Naruto: Passerby and Returnee

Chapter 84 Melee

"Hey, can you still move?"

After his opponent, who had just been fighting to the death, came down from the roof, his face remained calm and his words were still tough, but his attacks did not stop. He quickly swept away a group of Sound Ninja who were trying to provoke him.

Gaara released his hand from his shoulder. Thanks to the Jinchuriki's constitution, the wound had stopped bleeding, but the depleted chakra wouldn't recover quickly. Sunagakure followed an elite path; becoming a burden meant death. Even when extremely exhausted, he would force himself to stand up and use his limited chakra to unleash the Sand Stream.

Sasuke frowned. Even though he was extremely unwilling, he still stopped Gaara's self-harm. "If you can't move, stop struggling. Go to your comrades."

"...Why..." Gaara was bewildered when he was carried on the shoulder. The Konoha ninjas were really too hard to understand. First there was Naruto, who was helping him get rid of the Sand Demons' attack, and then there was Sasuke, who was rescuing the enemy.

"Why... I still want to ask!" Sasuke carried Gaara up the high wall of the arena and threw him into the rest room.

"Sasuke!" Sakura exclaimed in surprise, but then looked slightly puzzled as she didn't see the orange figure. "Didn't Naruto say he was coming to find you? Where is he?"

Feeling abandoned and still angry, Sasuke immediately replied in an unfriendly tone, "I don't know!"

Sakura had never seen Sasuke so angry before, and she kept glancing at Shikamaru in fear. The squad leader, who had been forced into this situation, was extremely helpless. His clever mind had already guessed that Sasuke's state was because of Naruto. He didn't really want to get involved in the entanglement between the two of them... However, this was an emergency, and it wouldn't be good to explain to Kakashi-sensei where Naruto was.

"Sasuke, Naruto said he was going to bring Gaara back before he left. Now that the mission is complete, we should know where the executor is, right?"

Sasuke stared at them silently. Being watched by the Sharingan was no pleasant experience, causing Shikamaru to break out in a cold sweat, feeling it was even more troublesome than fighting an enemy. However, the distant rumbling sound made them catch their breath, and Sasuke's attention immediately turned to it, visibly becoming anxious.

"I'm going to the East Gate. Keep an eye on them." Sasuke said this and left, moving so fast that he disappeared from their sight in no time.

"What happened?" Sakura was worried about her companions, but she had a mission to complete and couldn't just walk away as casually as Sasuke.

Shikamaru didn't think Naruto would be in trouble; their team protecting the Sand Ninja was formed because of a casual jutsu Naruto used. Kakashi-sensei felt that trapping the two Sand Ninja before fully confirming the Sand Village's attitude was a good option. However, trapping them didn't mean letting them die, so he sent Sakura to wake up Shikamaru and Ino, who were pretending to be asleep, and then went to find Shino, who had woken up his comrades. A group of young ninjas, only six months out of school, organized themselves and spread out to guard the rest room. The outermost layer consisted of Shino and Ino, a little further in were Hinata and Kiba, and Sakura and Shikamaru were in the rest room. With the assistance of the Anbu and other ninjas, their heavy guard wasn't under much pressure.

"It seems Naruto went east." Shikamaru concluded this solely from his analysis of Sasuke's emotions. Their direction allowed them to see the situation at the Four Purple Flame Formation, and Naruto's departure was witnessed firsthand. Although he didn't know the Flying Thunder God Technique, he understood that ninjutsu involving direct teleportation were extremely difficult to learn.

I'd seen it in team battles before; that idiot always took the heaviest responsibility upon himself, sparing no effort to protect everyone in the team. Even if the team were to change to Konoha, Naruto wouldn't change. In this vast village, there's only one place he'll ever go.

The location where the explosion occurred.

"Gamahiro, I need you to chase that snake!" Using a whole toad for a Flying Thunder God jump was much easier than summoning another one, so after Naruto summoned Gamahiro to kill one snake, he immediately moved on to the vicinity of the next one. The three-headed python, with its enormous size, quickly broke through the defenses and was about to enter the residential area.

The ruthless and taciturn Toad Guang leaped up, drew his twin swords, and stabbed downwards. Two of the swords pierced the giant python's two heads, while the remaining one was killed by him sitting on it.

After killing the giant python, Toad Guangcai looked up and caught a glimpse of a striking tuft of golden hair.

"Naruto, isn't this Konoha? Why are there snakes here?" A week at Mount Myōboku was enough for Naruto to get to know every frog except for the sleepy giant toad. Gamahiro hadn't been summoned in a long time, and seeing Konoha from over a decade later brought back a bit of nostalgia.

"It was Orochimaru who invaded Konoha. Thank you, Gamahiro, you've been a great help! I'm going to stop the invaders now, you can go back first." Naruto jumped off Gamahiro's head and said goodbye to the giant toad.

"Oh! Don't lose!"

Gamahiro's figure disappeared into the smoke, and Ibiki Morino arrived with reinforcements. He saw the giant blue toad in the distance and thought he would see the legendary Jiraiya-sama, but instead, it was the person he had been focusing on for a long time who appeared. Has Jiraiya-sama already returned to the village? He got Naruto to sign the summoning contract with Mount Myōboku so quickly.

"Examiner Morino, are you here as reinforcements?"

"Ah, it seems I'm a step too late..."

"No, you've come at just the right time." Naruto smiled and pointed to the breached wall, saying, "There are over a hundred enemies rushing toward that breach. If we don't plug it quickly, things will get really bad."

Iron sand and gold dust have obvious weaknesses, but their advantages in confined spaces are equally apparent. To prepare for this hunt, Orochimaru certainly summoned more than just two Kage. If it weren't for the inexplicable inability to recall the Hokage who had already perished in Konoha, he would have insisted on making the master-disciple battle reach its climax today. He encountered some resistance when summoning the Kazekage, but facing an all-encompassing attack, Jiraiya and the Third Hokage were also busy dealing with it, thus giving Orochimaru the opportunity to summon a third Kage.

This time, it's the Third Raikage, a terrifying man who can fight the Eight-Tails to a standstill with his physical strength. During the Third Shinobi World War, if Iwagakure hadn't harbored resentment and launched a surprise attack on the Kumogakure forces, using 10,000 men to hold this guy off for three days and three nights, the final outcome of the battle would have been very different.

While the Impure World Reincarnation technique cannot perfectly replicate the person's life before death, Lei Kai's strength was still enough to withstand the Rasengan.

"Jiraiya, buy me some time."

"teacher?"

"The only way to deal with the Impure World Reincarnation is with sealing techniques, but the Third Raikage is too fast. Besides that technique, no other sealing technique can catch him in time. Furthermore, we can't let Orochimaru have another chance to summon the dead, if he summons those three..."

"……I see."

Jiraiya suppressed his grief and unleashed the full power of the Lion's Mane Technique. They knew each other too well; Orochimaru didn't give him the chance to transform into a Sage, but even so, the Fourth Kazekage was killed several times and kept in his combined state.

What follows is the real battle to the death.