Hey guys, here is the new chapter hope you will liked and read thru everything.
The story is picking up pace, and as promised, it's time to choose Daigo's official nickname. I'm looking for something cool that avoids being cringe. I've seen some ideas, but I want the ultimate one
Let keep the powerstone we can get to 150 easy before Sunday for another chapter
Don't forget to leave your power stones along with your comment if you have any ideas or opinions that could help me, as well as a review to continue showing your support.
Enjoy the chapter!
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"I'm sorry, Hiruzen," sentenced the Third Kazekage, his voice resonating with the coldness of his own element.
"But this is war. Suna cannot allow you to leave so you can return later with more strength. Today, the Leaf dies here."
The wind of the forest did its job, carrying the words to every ear that was close enough to hear it.
Even the ninjas of Konoha who were escaping back to their safe zone heard the words of the Kazekage; they could not return, and their hearts ached knowing that this would be the last time they would see the Third Hokage.
Hiruzen Sarutobi did not respond immediately. His fingers, calloused by decades of holding weapons and calligraphy brushes, closed tightly over the Enma staff.
He could feel the pulse of the Monkey King through the staff, a vibration of alert and loyalty. Hiruzen felt the weight of his years, the pain of his burned lungs, and the responsibility of thousands of lives that depended on the next few minutes.
Despite everything, his presence was still that of an immovable mountain, a relic of an era of heroes that refused to fall.
"If you believe that the will of fire is extinguished so easily, it is because you have forgotten why Konoha is the strongest village," responded Hiruzen. His voice was hoarse, as if the ashes of the battle had settled in his throat, but it carried an ancestral authority that made the lower-ranking ninjas present doubt for a second.
"It has been a long time since I used 100% of my power, but I will show you why they named me the shinobi god just like Hashirama sensei," said Hiruzen, taking off his hat and preparing himself.
With a gesture from the Kazekage, the elite of Sunagakure launched the attack. It was not a disorganized charge; it was a coordinated execution. Rasa raised waves of Gold Dust that shone with a deadly light under the sun; Arata prepared his sand to create spears that went in his direction; Pakura ignited her heat spheres that made the air boil, and Sasori took out 5 human puppets ready to launch jutsus.
Hiruzen did not retreat a single millimeter. His eyes sharpened, transforming into two slits of steel. In his mind, time slowed down. He was the "Professor," the man who had cataloged and perfected thousands of techniques. He knew the weakness of every element, the execution time of every seal, and the psychology of fear.
Not for nothing did he share the title of "Shinobi God" with the legendary Hashirama Senju. He inhaled deeply, expanding his ribcage to the limit, and performed a sequence of five simultaneous nature seals with a fluidity that seemed more like a dance than a combat.
"¡Kōton: Retsudo Tenshō!", roared the Hokage, striking the ground with his palm.
The earth not only opened; it transformed. The ground under the feet of the Suna ninjas turned into a liquid mud trap that engulfed the legs of Sasori's puppets.
Almost at the same instant, Hiruzen manipulated the chakra using Karon so the mud solidified as if it were magma, trapping the enemies in a stone net difficult to get out of.
Without losing a second, he spun his Enma staff in a perfect arc, deflecting a flurry of poisoned needles, and struck the ground with a seismic force that sent a shockwave directly towards Arata.
Arata, confident in his absolute defense, tried to raise a hardened sand shield. But Hiruzen had already foreseen the move. He combined his physical attack with a Raiton: Shichū Shiba, invoking four lightning pillars that surrounded the sand ninja.
The electricity, the natural enemy of earth and sand, traveled destroying Arata's sand and hitting him directly, paralyzing his nervous system and making his muscles collapse.
Before he could emit a scream, the Enma staff extended violently, hitting him in the solar plexus with the power of a siege ram.
Arata went flying like a projectile, crossing a distant dune and remaining out of combat immediately, with his chakra network in short circuit. Not even Shukaku himself managed to come out in time to save Arata, who although strong, could not last seconds against the shinobi god of the current era.
Rasa tried to intervene, roaring in fury seeing Arata fall. He sent a massive wave of Gold Dust, a heavy tide designed to crush Hiruzen's bones. The Hokage, with an agility that defied his years and gravity itself, jumped into the air, performing seals as he ascended.
"¡Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu! Raiton: Denbun (Electrical Charge)"
A massive water dragon emerged from the air itself, although unlike the normal ones this one was charged with lightning thanks to the combination of both elements making its attack twice as strong and perfect for someone like Rasa who used gold sand, crashing against the gold.
The effect of the jutsu was instant; the Raiton current upon hitting the gold, which is a very conductive mineral of electricity, went direct towards Rasa who created a dome to save himself from the jutsu.
Rasa, not being at his 100% after all the fights, could not react, being hit by the current and breaking his gold dome which kept him safe.
Taking advantage of Rasa who could not move, the Hokage used a fire Shunshin, appearing instantly in front of Rasa. He delivered a kick imbued with chakra that broke his gold armor that the commander was trying to reconstruct, sending him to the ground unconscious with several fractured ribs.
"Two less," said Hiruzen, noticing the two new opponents that were coming.
However, the Kazekage and Sasori were not opponents that could be defeated only with tactics and speed. They were monsters in their own right. Sasori, taking things more seriously, deployed the 10 strongest puppets he had currently.
All the puppets capable of using jutsu did not delay in launching every jutsu. Pakura, recovered from the initial shock, launched her heat orbs with surgical precision, trying to dehydrate the Hokage's body until it became a hollow shell.
Hiruzen moved like a whirlwind of steel, fire, and wind. Using the Enma staff as a rotating shield, using Futon to distance any poison while, seeing the jutsus arrive, he did not hesitate to extend the staff towards the sky to escape the range of the jutsus safely.
Pakura and Sasori, seeing the Hokage escape the jutsus, continued with their bombardment of jutsus with Hiruzen continuing to dodge.
But the number of enemies and the sophistication of their attacks began to take their toll. A poisoned senbon from Sasori managed to graze the Hokage's shoulder, injecting a toxin that slowed his reflexes.
At the same time, the Third Kazekage, frustrated by the old man's resistance, manipulated the Iron Sand so that it emerged from the ground like stakes.
Dodging two by just a inch he though he was safe but the third steel stake hit him in a leg, making him fall to the ground.
Although with the leg hurt, he got up quickly to fight again; using his staff he blocked several puppet attacks, even Pakura's orbs were not saved.
The Kazekage also attacked with his iron sand making Hiruzen have to spend more chakra to stay alive although little by little his wounds increased.
Hiruzen spat a mouthful of thick blood on the golden sand and smiled defiantly, a smile that showed his teeth stained red. His wounds were mortal, his vision was beginning to blur from the poison, but his will of fire shone more than ever.
He knew that his story ended here, in this forgotten desert, but he would make sure Suna paid a price that would stop them at least for this war, And a price that would prevent them from pursuing his ninjas.
The Third Kazekage rose on an iron platform, surrounded by thousands of iron spears that floated in the air like a haystack of black needles.
"It is the end, just surrender and die; you already managed to die as a hero for Konoha," said the Kazekage.
"Not yet," whispered the Hokage, his voice loaded with a chakra so dense that it changed sound.
Hiruzen performed a series of seals, although these were not normal, a sequence that consumed not only chakra, but part of his own vital force.
The heat around him began to rise exponentially, creating a lens effect in the air. It was not ordinary fire derived from oxygen; it was an offensive sealing technique designed to consume the very essence of the opponent.
A technique direct from the forbidden scroll of Konoha and that its creator was Hiruzen himself.
"¡Katon: Tenrō Gōka!"
The Hokage launched a blast of white flames mixed with incandescent ashes. The attack did not travel in a linear way; it twisted in the air, dodging the magnetic defenses.
It crossed the Kazekage's Iron Sand as if it were dry paper. The ashes not only burned the surface; they infiltrated the Kazekage's pores, mixing it with his magnetic iron and his circulatory system.
The Kazekage screamed, a soul-tearing sound that chilled the blood of those present.
The heat was so extreme that the iron inside his own veins began to melt, becoming liquid metal that ran through his arms. His chakra coils were sealed, cauterized by the molten iron. His arms and legs became gray, rigid and heavy like casting statues. He fell from the sky like a wounded bird, hitting the ground with a metallic blow.
"Perhaps I die here but you also will not step on a war field ever again, Kazekage."
Hiruzen fell to his knees, using the Enma staff to not collapse completely. His chest rose and fell violently, every breath was an agony. His skin had wrinkled at once after using that jutsu and his dark hair already began to have gray hair; that was the price of using the jutsu although his mission had not finished yet.
He was on the edge of total collapse, but his eyes rested on Daigo. The young genius of Suna was a few meters away, looking at him without any expression, only his eyes, one normal pink and the other of crystal looking straight at him.
"That boy... Daigo... his potential is the greatest threat to peace that I have seen in forty years," thought Hiruzen with a bitterness that surpassed his physical pain.
"He has the intelligence of a Nara, the ferocity of an Uchiha and those eyes... those eyes do not leave me with a good aftertaste, something tells me that if I let him live, not only Konoha, the entire world will experience changes that I had never thought."
Hiruzen joined his trembling hands in the darkest, sacred and feared seal in the history of ninjas.
"¡Shiki Fūjin!", he sentenced with a whisper that resonated like thunder on the spiritual plane.
The environment turned frigid suddenly, as if the sun had been replaced by a moon of ice.
A spectral figure with a ragged white robe, a bluish skin and a dagger between its sharp teeth appeared behind Hiruzen.
Only those with an exceptionally sensitive chakra could see it, but everyone could feel its presence. The Shinigami extended its translucent hand, crossing the Hokage's chest without spilling blood and looking for the soul of its objective.
The mere way of invoking it already took your soul even without having asked your wish, and Hiruzen knew it because someone had used it before him.
Daigo felt an invisible pressure that squeezed his chest, a cold that reminded him of when he had died in his old world. Not only that, he could see that figure that looked at him directly in the soul and he did not like it.
"Daigo of the Sand...", said Hiruzen with a voice that seemed to come from an unfathomable abyss.
"You are too dangerous to remain free. I will take you with me to the eternal darkness. Your chakra, your eyes and your ambition will die here so the world can remain in balance and equilibrated."
Daigo, hearing Hiruzen say his name, felt the biggest chill and knew that if he let him continue it was not going to end well for him.
Playing with death was not something that any human could do, or if it were possible, but he had done it; he died and landed here.
He would not let an old lover of peace who would later become what led the world to the point of being put in an illusion, or let a narcissistic guy like Danzo do whatever he wants.
His mind working at speeds that exceed any previous calculation. "I know I haven't finished dominating it but it's that or being taken to the stomach of the shinigami and that would be worst fate for me I will"
"!Never!"
The crystal in his right socket began to shine with a white light so pure and blinding that Sasori had to cover his face and Pakura retreated instinctively.
Daigo did not use hand seals; the crystal was his direct channel. He focused every particle of accumulated chakra, the chakra was accumulating in a single point in the middle of his crystal eye.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you but my future is very big just like my ambitions for an old lover of peace like you to stop it, say hello to the shinigami for me!", said Daigo with a force that made the air vibrate.
From his crystal eye shot a concentrated chakra beam, an absolute destruction prism that cut the space with a soul-tearing sound, as if the universe itself were breaking.
The attack was a manifestation of pure power, a discharge that ignored the conventional laws of ninja resistance. It was so fast that not even Hiruzen's combat instinct, polished in three world wars, could react.
The chakra beam crossed Hiruzen Sarutobi's chest exactly in the center, vaporizing his heart and part of his spine in a fraction of a second.
The Hokage coughed his last mouthful of blood, a mixture of vital fluid and ashes from the Tenrō Gōka.
The contract with the Shinigami broke violently before the instant physical death of the invoker.
The spectral hand released Daigo's soul, which returned to his body with an impact that left him deaf.
The god of death, deprived of his complete sacrifice, vanished in the shadows with the soul of the invoker slowly filling with it.
Hiruzen looked at Daigo with a mixture of absolute surprise, horror and, finally, a strange and tragic peace.
"So... this is the strength of the new generation...", murmured Hiruzen, his last words being barely a whisper that the wind took away.
He released the Enma staff, which returned to its monkey form, looking at his friend with infinite sadness before disappearing in a cloud of white smoke.
The body of the Third Hokage, the Shinobi God who had ruled and protected Konoha for decades, the man who was the bridge between the past of the founders and the future of the young, fell heavily on the blood-stained land of Kanzaki. His eyes closed while a bitter and tired smile crossed his lips.
He had died protecting the retreat of his people, fulfilling his duty until the last breath, but he had failed in his last mission: to eliminate the crystal shadow that now rose over the elemental nations.
The battlefield remained in absolute silence, a sound vacuum that was more terrifying than the roar of the jutsus. Only the whistling of the wind and the crunching of the cooling crystal were heard.
Sasori, Pakura and the few healthy Suna ninjas who still breathed watched with incredulity the corpse of the man who had defined the balance of world power for more than thirty years.
Daigo collapsed on his knees, with the crystal eye emitting a dense smoke and his body trembling violently from the massive recoil of having fired such an amount of pure energy.
His veins burned and his vision was a chaos of colors, but he was alive. He had killed a legend and used his secret card; it didn't end.
Suna had achieved it. Against all odds, against the Yellow Flash and the Shinobi God, the Village of the Sand had prevailed in its own terrain. Konoha had been defeated. Minato Namikaze was out of combat for a good time, the Jinchūriki of the Kyūbi had been defeated too, and the Third Hokage lay dead.
The Third Kazekage, although alive, was a broken man, a leader who would never again wield his iron sand or use chakra; he was lifted by a Rasa who could barely stay on his feet with a strong pain in his broken ribs.
Daigo looked up at the sun that was hiding behind the dark cloud that would be soon start raining, dyeing the world a deep somber.
Today, Daigo's name would cease to be that of a prodigy to become that of the ninja who killed the shinobi god of the era, the name that would mark the start of a new or dark era for the shinobi world.
End of chapter