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Hiruzen, Mei Terumi, and Might Guy had all sustained severe, incapacitating injuries. Each of them had played an irreplaceable, critical role in the ongoing battle against Pain. But now, all three had been rendered utterly incapable of continuing the fight. Hiruzen and Mei Terumi, in particular, had suffered grievous, life-threatening wounds.
The mere fact that they had managed to cling to life at all was already a testament to their extraordinary resilience. The thought of them returning to the battlefield anytime soon was nothing short of ludicrous. At the very least, they would require a full half-year of recovery before such notions could even be entertained.
Thus, even with the Tsuchikage and the Raikage now joining the fray, the overall boost to their combat effectiveness in the confrontation against Pain was not nearly as substantial as one might have hoped. Might Guy, though he could not match the Tsuchikage or the Raikage in terms of overall, well-rounded combat power, had nevertheless proven himself to be a uniquely potent threat to Pain—a fact that was evident to all who had witnessed his onslaught. As for Mei Terumi, despite her relative youth, her strength was unquestionably on par with that of a Kage. The Tsuchikage and Raikage might have been somewhat lacking in certain respects, but the gap in their capabilities was by no means insurmountable. And on top of all that, they had also lost Hiruzen...
This battle could not be allowed to drag on for much longer.
Tsunade bit down on her lower lip, her mind racing as she frantically assessed the shifting balance of advantages and disadvantages in the conflict. All the while, her hands never stopped moving, her Chakra Scalpel working with swift, precise efficiency to treat Mei Terumi's gaping wound.
The Tsuchikage, the Raikage, and Jiraiya were all acutely aware that Hiruzen, Mei Terumi, and Might Guy had been gravely wounded. Tsunade, in her capacity as the preeminent medical ninja, was responsible for treating all three of them. In other words, this location was no longer merely a battlefield—it had been transformed into a makeshift operating room for the critically injured. Therefore, the Tsuchikage, the Raikage, and Jiraiya had all, almost instinctively and without any prior consultation, resolved to lure Pain and his cohorts away from this position.
Tsunade, too, understood that this was far from an ideal environment for conducting surgery. But both Mei Terumi and Hiruzen required immediate, lifesaving surgical intervention. The gravely wounded Might Guy was also in desperate need of care, though his injuries were not yet immediately life-threatening. After performing emergency first aid on Mei Terumi, Tsunade executed her summoning technique.
"What in the world happened here?!" Katsuyu exclaimed in astonishment, her soft, gelatinous body quivering at the sight of Hiruzen and Mei Terumi lying motionless on the blood-soaked ground.
"Get them out of here, now!" Tsunade ordered, casting a quick, anguished glance back towards the battlefield. In the distance, she could see another vast swath of forest being utterly decimated by Pain's relentless assault. By the time this war was over, it would likely take years for the island to recover from the sheer, cataclysmic devastation being inflicted upon it. Still, the Tsuchikage, the Raikage, and Jiraiya had, for the moment at least, managed to successfully draw Pain and the others away.
Without a moment's hesitation, Katsuyu carefully lifted the wounded onto her broad, soft back and began moving swiftly away from the battlefield. Tsunade followed closely behind.
Once they had put sufficient distance between themselves and the raging battle with Pain, Tsunade became acutely aware that the freshly landed Allied Shinobi Forces had already been plunged into a desperate, life-or-death struggle against the Akatsuki's remaining members. However, the battle had not unfolded as a one-sided rout.
Despite the Akatsuki's severe numerical disadvantage, and despite being undeniably on the back foot against the overwhelming numbers of the Allied Forces, the Allied Forces lacked any single individual capable of delivering a truly decisive, battle-ending blow. Even Maki, who had only recently assumed the title of Kazekage, found himself unable to gain any meaningful advantage in his duel against the reanimated Fourth Mizukage.
Killer B, on the other hand, was a different story entirely. Relying on the immense, nigh-limitless chakra of the Eight-Tails, he had established absolute, crushing dominance in his battle against Roshi. As for the monstrous beasts summoned by the Animal Path, the majority of them possessed extraordinary, almost supernatural regenerative capabilities. Unless they could be dispatched with a single, annihilating blow, they would always manage to recover and regenerate within an astonishingly short span of time. The shinobi of the Allied Forces, by contrast, were all too mortal. Once wounded, they were effectively out of the fight for a considerable period.
Hiruzen had anticipated this eventuality, which was why the landing force included a substantial contingent of medical ninja. But once the full-scale battle had erupted, the sheer volume of critically wounded shinobi quickly overwhelmed their capacity. In many cases, treating a single severely injured shinobi required the coordinated efforts of two or even three medical ninja simultaneously. In the blink of an eye, the medical corps found itself stretched dangerously thin.
The moment Tsunade witnessed this grim reality, she did not hesitate for a second. She immediately executed the Katsuyu Grand Division technique. One after another, smaller, palm-sized Katsuyu clones began splitting off from the main body and swiftly moved to attach themselves to the wounded. Shizune, who was in the middle of frantically treating an injured shinobi, suddenly noticed three or four small Katsuyu clones adhering themselves to the patient's wounds.
She looked up in surprise, only to see that the other nearby wounded shinobi had also been similarly attended to by the tiny slugs.
Her voice caught in her throat. "Lady Tsunade..." But when she scanned her immediate surroundings, there was no sign of Tsunade anywhere. All she could do was silently offer a prayer for her mentor's safety.
The Katsuyu Grand Division technique itself did not consume an exorbitant amount of chakra. However, the Remote Healing technique derived from it—which allowed Tsunade to channel her healing chakra through the divided Katsuyu clones to treat multiple patients simultaneously—demanded a colossal, continuous expenditure of chakra. The mere fact that Tsunade had resorted to this technique was a clear indication that she had already steeled herself for the absolute worst-case scenario.
This war... has no true victors.
Shizune's brow furrowed deeply. She immediately turned her attention to the next injured shinobi and resumed her life-saving work without pause.
...
Meanwhile, the three Kage-level shinobi were fighting with every ounce of their strength against the Six Paths of Pain.
The Raikage had activated his Lightning Release Chakra Mode, his entire body crackling and sheathed in a blazing aura of raw, electric power. This was a nin-taijutsu technique, enhancing his physical body to its absolute limits and preparing him for devastating, high-speed taijutsu assaults.
"Lord Tsuchikage, Lord Jiraiya, I'll need you to coordinate with me on this!" the Raikage called out.
"That is not a problem. However, you must exercise the utmost caution. Both Lord Hokage and Lady Mizukage were gravely wounded at close range. The moment you close the distance with him, you run the very same risk of being killed," Onoki warned, even as his hands blurred through a rapid sequence of hand seals.
"I do not know the precise circumstances of Lord Hokage's injury. But I can tell you this—my taijutsu is leagues beyond anything the Mizukage is capable of! Just sit back and watch!" the Raikage roared defiantly before charging headlong at Pain.
At the same moment, Jiraiya, in perfect synchronization with Fukasaku and Shima, hardened his hair into a bristling forest of razor-sharp needles. The Sage Art: Hair Needle Senbon erupted outward in a vast, all-encompassing barrage, blanketing the entire area and completely surrounding the Paths of Pain. Since the Preta Path could absorb small-scale, concentrated ninjutsu, Jiraiya had decided to test his theory with a wide-area technique instead. He refused to believe that the Preta Path could possibly absorb every single one of the countless hair needles that comprised the Sage Art: Hair Needle Senbon in its entirety. Of course, wide-area ninjutsu attacks came with their own inherent drawback—their individual striking power was somewhat limited. Even if the needles found their mark, they would not inflict immediately fatal wounds. In that regard, this technique could not compare to something like the Ultra-Big Ball Rasengan. But that hardly mattered. Jiraiya's goal was simply to create an opening for the Raikage's assault.
Faced with the overwhelming, sky-darkening storm of hair needles bearing down upon him, coupled with the terrifying, lightning-wreathed form of the Raikage charging at him with murderous intent, even Pain felt a genuine surge of pressure. He raised his palm, preparing to unleash the Almighty Push. But just then, the ground beneath him began to tremble and heave. In an instant, a towering earthen platform erupted from the soil, and a moment later, a long, sloping ramp extended from its peak, providing the Raikage with a perfect, elevated launching point.
With the storm of hair needles now mere inches away, Pain had no choice but to leap skyward, attempting to evade while delaying the use of the Almighty Push. His earlier encounter with Might Guy had taught him a harsh, undeniable lesson. Against a taijutsu specialist of that caliber, five seconds was more than enough time to deliver a fatal blow. He would rather absorb some measure of damage from the incoming hair needles than grant his enemies even the smallest window of opportunity.
Pain soared upward, his gaze locked intently on the newly formed earthen structure. The platform was triangular in shape, standing roughly ten meters tall, with a long, gradually sloping ramp at its rear. The instant his eyes settled on that ramp, he saw a streak of blinding lightning racing up its surface. In the span of a single heartbeat, the crackling form of the Raikage was directly before him.
"Pain... DIE!" the Raikage bellowed, his voice thundering across the battlefield. His entire body was wreathed in a blazing storm of Lightning Release chakra as he drove his powerful forearm directly towards Pain's throat.
"Lightning Release: Liger Bomb!"