"Let's begin."
Tsunade paid little attention to the chaos around her. She simply shook out her wet hair, then pulled a hair tie from her wrist and tied it into a practical ponytail.
Simple, direct, and efficient. If not for the white bathrobe she had hastily wrapped around herself, she looked every bit like her usual energetic self.
But there was no time to dwell on appearances.
Above Konoha, Chibaku Tensei was already tearing the sky apart.
Rubble rose in violent streams, pulled upward by an unimaginable gravitational force. Even the ground itself showed signs of breaking apart, as if the village was being peeled away from the earth.
This was Konohagakure.
And yet, it was about to be sealed by a single technique.
Who would believe something like that if they did not see it with their own eyes?
Even the First Hokage would have struggled to achieve something on this scale.
It was a terrifying display. If this scene were part of a performance, even the heavens themselves would seem to lose their composure.
Hiruzen Sarutobi took a deep breath.
He and the others moved into position without hesitation, each standing at a designated point. Hands formed seals in perfect synchronization.
At this moment, the Third Hokage felt something unusual settle in his chest.
Calm.
And beneath it, a faint sense of satisfaction.
Not for himself, but for his students. For Hayashi. For every Konoha shinobi who continued fighting despite overwhelming odds.
Without them, the situation would already be far worse.
As Hokage, he had once believed he carried the village alone.
Now he understood something different.
The village was not carried by one person. It was carried forward by those willing to stand at its breaking point.
Hiruzen had already made a decision.
The future belonged to the next Hokage.
It was time.
He exhaled slowly and tightened his seals.
"Four Red Yang Formation."
Four voices rang out as one.
A massive red barrier erupted into existence, enclosing Konoha in a towering dome of sealing power. The structure expanded upward, reinforcing itself as it rose.
Chibaku Tensei was meant to pull everything into the sky and compress it into a single point of destruction.
But the Four Red Yang Formation held firm.
The two forces collided above the village, creating a violent pressure that split the world itself into two layers.
Inside the barrier was Konoha.
Outside it was an expanding sphere of devastation.
Neither side yielded.
The red formation pressed upward against the forming celestial mass, resisting its gravitational pull with overwhelming sealing force.
Nagato stood with both hands clasped together.
His body was already stained with blood. Veins and chakra pathways flickered like unstable flames across his skin.
The strain was immense.
And yet the formation held.
If this continued, he would die from blood loss before achieving anything decisive.
That realization crossed Nagato's mind, but it did not change his expression.
Instead, a shadow of irritation surfaced.
This was already the limit of Chibaku Tensei at this scale. At this point, the outcome depended on endurance.
Who would collapse first.
Or more precisely, which side Hayashi and Fugaku would tip the battlefield toward.
Victory on either side would decide everything.
Outside the formation, Fugaku remained cautious.
Both of his Mangekyō Sharingan spun with different patterns, and the Three-Tails beneath him had already been fully subdued by genjutsu.
Even with Naruto's jinchūriki power erupting into seven tails, the battlefield balance had been uncertain.
But Hayashi's arrival changed everything.
A massive blue Susanoo skeleton wrapped around the nine-tailed chakra form. Within its head stood Hayashi and Kushina, stabilized inside its structure.
The Nine-Tails was no longer resisting.
Or rather, it could not afford to.
The moment Chibaku Tensei appeared, something deep in its instincts awakened.
Fear.
Pure, instinctive fear.
A technique tied to the Rinnegan appearing directly above Konoha triggered something buried in its memory. The Nine-Tails did not think logically anymore. It only felt one thing.
Capture.
Containment.
Destruction.
Its thoughts immediately connected the technique to the Ten-Tails.
Creatures like it did not need full understanding to panic. Once they recognized a natural enemy, instinct took over.
So, for once, the Nine-Tails cooperated without resistance, lending its chakra to Kushina.
Not only that, it even demanded Hayashi equip it with full Susanoo armor.
It did not care whether it was dignified or not. Survival came first.
Now armored, the Nine-Tails quickly returned to its usual arrogance, insisting Hayashi eliminate Fugaku first, then deal with the Rinnegan user above.
Hayashi ignored it completely.
"Still as noisy as ever," he muttered under his breath.
Fugaku's gaze sharpened.
Susanoo.
The ultimate form of the Mangekyō Sharingan.
Greed flashed briefly in his eyes, but it was immediately suppressed.
Unlike Hayashi, Fugaku could not manifest Susanoo. Even with Hashirama cells, his eye pattern was incompatible.
And that gap mattered.
Especially when the opponent had already demonstrated unknown Mangekyō abilities.
Fugaku did not move first.
He had already seen what happened when White Zetsu underestimated unknown abilities.
One mistake was enough.
The Nine-Tails moved first instead.
A Chidori Sharp Spear formed in its claw, crackling with lightning before being hurled forward.
Fugaku reacted instantly. The Three-Tails swung its massive tail to intercept, and the collision exploded midair with a sharp crack of chakra discharge.
Kushina's red hair whipped violently in the wind.
Inside the Susanoo structure, she extended her arm. Fingers curled like claws.
Six chains erupted from the Susanoo's mouth, black and heavy, surging forward like dragons.
Adamantine Sealing Chains.
They twisted through the air and coiled around the Three-Tails with crushing force.
The bijū roared in pain. The chains suppressed its chakra directly, amplified further by Hayashi's Sage Art chakra infused into the technique.
In an instant, the Three-Tails lost most of its mobility.
The Nine-Tails seized the opening.
Its armored limbs slammed down, pinning the Three-Tails in place with brutal force.
Fugaku leapt upward.
At the same moment, Kushina's chains descended like a storm.
The forest below seemed to split under the pressure of chakra.
Fugaku's expression remained cold. Mangekyō Sharingan rotated rapidly.
Chikara Shin activated.
A gravitational field formed around him, halting the chains midair as if they had struck an invisible wall.
But the resistance did not last.
Black flames ignited along the chains.
Amaterasu.
The chains began to disintegrate under the black fire.
Fugaku's left eye bled as he maintained the technique.
At the same time, the Nine-Tails changed form.
A massive spiral blade formed in its claw, reinforced with Wind Release chakra. It swung down in a devastating arc.
The speed was overwhelming.
Even Fugaku could only see a blurred trail.
Chikara Shin activated again.
Space around him warped, and for a brief instant, everything seemed to freeze.
Dust suspended midair.
Then he shifted five meters to the right.
The blade missed.
But Hayashi's eyes narrowed slightly.
Hard to approach, but not impossible.
The Nine-Tails changed its attack immediately.
In its left claw, another Chidori Sharp Spear formed, this one fused with a Tailed Beast Ball embedded within it like a core.
It swung down again.
Fugaku reacted quickly, redirecting the Tailed Beast Ball upward with gravitational force.
But that decision created a gap.
Chikara Shin had been used outward, not defensively.
And that was the opening.
Hayashi vanished.
Flying Thunder God.
He reappeared directly on the edge of the spiral blade.
A seal hidden within the Sage Art pattern activated silently.
Fugaku's eyes widened.
Too late.
Chidori pierced through his chest in a violent surge of lightning.