"So Chiyo's been suppressed… What chakra and speed… she really is a monster. Even I would struggle against that unless I relied on Sage Mode's sensory abilities."
While clashing fiercely with Rasa, Jiraiya caught a glimpse of Kaede and Chiyo's battle from the corner of his eye, and waves of emotion surged in his heart.
Previously, he had only been able to guess how Kaede had achieved such outrageous feats on the battlefields of the Land of Grass and the Amegakure. But now he understood.
Chakra is nearly equal to his own.
Speed far exceeding his own.
And swordsmanship on par with the White Fang, strikes that combined raw destructive power with surgical sharpness.
Put all that together, and you had a killing machine.
White Fang was the same back in the day. In sheer strength, he might not have matched the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, but on a battlefield, the destruction he wrought far surpassed Sarutobi.
Kaede was the same type of shinobi.
Against the Kage of the Five Great Villages, like the Kazekage before him, where his swordplay might be disrupted by Magnet Release, things could go either way. But against typical Chūnin or Jōnin? He was a walking executioner. one exchange, and they were dead.
Even against puppet masters like Chiyo, Kaede possessed immense suppression capability. In fact, Kaede and White Fang were practically her natural enemies.
The reason was simple.
Each of Chiyo's puppets, when fully controlled, could rival a Jōnin or even an elite Jōnin. Controlling ten at once, she could overwhelm just about anyone.
But for ninja like Kaede and White Fang, numbers meant nothing. Even ten Jōnin together would likely be taken down one by one.
"…You really are unlucky, Chiyo," Jiraiya muttered with a chuckle.
During the Second Great Ninja War, she ran into White Fang. Now, in the Third, it was Kaede. Father and son, both her natural counters. Her misfortune was almost pitiful.
Rasa had also noticed things were going badly for Chiyo. His shock, however, was even greater, he had recognized the Kusanagi Sword in Kaede's hand.
It's him.
The key ninja responsible for wiping out their surprise attack unit… really was from Konoha!
"No. We can't let Chiyo fall just yet."
Thoughts raced through Rasa's mind as he clenched his teeth. If Chiyo was defeated this early, the strategic cost would be far too high, no matter how favorable things looked otherwise.
He barked orders at the nearby Sand Jōnin: "Support Elder Chiyo!"
They immediately obeyed, charging toward Chiyo's position.
But Jiraiya remained utterly unbothered, calmly continuing his fight with Rasa. He didn't care if he beat the Kazekage or not, he only needed to hold him off.
Ninja like Kaede couldn't be stopped with reinforcements. Those Jōnin would only be picked off one by one. At best, they'd sap some of Kaede's chakra.
But Tsunade was on Kaede's side!
Worried about chakra depletion?
Not even a problem.
Even if Tsunade wasn't at full strength, supporting Kaede, healing him, or replenishing some of his chakra was no issue at all.
In short, the Sand's defeat in this war was already inevitable.
Whoosh! Whoosh!!
Three Sand Jōnin closed in on Kaede's battlefield, forming hand seals and shouting as they unleashed Wind and Earth Style techniques in an attempt to pin him down.
But they were useless. Kaede effortlessly evaded them. one tried to cast a genjutsu, but the moment it touched Kaede's raging chakra, the link was instantly severed, there was no way to manipulate his chakra flow.
And the most critical problem:
Kaede was engaged with Chiyo and her puppets in close combat. Large-scale ninjutsu couldn't be used without hitting her too, and small-scale jutsu couldn't land a hit on him at all.
"You lot… don't get too cocky."
At that moment, Tsunade rejoined the battle, charging in with the Strength of a Hundred Seal glowing on her forehead.
Perhaps the shock Kaede had caused had further suppressed her hemophobia. Her chakra flow was smoother now, and with the Strength of a Hundred boosting her, she was at least back to elite Jōnin level, even if not quite at Kage-tier yet.
Boom!!
One punch from Tsunade shattered the ground into pieces.
One of the Sand Jōnin narrowly dodged, but still got hit by the shockwave, his ankle trembling under the impact. He was too shaken to even glance back at Kaede and Chiyo's battle.
The other two faced her warily, knowing full well who she was, one of the Legendary Sannin, a ninja who had made her name during the Second Great Ninja War.
Bang! Bang!!
Tsunade fought one against three, steadily regaining her former strength. Each punch landed with growing power, pushing the Sand Jōnin into full defense.
Sending three Jōnin to aid Chiyo was practically the Sand's limit. The rest tried to reinforce, but Konoha's forces immediately blocked them.
The entire battlefield had become centered on the duel between Kaede and Chiyo.
The Sand tried to send help, and Konoha kept blocking them!
"…Is this all you've got?"
Kaede's expression remained calm as his Kusanagi Sword swept out again and again, cutting down puppet after puppet, steadily closing in on Chiyo herself.
As a Kage-level ninja, Chiyo had plenty of tricks, chakra threads, laser-sealing barriers, and the Triple Treasure Collapse technique… Some came entwined with the puppets like threads of silk; others condensed chakra to exert strange gravitational forces to restrain him.
Any of these moves could trouble even a Kage-level opponent.
But to Kaede, they meant nothing. one slash, if it couldn't cut through, then two. Not a single technique could stop him. At best, they delayed his step or slowed an attack.
"Don't get ahead of yourself just yet, brat."
Chiyo's face was frosty as she manipulated her puppets and spoke coldly.
Kaede now looked exactly like White Fang had back then, and she remembered all too well how powerless she had felt.
But after being defeated by White Fang, she had spent years studying ways to counter him. When she heard of his death, she thought all that effort had been wasted.
She never imagined she'd face his son, fighting with almost the exact same methods.
Buzz!!
The next moment—
Chiyo unfurled her final scroll and summoned her last puppet.
A bizarre, inverted-triangle-shaped puppet that looked like the core of some strange mechanism.
"This was meant for your father… But I'll let you be the one to taste it instead."
Her eyes gleamed with icy resolve as she pushed her chakra to the limit. Countless threads extended toward the core, converging with a sensation of crushing pressure.
Centered on the triangular puppet, the shattered fragments of Kaede's previous targets, all the metal pieces, began to tremble and float, drawn by some unseen force, forming a ring around Kaede.
"Ninja Art: Magnetic Light Sealing!!"
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