The earth itself was shaking.
It wasn't just Kakashi—every soul still standing on that frozen battlefield felt the tremor ripple beneath their feet.
"What the hell is Konoha planning?"
A sudden chill of dread gripped the Fourth Raikage's chest. Lightning crackled around his body as he exploded forward, hurling a fist wreathed in thunder straight at Kakashi.
Steel met lightning. Kakashi spun the White Fang in a tight arc, deflecting the blow with a screech of sparks.
He didn't answer the Raikage's question. Instead, his single visible eye slid past the man and settled on the battered remnants of his squad.
Eight hundred when we crossed the border. Fewer than three hundred left now—every one of them wounded, chakra reserves scraping the bottom of the barrel. They were still on their feet only because sheer stubbornness refused to let them fall.
They needed to withdraw. Now.
But pulling out while completely surrounded? While the Fourth Raikage was glued to Kakashi like a curse, while Killer Bee's Tailed Beast chakra was thickening the air like ink in water, on the verge of a full Eight-Tails transformation?
Impossible.
"Captain!"
"We can't hold much longer!"
"Get out of here!"
Someone in the ragged formation screamed the words between clashes of steel.
Kakashi's heart stuttered. He knew that voice—the brash Inuzuka kunoichi who'd been mouthing off without a filter just hours earlier.
Inuzuka Hana.
He opened his mouth to answer.
A wet, meaty thud cut him off.
Lightning-wreathed steel punched clean through Hana's chest. The woman who'd just told him to run stared down at the blade protruding from her heart, eyes wide, mouth working soundlessly. Then her legs buckled and she crumpled, lifeless before she hit the snow.
Something inside Kakashi snapped taut.
White Fang blazed with channeled lightning. A thunderclap roared from the blade as he drove the Raikage back a step, then another. In the same breath he was already moving, retreating fast, boots skimming the snow.
He didn't look at Hana's body again.
The Cloud ninja who'd killed her never saw the counterattack coming. Kakashi's blade flashed once; the man's head spun away into the white.
Cold fury sharpened Kakashi's gaze. He picked a direction and moved.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Dragon Bullet!"
Hand seals blurred. Palms slammed into frozen ground. A massive dragon's head erupted from the earth, jaws yawning wide, vomiting a torrent of high-pressure mud straight into the densest knot of Cloud shinobi.
Screams cut short as men vanished beneath the flood of sludge.
Kakashi's hands never stopped moving.
"Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet!"
Scorching white flame roared from his mouth, merging with the mudflow. In seconds the freezing muck flash-boiled into molten lava that rolled forward like the wrath of a forgotten god.
A path opened—brief, brutal, bought with fire and blood.
"You're dead, Hatake!"
The Raikage's voice cracked with rage as he saw the Konoha survivors trying to slip the noose.
"Lord Raikage!"
One of his men stumbled up, face drained of color, voice cracking.
"F-flood—it's coming this way!"
The Raikage seized the man by the collar and shook him. "Are you insane? It's almost winter! Where the hell is a flood going to come from in the Land of Frost?!"
He flung the shinobi aside. Killing Kakashi and wiping out the last of his rats—that was all that mattered now.
"Konoha's Copy Ninja dies today!"
Snow exploded outward as a monstrous silhouette eclipsed the sky.
One hundred meters tall. Bull horns. Ox face. Human torso. Eight colossal octopus tentacles writhing below.
The Eight-Tails—Gyūki—fully unleashed.
Killer Bee, perfect jinchuriki, had surrendered to the beast entirely. One massive tentacle whipped toward Kakashi like a living battering ram.
Kakashi never slowed. Lightning condensed in his palm, stretched, sharpened.
"Chidori Sharp Spear!"
The azure lance punched clean-severed the tentacle at its base. The amputated limb crashed to the ground, thrashing and spurting black blood, still dangerous even severed.
Cloud ninja swarmed the opening, blades flashing.
Kakashi parried with White Fang in his right, body flowing like water. Lightning exploded outward in a web around him—Chidori Current—paralyzing the closest attackers for a fatal heartbeat.
Steel sang. Bodies fell.
"Follow me—break through!"
He threw the command over his shoulder, already surging toward the gap he'd burned open.
Then he saw the look on his squad's faces—pure terror, all of it aimed behind him.
Kakashi whirled.
"Lariat!"
The Raikage was already there, lightning cloaking his right arm like a headsman's axe, descending straight for Kakashi's skull.
No room to dodge. No time to block properly.
Kakashi braced, teeth clenched—
"Big Ball Rasengan!"
A bellow shook the battlefield.
A monstrous shadow blotted out the weak sun. From atop the shadow, a white-haired figure leapt, spinning a Rasengan the size of a boulder straight down at the Raikage's head.
Jiraiya.
About damn time, you old pervert.
Kakashi's hands were already flying through seals.
"Earth Release: Core Shift!"
The ground beneath the Raikage's feet shot upward like an elevator platform, hurling the man into Jiraiya's descent.
The Raikage twisted mid-air, switching targets without hesitation, lightning-clad heel meeting swirling Rasengan in a cataclysmic clash.
Light exploded. The shockwave flattened everyone nearby.
The Raikage was launched backward like a cannonball.
Jiraiya, with nothing to push against, crashed straight into the Konoha lines in a tangle of limbs and curses.
"Big Bro!"
The Eight-Tails roared in fury, bringing a building-sized fist down toward the scattered Leaf ninja.
"Oi, bull-octopus freak—your opponent's over here!"
An even deeper voice boomed across the field.
A toad the size of a small mountain crashed down from the heavens—Gamabunta, blade drawn, swinging for the Eight-Tails' head with earth-shaking force.
Jiraiya hadn't come alone. He'd summoned the boss toad from Mount Myōboku first and ridden him straight into hell.
"Get lost, you slimy damn toad!"
Gyūki's fist changed course mid-swing. The impact sent Gamabunta tumbling across the snow like a child's toy, carving a trench hundreds of meters long.
But it bought them seconds.
Precious, bloody seconds.
————
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