The Attack VII

Tsunade furrowed her brows, concerned about how the battle should proceed. She didn't think she would be able to defeat the Raikage, even with Yujin's help. From the beginning, she only wanted to prevent him from interfering with the ritual, and she was confident that she could do at least that.

Right at the start, however, she noticed a flaw in her strategy when Yujin told her that the entrance to the location was practically open. Although there was a large and heavy door at the site, apparently hidden by various trees and foliage, it wasn't very difficult for someone like the Third Raikage to discover.

With his power, he can easily enter the place, even if there's an army of ninjas in the way to stop him.

Tsunade then decided to use Katsuyu to physically seal the location. Even the Third Raikage will need some effort to enter with Katsuyu completely occupying the entrance.

This way, the Raikage has the difficult task of having to defeat Tsunade and Yujin first.

That was the plan.

Unfortunately, the Raikage's speed is much greater than Tsunade had anticipated, and she was having trouble reacting.

If it weren't for Yujin's constant warnings, she would already be dead, something that truly shocked her.

Her fight against Hanzo had already been a setback. She thought there weren't many ninjas more powerful than her, and even someone like the Third Hokage, although she couldn't defeat him, she thought she wouldn't be defeated so easily.

Hanzo proved her wrong, and again, the Third Raikage appeared to show her that she's still not strong enough.

'I'm not fast enough...'

She thought while gritting her teeth, hearing again Yujin's instructions on how the Raikage would attack, and how she should dodge.

While dodging, scenes of Dan's death appeared in her head.

Now that she was thinking about it, she realized. If she had been a little faster, he wouldn't have died.

If she had the Raikage's speed, she could have reached the battle site, and prevented Dan's death.

'Focus on the battle, forget everything else!'

Suddenly, she heard a shout in her mind, interrupting her thoughts.

Yujin was being attacked by the Raikage, and although he managed to dodge almost all attacks, some he had to defend, which ended up increasing his wounds.

Taking a deep breath, Tsunade shouted out loud.

"Katsuyu!"

Not far away, a voice responded, politely and gently.

"At your service, Tsunade-sama!"

Not far away, Katsuyu, the giant slug that was physically blocking the entrance to the ritual site, suddenly trembled, and from her body, several smaller slugs came out and crawled towards Tsunade.

In a short time, two of the slugs managed to reach the battle site, and approached Yujin, who didn't prevent them from climbing onto his body, and lodging themselves on his arms.

"Yujin, she will heal you, and help defend."

Yujin nodded while once again dodging the Raikage, who stopped shortly after and observed the slugs approaching the battlefield.

There were hundreds of slugs, and they surrounded the area, slowly joining together again, and forming twenty slugs over three meters tall.

"Hahaha, what an adorable summoning."

With Katsuyu's presence, the battle became different. While before they had to defend, dodge, and use rocks and obstacles to slow down the Raikage, now they also used Katsuyu's bodies as shields.

"Acid rain!"

Although she tried to hit the Raikage with a rain of extremely corrosive acid, the Raikage dodged with ease.

The battle became intense, and although it seemed like a battle of strength, with destruction happening at every moment, only the Raikage knew it was primarily a tactical battle.

'This can't be the work of the Senju Princess...'

The Raikage thought while dodging once again from an acid rain, and when he planned to approach to attack, Tsunade landed a kick on the ground, raising more rocks in the way, interrupting his attack for a second, and it was in this second that Yujin appeared in front of the Raikage, easily dodging his attack with the finger spears, aiming a punch at his ribs.

Although he knew it would come, the Raikage was surprised to realize that, even when trying to lessen the impact of the blow, he still felt considerable force, throwing him back dozens of meters.

Quickly getting up from the ground upon realizing that Yujin didn't plan to stop his attack, the Raikage dodged Yujin's kick, which hit the ground where he was.

The kick broke the ground, not like Tsunade did, but making an almost perfect hole in the stone that was previously intact even with the Raikage's body falling on it from dozens of meters high.

When he saw the hole in the ground, the Raikage frowned, realizing that it seemed like a kind of concentrated attack, similar to his finger spear.

Jumping back, the Raikage took distance to once again analyze the battlefield. His eyes, momentarily, passed by the direction of the entrance to the ritual site. Normally, no one would notice, but...

When he made a feint, and actually tried to enter the place, with the now smaller Katsuyu still blocking the entrance, the Raikage was surprised by an acid rain, and when he dodged, he almost took another blow from Yujin who appeared by his side. When he dodged Yujin with a lateral jump, to the only place where there was no corrosive acid falling from the sky, there was Tsunade, ready to land a blow.

This time, the Raikage didn't notice, and received a full blow from Tsunade right in the middle of his back.

His body was again thrown hundreds of meters, hitting various rocks, trees, bushes, and anything else that was in front.

When he finally stopped on the ground, he slowly got up, feeling a burning sensation in his back, and a slight pain in the rib area.

'He's predicting each of my moves.'

Tsunade is known for her intelligence, but not in the way it's being applied in this battle.

An instinctive fear began to appear in the Raikage's mind when he saw Yujin's calm eyes in the distance.

He felt as if Yujin could read his mind, constantly predicting each of his moves.

No matter how fast he moved, or how much he tried to take advantage of the environment, he never gained an advantage.

Although it seemed that they were in a fierce battle, with him constantly causing threats to Tsunade and Yujin, he knew the truth.

He was playing by Yujin's rules.

As if he were a wolf slowly cornering its prey, ready to deliver a fatal blow at any moment.

If it weren't for the accumulation of Yujin's injuries, and his extreme confidence in the defense of the lightning armor, the Third Raikage would have already retreated.

Staying in this battlefield without these two advantages would be suicide.

'Fortunately, I still left an ace up my sleeve. If I have an opportunity...'

Quickly approaching Yujin and Tsunade's location, he decided to focus his attack on Yujin again, who was injured.

Even with Katsuyu's healing, the injuries were accumulating. Eventually, it will be enough to decrease Yujin's efficiency in combat, and consequently, he would win.

***

On the other side of the battlefield, the Third Hokage and the Second Tsuchikage were fighting silently.

Although it seemed like a full-force battle, the two were actually holding back. They knew that it's simply not worth wasting their combat potential in this situation.

The Second Tsuchikage was satisfied with this, since his job from the beginning was to tie the Third Hokage.

Hiruzen, however, was not satisfied.

'This is frustrating. It's frustrating that I can't do anything else.'

He couldn't escape from the Second Tsuchikage. A fight to the death with Mu wouldn't be short either, and he doesn't have time for that.

At the same time, he can't simply join other battles, as it would bring the Second Tsuchikage along, which would make everything even more complex.

He was in a situation where the best thing he could do at that moment was to keep Mu in that location with a facade battle.

...

Not far away, Orochimaru, Jiraiya and Sakumo were succeeding in keeping the damage from Gyuki, the eight-tailed beast, to a minimum.

Even with the help of the Third Raikage's son, they were using a series of complex jutsus, with the help of Orochimaru's sealing and summoning techniques, to keep the beast in place, avoiding as much as possible letting it approach the populated area of the village.

In the distance, it was possible to see a huge wall with a demonic face blocking Gyuki's blows, which seemed out of control.

'If the bijuu wasn't out of its mind, this would be an impossible battle, even with Jiraiya and Sakumo's help.'

Orochimaru thought silently, surprised by the power of the eight-tailed bijuu. Because of so much power, he had to summon the Rashomon, a defensive summoning technique he acquired recently.

'When I locate the seal, I'll put Gyuki under control. If all goes well, the Leaf Village will have another bijuu. This is so exciting.'

While thinking about the absurd power that Gyuki would give to the village, at the same time, he was also considering the possibility of using the beast in experiments.

With the Kyubi in Mito's body, he would never consider this possibility, but in front of him currently is an uncontrolled bijuu. As long as he can put it under control, anything is possible.

While having these happy thoughts, his Jutsu finally managed to locate Gyuki's sealing mark, and a cold smile appeared on his androgynous face. It was time for him to get his reward.

***

Standing like a statue, Tsunade was staring fixedly at what was in front of her.

The Raikage's hand, pointed at her head, a few centimeters away.

She could see the energy flowing through the Raikage's single finger, unlike anything she had seen before.

Until that moment, the Raikage was using only three fingers to attack. Although the attack had great penetrating power, and was impossible to defend against, she had already gotten used to the speed of this attack.

With Yujin's help predicting the attacks with precision, it was possible to dodge.

This attack, however, was different from anything she had seen up to that moment.

The Raikage's speed increased tremendously when he reduced his finger from three to two, and then from two to one. When she realized, it was too late, and she thought she had died.

Seeing the finger stopped in front of her, however, she realized.

She was alive. She wasn't hurt.

But why was she feeling such great pain in her chest?

In front of her, someone was in the way of the blow.

The Raikage's arm completely through Yujin's chest, right where there should be a beating heart.

She would rather die than feel this pain.