Chapter 44: Toad Battle
"S-so... amazing, Ryusei."
"Now six of the seven have been dealt with by Ryusei. Only Kagami is left."
"I think Ryusei is so cool and domineering right now! I want to have his babies!"
"Stop it, that's Yuki's boyfriend."
"Damn it, Yuki got to him first. But it doesn't matter, they're not married yet. I still have a chance."
The students all began to discuss amongst themselves. Komiya Yuki, hearing these comments, was both happy and a little annoyed. These girls are so shameless.
Yamamoto Ryusei looked at Uchiha Kagami and said, "It's just the two of us left. Come on, Kagami. Summon that giant toad of yours from Mount Myōboku."
Uchiha Kagami pointed at his unconscious comrades and said to Nara Shikagen, "Teacher Nara, could you please move them away? The scene is about to get a little big."
Nara Shikagen, who knew Uchiha Kagami's personality well, felt his pupils shrink. He knew a huge spectacle was coming. He quickly said to the other Chunin, "Help me carry the unconscious children out, then use a Mud Wall to expand their combat area and push all the spectating children outside the wall..."
The Chunin couldn't help but look at each other. Not big enough? How much bigger does it need to be? Even a Jonin's battleground isn't this wide.
Still, the Chunin split into three groups. One group went to carry the just-graduated, unconscious Genin. Another group went to disperse the crowd of children. The last group erected a mud wall next to the school building. That's right, the battlefield now occupied the entire schoolyard.
Sarutobi Hiruzen and the others were carried back and laid side by side on the ground. Except for Akimichi Torifu, everyone's face was swollen, and even Rōmaru had not been spared.
Yamanaka Seisen held the swollen-faced Rōmaru and said with a pained heart, "Ryusei has such a twisted sense of humor. Why does he only hit the face? He's beaten them so badly their faces are as big as Torifu's."
Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura exchanged a glance, feeling secretly glad. Luckily, they hadn't fought Ryusei, otherwise, they would be the ones lying here with swollen faces.
Yamashita So retorted, "It's not like Big Brother did it on purpose. It's just that hitting the head is the easiest way to knock someone out."
Yamanaka Seisen rolled her eyes at him. "You can ask your own conscience if it believes that..."
Uchiha Kagami looked at the schoolyard and then at the vast land outside the walls, feeling that the space was now large enough. The current Konoha was not as prosperous as it would be in the future; the area around the school was mostly open land with no buildings.
Kagami bit his finger and pressed it to the ground. "Summoning Technique!"
Poof!
A huge cloud of smoke exploded. Uchiha Kagami shot up into the air from within the smoke. When the smoke cleared, he was standing on the head of a toad taller than the school building. The toad was emerald green with a snow-white belly. It wore pieces of armor in the style of the Warring States period, revealing scars on its head and arms. In its hand, it held a long spear taller than itself, the spearhead alone making up a third of the weapon's total length.
"Wh-what is that?!"
"That's a summoning animal? Isn't that a little too big?"
At a time when the ninjas of Konoha thought of summoning animals as small creatures like the Inuzuka's dogs or the Uchiha's cats, the giant toad from Mount Myōboku was undoubtedly a critical hit to their perception. The Chunin, having suffered so many blows to their worldview already, felt like their minds were about to collapse.
"S-so... big... a summoning beast!"
"I never thought Kagami was hiding a trump card like this. No matter how strong Ryusei is, he's probably going to lose now."
Yamamoto Ryusei was also quite shocked as he looked at the toad before him. Although he knew from before that the giant toads of Mount Myōboku were very large, seeing it in an anime and seeing it in person were completely different. The sense of pressure was incomparable. Standing on the ground, Ryusei couldn't even see Uchiha Kagami on top of the toad's head.
"Kagami, are these people in front of me the enemy?" the giant emerald green toad asked. The sound of its voice shattered the glass in the classrooms. The sheer volume and destructive force were no less than a magnitude-three earthquake.
Kagami quickly denied it. "Boss Gamasen, this time my opponent is my classmate, Yamamoto Ryusei. And it's just a friendly spar, you absolutely cannot kill him."
Gamasen frowned and roared with some anger, "What? You're asking me to fight a little bug like this? Kagami, although I love to fight, I don't go so far as to bully little insects. A bug like this can be crushed with one finger."
The giant emerald green toad was named Gamasen. He was the largest, strongest, and most belligerent toad of his generation at Mount Myōboku. When he had nothing to do, he liked to fight with other toads, which made him unpopular there. So, the moment Mount Myōboku got a proxy, Gamasen found Uchiha Kagami and made a deal with him to be called upon for any battles.
Hearing Gamasen call him a "little bug" over and over again with such contempt, Ryusei's face turned black with anger. He raised his sword, Aurora, pointed it at Gamasen, and roared, "You damn toad! Such big words! Come on, let's fight! Let's see who kills who!"
"Oh?" Gamasen lowered his head, bringing his face close to Ryusei's, and looked at him with his large eyes. "This little bug has quite a temper. But I'm not interested in guys with no strength."
Ryusei lifted his right foot and stomped down hard. With a boom, gravel flew in all directions, plastering Gamasen's face. Dust rose into the air. A moment later, when the dust settled, the originally flat ground had caved in, forming a crater seven or eight meters in diameter. Ryusei stood in the middle of the crater and said to the toad before him, "Is this enough strength for you?"
Gamasen lifted his head and shook the gravel from it. "This strength is barely enough for me to warm up."
Ryusei gave a savage grin. "Then let's go! See if I don't beat the crap out of you!"
"They're here!" The captain of the arriving Konoha Guard unit immediately gave an order. "Team One, evacuate the crowd! Teams Two and Three, attack with me! We must drive it out of Konoha, even if it costs us our lives!"
"Wait!" Kagami, seeing his clansmen preparing to attack, quickly stopped them. "This is my summoning animal, not an enemy! I summoned Boss Gamasen to spar with Ryusei!"
The Guard captain, though confused as to how Kagami had obtained such a giant summoning beast, became furious when he saw that Kagami's opponent was just an academy child. He berated him, "Nonsense! It's just a spar with your own classmate! Why did you summon such a large beast? What if it loses control and attacks Konoha? Look at all the people around! What if someone gets hurt? Send it back to the summoning realm immediately!"
Because of Gamasen's appearance, there were now many more people at the school than usual. Besides the civilians who had come to watch the spectacle, many powerful ninjas had also arrived, thinking it was an enemy invasion. Basically, the heads of all the clans were present. If Kagami hadn't shouted out in time, Mito Uzumaki would have already bound Gamasen, allowing the various clan heads to unleash a wave of attacks.
Kagami also felt a bit wronged. I didn't want to summon Boss Gamasen either, but if I don't, I can't win at all.
"Don't be so agitated, Captain," Hashirama Senju said, emerging from the shadows after seeing that so many clan heads had arrived. He had seen the Guard captain's actions just now and was very pleased with his dedication to Konoha. Hashirama looked at the captain with an appreciative gaze and patted his shoulder in encouragement. "With me here, it won't be able to cause much trouble. Just let them finish this fight."
"Yes, Lord Hokage! All Guard members, withdraw!" The Uchiha captain of the Guard retreated to stand behind Hashirama, looking at him with an excited expression.
The moment Hashirama appeared, Gamasen had treated him as a great enemy, pointing his long spear at him. He felt a deadly pressure from this man, a feeling that if he made a move, he would be killed. "To think that someone so powerful exists in this world!"
"Huh?" Ryusei said in surprise. "When did the communication at your Mount Myōboku become so isolated? Teacher here is the God of Shinobi who pacified the chaotic era! You've never heard of him?"
Seeing that Hashirama had no intention of attacking him, Gamasen lowered his spear. "At Mount Myōboku, I'm always fighting. I don't pay any attention to the situation in the ninja world."
"Then you're just ignorant. Come on, fight me. You'll know the gap between you and my teacher then."
Gamasen raised his spear at Ryusei. "Then let's go. I'll let you, little bug, know what a real gap is."
Mito Uzumaki, in a foul mood, arrived at Hashirama's side with the other clan heads. "What's the situation now?"
Hashirama, his face full of pride, vividly described the one-on-seven spar. The Hyuga clan head, Hyuga Tenjin, who was behind him, said with a somewhat ugly expression, "So you're saying the members of our six clans all lost? And now only Uchiha Kagami and Yamamoto Ryusei are left?"
Tobirama pointed to the unconscious group of six surrounded by their classmates. "Look... your clan's younger generation is lying over there!"
The various clan heads quickly ran over to check on their own clansmen. They found that none of them were seriously injured, just unconscious. They then used their chakra to heal them and wake them up.
"Hiss... ah, my head hurts..." The first to wake up was Hyuga Natsuki. The kick Ryusei had given him was the lightest. Next were Nara Shikamei, Shimura Danzo, and Inuzuka Rō. The ones who had been hit the hardest were the giant-sized Akimichi Torifu and the "clever" Sarutobi Hiruzen.
Natsuki shook his dizzy head. Seeing his clan head, Hyuga Tenjin, standing before him, he quickly got up. "Clan Head, why are you here?"
Hyuga Tenjin pointed at Gamasen in the center of the field. "I was drawn here by that big guy."
"Big guy?" Natsuki came back to his senses and saw a giant green toad standing in the middle of the schoolyard.
"Ah... hiss..." Nara Shikamei, Shimura Danzo, and Inuzuka Rō also woke up one after another.
Natsuki looked at Uchiha Kagami on the toad's head and said, as if questioning his own reality, "So that's the summoning beast from Mount Myōboku that Kagami mentioned. It's truly massive."