Underneath his casual attitude, Kakashi was warily observing the situation and looking for any weakness in Rasa. He, in fact, arrived a bit earlier and wanted to surprise attack Rasa in the back, but unfortunately, the Kazekage was way too guarded for that.

It was important to know one’s limits. The problem with ambushing S-class ninja was that they expected it. The paranoid bastards were prepared for it, and it was for the best to assume they always had a counter ready.

Right now, Rasa seemed to be at his weakest with no golden dust around him. His biggest attack was repelled. His shoulders were slightly slumped, showing a hint of weakness. He reminded Kakashi of a homeless dog in a heavy rain who was trying to act tough.

But Kakashi didn’t believe in that pitiful image. He called bullshit.

If Rasa was truly that weakened, he would have no doubt already run for the hills. S-rank ninjas did not stay and fight losing battles. They would not have survived long enough to become S-ranks if they did.

These were the people who were the most dangerous when they appeared to be at their weakest. Kakashi would bet that there was some sort of trap. Maybe he still had some golden dust under the ground near his feet?

Well, he could only guess until they properly clashed and Rasa showed his hand.

In the end, Kakashi had seen no favorable opening, so he instead decided to make the two versus one into a three versus one. That should put more pressure on Rasa and hopefully make him slip.

As Rasa observed Kakashi with his lips set in a frown, a green blur suddenly appeared inside the arena, and Gai appeared, standing next to Kakashi.

The last remnants of the enemy ninja within the arena were quickly being mopped up, so he could afford to come here.

“Yosh! My eternal rival! You are finally here!” Gai gave Kakashi his best thumbs-up and a wide, sparkling grin full of teeth, “I am in the lead! I have already dealt with thirty-six enemy ninjas!”

“…” Kakashi quietly hummed for a moment as he stared weirdly at Gai, but then he simply turned around and nonchalantly shrugged, “Maaa~, I have dealt with thirty-seven on my way to the arena, Gai.” He casually bullshitted Gai with a practiced ease.

“WHAT!? No! That can’t be! I must put in more effort!” Gai exclaimed in surprise that quickly turned into a burning determination. Gai’s eyes fell on the Kazekage, and he seemed to have an eureka moment. “Yosh! I shall defeat the Kazekage! If I can’t, I shall run a hundred laps from Konoha to Suna on my hands!”

Kakashi smiled underneath his mask. It was always so easy to rile Gai up. By now, he was half convinced that Gai was playing his foolishness up just to spice things up and make others underestimate him, but despite being one of his very few friends, not even Kakashi could really tell if that was the case.

If he were to be honest, it was sort of impressive.

“Let’s team up. The one to score the killing hit takes the credit. That fair for you?”

“Yes! I shall score the killing hit! Cover my back with no worries, my youthful friend!” Gai shouted, and Kakashi would swear his grin widened.

Kakashi rolled his eyes in response. He was not afraid that this little competition would hamper their teamwork and make them fight against each other as much as together. It was just something they did for fun and giggles. He had no doubt that if Gai had seen a way to give Kakashi an opening for the killing blow, he would do everything in his power to do it.

Glancing back at Ino and Hinata, who were looking at them with weirded out expressions, Kakashi inwardly sighed, hoping his cool image was not tarnished too much.

Alas! The banter was necessary.

The two girls did some very heavy combat, from what he had seen when he arrived at the arena. He wanted to give them a small breather.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to drag this on for much longer. It wasn’t only them taking the chance to take a breather, but their opponent as well. And who knows what Rasa could pull off if given the time?

They needed to engage him quickly, but with the four of them, they had a solid shot at killing him.

“Good.” He spoke, about to give some reassuring words to the youngest members of their impromptu team, “It’s four against one. Don’t worry. We got this. Teamwork is Konoha’s strongest suit.”

“Actually,” Hinata’s voice suddenly interrupted him. “We shall leave this fight to you two, Kakashi-sensei, Gai-sensei.”

“Yes.” Ino nodded with a foxy grin. “Strong and youthful Jonin like you can definitely deal with something as simple as Kazekage. Have fun.”

With that, the two girls disappeared in a swirl of leaves, leaving Kakashi staring at the place where the two girls were standing just a moment ago. Even the hand holding his orange book subconsciously dropped down from the surprise, hanging next to his body.

“… Huh?”

What the hell? Was he just abandoned right after he bragged about teamwork in front of Rasa?

Well, that definitely didn’t go as he envisioned, now, did it? Kakasi’s lips twitched.

“Kakashi. Looks like you were mistaken.” Gai spoke, amusement shining in his eyes as he subtly watched Rasa like a hawk. He turned toward Rasa and gave him a thumbs-up while trying to cause some psychological damage with his trademark sunset genjutsu, “This shall be a youthful two versus one, Kazekage-dono!”

…

A moment later, Hinata and Ino ran across the rooftops of Konoha’s houses, hurrying toward the outer wall.

So far, the village was quite peaceful for the most part as Konoha ninjas worked hard to evacuate civilians. Their unexpected fight with Rasa lasted maybe four minutes, so the invading forces hadn’t breached the walls just yet.

The only enemy ninjas that were inside Konoha now were the infiltrators, and with her Byakugan, Hinata could tell that there were easily hundreds of those, but in a place as big as Konoha, that was just a drop in the bucket.

It did help that these infiltrators could not field a proper offensive due to their numbers and the fact that the infiltration specialists were usually not the best combatants.

But while they did not outright confront Konoha ninjas in the streets, they did do damage in their own sneaky way with run and hit tactics. Hinata could see them kill civilians in an unprotected part of Konoha. She even saw children being cut down like wheat on one distant playground.

She could see the infiltrators working hard to sabotage several places with varying levels of success.

She could see them do assassinations. And indeed, some civilians’ positions on the council were most likely going to need replacements. Young, isolated genin and chunin were also targeted. The cowardly bastards were always jumping them in bigger numbers.

She could even see some of them using the situation to rape young girls in dark alleys right this moment.

It made her heart ache. But she could not go and help. Not now.

Too much was happening at once, and sadly, her prowess and chakra had to be used for more important endeavors right now. She could only hope some Konoha ninjas would notice and help. As slim as that possibility was.

The aforementioned bigger problem was that Suna and Oto’s main forces were besieging Konoha’s walls in five different places.

The first one… a minute ago, a massive serpentine monster was summoned near the wall on the eastern side of the village, but Jiraiya was already handling that one.

Still, from what Hinata could see, it was not going to be a quick fight. The serpentine monster seemed to have a very effective regeneration and a lot of strength. Putting it down was going to take time.

The enemy also knew exactly where to attack for the biggest effect because the garrison there was undoubtedly the weakest. Some enemy ninjas were already using that fact and the chaos from gigantic toads beating up on a gigantic snake-like monster to slip further into Konoha despite Jiraiya’s presence.

Hinata and Ino’s goal was the two fronts on the western side of the village’s wall, however. Hinata would handle the army of Oto ninjas, while Ino would handle the Suna ninjas attacking the wall further south on the western side.

Honestly, there was no way in hell that Suna and Oto ninjas would fight as one unified army, and that was a blessing in disguise. They did not fight together. Instead, they fought alongside each other, trying not to get in each other’s way. But forget helping each other. That was not going to happen. They were still ninjas from two different villages. They wanted to see each other dead as much as they wanted to see Konoha ninjas dead.

Thanks to that, they hadn’t overrun the defenders yet, and the two places seemed to be in a stalemate. But these were the two biggest concentrations of enemy forces. It was just a question of time until they broke through the defenses and poured into Konoha. Which was why Hinata and Ino headed that way, wanting to prevent it.

Unfortunately, this meant the northern and southern attacking forces would most definitely get into Konoha. The infiltrators were already causing huge problems for the Konoha defenders there, while the enemy forces outside were trying to get through the wall.

It was pure chaos, full of death, as Oto and Suna ninjas disguised as Konoha ninjas started killing their comrades the second the enemies attacked. These two fronts were already on their way to being lost. The enemy ninjas were going to get into Konoha through there, and there was no way to stop it now.

Hinata could only hope the ANBU and ninjas within the village could deal with them once the evacuation was finished. The only saving grace was that the southern and northern invading forces were relatively small compared to the eastern and western ones.

They seemed to be meant more as a distraction. The enemy most likely did not expect Jiraiya to be present in the village, nor did they expect Ino and Hinata.

Ino’s eyes met Hinata’s just as Hinata threw a needle to the side, killing an Oto ninja a few hundred meters away who was about to stab a little girl.

“Well, this is it.” Ino said, trying to sound cheerful, but there was still a heaviness to her tone. “This is where we part. Give them hell, girl.” Her attempt at an encouraging smile was more of a grimace.

Usually, Ino would be more chipper, but despite not having Byakugan, her sensing was second to none in Konoha. She also noticed the atrocities that were going on. And she was also frustrated at not being able to help.

But she was going to fight an army of hundreds, maybe thousands, of ninjas. She couldn’t spare her chakra. Not even for one shadow clone. Ren had beaten heroics out of them very soon in their training. Doing so would have been foolish and could hamper her own survival.

So, with gloomy expressions and heavy hearts, both Hinata and Ino ran toward their own battlefields, hoping that their efforts would be helpful enough to matter.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep