On a high cliff.
Standing on the edge of a high cliff; the four members of the Class-11 observed the Grand Temple in the distance.
There was an extremely thin barrier surrounding the Temple that protected it from the attacks of the Stone Army, since these stone puppets couldn't pass through or break the barrier; they surrounded the Temple from all directions.
Seeing that the Temple was still standing; Kakashi sighed with relief, "Since the Temple of High Priestess is safe that means we still have a chance!"
Guy anxiously said, "But with so many of these Stone Soldiers present; how do we get in?"
Kakashi turned his head and asked Kuroto, "Kuroto, can you look for an open route that we could take to enter the temple?"
Kuroto shook his head, "I did! But the Temple is surrounded by the Stone puppets from all directions, leaving close to no space, gaps, or dead ends that we could use."
Finally, Shisui said in a deep voice, "In that case; making our way from the front is the only option left!"
Obviously, it is not an easy task to make their way forcibly.
They have already tried dealing with these Stone Soldiers several times on their way here since entering the Land of Demons; although these puppets have extremely clumsy movements, they are powerful, once they start battling it would be very difficult for Class-11 to make an effective conclusion.
Kuroto who was still observing the surroundings suddenly pointed to a high cliff on the opposite side: "Look at that!"
Everyone looked in the direction he pointed at, and they saw a few figures appearing on the opposite high cliff; from their clothing, they seemed to be Sand Shinobi.
As the captain of the team, Kakashi pondered for a moment and said, "That should be the Sand Ninjas Team sent by the Sand Village for the same task. We might be able to cooperate with them to break through the encirclement of the stone army and enter the Temple of the High Priestess."
The current common enemy is the Demon from the Foreign World, so in this crisis situation; nobody was opposed to the idea of cooperation with some another village, therefore, everyone nodded one-by-one in agreement to Kakashi's proposal.
Soon the two sides met together.
The Sand team also consists of 4 Shinobi. The Captain of the team is a Kunoichi named Pakura. 'Pakura of the Scorch', a very powerful Kunoichi, well known throughout the Ninja World for her Scorch Release Kekkai Genkai and is also recognized as a war hero of the Sand Village.
As the captain, Kakashi came forward and exchanged a few words with her to reach a consensus.
The two captains, Kakashi and Pakura took charge of the assault at the forefront, Guy and three other shinobi of the Sand Village were responsible in the middle, and at the end were Kuroto and Shisui.
After deployment, the gatecrash operation began immediately.
...chiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrppppppp....
With a sharp, singing sound of a bird song!
Kakashi took the lead of the charge, his hand shining with the thunder of Chidori, he dashed into the encirclement of the Stone army.
Boom...
Boom...
Boom...
Followed by a series of loud noises; stone puppets fell to the ground one after another.
Chidori's penetrating power was fully demonstrated by Kakashi at this moment, almost instantaneously, he had already torn through the queue of five layers.
Seeing the aggressive charge of Kakashi, Pakura who followed him closely immediately printed the hand seals and shouted, "Scorch Release: Five Great Streaming Explosive"
Five Scorch balls appeared around Pakura instantly; desiccating the surrounding stone soldiers into dry sand.
The three Sand ninjas in the middle of the team used "Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall".
As a result, two earth walls protruded from the bottom of the ground protecting the corridor that Kakashi and Pakura forcibly broke through, establishing a temporary safe passage in the array of stone soldiers.
At the end of the assault team.
Kuroto shouted towards Shisui: "Shisui head to the middle, I'll hold off the back."
Knowing the strength of Kuroto, Shisui didn't talk any nonsense; and immediately rushed to the middle squad.
Kuroto who was at the back; now completely focused on dealing with the Stone soldiers, with the insight of the Tensigan the attacks of the stone soldiers became slow-moving frames for Kuroto's perception. Unless absolutely necessary Kuroto didn't even use Revolving Heaven to deal with these stone soldiers, with simple Gentle Fist strikes and Shurikenjutsu; Kuroto was able to deal with them.
And from an extremely close distance, Kuroto was also able to see that the Chakra signature of all these puppets was exactly the same; which obviously implies that the source is the same.
Moreover, the source of Chakra felt extremely evil and violent in nature.
"If the source of Chakra behind this Stone Army is 'Moryo' the Demon from the Other World, then…"
Thinking of this Kuroto shook his head.
Such evil and Violent Chakra isn't suitable to act as a source for the Artificial Tailed Beast, therefore the option of using Moryo as a possible Chakra source was eliminated by Kuroto.
Although there were only eight ninjas in the two teams, every one of them is an elite of their respective Shinobi villages, especially Pakura who was already near Kage tier Kunoichi, so it didn't take much time for the joint team to make a breakthrough. Passing through the array of Stone Soldiers they safely entered the Temple protected by the barrier.
As soon as the combined assault team entered the enclosed barrier, they heard the cheering sound of the guards protecting the temple from within the barrier.
Because of the weakening of the seal of 'Moryo', the High Priestess of the Land of Demons had to bear the whole burnt of continuous assault from the monster, as a result of which the guards of the Temple didn't dare to relax even for a moment. Now that they finally saw some powerful reinforcements arrive, they were naturally filled with joy; discarding away quite the anxiety and fear.
In the Temple.
The High Priestess was sitting on the futon with a sad face, and there was a little girl probably around one year old beside her. From each of their appearances, it wasn't very difficult to judge that they shared the bond of Mother and Daughter.
On one side, a group of Shinobi stood dressed in the official uniform of Rock Village Shinobi.
Obviously, this meant that the Shinobi of Rock Village had arrived here before the Konoha Village and Sand Village; and from appearance alone, the ninjas of Rock Village all looked very arrogant and quite unruly.
When Kuroto saw this group of Rock Shinobi, he suddenly became very angry and had the urge to kill them.
These are the same Rock Shinobi that ambushed Kuroto only 10 miles away from the Konoha Village, while he was escorting the wounded back to the village. Back then, it was his closest encounter with the feeling of death.
If not for the fact that support from the village arrived in time, otherwise Kuroto would have died aggrieved just like most of the ninjas that were part of the escort team.
Kuroto never forgot to ask the identity of such a bold Rock Shinobi and learned that they were the famous Beheading Troops of the Rock Village.
.............
While Kuroto was busy controlling his killing urge, the Rock Shinobi were also observing the newly arrived helping hands.
"Huh… did Konoha sent such imps to die? It appears; the rumors that Konoha has grown weak is actually true!" a ninja of the Rock Beheading Troop spoke condescendingly.
There was no need to speak of Pakura who is a famous figure from the third Shinobi War and the Beheading Corps of the Rock Village are a force to be greatly feared; among these famous and strong individuals of both the villages; team-11 of Konoha that consisted of young Kakashi and the three not so known; recently promoted Tokubetsu Jonin; really lacked the required influence at first glance.
In Konoha's team, the older ones were only around 15 years old and the youngest Shisui was around 11 years old, so they were indeed few imps compare to Rock and Sand ninjas.
However, Team-11 isn't allowed to be looked down upon, because all their actions influence the reputation of the village, if these four left a weak impression in the subconscious of other forces; then it wouldn't be very surprising if a nInja army is invading Fire Country in a few weeks; therefore, they can't appear to be weak.
So Kuroto spoke coldly, "If you think so, then you better be careful not to accidentally die in the hands of this imp!"
If it was someone else trying to provoke them, Kuroto would be too lazy to bother, but facing the Rock Beheading Troop; he just couldn't hold his sharp tongue.
Captain of the Rock Beheading team, who was standing with his arms folded around his chest; said with a gloomy look, "Kid, do you want to die!"
"If you think you can do it, why don't you try?"
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