Everything happened very suddenly.
By the time the forces of Kumogakure reacted, they were already surrounded by layers of coffins.
Crack!
Lightning burst violently from Yozuki's body as he instantly entered Lightning Release Chakra Mode, and he swung a fist straight at Kaede Tsukasa.
"Die!"
Boom!
Rotten flesh and blood exploded everywhere under the fierce blow, an intense visual impact—but unfortunately, the punch hadn't struck Kaede Tsukasa. Instead, it pierced through a zombie that had replaced him.
"Space-time ninjutsu, plus these corpses… so it really is that guy—Konoha Devourer, Kaede Tsukasa."
Troy summoned a pile of specially-made shuriken, readying himself in a fighting stance. "Sorry, everyone. I didn't expect to be tricked so easily. Now it seems this is Konoha's trap, prepared long in advance to counter us. The good news is, only one person is ambushing us."
"Hmph, perfect. If he's arrogant enough to come here seeking death, then let's grant it to him. Doesn't the fact that he set this ambush prove he was the one who attacked Blue B's men?"
Yozuki felt the awful sensation crawling up his arm. Subconsciously, he clenched his fist, only to find himself gripping a mass of rotten flesh. His face twisted in disgust as he tried to yank his arm free.
"Raaagh!"
But the zombie wasn't dead. It suddenly reached out, trying to clutch his arm, jaws snapping down to bite.
"Hmph!" A murderous glint flashed in Yozuki's eyes. His other hand moved like lightning, cleaving off the zombie's head in a single strike.
The severed head rolled across the ground—yet it wasn't dead, still chomping its teeth.
That sight turned the faces of the Kumogakure shinobi grim. It was their first encounter with zombies.
"Just like the rumors say—only smashing the head will kill them completely." Troy's expression hardened.
All around, coffin lids fell one after another, and more zombies shambled out.
"Battle formation! Sensors inside, the rest outside—don't let these corpses break through!" Yozuki roared.
"No formation will help. You won't escape. Shame I didn't finish it earlier."
Kaede Tsukasa emerged from behind a coffin, his gaze admiring the Kumogakure shinobi. "Butchering you will only add to my strength—and I doubt the village would complain."
Yozuki's body crackled with lightning as he fully entered Lightning Release Chakra Mode, sneering. "You're just a coward who keeps running with space-time ninjutsu. Trash like you can't withstand even one of my punches!"
"You'd have to land a hit first. But your lightning speed is still below mine." Kaede Tsukasa studied the man with great interest—the future Fourth Raikage.
Tall, powerfully built, every muscle defined. The perfect specimen for a zombie. Not biting him would be such a waste.
"When you join my ranks, I'll appoint you as my number one bodyguard. Wherever I go, you'll follow." Kaede Tsukasa smiled.
Boom!
Yozuki became pure lightning, tearing through two layers of zombies and bursting forward alone. In a flash, his fist was already before Kaede Tsukasa's face.
Fast. Extremely fast. But…
Kaede Tsukasa had prepared the Void Realm Technique—faster still! His figure vanished, replaced by a zombie wielding a blade, interposing itself in front of Yozuki.
The lightning-charged fist collided with a chakra-coated blade, producing a sharp, screeching resonance.
"Impressive. Even Terai almost couldn't stop you." Kaede Tsukasa stepped out from another angle, applauding the Raikage's dazzling performance.
Terai, straining with the blade against Yozuki's fist, was already cracking apart—skin and muscle splitting from the overload. Even the chakra-metal blade trembled under the pressure, threatening to shatter.
Yozuki drove his knee up viciously, but Terai abruptly released force and leapt back, retreating swiftly to Kaede Tsukasa's side like a loyal bodyguard.
"Damaged after just one exchange… I really shouldn't pit brute force against this monster."
Through that brief exchange, Kaede Tsukasa had more or less gauged his opponent's level. It was hard to say if Yozuki had reached the Kage-class yet—he was still too young at this point. Six years later, during the Third Great Ninja War, would be the time he truly displayed his overwhelming strength. But even now, he could not be underestimated.
"This guy is strong."
Yozuki's expression was grim as he stared at Terai, uncertain and wary. Who was this man?
"Terai… I've heard that name. An elite jōnin from Konoha. I haven't heard anything about him for a while… to think he's already dead, and now being used as Kaede Tsukasa's weapon."
Troy's already pale face darkened like the bottom of a pot. "An elite jōnin doesn't die so easily. Maybe Kaede Tsukasa assassinated Terai and took his corpse."
But the moment Troy said it, he realized maybe he had gone too far. Didn't that only prove how terrifying Kaede Tsukasa was? Even a long-established elite jōnin had silently fallen, reduced to a puppet—one still able to contend with someone as powerful as Yozuki.
"Don't worry!" Yozuki barked. "It's just a corpse. My punch already damaged it. A few more strikes and I'll smash it into paste!"
"Is that so? But if I only controlled corpses without being able to repair them, what kind of Zombie Release user would I be?"
Kaede Tsukasa shook his head, pulling a summoning scroll from his waist. He unrolled it quickly, summoning an ordinary zombie. Before their eyes, the creature performed a technique: Self-Life Reincarnation. At the cost of turning itself into a desiccated husk, it completely repaired the cracks and injuries on Terai's body.
Bang!
The zombie collapsed, nothing but skin and bone, shattering into countless brittle pieces as it hit the ground.
"What… what kind of jutsu is this?!"
"Draining the energy from one corpse to heal another? Is this a medical technique within Zombie Release? It's too bizarre!"
"How can such a jutsu even exist? To wring every last drop of value from a corpse, sustaining the strong with the weak, ensuring they remain at peak combat ability… This is…"
The Kumogakure shinobi stirred restlessly. Most of them were seeing Zombie Release for the first time. Even if they had some mental preparation, witnessing an army of corpses obeying orders was shocking enough. But watching Kaede Tsukasa use a forbidden technique like this— their very worldview was violently shaken.
How could such a twisted ninjutsu exist in the shinobi world? And worse—it seemed compatible with many other forbidden arts.
If any of them died here, wouldn't they end up as one of those corpses…?
The thought made many of their faces pale as they swallowed hard.
Kaede Tsukasa didn't immediately close the scroll in his hands. Instead, he flung it toward them, and more zombies poured out in an unbroken stream.
"Enemy numbers are about two hundred and ten!" a Kumogakure sensor-nin shouted. "Most are concentrated to the east, the fewest are southwest. But he still has multiple scrolls on his belt—we can't confirm how many reserves he has!"
Yes, against Kaede Tsukasa alone, the sensor had instinctively used the word forces—"reserve forces," even. Against a normal unit, that phrasing would be fine, but facing someone like Kaede Tsukasa, unlike anything they'd ever seen, they had no idea how to respond.
"We can't drag this out. Attack!"
Yozuki bellowed, surging forward with Troy like two blades stabbing into the zombie horde.
The Kumogakure shinobi roared low to steel their nerves, forming into a circular battle formation and striking out in all directions. No matter what, they still held the advantage of numbers.
The key was taking Kaede Tsukasa down quickly, breaking the zombie army. Otherwise, if Konoha reinforcements arrived, they would never escape.
Yozuki charged at the front. This time, he didn't focus solely on Kaede Tsukasa. He knew if they didn't wipe out the zombies, they'd never get close to him—Kaede Tsukasa would simply keep using space-time ninjutsu to reposition himself safely.
"That bastard… to summon a two-hundred-strong army in one go must cost him a lot. There's no way every corpse can fight at its peak strength from life! To dare face us alone, even claiming to have us surrounded… Finish this fast. Kill that arrogant bastard!"
Lightning raged around Yozuki's body, making him look like a thunder god. A shroud of Lightning Release Chakra coated him, tough enough to withstand most ninjutsu attacks head-on.
Several zombies unleashed Fire Release and Wind Release. While a few Kumogakure shinobi were caught in the blasts and injured, Yozuki himself was unharmed.
"Impressive. The Lightning Release Chakra Mode—both offense and defense in one. Guys like you have always been my number one hypothetical enemy."
Kaede Tsukasa stood in the middle of the horde, watching the mid-scale battle with great interest, hands fixed in a seal to maintain control, forcing the corpses to unleash even greater strength.
It was indeed a heavy burden, requiring immense calculation power from his brain—but fortunately, calculation was precisely Kaede Tsukasa's specialty. From the very beginning of Zombie Release, to learning techniques like Self-Life Reincarnation and Izanagi, without a sharp mind it was impossible to command so many zombies while simultaneously accelerating his mastery.
Without strong intellect, one simply couldn't handle Zombie Release. In other words, someone like Naruto—straightforward and headlong—would be unfit to be his disciple, even leaving aside personality or temperament. His way of thinking alone was incompatible.
On the contrary, a clan like the Nara, who lived and breathed strategy, would be well-suited to study the secrets of Zombie Release under him.
"But today is different. I already possess the power to deal with shinobi of this type."
Without high-damage jutsu like Rasengan or Chidori, relying only on mid- and low-tier techniques such as Fireball Jutsu or Water Severing Wave, they couldn't so much as scratch Yozuki, let alone injure him.
That was one of the reasons Kaede Tsukasa had chosen the Reaper Death Seal in the first place. Unless Yozuki's Lightning Release Chakra Mode could extend to his very soul, a single touch would not kill him outright—but would at least leave him half-crippled!
"He's fast. I'll have to look for the right opportunity. Even finding a chance to use the Reaper Death Seal is hard enough, let alone getting close enough to lay a hand on him. He'll definitely try to evade."
Kaede Tsukasa watched Yozuki, lightning flashing in the darkness, tearing through corpses and scattering limbs with each pass. He drafted and discarded tactics one after another in rapid succession.
His focus was sharp, but his mindset remained relaxed. Put bluntly—even if all the zombies were destroyed, it would be nothing more than a nuisance, forcing him to have the White Zetsu collect new usable corpses.
But for Kumogakure? Each death reduced their numbers permanently. Even with two powerful shinobi like Yozuki and Troy cutting down zombies with ruthless efficiency, smashing them left and right, Kaede Tsukasa remained utterly unmoved.
Rumble!
The battlefield roared with thunderous explosions. In this clash of hundreds, ninjutsu lit up the skies, blasting Konoha's towering forest to ruins within moments.
One giant tree after another toppled, their splintering branches adding only the faintest embellishment to this nocturnal slaughter.
Overall, the zombie horde was being suppressed, clearly on the losing end.
In terms of both quality and quantity, they were still weaker than the combined might of Kumogakure.
"If this keeps up, my horde will be annihilated," Kaede Tsukasa mused with amusement, ghosting about the battlefield as if on a casual stroll. The Void Realm Technique carried him from point to point, never allowing any Kumogakure shinobi to pin him down.
"Damn it, he's too cunning! He's just burning through our strength with corpses. Even if we don't lose men, all we'll have done is slaughtered the already dead!"
Yozuki's temper blazed. He slammed a punch into Terai—only for the blade to intercept precisely once again.
Terai never sought to clash head-on. He dodged when he could, stalled when he couldn't.
At first, Yozuki had assumed Kaede Tsukasa couldn't last long. It was impossible, he thought, to drive so many corpses to fight effectively. But little by little, that assumption began to waver. Though the horde's numbers dwindled, the strength of each remaining corpse quietly increased.
Their movements grew sharper, their attacks more precise. Even when casting the same ninjutsu, the power seemed subtly stronger.
The fewer corpses there were, the more attention Kaede Tsukasa could devote to each one—bringing them closer to the strength they'd wielded in life?!
The key was that he showed no sign of exhaustion, no hint of running low on chakra. It was as though Kaede Tsukasa had infinite reserves, as though fatigue simply did not exist for him. But how could that be possible?
What kind of cursed secret art was this? How could such a man even exist—someone who had developed a forbidden technique so insidious?
"Toying with the dead, desecrating life itself—you'll never meet a good end! Sooner or later you'll be ground to dust!"
Yozuki smashed Terai aside with a punch, cursing furiously—only to see another zombie, one summoned earlier from a scroll, immediately perform that strange technique. At the cost of turning itself into a withered husk, it swiftly restored Terai's injuries.
Once more, Terai was as vigorous as ever, charging with his blade aimed at Yozuki's throat.
For the first time, Yozuki found a one-on-one battle so troublesome—especially against a corpse.
This time, Kaede Tsukasa appeared less than ten meters away, strolling leisurely. He said calmly, "I already play with corpses, and you tell me I'll die badly? At worst, I'll just join them as another corpse myself. I've long accepted that. What more is there for you to say?"
"Damn it! No moral restraint at all… and Konoha actually raised someone like this." Yozuki cursed under his breath, finding Terai as irritating as a buzzing fly. He turned his eyes toward Troy on the other side.
Compared to Yozuki, Troy's destructive power was far inferior. All the while, he threw ninja tools with a grim expression, his face dark and strained.
"Someone like Troy really isn't suited for tangling with these corpses." Yozuki frowned.
Troy's Magnet Release worked by imbuing thrown weapons with magnetic force, then hurling them at the enemy.
If the target instinctively used a kunai to deflect the projectiles, that was exactly what Troy wanted—it meant their body became covered with residual magnetism. At that point, he would unleash his signature weapon: the square shuriken, a large variant that would be pulled toward the magnetized target, automatically tracking them, growing faster and faster until it cut them down.
The best way to counter Troy was simply not to block his weapons at all, but instead dodge them. That way the magnetism never clung to you. But to achieve that, one had to know his abilities in advance and prepare specifically for them.
And now his opponents were zombies!
These corpses had no concept of "pull out a kunai to block enemy weapons." They would simply meet the attack head-on, taking blades into their bodies if necessary, exchanging wounds just to close the distance on the Cloud ninja.
Even when some were so battered—bones broken, bodies pierced through—that all they could do was lunge and bite, it hardly mattered.
On top of that, Araki of the Sandstorm was going berserk, constantly raising walls of whirling sand that clouded vision, weakened the Cloud shinobi's effectiveness, and harassed them without pause.
"Damn it, maybe I should focus on that Terai instead? But he coats his weapons in chakra… my magnetism has no effect on him." Troy was fighting with mounting frustration.
Clenching a half-unrolled summoning scroll in his teeth, he kept calling forth square shuriken of all sizes, hurling them one after another. Compared to the brawny Cloud warriors who dove into the fray and smashed zombies to pieces, his thin frame looked like nothing more than a soulless weapon-throwing machine.
The zombies didn't even bother to deflect his attacks. They just kept charging forward, tearing themselves apart if need be, trying to shake the Cloud's defenses.
Unfeeling toward pain, unafraid of death, always willing to trade injury for injury—facing enemies who were already dead, no matter how many he killed, there was no sense of accomplishment. Troy was sick of it.
He shifted his aim back to Araki, throwing more square shuriken, but it was no use. Araki was also skilled at long-range combat, constantly stirring sandstorms to deflect the projectiles.
Fengjian Si, meanwhile, had his eyes fixed on Troy.
To be blunt, compared to Yozuki, Troy was his true target. No matter how many zombies he lost tonight, as long as Araki and Terai survived intact, he didn't care about the rest. If he could take Troy, that alone would be the greatest victory.
He had considered keeping Yozuki here permanently, but that wasn't realistic—Yozuki was too fast, his offense and defense seamlessly fused. If he decided to flee, Fengjian Si couldn't stop him.
Besides, even if by some miracle he did kill Yozuki and claim his body, it would immediately spark war between the Cloud and the Leaf.
The Third Raikage would never accept such an outcome. Losing his son was one thing; allowing Fengjian Si to desecrate his corpse was another matter entirely.
"War… such a fascinating word. But for now, restraint. Everything must wait until Orochimaru cultivates the vessel I truly desire." Reluctantly, Fengjian Si drew his gaze away from Yozuki and locked fully onto Troy.
He had long suspected Troy was actually taken from the Land of Wind as a child.
The Cloud had a history of doing things like this—kidnapping Kushina, trying for Hinata. Why only target the Leaf? Most likely they snatched children from other villages as well. In the Land of Wind, where Magnet Release users were common, it was all too plausible.
Troy's slight build compared to the Cloud's usual muscle-bound warriors was yet another clue he might not be a native.
"No matter where you come from, from this moment forward, you'll belong to me alone. Forever." Fengjian Si appeared nearby, staring directly at him with unabashed possession.
"So you see me as prey? What a pitiful gaze."
Troy snorted, but inwardly he was satisfied. He had just thought of a way to kill Fengjian Si outright.
If the corpse-using shinobi died, all his zombies should immediately fall useless. Leaving someone like Fengjian Si alive was far too great a threat to the Cloud.
He already dared to assault the Eight-Tails, already dared to face three hundred of them head-on with nothing but corpses. Who knew what kind of monster he would grow into in a few years?
Even if his own power never reached Kage level, simply swelling his horde and deploying them on the battlefield would be intolerable. The collateral casualties needed just to deal with them would be unimaginable.
Troy glanced at Yozuki. The latter caught the look, immediately realizing Troy had devised a tactic—and needed his cooperation.
"Among all the corpses, the ones that crawled out of coffins were clearly much stronger—they had been carefully preserved. The ones summoned from scrolls, on the other hand, were generally weaker, used up as healing material for other corpses or as disposable shields."
The Cloud shinobi had already noticed this. Troy immediately summoned five square shuriken and hurled them in every direction.
Several zombies were cleaved in half.
"New tactics? It's nothing but a decapitation strike aimed at me."
Kaede Tsukasa leapt atop a coffin, surveying the battlefield. "The zombies are suffering heavier losses. The fewer they become, the faster they'll fall apart. Their ability to deal damage drops sharply as numbers dwindle."
That meant the time had come.
He clapped his hands together.
Zombie Release: Corpse Transformation Technique!
The corpses of Cloud shinobi who had fallen earlier suddenly stirred, twitching violently, bones creaking and snapping. Even amid the chaos of battle, the sound was chilling.
And at once, they attacked the uninjured Cloud ninja.
In an instant, screams rang out across the battlefield, followed by disbelieving cries and terrified shouts.
"His blood's already drained—how is he moving again?!"
"Our comrades are under the control of that cursed enemy. They're enemies now—don't hold back!"
"No… I can't do it…"
The Cloud forces, who had finally steadied themselves and grown more confident in the fight, now collapsed into chaos. In moments, they suffered devastating casualties—over twenty slain on the spot, many more injured, their formation torn into shreds.
And it didn't end there.
Kaede Tsukasa spread his arms like a death god, as if to cover the entire battlefield. "My strength has finally reached a level worth some recognition in this world. Then let me show a glimpse of my true ability… The dead will fight for me, and the living won't escape my shadow!"
This time, he unleashed the Corpse Transformation Technique on a massive scale—not only upon corpses, but upon the living.
More precisely, upon those who had been bitten or scratched.
It wasn't easy. On the battlefield, shinobi already pushed their spirit and vitality to the limit, flooding their bodies with chakra. Even if bitten and infected with the zombie virus, the chakra coursing through them slowed Kaede Tsukasa's corruption.
But slowed didn't mean stopped—especially at this distance.
Forcing the technique without restraint, he began turning the wounded. One after another, they felt their hearts race, their blood surge, yet their bodies grow cold.
Their muscles tingled with pain before going numb. Their self-awareness blurred, their control over their bodies slipping away.
The first signs came in distorted movements and broken speech.
"Hey, what are you doing?! You've already finished your seals—why aren't you releasing the jutsu?!"
"Mmmphhh…"
"Huh?"
"AAAAHHH! Are you insane?! Why are you attacking me—get away!!"
From within, comrades were mutating into corpses. From without, the undead clawed at them without rest. The Cloud forces finally broke.
More and more died, swelling Kaede Tsukasa's ranks. More and more were wounded, their bodies trembling violently even while still alive, screaming as they lashed out at their healthy allies.
The zombie horde, which had been cut down to half, suddenly multiplied again, while the Cloud numbers dropped sharply.
In moments, the scales tipped—from imbalance to balance to complete reversal.
It all happened too fast, too suddenly. The surviving Cloud shinobi were stunned, paralyzed. Fighting purely on instinct, they didn't even know who to strike anymore—anything that moved could be friend or foe.
A comrade at your side one moment, slowing down the next, and then turning to attack you in madness. Not only did it shatter their combat strength, it devastated their morale.
They were losing trusted subordinates, comrades, family—now left with nothing but a life-and-death struggle against the very people they had lived beside.
"Run! The Konoha Devourer is a demon!!"
"I don't want to fight anymore. I can't even tell who's the enemy and who's my comrade. What am I supposed to do? I don't want to end up like them!"
The Cloud shinobi were in chaos, panic spreading everywhere.
Yozuki leapt into the air, lightning crackling violently around his body, drawing every living gaze to him.
"Don't panic! Tighten the formation!"
But looking at the collapsing defense line, Yozuki felt a crushing sense of helplessness. How could they keep fighting like this? The morale was already gone.
"Damn it, Kaede Tsukasa! If only we'd learned about you sooner, you wouldn't have gotten this far! The unity of Cloud shinobi is something you could never comprehend!"
Yozuki glared at Kaede Tsukasa with hatred, holding onto what little rationality he had left. He didn't charge recklessly, but instead turned back, felling zombified Cloud shinobi with each punch.
So many familiar faces—men who, not long ago, brimmed with emotions and loyalty. Now, only stiffness and dead silence remained, their attacks mechanical, as if becoming Kaede Tsukasa's thralls had instilled in them an innate hatred for the living.
"Don't make yourself sound so pitiful. Intelligence is a core part of war. Didn't your side's Magnet Release shinobi also hide his abilities all this time?"
Kaede Tsukasa spoke lightly, his voice cutting through the darkness, piercing the noise of countless shrieking corpses, reaching Yozuki's ears.
Watching order collapse into chaos was a beautiful sight to him. Only now did he begin to reveal the true power of Zombie Release.
The last time he went to such lengths against the living was during the Second Great War, when he crippled Araki's strength, creating the perfect opportunity for Dan Kato to finish him off.
Scenes like this would only become more common. Eventually, all enemies would live in endless fear of him.
"Troy! Are you ready?!" Yozuki roared, straining to protect his remaining comrades.
"It's ready! Let's do this… boss!" Troy shouted.
Yozuki's expression wavered. It was the first time he'd ever heard such words of recognition from Troy—yet in a moment like this? Did Troy already sense something?
No. This was resolve before unleashing an attack destined to succeed.
The square shuriken Troy had scattered earlier began pulling back under his magnetic power.
He pressed one small square shuriken against Yozuki's body, and at once, Yozuki roared and launched a straight charge at Kaede Tsukasa.
As expected, Kaede Tsukasa evaded with the Void Realm Technique. But Yozuki instantly changed direction mid-charge, his violent turns carving craters into the ground.
Sparks and lightning marked his path, dazzling arcs weaving through the battlefield into a radiant, web-like spectacle.
"At this intensity, using Lightning Release Chakra Mode, he won't last long," Troy muttered with worry. But there was no other way—against Kaede Tsukasa, speed was the key.
Without speed, and unless Kaede Tsukasa used space-time ninjutsu to retreat, there would be no chance at all.
Fortunately, Kaede Tsukasa didn't simply flee. He kept moving across the battlefield, each time forced to relocate under Yozuki's relentless pursuit.
Many times, Yozuki's hand nearly brushed Kaede Tsukasa's cloak.
"He's coming!" Troy snarled, pouring everything into his jutsu. Countless square shuriken—large and small—began flying wildly in the air, drawn into the storm of Yozuki's speed.
Troy magnetized Yozuki, making every weapon target him automatically. But because of Yozuki's furious pace, the weapons whirled chaotically across the battlefield.
Zombies were shredded under the barrage, their bodies riddled with holes as they collapsed in heaps.
But killing them wasn't the goal. The more the space shrank, the fewer safe coordinates Kaede Tsukasa could teleport to. And the air, choked with flying shuriken, became a zone he dared not step into.
One misstep, and he'd be dead instantly.
This was the only tactic Troy could think of: as long as Yozuki didn't stop, even at the cost of severe injuries, he could serve as a moving target to break Kaede Tsukasa's technique.
"With most of our comrades dead and only a handful left gathered together, I can finally unleash my jutsu freely, without worrying about harming too many allies."
The thought chilled Troy's heart. That he could only bring out a strategy to kill the enemy thanks to the brutal deaths of his comrades filled him with grief.
But if Kaede Tsukasa could be killed, then it was worth it. If he wasn't destroyed now, the losses Cloud Village would suffer in the future would be ten, a hundred times worse—and peace would never come.
"Die already. Die here forever," Troy muttered through clenched teeth.
Shhh!
He heard the faint shifting of sand beneath his feet.
The next instant, the ground split open, dust erupting into the sky. Araki—who had been hiding in the darkness all along, occasionally stirring up small sandstorms—finally launched a direct assault, rising from below to seize Troy in a crushing embrace.
"What—?"
Troy's eyes widened, and before he could react, Araki's jaws clamped down on his neck, ripping violently. Blood sprayed as Araki retreated instantly.
Troy collapsed in disbelief.
And in that moment, it struck him—when the corpses attacked, some positions were swarmed while others were barely touched. It was deliberate, meant to guide their formation. All those corpses falling had been building toward this one, decisive strike.
"We did it. All this effort was just for this moment," Kaede Tsukasa said with a cruel smile. Yozuki saw it and snapped completely, driven mad, charging like a raging bull.
Yozuki could feel it—he was closing in, the space Kaede Tsukasa had left to move was shrinking fast.
"Hey, if you want to turn me into your puppet, you'll need time. The stronger the shinobi, the longer it takes, and the more chakra it drains. How much chakra and time do you even have left?"
The remaining Cloud shinobi cried out in shock as Troy fell, clutching his neck. His bloodshot eyes held no fear, only satisfaction.
So what if you hunted him successfully? The caster was about to die.
"Even without me controlling it, the magnetism on the boss will linger long enough to keep pulling those weapons. But you… you've run out of time."
Troy believed he would live to see Kaede Tsukasa's death. If Tsukasa fell and he was treated in time, maybe he could even make it back alive to Cloud Village.
With the corner of his eye, he watched Yozuki close in on Kaede Tsukasa again. In the darkness, Yozuki blazed as the only brilliant light—their greatest hope.
Thud!
One punch.
Troy saw it. The surviving Cloud shinobi saw it.
All the zombies attacking them suddenly froze, unmoving, silent.
The battlefield, once filled with chaos and despair, fell into eerie stillness in an instant. Only the thunderous roar of Lightning Release still crackled from Yozuki's body.
"Hah… he hit him." Blood dripped from Troy's lips as his breathing grew ragged, starved of air. But he smiled.
One punch—straight through the chest. The organs inside shattered, and the surge of lightning that poured into Kaede Tsukasa's body spread instantly, tearing him apart from within.
"Did we… win?"
"The enemy isn't moving. We must have won!!"
"Hurrah! As expected of Lord Yozuki—he killed the Konoha Devourer with this strike!!"
"We survived—we really survived, ughhh…"
"Quit crying, fool! A man of Cloud Village doesn't cry! Not even if it's to express joy!!"
"Ughhh, look who's talking—you're tearing up yourself!"
The few Cloud shinobi left alive no longer cared that they were still in the Land of Fire. They shouted their relief like survivors of a disaster, some even kicking the fallen corpses furiously to vent their emotions.
"Lord Troy, let me heal you!"
One of the surviving sensory shinobi hurried over, clumsily applying medical ninjutsu to the savage wound on Troy's neck. If luck was with him, Troy might yet live.
"Thank you." Troy thought this battle had been unbearably hard, but victory belonged to the Cloud.
On the other side, Yozuki stared at the man before him, a cruel smile tugging at his lips before slowly fading, replaced with deep respect for such a formidable foe.
"You're strong, Kaede Tsukasa of Konoha. I acknowledge you. You're the first to push me to such a desperate state. Though we're enemies, I'll remember you for the rest of my life."
As he spoke, countless square shuriken were embedded in his broad, muscular back, blocked only by his Lightning Release Armor.
Kaede Tsukasa's lowered head lifted slightly, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.
"I see… to be recognized by one of the Night Moon clan is an honor. But you were careless. You caught me—yet I caught you as well…"
Despite his chest being pierced, Kaede Tsukasa showed none of the signs of a fatally wounded man. His hand shot out, gripping Yozuki's thick arm.
Yozuki's heart skipped. He saw Kaede Tsukasa's other hand complete the final seal of a jutsu. Realization struck, but it was already too late.
At this distance, Kaede Tsukasa could unleash it. He had been waiting all this time—not just for a chance to strike Troy, but for this.
"Die," Kaede Tsukasa said.
Zombie Release: Dead Demon Consuming Seal!