At this moment, along the Land of Fire's border facing the Land of Water, Konoha's strongest reinforcement force had already arrived.
Meanwhile, on the sea from another direction, two massive ninja fleets—representing "Cloud" and "Mist"—were silently advancing toward the Land of Whirlpools, drawing ever closer step by step.
This time, Konoha was absolutely determined to protect the Uzumaki clan of the Land of Whirlpools.
The ship's speed was astonishing. Under normal circumstances, even a sailboat powered by manual rowing would require six to seven hours for the journey.
But now, with the full cooperation of ninjas, it took only about one hour to reach the border.
Among the first wave of evacuated Whirlpools citizens, many red-haired people stepped down from the deck.
"Haa… We've finally reached the Land of Fire. I wonder if the people here will welcome us."
"No matter what, let's first find somewhere to settle down."
Among these three thousand-plus people were ordinary civilians as well as adults and children from ninja clans.
Even though the Hokage had promised to negotiate with the Fire Daimyō to arrange temporary housing for the people of the Land of Whirlpools, unease still lingered in everyone's hearts.
After everyone disembarked, Uzumaki Makoto finally led the team down as well, allowing them to take a brief rest and replenish their strength. After all, starting from the next trip, the ninjas supporting each deck's transportation would need to rely on soldier pills to boost chakra recovery.
Step, step, step—
Not long after Makoto stepped off the ship, movement came from the forest. Everyone turned their heads and saw figures approaching from the direction of Konoha's border camp.
Soon, a squad clad in Konoha's green flak jackets entered their field of vision.
Leading the group were a black-haired Byakugan man and a woman with red hair tied into a bun.
The Konoha ninjas already stationed there immediately greeted them.
"Lady Mito! Lord Yūya!" ×N
"Mito? Could it be…?!"
Uzumaki Makoto stared in disbelief as he saw the woman smiling and nodding to the Konoha ninjas, then slowly walking toward him.
Unease rose in Makoto's heart.
"From what I know, Lady Mito should be nearly sixty years old by now."
"Sixty-one, actually." Uzumaki Mito looked him over calmly. "You must be one of the Uzumaki clan's current jōnin?"
Makoto nodded shyly. The seemingly youthful Uzumaki Mito smiled warmly, patted his solid shoulder, and said,
"Very good."
"What's your name?"
"U-Uzumaki Makoto."
Mito's gaze sharpened slightly, then she smiled gently.
"No need to be shy. After all, I'm just an old woman with one foot in the coffin."
"I'm not the kind of youthful maiden you imagine, you know~"
Looking at Mito's young face and her fair, smooth skin, Makoto subconsciously swallowed. No matter how he looked at her, she didn't resemble a grandmotherly figure at all.
Soon after, Uzumaki Mito exchanged a glance with Hyūga Yūya. Understanding what needed to be done, Yūya began organizing the residents into orderly lines for border inspections, preventing enemy spies from slipping through.
To avoid provoking spies into desperate action, Yūya and the Hyūga clan members personally served as inspectors, conducting physical contact checks on everyone—since only spies would subconsciously use chakra.
With ninja efficiency, checking over three thousand people was trivial.
The reason it went so smoothly was that Mito, drawing upon the Nine-Tails' chakra, could clearly sense benevolence and malice, then subtly signal the Hyūga ninjas through her gaze and small movements.
Enemy spies, naturally, radiated unmistakable malice.
Before long, two spies—disguised as ordinary civilians with half-baked genin-level strength—were exposed. Makoto's conversation with Mito ended there.
"So many…"
"Out of just three thousand people, there were already two spies. With so many more batches coming, it's truly unbelievable."
Mito looked at the two spies whose chakra points had been sealed by the Hyūga clan.
"Hand them over to the border interrogation unit."
"No—no—!"
"I won't be a spy anymore! Please, Lady Mito, spare me!!"
Their screams were useless. Konoha ninjas stepped forward and dragged them away toward the border camp for further interrogation.
Once inspections for each deck were completed, Makoto spoke up.
"Then I should be leaving as well, Lady Mito."
"Mm."
"Thank you for your hard work, Makoto-kun." Mito smiled gently and waved toward the massive sailing ship by the shore.
Standing at the bow, Makoto made up his mind—to inform the village leadership that the revered Lady Mito, admired by countless Uzumaki clansmen, had personally arrived at the border.
After the escort teams guided the Whirlpools civilians to a prearranged temporary settlement near the border, and once no Whirlpools citizens remained on site, Hyūga Yūya approached Uzumaki Mito.
"Ahem."
"Lady Mito, it's quite chilly here. Perhaps you should return to camp and rest?"
Yūya spoke respectfully. He knew the importance of the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki—and he also knew Mito's age.
When he learned that the elderly Mito had insisted on joining this battlefield, and that the Third Hokage had appointed him as captain of the Jinchūriki Guard Unit, Yūya felt nothing but admiration.
Mito shook her head, her gaze firm as she looked ahead.
"Yūya."
"Let this old woman stand here a little longer."
"Perhaps this will be the last time I look toward the Land of Whirlpools from across the sea."
"Lady Mito…"
Those words stirred deep sadness in Yūya's heart.
Soon, more evacuation teams continued to arrive at the Land of Fire's coast. At this point, the number of residents left on the Whirlpools archipelago dwindled rapidly.
Aside from a few stubborn traditionalists unwilling to leave, nearly all of the younger generation followed the Uzumaki leadership's orders, abandoning the homeland they had lived in for over thirty years.
This was the final evacuation batch.
With that, Squad One's guard mission came to an end. Upon returning, aside from a negligible share of the B-rank mission reward, they would also receive an S-rank bonus—a special mission payout of 750,000 ryō per squad.
This was what one might truly call getting rich overnight.
Baixing, Senju Nawaki, and Might Dai boarded the ship. Feeling the sea breeze brush past his black hair atop the deck, Baixing couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
"It's finally over."
What came next was no longer something a mere genin like him could participate in.
That thought lasted until they reached the Land of Fire's shoreline—where Uzumaki Mito appeared.
Nawaki shouted "Grandma!" and ran down the gangplank, throwing himself into Mito's arms. Baixing and Dai both nodded respectfully to her.
"You've worked hard, Nawaki."
"Not at all, Grandma! But why are you here? It's dangerous here!"
Because he understood the danger of the Land of Whirlpools all too well, Nawaki hadn't insisted on staying behind to fight this time. Mito smiled softly, rubbed his head, then glanced at Baixing and Dai.
"Grandma has a mission to complete this time."
"You two go rest at the camp. Don't worry about me."
"Grandma…"
As Baixing and Dai pulled Nawaki away, he looked back at Mito boarding the sailing ship, an ominous feeling stirring in his heart.
On the way to the camp, Nawaki couldn't help asking,
"Brother Baixing, Uncle Dai… do you think my grandma will really be okay?"
Leaping over a fallen tree, Baixing nodded.
"Of course. Lady Mito is the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki. She'll be fine."
Dai nodded firmly as well.
"Nawaki, don't worry! Our mission now is to cooperate with the elite forces sent by the village and escort the Uzumaki clan safely back to Konoha."
The fact that Mito was the first Nine-Tails' jinchūriki wasn't deliberately concealed—because the First Hokage had never enforced secrecy measures. Even the second jinchūriki, Uzumaki Kushina, was known to many ninjas; her red hair and surname made it obvious.
Back when Kushina had been abducted by Cloud ninja shortly after graduating the Academy, Mito was already too frail to act freely, her sensory abilities greatly diminished—allowing infiltrators to slip into the Senju compound unnoticed.
Even though Baixing felt like he was raising a death flag by saying this, the world of ninjas was simply like that.
—He could not stop anyone who chose to protect others.
Whether enemy… or comrade.
Late into the night, a shadow clone quietly appeared on the sea about ten kilometers from the Whirlpools archipelago, gazing ahead.
Boom—
In the direction of the Land of Whirlpools, an explosion like a nuclear detonation lit up the sky.
There was no doubt about it—a Tailed Beast Bomb.
"What a brutal battlefield."
"But fortunately…"
"I'm just a genin. All I can do is bear witness to the final battle of a true powerhouse."
The shadow clone didn't dare move too close, lest it be detected, but even so, the chakra fluctuations ahead clearly indicated a clash between Kage-level combatants.
Within the Land of Whirlpools' borders, seeing the enemy ninja brimming with morale, the Third Mizukage was preparing to personally enter the fray—only to receive word from the sensory unit that a jinchūriki, the ultimate weapon, had appeared.
By then, the Tailed Beast Bomb was already aimed at the center of the fleet where he stood.
If he dodged, the hundreds of Kirigakure ninjas maintaining barriers and Water Release support on the ships—and even those who had already landed—would all be annihilated.
Even if a few survived, losing the ships would leave them exposed to Konoha's pursuit—ending in total annihilation all the same.
Standing on the deck, the Third Mizukage attempted to use the terrain to unleash his strongest Water Release technique to block Mito's incomplete Tailed Beast Bomb.
The result was inevitable—failure.
Still, he managed to reduce part of the blast's destructive power.
Even so, the Third Mizukage, struck head-on, was barely distinguishable from a rotting corpse, clinging to his last breath.
Crack—splat—
Unrecognizable chunks of flesh and debris were scattered across trees, land, and shore—wherever one looked, everything was stained red.
Uzumaki Mito, who had remained hidden until the Mizukage revealed himself, finally spoke after launching the attack.
"It's over."
"Your Mizukage is dead."
"Surrender at once!"
Whoosh—whoosh—
On the battlefield between Uzushiogakure and Kirigakure, Konoha and Uzumaki forces—having finished off the Cloud ninja—arrived as reinforcements.
At that moment, Kirigakure ninja saw cliffs and forests ahead filled with enemy forces.
—A scene reminiscent of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen surrounding Guy's team.
"Damn it! Lord Mizukage!!"
The Third Mizukage had been struck on the deck; the entire Shadow Guard protecting him perished alongside him.
The baby-faced yet young adult Karatachi Yagura held the Mizukage's dying body. If not for the Mizukage and his guards jointly using Water Release to offset part of the damage, even the Kirigakure ninjas on nearby ships and along the shore would have been heavily injured or killed.
"Ya… Yagura…"
"Lord Mizukage! I'm here." Yagura never imagined that this operation would involve the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki. Even worse, although Cloud Village had promised the Raikage's participation, they only sent an unremarkable force—two jōnin, two special jōnin, and just over a hundred chūnin.
Kirigakure, on the other hand, had mobilized almost everything—over twenty jōnin and more than four hundred elite chūnin.
Yet after heavy losses against Uzushiogakure and Konoha, followed by Mito's Tailed Beast Bomb, eight jōnin from the Mizukage's guard died instantly. Now, including five surviving jōnin, fewer than two hundred Kirigakure ninja remained standing.
"The village… I entrust… to you…"
With his final act, the Third Mizukage used Water Release to protect the remaining ships and the panicked Kirigakure forces.
"Damn it! Despicable Konoha ninjas! I, Karatachi Yagura, will remember this grudge! When we meet again, I'll repay it in full!!"
Wiping away tears, Yagura accepted the Mizukage's mantle and took command of the battle. Kirigakure had gained nothing—and instead suffered catastrophic losses.
"All forces—retreat!!"
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