Shang Qi's opponent remained Hatake Sakumo. Facing Hatake Sakumo, Shang Qi naturally went fully armed, with the Tiger Armor protecting his entire body securely.
Shang Qi launched the attack first. Moving like lightning, his short sword carried a roaring wind wrapped in wind-elemental Chakra, slashing fiercely and powerfully at Hatake Sakumo.
With every slash, his movements were both swift and precise, the short sword cutting through the air with a sharp whistling sound; with every shift of his feet, he drifted like a ghost, kicking up dust and leaving a trail of blurred afterimages.
Hatake Sakumo responded calmly, his White Fang short blade flashing with a cold glint as it continually clashed with Shang Qi's short sword, sending up dazzling clusters of sparks.
Yet, an inexplicable sense of bizarre familiarity welled up in his heart. This Shang Qi before him—his attack style, his combat rhythm, and even the subtle habits in his manipulation of wind-elemental Chakra—felt as though he were facing another version of himself.
This sense of déjà vu caused him a measure of hesitation and doubt as he defended, making him feel as though he had fallen into a predicament of battling a phantom of his own mind.
Just as the battle reached a stalemate, an accident suddenly occurred.
The ground suddenly shifted, and a rat gleaming with a cold metallic luster burst out from the earth. Though small in stature, it radiated an aura of fierce viciousness, its sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight as it lunged straight for Hatake Sakumo's ankles like an arrow released from a bowstring.
Hatake Sakumo's reaction was extremely swift; years of combat experience allowed him to instinctively sense danger.
With a light tip of his toes, his entire body leaped high into the air, his form as light as a giant roc spreading its wings to soar, dodging the Burrowing Rat's sudden onslaught.
Before he could stabilize his posture in mid-air, however, a dark shadow shrouded in fierce wind came whistling across the horizon like lightning.
It was a four-winged bird puppet. Its speed reached the absolute limit, the flapping of its wings stirring up churning currents of air, its sharp beak shining with a deadly gleam under the sunlight.
Seizing the moment when Hatake Sakumo was suspended in mid-air with nowhere to dodge, it pierced straight through his chest with an unstoppable momentum.
With a loud "boom," a thick cloud of smoke instantly exploded before Shang Qi's eyes, blurring his vision.
When the smoke dispersed slightly, Shang Qi looked closely and saw that the "Hatake Sakumo" pierced through the chest by the bird was slowly transforming into a wooden log—it was a Substitution Jutsu.
Shang Qi frowned deeply, pondering inwardly that Hatake Sakumo was indeed formidable, truly living up to his reputation as a celebrated powerhouse.
However, Shang Qi was by no means mediocre either. A flash of blue light crossed his pupils as he activated his True Sight Eye, scanning the area to precisely lock onto the hiding place of Hatake Sakumo's true body.
Having locked onto his target, Shang Qi did not hesitate, swinging his dual short swords into a flawless defense. The whistling sword wind raged like a bitter blizzard.
The Burrowing Rat and the four-winged bird closely coordinated with him. The Burrowing Rat shuttled underground, poking its head out from time to time to seize opportunities, using the terrain advantage to disrupt Hatake Sakumo's lower body.
Meanwhile, the four-winged bird circled in the sky, relying on high speed and agility to launch dive-bombing attacks again and again, its beak and sharp claws constantly tearing through the air as they bore down on Hatake Sakumo.
Weaving an airtight web of attacks from the upper, middle, and lower angles, Shang Qi instantly plunged Hatake Sakumo into a predicament, leaving him hard-pressed to parry as his figure appeared precarious amidst the crossfire of sword wind and puppets.
As he fended off the attacks, Hatake Sakumo felt secretly alarmed. Having traveled through the Shinobi World for many years and witnessed countless bizarre techniques, he was genuinely astonished by the methods Shang Qi used to control his puppets.
Ordinary puppeteers needed to rely on Chakra strings, manipulating and controlling their puppets like marionettes. Yet Shang Qi broke convention; without those cumbersome Chakra strings, he could command his puppets as easily as moving his own limbs. How could such miraculous skill not fill him with apprehension?
He knew well that this youth possessed extraordinary talent, and if given time, he would certainly become a grave threat.
Meanwhile, although Shang Qi appeared to have the upper hand on the surface, inwardly he was complaining bitterly.
Operating with divided focus caused the Chakra within his body to deplete wildly like an open floodgate.
He had to channel wind-elemental Chakra into his dual swords to enhance their lethality, keep the True Sight Eye active to discern the opponent's movements, and concentrate fully on coordinating the Burrowing Rat and the four-winged bird puppet in joint combat.
He understood that a clear gap still remained between himself and the Shadow-grade powerhouses truly standing at the summit of the Shinobi World.
When it came to refining Chakra, he fell far short of the profound reserves possessed by those veteran powerhouses; when it came to the accumulation of Ninjutsu, his repertoire of mastered techniques appeared somewhat thin by comparison.
At present, he was merely an ordinary Jounin whose burst of combat power happened to touch the threshold of the Shadow tier. The reason he could temporarily gain the upper hand in the battle against Hatake Sakumo was thanks to this indestructible armor, which happened to counter the opponent's one-hit-kill combat style.
Though his multiple fierce attacks forced Hatake Sakumo into a flurry of awkward defense, they had never managed to inflict a fatal wound upon him.
Assessing the situation, Shang Qi knew that such a war of attrition worked against him. He immediately decided to conserve his Chakra, slow down his attack frequency, and abandon the pursuit of a quick victory in favor of steadily dragging Hatake Sakumo down while waiting for the battle to shift.
On the other side of the battlefield, the clash between Akimichi Torifu and Third Kazekage Retsuji was equally soul-stirring.
Akimichi Torifu's physique expanded explosively, transforming him into a giant with taut muscles. Every punch he threw carried the force of an overwhelming landslide, kicking up billowing clouds of dust.
Third Kazekage Retsuji, on the other hand, manipulated Iron Sand. That Iron Sand seemed to possess a life of its own, surging forth to blot out the sky like a black wave rolling over Akimichi Torifu in successive layers. Wherever it passed, the ground was corroded into a pockmarked, ruined mess.
As the fierce battle reached its height, Akimichi Torifu seized the opportunity and shouted loudly, "Kazekage, return Hyuga Eita to us! At the very least, we still have room for negotiation."
Hearing this, Third Kazekage Retsuji burst into wild laughter, his tone dripping with disdain. "Negotiate what? Negotiate terms of defeat and compensation?"
With that, he changed the hand seals he held, and the onslaught of Iron Sand grew even more violent, as if he intended to completely submerge Akimichi Torifu in that endless expanse of iron sand.
Retsuji had already made up his mind. Following the analysis provided by Shang Qi yesterday, he was well aware of how precious and rare Hyuga Main Family shinobi were.
On the battlefield, the chance of capturing a Hyuga Main Family shinobi was already extremely slim. Furthermore, Hyuga Branch Family shinobi were bound by the cursed Caged Bird seal; the moment they were captured, they would be executed by the curse instantly, leaving no time to pass down bloodlines or inherit the unique power of the Byakugan.
Such a precious "trophy," how could he easily hand it over?
This grueling battle lasted for a full hour. Both sides gave and took blows without yielding an inch, and the battlefield was already scarred and desolate.
The earth was soaked with blood, presenting an eerie dark red. Severed limbs could be seen everywhere, smoke hung thick in the air, and the pungent smell of blood mingled with the odor of gunpowder, sketching a picture of war at its most brutal.
Ultimately, perhaps because Akimichi Torifu merely needed to give the Hyuga clan an explanation, the Konoha side chose to retreat.
Yet within that single hour, both sides had paid a heavy price. Konoha's elite shinobi emerged in droves, inflicting massive casualties on Sunagakure through their exquisite skills; on the Sunagakure side, the Red Sand Couple acted like twin killing machines, bearing the brunt of the slaughter with their unique Ninjutsu and ruthless methods. Wherever they passed, Konoha shinobi fell one after another.
At the very end, Shang Qi managed to slice Hatake Sakumo's White Fang short blade in two, though he still failed to keep Hatake Sakumo behind.
When the battle concluded, Shang Qi returned to the Sunagakure camp and walked straight toward the camp prison.
By the time Shang Qi left, only two hollow cavities remained where Hyuga Eita's eyes should have been.
Back inside his tent, Shang Qi packed his belongings, spread out paper, picked up a brush, and wrote two letters.
One was handed to Akasuna Uchao, filled with gratitude and sincere thanks for the long-term care shown by Elder Chiyo and the Red Sand Couple.
Then, shifting topics, he mentioned the Hyuga bloodline, asking them to keep it in Sunagakure as a token of his goodwill. He also gifted the designs for several beast-type puppets located in the Sunagakure puppet-manufacturing workshop to the Red Sand Couple.
The other letter was written to Third Kazekage Retsuji, containing only a single short sentence: "Just you wait, until we meet again."
Upon receiving the letter and reading those brief words, Retsuji was stunned at first, then burst into loud laughter filled with sarcasm: "It's not that the puppet arts couldn't hold him back; it's that the entire Sunagakure couldn't hold onto him. Hahaha..."
Later on, the Red Sand Couple took the sightless Hyuga Eita and returned to the village first, intending to have this Hyuga Main Family bloodline "spread its branches and leaves" in Sunagakure to perpetuate its unique power, while also eagerly returning to claim the precious designs left behind by Shang Qi, injecting new vitality into the Sunagakure Puppet Technique.
Meanwhile, Shang Qi, having departed the Sunagakure camp, meticulously fastened a pair of wings onto the back of his tiger-type puppet.
Mounting the puppet, Shang Qi manipulated it to slowly ascend into the air, murmuring to himself, "A tiger with wings can no longer be called a fierce tiger puppet. From now on, let's call it Qiongqi. Shinobi World, here I come, hahaha..."