The time for talk had ended.
The air shifted.
The battlefield tightened.
The first clash was seconds away.
Tobirama swept his sensing across Ryusei's group one last time.
And his eyes narrowed.
Ryusei had grown again.
Far beyond what Tobirama expected.
Even stronger than during their brief encounter months ago.
And the people around him had risen just as sharply.
It should have been concerning.
But Tobirama felt none of that.
If anything, he felt… satisfied.
Because no matter how far Ryusei had climbed, he still could not win against that higher being.
And the higher being wanted Ryusei erased even more than Tobirama did.
"Good," Tobirama thought. "Then he will expend everything."
After all, even the Sage of Six Paths was not infinite.
Even he had limits.
And if he poured most of his strength into crushing Ryusei today…
Then tomorrow, there would be more room for Tobirama's own ambitions.
More room to shape the world the way he wanted.
More room to maneuver without a cosmic eye watching every step.
Tobirama could feel it clearly even now.
Those dimensional anchors were no simple fuinjutsu.
They were fueled by the Sage's own soul, not merely by the souls of past Hokage, like during the previous confrontation with Ryusei.
The Sage was burning himself to hold this cage together.
Sacrificing piece after piece.
Because he feared what Ryusei might become.
Tobirama's eyes hardened.
"Good. Use everything you have on him."
If Ryusei died today, Tobirama's plan could proceed.
If the Sage burned himself out in the process… even better.
Two birds.
One coming battlefield.
And Tobirama would remain standing when it was over.
His thoughts settled.
Then his hands moved.
Dozens of seals flashed around him, and the ground behind him split open as one massive coffin rose first, followed by a series of smaller ones.
It was obvious these were not ordinary Edo Tensei.
They carried that same unnatural pressure as last time, infused with the Sage of Six Paths' power.
The main coffin cracked open.
A blast of raw, ancient energy surged outward, sweeping over the battlefield like a shockwave.
Even Hashirama flinched. Not just because the being in the coffin radiated unknown power far beyond his own.
But because, for a heartbeat, it felt more like him than he did.
As if a piece of his own spiritual essence slipped out of his soul and flowed back into that resurrected body, pulled by something older and deeper than he could understand.
Then Ashura Otsutsuki opened his eyes in the next second completely.
His gaze sharpened instantly, memories and identity flooding back into place.
He felt everything at once: his past, his purpose, his connection to the Sage, and the reason he had been summoned again.
Behind him, the other coffins opened in unison.
Dozens of legendary samurai and warrior monks stepped out, the same ones Tobirama had called upon the last time they tried to eliminate Ryusei, but now in even greater numbers.
Their armor clattered.
Their presence thickened the air.
Their spirits were bound to this battlefield, waiting for orders.
Ashura took one step forward, the ground trembling beneath him.
His eyes were fixed on Ryusei.
Ashura stood still for a moment as his mind cleared.
He remembered who he was.
The son of Hagoromo.
The inheritor of his father's ideals.
The one who carried the will to guide humanity toward peace.
The one who believed in compassion, unity, and balance above all.
His past lives, his ancient battles, his conflict with Indra, the endless cycle that followed — all of it resurfaced in a single breath.
And yet, something else was there too.
A purpose.
It had been placed deep inside him, fused into his being the moment the Sage of Six Paths touched his soul to summon him.
A direction so absolute that it felt almost like instinct.
Eliminate Ryusei Senju.
He didn't know who Ryusei was.
He didn't know what era this was.
He didn't know what chain of events led to this battlefield.
But the moment he opened his eyes, he felt it.
Ryusei was the enemy of his purpose.
Ryusei was a threat to the ideals his father built.
Ryusei was standing against everything Ashura had been created to uphold.
He gripped his hands once.
The sensation was natural.
Automatic.
As if this confrontation had already been decided long before he awakened.
Ashura's gaze locked onto Ryusei.
And the intent in his chest sharpened into one clear drive. Remove him.
High above the battlefield, another presence watched.
Not through eyes, but through the living barrier that wrapped itself around Konoha like a breathing organism.
Hagoromo Otsutsuki.
The Sage of Six Paths.
He observed everything through the spiritual lattice he had woven into the dimensional anchors, the same network that now pulsed with his own essence.
He and Gamamaru had reached the same conclusion recently.
The future they once tried to preserve had completely collapsed without any possibility of salvation anymore.
The visions they clung to were now pure delusions.
The world line they considered ideal had already been derailed beyond repair.
There was only one realistic choice left.
Remove the anomaly descending upon this world like a meteor.
Erase Ryusei Senju.
Even if it meant sacrificing most of the future they had once hoped for.
Even if it meant letting half of destiny burn now and searching for a new one later.
Hagoromo had finally stopped pretending.
He had decided to go all in.
Yet even as he poured pieces of his own soul into the anchors and barriers, he still protected one thing above all else.
This village.
This focal point of fate.
And the unborn child within Kushina.
The one who combined human and fox, the one whose existence radiated a strange axis of possibility.
The future main character, in Hagoromo's view.
He would not let that potential die.
Not because of Ryusei.
Not because of anything.
Long after his own death, after his ascension to the Pure Land as its ruler of sorts, and shortly after Ashura's passing, a secret order of his secret, remaining followers had gathered Ashura's body as they were taught.
They recovered it shortly after his final battle with Indra.
Ashura had died from overregeneration, his cells burning themselves out, but the body remained usable for sealing.
Those followers preserved it.
Placed hidden commands inside it.
Prepared it for a moment like this.
Now, nearly a thousand years later, Hagoromo triggered that hidden piece of his own son's long-deceased ancient body, a contingency he had hoped he would never need to use.
Through Tobirama's summoning.
Through Hashirama nearby.
Through the anchors.
Through his own sacrifice.
He forced Ashura's displaced soul out of Hashirama's being and back into its original vessel.
The body was close enough to the Edo Tensei structure that the damage caused by overregeneration during his life was minimal.
And the vessel awaiting Ashura was not his old, broken one.
Hagoromo had already filled that vessel in advance with a millennium of knowledge gathered from the Pure Land, drawn from the memories and techniques of countless shinobi whose souls he had access to. It was the greatest amount he could concentrate into a single being, and Ashura's soul was strong enough to withstand it. Hagoromo had finally perfected the method recently, and he had more than enough time to prepare it.
It awakened all at once inside Ashura.
He regained everything he once held. And more.
Eight Gates. All taijutsu forms of the ancient era.
All ninjutsu knowledge gathered by the Pure Land.
His own old techniques born from that rare shinju atavism in his blood. Perfect Wood Release. Regeneration strong enough to rebuild himself from a scrap of tissue.
Truth-seeking orbs. And the Six Paths Sage Mode unique to only the Otsutsuki.
The Ashura that now stood on the battlefield was even stronger than he had ever been in life.
Hagoromo no longer cared what kind of quake this would cause across the world.
He no longer cared how much of the future he was burning.
Anything was better than allowing Ryusei Senju to remain alive even one moment longer.
For example, Hagoromo already understood Tobirama's little hidden thoughts.
And yes, he understood the danger individuals like Tobirama and Hashirama posed by continuing to exist in the world of the living to his grand designs.
But they were still Edo Tensei.
They still had threads of connection to the Pure Land woven through their souls.
And that connection was something Hagoromo could pull at any time.
A leash. A fail-safe.
If necessary, he could drag them back into the underworld eventually with relative ease after they finished dealing with Ryusei, despite Tobirama's foolish little ambitions and actions.
No, they were not the real threat.
The real danger was always, only Ryusei.
A living, growing anomaly who was rising far too quickly.
Someone no Edo Tensei rule applied to.
Someone whose existence slipped outside the boundaries of planned destiny.
Erase him, and everything could be reset.
A blank slate.
New visions.
New scenarios.
A new future to sculpt from scratch.
And Hagoromo was ready to do exactly that.
And while everyone was still stunned by the weight of Ashura's aura and chakra, the formation of ancient monks and samurai behind him moved first.
They activated their old-world techniques, their strikes and dashes sharpening into blurs of force, instantly enhanced by natural energy.
The ground cracked beneath their feet. And the battlefield fully erupted.