In Konoha, Hiruzen Sarutobi was valiantly fighting against his most disappointing student. The restriction on the summoning techniques limited Orochimaru’s arsenal immensely. It gave Hiruzen the advantage.

But nevertheless, Orochimaru was still a master at kenjutsu and ninjutsu while also having two subordinates fighting on his side against the lone old man.

Hiruzen evaded several balls of flames hurled at him with apparent ease before he spun around and punched forward, hitting Kimimaro, who tried to sneak up on him.

Hiruzen’s knuckles hit the solid wall of bones Kimimaro had underneath his skin, and the old man had to hide his wince as the white-haired brat was launched back due to the force of his punch.

That internal bone armor was an annoyance throughout this whole fight for Hiruzen. His fist was most likely hurt more than the boy who ate his full-powered punch.

But Hiruzen didn’t have enough time to contemplate the problem.

His instincts flared, and Hiruzen ducked under the crystalline blade wielded by Orochimaru before he had to leap back as the woman, Guren, almost managed to grab at him.

That would have been extremely bad. He had seen what she could do with her crystal techniques, and even one touch seemed to be a game-ender.

Hiruzen didn’t forget to throw a kunai at Guren as he jumped back, and he even followed it by using the Shadow Kunai Technique. Unfortunately, as the dozens of kunai were hurled at her, she had managed to create a crystalline wall in front of her, shielding the attack.

Hiruzen clicked his tongue. He had tried to kill the lass the whole fight, but she indeed deserved the S-rank classification. Both for how dangerous her techniques were and how good she was at fighting. He was too old for this shit.

Hiruzen would have loved to continue his offensive with some ninjutsu, but Orochimaru was very intent on covering for Guren and instantly engaged Hiruzen in a melee, not giving him the time to press with his attack on her.

As they stormed through the battlefield, exchanging a flurry of attacks, Hiruzen lamented the lack of his most powerful weapon. Twirling the iron staff in his hands, he jabbed its tip to the side, nailing the Kaguya boy directly in the stomach and sending him flying back again before he could even slash his funky spine sword at him.

He was more of an annoyance than an actual threat, to be honest.

Forcefully swiping his staff forward, Hiruzen repelled Orochimaru’s follow-up slash and tried to smash his shoulder. But Orochimaru side-stepped, and Hiruzen was forced to block a downward slash with his staff…

Hiruzen’s ears slightly twitched.

Orochimaru suddenly found himself kicked back, and Hiruzen was already spinning around, his staff whizzing through the air with an audible swish until it hit its target in the side.

The small moment of Hiruzen’s triumph was, however, interrupted when Guren suddenly changed into a humanoid crystalline structure with massive cracks spreading from where Hiruzen’s staff struck it.

Despite being on the verge of shattering, the crystal clone reached toward Hiruzen, who grunted and ruthlessly twisted his staff, shattering the clone into dust.

Taking a deep breath before he refocused again on Orochimaru, the biggest threat present, Hiruzen noticed with the corner of his eye how his staff was slowly starting to crystallize.

Annoyed, he found Guren crouching at a distance with his eyes. In one fluid motion that a lesser man wouldn’t be able to follow with their eyes, Hiruzen’s body shifted as he grabbed the spear like a javelin before launching it at the woman. But not before he added an unhealthy amount of lightning chakra into it.

Guren’s eyes widened.

But she was too slow to dodge.

Only Orochimaru, appearing in front of her and with a great effort, blocking the spear with a wind-coated crystal sword, saved her life.

“How cruel, Sensei. Targeting a woman first. What would your ninja think?” Orochimaru spewed some utter bullshit, enough that it made Hiruzen actually chuckle.

No. Hiruzen surmised that this wasn’t Orochimaru trying to make him angry. It was just a casual conversation. And an attempt to buy a bit of time to control his breathing before engaging again.

“You have no room to criticize me. You are trying to strike an Elderly.” Hiruzen dryly replied as he unsealed another iron staff. He didn’t forget to give Orochimaru a subtle, smug look, too.

Honestly, not having a backup sword. Tsk. Tsk. He taught the boy better than that.

Orochimaru understood the gesture, and his smile became slightly strained. But a split second later, he was once again charging at Hiruzen.

Throwing a blast of fire in front of him, Hiruzen forced Orochimaru to retreat before the ground shifted behind him and tried to engulf Kimimaro. The bone boy sprouted spiky bones all around his body, destabilizing the Earth technique, and got out of it before he backed away.

Hiruzen let out a weary breath.

A blast of wind abruptly dispersed the fire in front of him, but Hiruzen was prepared as Orochimaru burst through the created hole in the wall of flames.

Staff and sword clashed.

But something was wro-

Out of nowhere, all the resistance against his staff disappeared, and Hiruzen instinctively swung it downward. The staff hit Orochimaru’s shoulder, causing him to grimace in pain, something his student would not have done. He would have snarled.

Alarm bells rang in Hiruzen’s mind, but it was too late.

Orochimaru’s hand gripped Hiruzen’s wrist. The first thing that alerted Hiruzen that something was wrong was the pain. Then he noticed that the flesh around his wrist started crystallizing.

Only then did Orochimaru’s visage in front of him shatter into sparkling dust, revealing Guren’s face as she tried to hold Hiruzen’s wrist while suffering immense pain from the shattered bones in her right shoulder area.

Hiruzen reacted.

Before he could even blink, the crystallization reached up to his elbow. His hand was not recoverable. With a precise application of wind chakra, his arm was severed a bit above his elbow, and the wound was instantly cauterized with a bit of controlled fire chakra.

Gritting his teeth in pain and regret at losing a hand, Hiruzen didn’t hesitate to hurl a wind bullet from his mouth at Guren, point-blank.

But Orochimaru was there, waiting for it. He grabbed Guren’s undamaged shoulder and threw her back, allowing her to survive Hiruzen’s attack. Then, he slashed at the injured old man, intent on taking his head right there and then.

But even exhausted, injured, and with only one hand, Hiruzen Sarutobi was not called the God of Shinobi for nothing. Kicking his left foot up, he hardened the soles of his sandals with earth chakra, and ignoring the subtle, almost invisible wind-coating on Orochimaru’s blade, he kicked it away.

Even Orochimaru’s eyes widened in surprise at that feat.

But Hiruzen’s ferocious attack continued, and a torrent of highly concentrated flames burst out of Hiruzen’s mouth, straight at Orochimaru, just as a pillar of stone rose from the ground behind Hiruzen, blocking all bone bullets shot at him by Kimimaro.

The fire dispersed a moment later, showing only a pile of burned mud in Orochimaru’s previous position.

‘A mud clone?’ Hiruzen frowned, regretting that he had taught the boy this trick. He had perfected it to an unbelievable degree and had become annoyingly slippery with it.

“Heh. Looks like the stalemate was finally broken, Sensei.” Orochimaru appeared a bit further away from Hiruzen, to the left side.

Hiruzen inclined his head, noticing that Kimimaro was still positioned behind him, and the crystal user was mirroring Orochimaru’s position to his right side.

They had him surrounded and wounded.

Hiruzen recognized the formation and tactics. After all, it was something he taught the Sannin.

‘How infuriating.’ He hollowly chuckled in his mind, wondering if this was it. Dying in the defense of his beloved village. He could accept that. He didn’t mind. But he wasn’t going to make it easy for Orochimaru.

Determined to struggle to the bitter end, Hiruzen was about to act.

“Halt in the name of cake and other sugary sweets, villains!” An unknown voice suddenly bellowed out from behind Hiruzen, causing everybody to abruptly turn toward it, only to see a man in a black cloak with red clouds made of paper duct-taped to it while his face was covered by an ANBU mask painted so brightly orange that it gave Hiruzen a headache.

For a moment, he wondered if it wasn’t Naruto doing some asinine prank, but then he noticed the black hair of the newly-arrived ninja and regarded that thought as silly.

The new ninja slowly raised his arm and pointed a finger gun at Kimimaro, who stood only a few meters from his position.

Kimimaro grew guarded and was prepared for an attack, but when nothing happened after two seconds, he only furrowed his eyebrows and gave the new man a confused, if a bit blank, look.

Hiruzen noticed that Orochimaru, for some reason, seemed to be a bit nervous.

“Face the justice of whipped cream!” The ninja suddenly shouted and made a shooting gesture with his hand.

Hiruzen almost missed it because of his focus on Orochimaru, but in that moment, the space in front of Kimimaro’s face swirled. Just for a split second. And before the boy could react, a cake crashed into his face with such momentum that he was thrown back before landing on his back, absolutely bewildered and with a mouth full of whipped cream.

“Cakegan no Jutsu!” The masked ninja proudly announced before letting his arm fall back next to his body. Hiruzen got the oddest impression that he was smirking at them underneath his mask. “Oh, yeah, scrubs. Sheriff Tobi is back in town!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep