I have a bunch of relatives who want to become Hokage.

Why did the Nine-Tails stay in the same spot the whole time?

"Third Hokage, I roughly know the location. Please arrange for everyone to set up defenses on the city walls first." After saying this, Minato Namikaze used Flying Thunder God Technique to teleport away.

"Clan leader, elders, I'm going too." Uchiha Shingen said to the two elders behind him, and then left using the Flying Thunder God Technique.

Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura exchanged a glance, wasted no time, and immediately began making arrangements.

However, when it came to the Uchiha clan...

"I propose that the Uchiha clan take charge of guiding the villagers to safety," the Sarutobi clan's leading ninja suddenly said.

He is an elder from the Sarutobi clan, of the same generation as Hiruzen Sarutobi, and is considered one of the clan's leaders.

This might not have been Hiruzen Sarutobi's idea, after all, this kind of operation was really... not pretty enough, and not in line with his usual level.

But this doesn't stop the Sarutobi clan, who idolize him and love to add their own interpretations, from taking the initiative to "share the burden."

"What nonsense are you spouting, you old monkey?" Uchiha Setsuna said with a straight face. "Our Uchiha clan, along with the Hyuga, Aburame, and Inuzuka clans, had already made arrangements for the villagers to take refuge. Given the current situation, it is not realistic for the entire Uchiha clan to cower in the rear."

“Uchiha Setsuna, now is not the time for your Uchiha clan to act recklessly.” Shimura Danzo suddenly spoke up. Although he thought the Sarutobi clan ninjas were stupid, this suggestion was in line with his thoughts. “This arrangement is also in line with the functions of the police department. Since the other party has the Sharingan, you should also avoid suspicion.”

You bastard! I knew you were up to no good!

"Avoid suspicion? It's not like our clan hasn't lost Sharingan before. That's not what the Hokage Building said back then." Uchiha Setsuna interrupted Shimura Danzo rudely. "Besides, you're letting the Sarutobi clan take the lead in the attack, but how many years has it been since the Sarutobi clan ninjas went to the battlefield? Their quality is simply not up to par with such an arrangement."

He was practically saying to everyone that the Sarutobi clan was trash.

This angered the hot-tempered members of the Sarutobi clan.

However, what Uchiha Setsuna said was true. Even after joining the Anbu, the Sarutobi clan did relatively easy work. Their current war skills were really not good, as could be seen from earlier.

Moreover, the Uchiha clan members are even more volatile than the current Sarutobi clan.

The two groups have disliked each other for many years.

Seeing that the Nine-Tails hadn't even fought yet, but the two clans might be about to clash, everyone was furious.

"Are you Sarutobi clan ever going to stop?!" The Inuzuka clan ninjas were known in Konoha for their bluntness, and someone shouted, "The Third Hokage and Lord Danzo haven't said a word, aren't you causing enough chaos already?!"

"Everyone knows the fighting strength of the Uchiha clan. They won't go if they don't participate in the front-line battles." This is the attitude of the Aburame clan.

"Third Hokage, Lord Danzo, now is not the time to worry about these things. Once the Nine-Tails enters the village, the consequences will be unimaginable. I think the Uchiha clan should go together." Even the Hyuga clan sided with the Uchiha clan.

Konoha now has a total of eight ninja clans, and if you include the Uchiha clans, it's now half and half.

Of course, the accounts can't actually be calculated that way, but Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura were still taken aback. Not to mention the Hyuga and Inuzuka clans, although the Aburame clan wasn't affiliated with the Hokage Building, they were still relatively close ninja clans.

It would be inappropriate to expect the Uchiha clan to retreat to the rear, as this would provoke discontent among these ninja clans.

Those ninjas who become the Kage or Kage's assistants are not incompetent. What determines their political careers or their success or failure in the power arena is the number of supporters they have and the amount of benefits they actually bring to the organization when they are in power.

In Konohagakure, the supporters are represented by two groups: the Jonin and the existing ninja clans.

Although the ninja clans have declined, they remain an important part of the ninja village's foundation, and as prominent clans, they still possess a certain degree of grassroots influence.

Hiruzen Sarutobi made a quick decision and announced, "Stop arguing. It's useless against a tailed beast-like ninja. All ninjas of Chunin rank and above, go to the city walls to stop the Nine-Tails. The rest of you, go guide the villagers to safety!"

This is a perfectly reasonable decision, and it's not targeted at any particular ninja clan; everyone can accept it.

Therefore, each ninja clan quickly dispatched personnel, with those going to the city walls and those evacuating to carry out evacuations.

Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura went directly to the city wall.

The two old friends remained silent for a long time along the way.

“Hiruzen, this is not a good omen,” Danzo Shimura suddenly said.

"I know, where's Orochimaru? Isn't he with you? Why isn't he coming out when something this big is happening?"

"He guarded the base to prevent spies from sneaking in during the chaos."

After the conversation ended, Hiruzen Sarutobi looked grim, while Danzo Shimura remained expressionless.

After years of tacit understanding, just one conversation was enough for the two of them to understand each other's meaning.

However, they probably didn't have the extra energy to think about these things, because they heard the roar of beasts that they hadn't heard for many years.

The sound came from the south, accompanied by strong winds that made the surrounding trees sway and the earth tremble.

In the night sky, the southern sky was dyed a bright red, a frightening red.

Both of them felt a jolt of fear and quickened their pace again.

As the city wall came into view, past what seemed to be a not-so-high wall in the distance, the two finally saw it.

A huge, fiery red fox with nine tails was striding toward the city wall.

In the distance, the ninjas on the city wall unleashed a rain of shuriken and kunai, releasing a frenzy of various escaping techniques. But none of this affected the Nine-Tails. It seemed oblivious to the attack and simply continued walking towards the city wall.

Inside the city walls, people were scattering in all directions amidst screams of alarm.

"You beast!" Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes turned red.

Since taking over the Hokage position from the Second Hokage, regardless of any mistakes he may have made in the past, he and Danzo have indeed done their utmost to keep Konoha Village away from the flames of war, a sight that has never been seen before.

This is the biggest mockery of his years of hard work!

Danzo Shimura managed to control his expression slightly better, but his anger was still burning fiercely inside, and his eyes were gloomy.

The two old men quickened their pace, and behind them was a dark mass of Konoha ninjas from the North and South districts, who, led by the two men, rushed toward the city wall.

Outside the city walls, Uchiha Shingen stood on a large tree, watching the Nine-Tails approach.

Just now, Minato Namikaze used Flying Thunder God Technique to redirect a Nine-Tails Tailed Beast Bomb. As a result, Obito Uchiha had to attack Minato Namikaze again, and the two of them have now run away to another place.

Only the Nine-Tails, with its Sharingan eyes, remained.

The kunai cannot pierce Susanoo.

Similarly, ordinary ninjutsu is of little use against the Nine-Tails.

To deal with such a massive aggregate of chakra, only an equal amount of power can be used.

Uchiha Shingen began to form hand seals.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Standing Tall on the Earth

Uchiha Shingen had a considerable amount of chakra.

Or rather, the Uchiha clan is actually a big blue pot.

Madara Uchiha had less chakra than Hashirama Senju, but that doesn't mean he actually had less chakra. At that time, no one had more chakra than Hashirama Senju.

Another characteristic of the Uchiha clan is that once they awaken the Sharingan, their chakra begins to surge.

Each upgrade at least doubles the chakra.

The Uzumaki clan is known for its physical strength, abundant chakra, vigorous vitality, and long lifespan.

The Uchiha and Uzumaki are actually quite evenly matched. Once the Sharingan reaches the three-tomoe stage, their chakra is no less than that of the Uzumaki at the same level. However, they don't have such obvious vitality, since the Uchiha don't actively develop their body's energy.

This might be Indra's fault, but Indra trained under Hagoromo Otsutsuki, training under both from the beginning. Plus, he was born with three tomoe, so he was at his peak from the start. Ashura only caught up with him but couldn't surpass him.

With the knowledge accumulated over three cycles, Uchiha Shingen's physical energy development took off from the very beginning. Although his Sharingan had three tomoe, it was no longer the same type as other people's three tomoe.

He himself doesn't actually know where his chakra limit is right now.

The time he used it the most was near the end of the Third Shinobi World War. Because his teammates had all died and he was the only one left, he used his ultimate skill all the way and chased a group of Mist Ninja all day. Finally, he created a "Mist Ninja Confession Wall" with an Ice Release on the coast.

After finishing all that, I could use Teleportation to run back to camp, just in time for dinner.

Anyway, he had never experienced the feeling of being so tired that he didn't want to move, or the feeling of squeezing out chakra like toothpaste, in either of his two playthroughs.

Hopefully, Kurama will be strong enough to let him experience this; opportunities to squander chakra at home are rare.

Whether a tailed beast is stronger the more tails it has is not definitively proven, but the Ten-Tails does indeed have ten tails.

Ninjas are actually quite fond of setting things up and like to create secondary interpretations. For example, many ninjas say that the One-Tailed Beast of Sunagakure represents sand and wind, even though the One-Tailed Beast's chakra actually has the innate property of Magnet Release.

Similarly, some people have come up with the wild idea that the Nine-Tailed Fox plays with fire.

Looking closely, it really does resemble it. In the manga, the Nine-Tails is depicted as a large furry fox, but in Uchiha Shingen's eyes, the Nine-Tails directly in front of him resembled a fiery mountain, its crimson chakra radiating a dazzling light, like a raging fire illuminating the sky.

But this is just chakra, and in essence it is no different from the chakra transformations of humans. It's just that the ferocity of the tailed beast chakra far exceeds human limits and imagination.

Nine-Tailed Fox's claws slammed into the ground repeatedly, causing the earth to tremble, a strong wind to blow, and trees that had been rooted there to fall one by one.

It is like a deity, the embodiment of light, radiating the most intense light, vowing to burn away all darkness and release the light.

On the city wall, the ninjas' eyes were filled with sorrow and despair, not because they were worried about their own lives, but because Konoha was right behind them, and their families were there.

The ninjas who had previously leaped over the city walls in an attempt to stop this behemoth couldn't even make it stop. The ninjutsu that had once reaped countless lives on the battlefield was no match for the Nine-Tails.

But if it sneezes or flaps its paw, a person can fly away.

City walls offer people no sense of security.

Now, in the eyes of the Konoha ninjas, only Uchiha Shingen stands in its way.

Hiruzen Sarutobi and the Konoha ninja led by Danzo Shimura had also arrived at the city wall.

When you get close enough to see the colossal beast before you, you feel suffocated and your heart is filled with extreme oppression.

They also saw Uchiha Shingen standing in front of the Nine-Tails.

Even the Sarutobi clan, which was at odds with the Uchiha clan, did not gloat over this. Before the great disaster, there was no distinction between ninja clans; everyone was a ninja of Konoha.

There are only two factions here: the tailed beasts as tall as mountains, and the humans as tiny as grains of sand.

The sounds from the city walls vanished, leaving only the heavy footsteps of the Nine-Tailed Fox, the sounds of trees being torn apart and large swathes of trees collapsing in the world.

Some eyes were filled with sorrow, while another stubborn companion was determined to try to stop the tailed beasts with his own fragile life, even if there was only the slightest possibility.

But he is not the first, nor will he be the last.

At this moment, every ninja present was determined to die.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, Uchiha Shingen's voice was very clear.

He never recites his ninjutsu verbally because he thinks it's unnecessary and silly, but today, an exception is necessary.

"Ice Release: Uchiha Great Demon".

In just a moment, white replaced fiery red, obscuring everyone's vision.

A white giant, as large as a mountain, stood majestically on the earth.