"This is the cruelty of war, Naruto. Do you still hold onto those naive ideals now?"
A slender silhouette emerged calmly from the sea of blood and mountain of corpses. The remaining survivors all locked their eyes onto Kanon.
Watching her approach, Naruto's face contorted with an unprecedented fury. Never in his entire life had he directed such an expression toward Kanon. It was a look of pure, bone-deep hatred.
Seeing Naruto's agonizing, twisted grimace, Kanon felt nothing but absolute gratification.
"That's it, Naruto. Hate me. Direct all of it at me."
The Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun slowly in Kanon's eyes. She made no move to draw her Kusanagi Sword. Instead, she simply stepped closer and stood her ground, facing down the entire host of survivors alone amidst the ruined wasteland of the dead.
Her stature was petite, but in this singular moment, she appeared staggeringly monolithic.
A fifteen-year-old girl standing with absolute composure before three Hokage, Naruto, Sasuke, and the remnants of the Allied Shinobi Forces… this was a feat that shattered all historical precedents.
Towering tens of thousands of meters behind her was the God Tree, its crest piercing straight toward the crimson moon high in the heavens. Such a terrifying, gargantuan anomaly struck primal dread into the hearts of all who looked upon it.
Staring up at the God Tree, the last remnants of the shinobi's fighting spirit evaporated. Having suffered defeat after defeat, the Allied Forces felt like nothing more than ants.
This was a suffocating despair stripped of all light. Facing this cosmic entity, they stood absolutely zero chance of victory.
Sakura and the others had been completely outmatched; she had long since collapsed from total chakra exhaustion.
The surviving shinobi looked out across the epicenter of the battlefield, where piles of corpses littered the earth like a literal manifestation of hell.
And standing opposite them, right in the center of it all, was Kanon.
Behind her, Obito's figure materialized slowly. The Allied Shinobi Forces knew with absolute certainty that Obito was the architect of this slaughter, and their collective gaze shifted to him with trembling dread.
"Stop... struggling. All of you."
"You have endured for far too long," Obito stated coldly.
The crimson moon cast a deeply ominous, blood-red hue over the battlefield. Off in the distance, Gaara used his sand to carry Orochimaru and his group back to the front lines.
Tsunade, ultimately, had not survived the journey. She had passed away along the road.
As Gaara, Orochimaru, and Suigetsu surveyed the horrific state of the battlefield, their faces stiffened in mutual shock.
Even Shikamaru was currently lying on the ground, clinging to a fading thread of life after having his chakra ruthlessly vacuumed away.
Kanon looked around at the weeping, the screaming, and the deep sorrow echoing through the air.
To her, it sounded like the most beautiful symphony imaginable. Her body began to sway gently to the rhythm of the desperate cries.
She began to dance alone. Amidst the graveyard of the battlefield, every single movement she made mirrored someone struggling on the precipice of absolute despair, yet it was executed with haunting elegance.
The air grew heavy and stagnant, as if time itself were being swallowed whole by this endless darkness.
Yet, Kanon was completely relaxed. She moved her body in a frenzied, ecstatic dance. In this moment, she felt like she was finally the absolute center of her own universe.
She had been swallowed by loneliness and despair for so long that the memories usually made her feel suffocated. But right now, she felt nothing but pure, unadulterated liberation.
The remaining survivors watched her dance, mesmerized by how graceful and utterly natural it was. What stood out most was her face, a stark, intoxicating blend of serenity and madness.
Gradually, Kanon's hands glided down to her sides, her footsteps grinding to a halt as the weeping around her began to quiet down.
Obito floated down from behind her, planting his feet firmly by her side as he murmured softly:
"Just as you desired, the era of shinobi has come to an end. There will be no more future."
"Every single one of those so-called dreams will cease to exist."
Kanon glanced sideways at Obito. Suddenly, she burst into a manic, resounding laugh.
"Hahahahahahaha!"
Hearing her sudden outburst, Obito froze, looking at her with utter bewilderment. Naruto and the others were equally taken aback.
As Kanon's laughter echoed across the terrain, a tense silence fell over the field, drawing the attention of even Hashirama and Madara from their distant clash.
"What kind of hilarious joke are you telling?!"
"What do you mean, 'every so-called dream will cease to exist'?"
"I have been moving forward for the sake of my dream this entire time. Aren't you doing the exact same thing?!"
With a sharp clank, Kanon drove her Kusanagi Sword straight into the earth, slamming her foot onto its hilt. She roared at the top of her lungs, her voice tearing through the dead silence of the battlefield:
"As long as a person is still drawing breath, their dream will never end!!!"
The proclamation left the field completely speechless. Yet, Kanon's fiery declaration acted as a massive shot of adrenaline to everyone present, whether it was Naruto, the Allied Forces, Obito, or Madara.
It was the absolute truth. They were all fighting to the death for the sake of their respective dreams. That was their original intent, wasn't it?
Obito turned his gaze back to Naruto and the others, delivering a flat ultimatum: "If you cease your resistance, I will spare your lives."
Naruto, deeply moved by the raw weight of Kanon's words, felt tears spill from his eyes.
"If you don't want to live with regrets, do absolutely nothing."
"If we do nothing... will we really get to live?" one of the shinobi asked, his voice shaking violently.
"Yes. You will no longer have to endure the humiliation and burdens brought by death. You will pass on to a world of dreams."
Seeing the Allied Forces entirely abandon their will to fight, Hashirama's wood clone realized how catastrophic the situation had become and bellowed to the crowd:
"Do not give up! If you succumb to a genjutsu, how are you any different from a corpse?!"
Despite his cries, the Allied Shinobi Forces showed no signs of snapping out of their stupor.
Over by Naruto, the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, began analyzing the entity:
"That massive tree is intimately linked to Obito. It functions like his literal hands and feet to harvest chakra. We must not approach it recklessly."
Suddenly, Orochimaru's voice drifted over from behind them. "To be so timid... that doesn't sound like you at all, Sarutobi-sensei." Orochimaru's vanguard stepped fully onto the battlefield.
"Orochimaru."
"You're far too late. Where are the Five Kage?" Hiruzen questioned.
"Four of the Kage have fallen. The Kazekage is the sole survivor among them." Orochimaru's tone was entirely detached, but Hiruzen's expression darkened instantly. Tsunade was his student, one of the legendary Sannin.
For even Tsunade to have perished meant the battle against Madara had been unimaginably harrowing. Standing nearby, Naruto caught the horrific news, and his expression gradually went entirely blank.
Orochimaru's gaze, however, drifted past them, locking onto Kanon standing atop her embedded sword, and Sasuke standing beside Jugo.
"Let me see what kind of wind you two siblings will whip up next."
Orochimaru could tell that Sasuke's mood was exceptionally foul. Sasuke stared intently at Kanon and Obito; though his face remained a mask of calm, a tempest was raging within his soul.
In his mind, fragments of his childhood flashed like an unstoppable torrent. The memories of the time he had shared with Kanon grew sharper and more vivid than ever before.
But Sasuke understood one thing clearly: the Infinite Tsukuyomi was wrong. He had to stop his sister. And perhaps, the only one capable of stopping Kanon was a fellow Uchiha, himself.
The moment Madara and Hashirama broke away from a fierce exchange, Hashirama demanded, "When will it bloom?!"
"The Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails Jinchuriki are both still breathing. You should understand what that means," Madara replied smoothly.
Hashirama was no fool. He knew the God Tree required the full chakra of the Eight and Nine-Tails to bloom.
Before Hashirama could speak, Madara added, "However, as long as the tree contains even a trace fraction of those two Tailed Beasts' chakra, it will suffice."
"In other words, it's not that it cannot bloom. It simply needs a little time. Roughly fifteen minutes."
Madara brandished a black receiver rod in his hand, casually laying bare his true intentions. "During this interval, I will incapacitate Obito and take his place. And I will be utilizing your Sage power to do so."
Hashirama surveyed the surrounding area. He needed to disseminate the vital intelligence he had just wrung out of Madara.
He immediately began scanning the field for a member of the Yamanaka clan. With Ino's telepathic assistance, Hashirama successfully relayed Madara's data to every remaining member of the Allied Forces.
At that moment, Obito subtly raised his hand. The chakra he had harvested thus far was still far too meager. His eyes locked onto Kanon down below. Perhaps if he absorbed Kanon's massive chakra reserves, it would provide more than enough power to force the tree to bloom instantly.
He manipulated the wooden roots, causing them to surge forward and encircle Kanon in dense, overlapping layers. But to Obito's utter astonishment, the vines made no attempt to siphon her chakra. Instead, they merely coiled and hovered around her in a submissive circle.
This bizarre display did not escape the notice of the survivors. Everyone stared at Obito in sheer shock.
"Infighting?!"
"Quick! Stop him! If that child's chakra gets absorbed, the tree will bloom instantly!" Hashirama roared.
But in the next heartbeat, the crowd was left utterly dumbfounded. The roots snapped back, retreating dozens of meters away from her as if burnt.
Standing dead in the center, Kanon remained completely untouched. She had known all along that Obito would pull a stunt like this; the fox had simply shown his tail far earlier than expected.
Kanon merely cast a mocking glance at Obito. While he was plotting against her, had it never crossed his mind that she was orchestrating his downfall as well?
Sure enough, Sasuke took a definitive step forward. Looking back at Naruto, who was staring blankly at Obito and Kanon with tears streaming down his face, Sasuke said quietly:
"Naruto? Are you seriously throwing in the towel already?"
"I'm going on ahead."
BOOM!
Sasuke's Susanoo erupted into existence, ascending straight into its fourth form. Under the magnifying influence of Jugo's Sage Transformation, the distinctive patterns of the Cursed Seal: State One rippled across the Susanoo's armor, elevating it into a Senjutsu state.
Naruto stared at Sasuke's retreating back. Suddenly, a massive torrent of Nine-Tails' chakra exploded from his body. In that singular instant, every living soul on the battlefield felt the raw, unyielding weight of Naruto's heart.
Through Ino's telepathic network, Naruto's absolute resolve was instantaneously projected into the minds of the entire Allied Forces.
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NOTE: This fic has been completely translated. If you want to read the whole story head over to my p-atre-on: p-atre-on.c-om/Overgod [Just remove the hyphen to access normally]