation sharpening her voice—and the next instant something happened that left Terumi Mei even more convinced this Uchiha girl really was Tsunade's apprentice.
Izumi's burned skin healed itself seamlessly, as though it had never been touched at all. Reverse Cursed Technique, doing its quiet magic.
"My turn." Izumi launched herself forward again, and the match continued.
Down on the ground, many more fights were unfolding across the village.
One of them was between Kakashi and Zabuza.
Their rematch had turned into something almost respectful.
Kubikiribōchō met kunai in a shower of sparks, and Zabuza shoved off the lock with a grunt, putting distance between them before Kakashi's Sharingan could read the follow-up. "You've gotten better," he said, mist curling thick around both of them.
"You too." Kakashi's breathing had gone ragged, chakra reserves thinner than he liked this deep into the fight. "Still not enough, though."
"Funny. I was about to say the same thing to you."
Neither of them had landed a decisive blow in minutes. Both had learned too much from their last encounter, countering feints before they finished forming, reading the mist and the water clones for what they were instead of what they pretended to be. But something had finally started to give. Zabuza's clones were thinning out faster than he could replace them, and Kakashi could feel his own Sharingan starting to outpace him again, catching the openings a half-beat sooner with each exchange. Whatever this fight had been minutes ago, it wasn't a draw anymore—it was a countdown, and both of them knew exactly which direction it was counting toward.
Not far from them, another fight had already burned itself out entirely.
"Your taijutsu," Guy had said, dodging a kunai strike and answering with a knee that cracked clean through Baki's guard, "needs more refining, my youthful adversary."
Baki hadn't lasted much longer after that. He'd hit the ground hard, rolled, barely gotten his arms up before Guy's next strike landed anyway, the force of it rattling straight through the block. Fast, experienced—none of it was enough against someone operating an entire tier above him in raw close-quarters speed. The end came a handful of exchanges later—Guy's palm driving flat into Baki's chest, sending him skidding across broken stone until he simply didn't get back up this time, consciousness leaving him somewhere between the impact and the landing.
"You fought well," Guy said to the unconscious man, already turning to see where else he was needed, not a single mark on him worth mentioning.
Beside all this, plenty more fights raged across the stadium and the wider village.
Like Naruto against Haku.
"You're better than last time," Haku said, senbon flashing between his fingers, ice mirrors already rising around the clearing.
"Of course I am! I didn't train my butt off with Pervy Sage for nothing, you know!" Naruto shouted back, three clones scattering the instant the mirrors closed, drawing Haku's attention in four directions at once instead of one. It wasn't a new trick, but it was executed with a precision that hadn't existed the last time they'd fought—clones feinting, baiting hits, one finally slipping through the gap Haku couldn't watch fast enough while the real Naruto's Rasengan spun to life in his palm.
There was genuine strategy in his fighting now, where before there had only been chaos.
Haku broke the mirror formation just in time, twisting aside as the attack tore through empty ice instead of his spine. "Getting sloppy," he murmured to himself, more surprised than annoyed.
"I heard that!" Naruto shot back, already forming the next Rasengan, and the fight showed no sign yet of settling one way or the other.
Sasuke vs. Kankuro had ended almost before it began.
Crow's joints twitched and lunged, poisoned blades sliding free with mechanical precision, and Sasuke read every motion a full beat ahead, Sharingan carving the puppet's patterns apart before they finished forming. He hadn't spent a single moment of the invasion exhausted the way half the battlefield had—fresh chakra, fresh reflexes—and it showed in how easily he slipped past Crow's attacks to put a kunai through the chakra strings controlling it.
"That's—" Kankuro started, staring at the severed threads.
"Give up," Sasuke said flatly, already moving in.
Kankuro didn't get the chance to answer before it was over.
Naoya, wearing Neji's face, was clearly enjoying himself more than anyone else on the battlefield.
"Byakugan really is wasted on trash like this," he said, driving a palm into an enemy chūnin's chest hard enough to send the man skidding across broken ground, already turning toward the next target before the first had finished falling. He moved with a speed that outpaced most of the genin around him, cutting down enemy shinobi with an efficiency that had nothing to do with protecting Konoha and everything to do with proving, loudly and repeatedly, that nobody here deserved to stand against him.
"Is this really the best Suna and Mist have to offer?" he called out to no one in particular, already blitzing toward the next skirmish before an answer could come.
Karin hadn't left her rooftop, chakra senses spread thin across the entire district, her voice steady even as the fighting grew louder below her.
"Kakashi's fight is almost over. He doesn't need backup anymore. Guy already finished his. Sasuke's done too." She paused, frowning as a new signature flared to life somewhere south of the stadium. "New enemy reinforcements incoming from the east wall—someone get there before they flank the genin pulling the wounded out!"
Nobody argued with her coordinates. She hadn't been wrong once all day.
By the time Suigetsu hit the ground, unconscious and bleeding from a lightning-scorched gash across his shoulder, Sakura had already turned away from him entirely.
"You're going to be fine," she told the genin bleeding out beside a collapsed wall, hands glowing green, voice steady in a way that had nothing to do with how she actually felt. "Stay still."
She moved from one fallen shinobi to the next with the same brisk, unshakable focus, chakra scalpels closing wounds that would have killed most of them without her there, sparing no more than a glance in the direction Sukuna had vanished hours ago.
Suigetsu had improved since the last time, but so had Sakura, and more importantly, the one trick that had always given Suigetsu the advantage was useless against Sakura with her electric knuckles.
Besides fighting, Sakura also remembered to fulfill her duties as a medic kunoichi. So while most of her comrades were already moving on to their next opponents after finishing their fights, Sakura didn't go looking for another opponent. Instead, she stayed behind to heal the injured comrades first.
Karin was the same. While carrying out her sensory duties, she never forgot to heal the injured whenever she got the chance.
"We have more incoming!" she suddenly shouted, sensing more enemy shinobi invading the village.
"We have to inform the guards there."
"Ino... can you use the Mind Body Transmission Technique to send a message from here?" Karin asked.
"No... that's too far for me." Ino shook her head. Her sensory range wasn't vast enough yet to use that jutsu over such a distance.
"Then one of us has to go there and tell them..."
"I'll go." Sasuke was the first one to volunteer. In fact, he was already moving when Karin suddenly stopped him.
"Stop."
"What now?"
Karin looked shocked, then almost relieved.
"Don't worry, that area is covered for now."
"Covered?" the others asked in confusion.
"Who's covering it?"
xXx
A/N : Ah, wondering how has it covered. As for tell if whether you like me focusing not only on Sukuna but also other chaacter or should I just focus on Sukuna ?
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