The moment Gengetsu Hozuki was sealed, Mei Terumi and the others didn't linger on relief. There was still too much blood in the air, too many enemies still moving. Mei, Kisame, Mangetsu, and Sasuke swept straight back into the wider battlefield, turning scattered skirmishes into collapsing fronts simply by arriving where the pressure was thickest.
Kisame, of course, went to the one place his instincts had been pulling him since the fighting began.
Suikazan Fuguki.
Samehada felt heavier in his hands as he approached - almost eager, almost alive in the way it reacted to the man who once held it. Kisame rolled his shoulders, the corner of his mouth lifting into a crooked grin that carried no warmth.
"Long time no see, Fuguki-sama."
The honorific came out like a blade turned sideways - polite on the surface, cutting underneath.
Fuguki looked at him for a long moment. The hatred that should've been there wasn't. Not because he'd forgiven anything, and not because death had softened him. It was something else - something uglier and quieter.
His gaze slid past Kisame, toward Kirigakure's ranks.
The Mist shinobi were surging like a tide with a spine. Their formation held. Their morale didn't waver. Their killing intent wasn't frantic - it was disciplined, confident, almost inevitable. For Fuguki, who had lived through the era when Kirigakure devoured its own, the sight was disorienting in a way even Edo Tensei couldn't numb.
He exhaled slowly, like the air had turned too thick.
"Kisame… is this really Kirigakure's power now?"
Kisame paused, then glanced back as well. Even for him, the view carried weight. This wasn't the Mist he'd crawled through as a younger man. This wasn't the Bloody Mist struggling to keep its throat above water. This was a village that had climbed out of its own grave and decided the world would make room for it.
He understood what Fuguki meant - and what he was admitting without saying.
A low chuckle escaped Kisame. "What, you can't believe it?" His eyes narrowed. "This is all the Mizukage's doing. In less than ten years, he dragged Kirigakure from the edge of collapse and turned it into the strongest force in the shinobi world."
Then he tilted Samehada slightly, letting the living blade catch the light. "So tell me, Fuguki… do you regret opposing him?"
Fuguki shook his head. "Regret? No." His voice stayed steady, but the bitterness underneath it was unmistakable. "What I feel is simpler than that. I was arrogant."
He lifted his chin, and for a heartbeat the old Fuguki surfaced - the man who once believed he could seize the Mizukage's seat through sheer brutality.
"Chiba is the kind of man who doesn't fit inside an era. He appears, and the world has to reshape itself around him. If I'm forced to compare him to anyone… then maybe only the so-called Shinobi no Kami - the man who ended the Warring States period and built the foundation of this age - stands on that same level."
"Senju Hashirama," Kisame said, almost amused by how far Fuguki had been pushed to admit it. "Yeah. That's fair." His grin widened. "But one day, even Hashirama will be surpassed. The Mizukage will do it."
Fuguki's eyes widened slightly.
"…Is that so?" The words came out quiet, as if he'd spoken without meaning to. He stared across the battlefield again, and the hollow look in his face deepened. "Then I really did underestimate him."
For a moment, he sounded almost… tired.
"To see Kirigakure again. To see it like this." His voice roughened. "Then maybe being dragged back by Edo Tensei wasn't meaningless."
Kisame's tone stayed cold. "Coming from someone who betrayed Kirigakure, that's rich."
Fuguki didn't argue. He only sighed, as though he'd long since accepted that no explanation would ever sound clean.
"I know what you think of me," he said. "But you have to understand - we weren't living in this Kirigakure. The village we knew was a slaughterhouse. Under those policies, surviving took everything. You and I weren't building futures. We were fighting to see the next morning."
His eyes darkened, but he didn't raise his voice.
"Yes, I sold secrets. Yes, I made sure I had a way out. In the Bloody Mist, Mist shinobi either died… or broke." He paused, then looked Kisame in the eye. "And you know it as well as I do - if I truly wanted to destroy Kirigakure, I could have. The intelligence I held, the people who followed me… if I'd fully committed and brought a great village down on the Mist during that era, Kirigakure wouldn't exist today."
Kisame went quiet, because he couldn't deny it.
Fuguki exhaled again, softer this time. "I'm not saying it to excuse myself. I'm saying it because the times changed. If I'd been born into this Kirigakure - into a village ruled by Mizukage Chiba - do you really think betrayal would've ever crossed my mind?"
Kisame's grip tightened on Samehada. His answer came blunt, and honest.
"No."
After a beat, he added, quieter but heavier, "Chiba-sama changed everything. Kirigakure… and the entire shinobi world with it."
Fuguki nodded as if that was the only truth left that didn't burn to speak.
"Then I'm satisfied," he said. He looked at Kisame, and the hostility that should've been there was gone, replaced by a strange calm. "Hoshigaki Kisame… seal me."
Kisame's grin returned. "Talk all you want. I wasn't planning to hold back."
Fuguki let out a low laugh. "Good. That's the Kisame I remember."
And then they moved - fast, brutal, decisive.
Without Samehada, Fuguki was never going to win. The difference showed the moment their pressure met. Kisame had already killed him once, even back when Fuguki still held the blade. Now Fuguki wasn't fighting to survive at all. He was fighting for an ending.
While Kisame closed that chapter, the rest of the field tipped into the same conclusion.
Haku's Hyoton and Nuibari techniques locked Kuriarare Kushimaru down so completely that the Sealing Unit only needed a clean opening to finish the job. Momochi Zabuza overwhelmed Biwa Juzo. Ringo Ameyuri crushed Kurosuki Raiga. Chojuro and Hozuki Suigetsu broke through Akebino Jinin and Munashi Jinpachi. One after another, the Edo Tensei swordsmen vanished into sealing formations - until only Fuguki remained, and then he was gone as well.
With the reanimated dead fully sealed, Kisame immediately rejoined the final sweep against the White Zetsu army.
Across the Mist front, everything tilted hard toward victory. Kirigakure's casualties were minimal. The enemy force was shattered. It wasn't just a win - it was a decisive, undeniable triumph, the kind that made the first chapter of the Fourth Shinobi World War feel like an omen.
At the same time, far from Kirigakure's battlefield, Konoha's forces were being forced to face their own past - reanimated shinobi who should've stayed in graves.
One of them, in particular, would leave even Tsunade stunned.
Chapter 170: Tsunade Beats Down Sarutobi Hiruzen - A Deadly Clash Between Two Hokage!
On the Mist front, the outcome was already sealed. With Uchiha Itachi dead, Gengetsu Hozuki sealed, the Edo Tensei army contained, and the White Zetsu reduced to scattered remnants, what remained there was cleanup - bloody, exhausting, but inevitable.
But on Konoha's battlefield, the war was only beginning to bare its fangs.
Under Godaime Hokage Senju Tsunade's command, Konoha's shinobi forces met the Akatsuki's White Zetsu head-on - alongside the reanimated dead meant to rip the village apart from the inside. And at the front of that resurrected line stood faces that felt less like enemies and more like a curse dragged out of history.
Shimura Danzo. Utatane Koharu. Mitokado Homura.
And then -
Sarutobi Hiruzen.
The sight hit Tsunade like a punch to the ribs.
Yes. Even Sandaime Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen had been summoned back.
For a moment, it didn't feel like war so much as judgment: present-day Konoha staring down the version of itself that had once ruled, controlled, and decided whose lives mattered. Akatsuki and Yakushi Kabuto hadn't only resurrected famous foes - they'd resurrected Konoha's own ghosts and aimed them at the village's throat.
And it wasn't only the old guard. Among the Edo Tensei ranks were Yuhi Shinku, Kato Dan, Akimichi Torifu, Sarutobi Asuma, and many other fallen elites - names that still lived in memorial stones and unfinished grief.
Tsunade's mind tried, for an instant, to frame it as something else - some twisted illusion where Hiruzen's spirit had returned to seize Konoha again. But the truth was worse, because it was tangible.
She knew how he'd died. He'd used Shiki Fuujin ("Reaper Death Seal") and fallen in mutual destruction. And yet here he stood again, rage intact, eyes burning.
Which meant Kabuto had found a way around what should have been absolute.
Tsunade forced that thought down. Hesitation was a luxury that killed people.
At her side were Konoha's pillars - Jiraiya, Hatake Kakashi, Might Guy, Yamato, Yuhi Kurenai, Mitarashi Anko, Shizune, Morino Ibiki - along with the strength of the great clans: Akimichi, Yamanaka, Nara, Inuzuka, Aburame, and more. Under Chiba's advice, Tsunade had rebuilt ANBU from the ground up. The old ANBU, once tied directly to Hiruzen, had been purged almost completely, leaving only a handful such as Zou, Shu, Suzume, and Uzuki Yugao. Now Yamato led the reorganized force, with new operatives - Kage, Tou, and Ryouyou among them - shadows remade to answer the present, not the past.
Behind them, Konoha's new generation stood ready as well: Rock Lee, Tenten, Uzumaki Naruto, Sai, Haruno Sakura, Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Choji, Nara Shikamaru, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino - shinobi who would inherit the world if it survived.
Tsunade stepped forward, eyes locked on Hiruzen.
"Sensei," she said, voice low and hard, "I didn't expect you to come back. Even as a ghost, you're relentless."
Hiruzen's face twisted with fury so intense it looked like death hadn't cooled it at all. "Tsunade!" he snarled. "You didn't just betray Konoha - you sided with that Mizukage, Chiba, and turned Konoha into Kirigakure's puppet!"
His voice rose. "Can you face your grandfather - Shodaime Hokage - and claim you did the right thing?!"
Tsunade's answer came without hesitation. "Konoha is thriving," she said coldly. "Stronger than it ever was under your decades of rule. Why wouldn't I be able to face him?"
Then her gaze sharpened, turning crueler with clarity.
"And you," she continued, "stand here as Akatsuki's tool, attacking Konoha itself, and you want to talk about betrayal?"
Hiruzen's mouth tightened. "I'm not attacking Konoha," he snapped. "I'm purging you - and the Chiba behind you."
Tsunade laughed, sharp and contemptuous. "You're a puppet. Kabuto's puppet. The masked man's puppet. Uchiha Madara's puppet." Her eyes flicked toward the others. "And you three - Danzo, Koharu, Homura. Konoha's so-called elders, reduced to someone else's pieces."
Danzo's expression didn't change. "Hiruzen," he said flatly, "enough talk. Today ends with victory or death."
Koharu and Homura nodded.
Not every Edo Tensei shinobi shared that malice - there were veterans like Akimichi Torifu and Yuhi Shinku among them - but none of them had the freedom to refuse. Edo Tensei didn't ask permission. It pulled the strings until the body moved.
Hiruzen raised a hand, and with a single order the battlefield erupted.
Tsunade launched forward immediately, meeting Hiruzen head-on. Danzo surged toward Jiraiya. Koharu and Homura moved to intercept Kakashi and Guy. Sarutobi Asuma, Kato Dan, Akimichi Torifu, Yuhi Shinku, and the others charged into Konoha's ranks, turning the entire field into a storm of killing intent.
But the center of everything - the pressure everyone could feel even through the chaos - was the clash at the heart of the formation.
Godaime Hokage Senju Tsunade versus Sandaime Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen.
On the outskirts of Konoha, on the soil of the Land of Fire, two generations of Hokage met as if the village's soul itself hung between them.
Hiruzen struck first, hatred burning hot and undiminished. Chakra surged as he launched his signature flames.
"Katon: Gokaen no Jutsu ("Great Flame Technique")!"
Fire roared forward in a crushing wave, meant to swallow her whole.
Tsunade didn't answer with ninjutsu. She answered with force.
Her fist smashed into the ground, and the earth heaved upward in a violent upheaval - massive slabs of terrain rising like a breaking wave. The inferno slammed into stone instead of flesh, scattering sparks across the sky.
But Hiruzen was already moving. He leapt onto the upturned earth, gained height, and struck again from above.
"Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu ("Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique")!"
A single giant shuriken multiplied - one became ten, ten became a storm - until the air itself was filled with spinning blades screaming toward Tsunade.
She looked up at the barrage with open disdain.
Then she drove her heel down.
"Kairiki Bakuhatsu ("Monstrous Strength Burst") - Tsuuten Kyaku ("Heavenly Foot of Pain")!"
The stomp detonated the ground. A savage shockwave blasted outward, hurling the shuriken storm away like scraps of metal in a hurricane, and the pressure kept climbing - surging back toward Hiruzen with brutal intent.
Hiruzen's brow furrowed. He snapped into defense.
"Doton: Doryuheki ("Earth-Style Wall")!"
A wall rose - just in time to be pulverized almost the instant it formed, crushed apart as if it were brittle clay.
And in the next heartbeat, Tsunade was already there.
A fist filled Hiruzen's vision, tearing through the air with absolute, merciless certainty.
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