Chapter 370: Escalating War

Might Kai clenched his fist, let out a roar, and opened the fourth Gate of the Eight Gates.

If the Eight Gates were to be divided into early, middle, and late stages, Gates one through three could be considered the early stage, Gates four through six the middle stage, and the late stage would be the seventh and eighth gates.

Gates one through three can be called the safe zone of the Eight Gates, causing no damage to the body when used. Starting from the fourth gate, it's different. After the fourth gate, one truly enters the Eight Gates state, with significant increases in strength and speed, but due to excessive pressure, it damages the body.

When the Injury Gate opened, the chakra inside Might Kai surged, and he felt his physical strength rapidly increasing—so much so that it put pressure on his body.

"So he can now open the fourth gate normally."

Feeling Might Kai's suddenly soaring aura, Kakashi's expression turned serious.

Although he hadn't trained in the Eight Gates, Kakashi and Might Kai were both disciples of Tsukuyo and often fought, so Kakashi knew a little about the Eight Gates—he knew that each gate opened brought different degrees of increase in speed and power.

Kakashi had once defeated a Might Kai who opened the fourth gate, but Kakashi wouldn't naïvely think that the fourth-gate Might Kai now was the same strength as the fourth-gate Might Kai during the Chūnin Exams.

"Leaf's Great Whirlwind!"

Mustering his strength, Might Kai laughed and charged toward Kakashi, kicking out his specialty spinning kick.

With the boost of the fourth gate of the Eight Gates, Might Kai's speed and power were much greater. Just sprinting at full force raised a gale that could blow away mud and rocks.

Fortunately, Kakashi, having activated the Transparent World, saw through Might Kai's attack and dodged before Might Kai could charge in.

Might Kai's expression didn't change at the missed attack; he launched a fierce assault on Kakashi with even more aggressive moves.

This feeling of having his attacks seen through was not unfamiliar to him, because both Shisui and Obito had the Sharingan, whose insight was strong and could also see through his attacks.

"You can see through one attack and dodge in time, but what if I attack thirty times in a row?"

Might Kai's countermeasure was to make his opponent fall into his attack rhythm with the fastest attack speed.

Under Might Kai's high-intensity attacks, Kakashi soon encountered a spinning kick he couldn't evade.

Might Kai sacrificed some strength for speed, but after all, he was in the fourth-gate state of the Eight Gates, and with the support of Skilled-level Stone Breathing, even without full power, it was more than a normal ninja could withstand.

Bang!

Forced to take Might Kai's attack head-on, Kakashi felt a terrifyingly immense force strike him, and then he couldn't control himself as he shot backward rapidly.

"Such power!" Kakashi's expression shifted slightly.

He had originally thought that pursuing speed would weaken the attack power, but he didn't expect Might Kai to have such great strength even while being fast.

Kakashi was glad he hadn't been stubborn and tried to clash head-on with Might Kai. He had considered trading blows in taijutsu with Might Kai when he first opened the fourth gate.

He thought that by using Lightning Release chakra nature transformation to vitalize his body, he could also unleash considerable strength, maybe enough to rival Might Kai.

After tanking that one kick, Kakashi no longer had that idea, because wasting a lot of chakra to vitalize his body and enhance strength might still not beat Might Kai's plain, full-powered kick.

"Stone Breathing, which gives the strongest physical boost, and the Eight Gates, which rouses extra power—together, this increases taijutsu by too much," Kakashi thought.

The combination of Stone Breathing and the Eight Gates gave him a feeling of one plus one being greater than two.

If this were a life-or-death battlefield, Kakashi would do everything to stall for time. Maintaining Lightning Breathing and the Transparent World cost him considerable stamina, but Might Kai's Eight Gates put even more pressure on him, so stalling would benefit him more.

However, this was ultimately just a friendly spar between comrades; the combat process was more important than the outcome, so Kakashi chose to give his all to break the deadlock. He gathered a large amount of chakra and quickly converted it into Lightning Release chakra.

Sizzle!

Crackle!

Dazzling yellow lightning appeared on Kakashi, enhancing his body and boosting his aura.

Kakashi gripped his White Fang short blade tightly, and the lightning on his arm flowed into the blade along his hand. After the yellow electrical light covered the blade, it extended into a lightning-edged blade.

Kakashi fixed his eyes on Might Kai; at this moment, he saw only Might Kai, even ignoring the flowers and plants in the yard. Kakashi burst with full strength, yellow light flared around him, and a massive amount of Lightning Release chakra was all activated at once.

At that instant, Kakashi's aura reached its peak, a sharp, blade-like aura that made Might Kai laugh with excitement.

"This technique was specially prepared for you," said Might Kai as he quickly pulled out a nunchaku.

Might Kai held the shaft with his left hand and wrapped the chain around his right hand. Then he spread his legs slightly, turned his body to the right, and poured all his strength and chakra into his middle and index fingers, preparing to show Kakashi the results of his month-long hard training.

"Lightning Flash!"

Boom!

With a thunderous roar, Kakashi suddenly swung his blade and charged, his whole body like a dazzling yellow lightning bolt straight toward Might Kai.

When Kakashi approached Might Guy at top speed, a lightning blade immediately descended, and an immensely powerful lightning slash appeared.

"Sword Severing: Golden Horizon!"

The moment Kakashi charged forward, Might Guy also moved. Wearing his green spandex, he ran at full speed, practically a green blur.

Just as he was about to reach Kakashi, Might Guy used a drawing motion with his left hand to drive his right hand forward and slash, ultimately tracing a fine golden line.

One swung a blade, the other gestured with a finger; both unleashed their ultimate techniques simultaneously. The golden fine line and the lightning slash collided.

Boom!!

The collision of the golden line and the lightning slash produced a massive shockwave. Under that terrifying impact, the ground exploded, rolling dust continuously rising to obscure both figures.

The air current generated by the techniques bent the flowers, grass, and trees in Kakashi's courtyard, as if a fierce wind had suddenly arisen.

Drip, drip.

Red blood dripped onto the ground, staining the yellow earth red.

Looking at his fingers that kept bleeding, Might Guy praised, "As expected of my rival—the fingers that bore all my strength could easily destroy steel."

"I'll win back soon," Kakashi said after wiping the blood off his chest.

He had lost.

Might Guy's Golden Horizon had broken his Thunder Flash; Might Guy's fingers were severely damaged by his slash, while he himself had been injured when Might Guy held back in time.

"Haha, this is exactly what I was hoping for," Might Guy laughed as he wrapped two fingers with bandages.

He couldn't wait for Kakashi to get stronger and challenge him.

Kakashi sighed inwardly — the position of Muyue's strongest disciple was truly hard to maintain.

Then the two packed up and went together to the Konoha Hospital for treatment.

"Breathing must have rhythm, don't let it get chaotic. No matter the situation, don't let your breathing fall into disorder." At the training ground, Muyue was still teaching the Dark Breathing Method.

The Root ninjas and Anbu ninjas below were all fully focused on Muyue's explanation; no one spoke or lost concentration.

The Breathing Method didn't require mastery of the basics to use part of its ability. Having already achieved over half proficiency, they could feel the enhancements the Breathing Method brought, and all wanted to master this miraculous taijutsu as soon as possible.

"Muyue-sensei is truly too generous. This taijutsu would even be worthy as a ninja clan's heritage," Sarutobi Shinji sighed during break.

Before learning it, hearing Muyue's introduction, he thought the Dark Breathing Method was a pretty powerful A-rank taijutsu. After personally experiencing the improvement it brought, Sarutobi Shinji felt it was a taijutsu that could serve as a secret technique for a ninja clan.

If he himself had developed such a powerful technique, Sarutobi Shinji certainly wouldn't teach it to others; he would prioritize it as a clan secret technique, at most passing it to his own disciples.

Precisely because he couldn't do that, he greatly admired Muyue.

Just then, the signal for jonin assembly suddenly came.

"Let's dismiss for today. Something must have happened in the village," Muyue said after some thought.

Today was not the regular meeting time for the Jonin Council, so this was an emergency jonin meeting.

Several Anbu jonin also followed Muyue toward the Hokage Building.

Currently, they were in a non-mission period; during non-mission periods, Anbu ninjas are equivalent to regular Konoha ninjas.

"Could something have gone wrong on the battlefield?" Muyue speculated about the reason for the emergency meeting.

They were in the midst of war, and the Jonin Council was only urgently convened for major events, so Muyue's first thought was that something had happened on the battlefield.

Neither the anime nor the manga had many scenes of the Third Shinobi World War, only some major events, so Muyue couldn't judge whether this was a butterfly effect he caused or something that existed in the original work.

"It can't be because Tsunade won once, can it?" Muyue thought of the dice game he had with Tsunade yesterday.

"Muyue Jonin."

After Muyue entered the meeting room, some jonin smiled and greeted him.

"Akido Jonin..." Muyue responded in turn with a smile.

As he did more and showed more strength, Muyue was no longer a small unknown in the jonin circle. In many eyes, he was a rising star second only to Minato Namikaze.

"Today let's get a good chicken to make Beggar's Chicken; it's been several weeks since I last ate it." Tsunade saw Muyue and walked directly over to him, saying.

"Want to buy some more sake while we're at it?" Mu Yue asked.

Tsunade usually liked to drink sake while taking big bites of chicken legs.

"No need for sake, you're not as good at picking it as I am. I already bought some." Tsunade said proudly.

Although Mu Yue's cooking could be called divine, because he didn't drink much, Mu Yue didn't know much about sake.

The exchange between the two drew sidelong glances from the nearby jōnin, because it really sounded like a family discussing what to have for dinner.

Dekai, who had originally planned to chat a few words with Mu Yue, silently hid himself among the crowd.

When he was still young, the scene of Tsunade beating up Jiraiya was deeply etched into his mind, so he was a bit afraid of Tsunade—this was a woman who dared to casually beat up his teacher.

Minato didn't feel that way at all, and came over with a gentle smile to chat with Mu Yue.

After most of the jōnin had arrived, the jōnin meeting officially began. The four top leaders including Hiruzen Sarutobi sat on high chairs, while the jōnin stood in the meeting room.

"Just today, the Village Hidden in the Mist of the Water Country has declared war on our Leaf." Hiruzen Sarutobi announced with a serious face the reason for the emergency meeting.

When he received this news, Hiruzen Sarutobi was very surprised; it was beyond his expectations.

The reason he had disagreed with Danzo Shimura using the Chunin Exam incident to demand large compensations from Mist was that he feared this action would anger Mist, causing Mist, which rarely participated in mainland ninja village wars, to join the Great Ninja War against Leaf.

Originally, based on his judgment, Mist, which had always kept a low profile, shouldn't have come to provoke the powerful Leaf.

Leaf and Mist had no grudge, and Leaf was a tough nut to crack—why bother?

But since it had already happened, no matter what motives or goals Mist had, Hiruzen Sarutobi had only one thing to do: mobilize forces to prevent Mist from destroying the Land of Fire.

"Mist Village has also declared war on us? Doesn't that mean we have three great ninja village enemies?" A ninja frowned upon hearing this news.

This was truly a terrible piece of news for Leaf.

On the surface, Leaf was prevailing against two enemies with continuous victories, looking glorious, but a ninja who truly understood the situation would absolutely not be so optimistic.

Although Leaf had gained an advantage in the war, it had not dealt a heavy blow to Rock or Cloud. This level of victory could only be called a slight edge.

If a war score were set, reaching 100% would directly win the war, then currently Leaf's score against both Cloud and Rock was at most around 10%.

At this point, Mist intervened, and Leaf had to allocate forces to deal with Mist, which could cause the loss of advantages on other battlefields.

"Even Mist has come to join the fray." Tsunade, who had been carefree, also became serious.

She knew what this meant. Even if the three great villages couldn't unite against Leaf, this would still put great pressure on Leaf. Now Leaf didn't have a supreme powerhouse like her grandfather.

Mu Yue also showed a hint of worry, as if concerned for Leaf.

"Mist started a war with Leaf this quickly? Could it be because of the Chunin Exam, or did Madara Uchiha use some trick in the shadows?" Mu Yue pondered in his mind.

The events that Might Guy encountered in the Third Shinobi World War didn't have a clear timeline like Kakashi's, because there was information that Kakashi became a jōnin at age twelve. So Mu Yue couldn't determine whether the timing of the war between Mist and Leaf was normal development or changed because of him.

Mu Yue couldn't easily judge what method Mist would use to wage war against Leaf.

Normally after a declaration of war, both sides probe each other and don't immediately go all out to fight to the death, but Leaf was still entangled with Cloud and Rock. It was possible that Mist would take this opportunity to directly commit its main forces and drive straight in.

Mu Yue hoped Mist would take it slow. Right now Might Guy hadn't fully developed yet; if he had the same bad luck as in the original story and encountered the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, it would be very troublesome.

He couldn't directly teleport from Leaf in the central Land of Fire to the east coast or south coast of the Land of Fire.

The east side of the Land of Fire had a long coastline, and coincidentally the Land of Water was also to the east of the Land of Fire, so the best route for the Land of Water to attack the Land of Fire was to directly sail to the east coast of the Land of Fire.

The southern part of the Land of Fire was also coastal, but compared to the east coast it was small and easier to defend. Moreover, for the Land of Water to land on the south coast, it would have to go around a fairly long distance, taking more time.

As time passed, the meeting progressed.

Basically, the senior advisors angrily denounced Mist Village as shameless, then Hiruzen Sarutobi talked about the Will of Fire to inspire everyone's love for the village, and then they discussed countermeasures.

Since Mist Village had not yet formally attacked and was on an island nation at sea, Leaf couldn't do much now except strengthen the guard forces on the east and south coasts.

"Hiruzen, you should have followed my plan from the start. Then we could have at least gained a lot of profit from it." Danzo Shimura said with displeasure after the meeting.

During the Chunin Exam, the Mist elders were in Leaf. Danzo Shimura didn't believe Mist Village would dare not hand over things.

"You shouldn't be too arbitrary. You should also listen to my opinions more." Danzo Shimura criticized.

Hiruzen Sarutobi puffed smoke rings, looking at Danzo Shimura with a somewhat speechless expression.

He indeed hadn't expected Mist to declare war on Leaf so quickly, but if he had followed Danzo Shimura's plan, even if Mist didn't participate in ninja world affairs, it would still have come to cause trouble for Leaf.

And if he were truly autocratic, Shimura Danzo's Root organization would have been directly disbanded long ago. The Anbu is directly under the Hokage's leadership, while Shimura Danzo's Root is almost like a small Anbu that only answers to Shimura Danzo.

"War has already been declared; discussing this is meaningless." Sarutobi Hiruzen took down his pipe and reminded, signaling Shimura Danzo to quickly get to the point.

Shimura Danzo certainly wouldn't be idle to come and criticize him; there must be something.

"At a time like this, Konoha needs the Root organization, a powerful Root organization." Shimura Danzo stated his thoughts in a deep voice.

When Shimura Danzo learned of Kirigakure's declaration of war, he was first angry—Kirigakure, the least prominent of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, was also causing trouble for Konoha.

After anger came joy, because this was an excellent opportunity—a perfect chance for him to develop the Root organization's power.

Faced with such a predicament, it would be unreasonable for Sarutobi Hiruzen to continue restricting his Root organization's development—after all, he was doing it for Konoha.

Sarutobi Hiruzen showed a thoughtful expression and finally nodded.

In the current situation, all available forces needed to be utilized to deal with the possible crisis. The Root organization led by Shimura Danzo was indeed competent in some aspects and could contribute significantly in the war.

And after all, he was the Hokage; after the war ended, he could find a reason to weaken Root—Shimura Danzo had plenty of issues.

PS: This chapter is 5k, just a little more than usual. I originally wanted to write 8k, but there were some family matters today that delayed it.