Chapter 305: You Have No Obligation to Face an Enemy You Simply Cannot Beat
While Sasuke and Karin were still en route, the battle on the Land of Rain front had already escalated into something white-hot.
Two figures streaked across the sky like bolts of light, every clash between them detonating with a sound like rolling thunder.
"Not bad, for someone who's only just gotten his body back."
"I should give you credit — living up to the Uzumaki bloodline, I suppose."
Watching Nagato barrel toward her like an artillery shell, the Hokage hovered high above, expression cold.
Dozens more exchanges passed in the blink of an eye, and with every physical clash, Nagato could feel his body screaming in protest.
If this keeps up...
I'll lose.
Just as the Hokage had said — that he'd managed this level of performance only three days after his body's full restoration was already enough to put him above nearly every shinobi alive.
But—
Since when did an ordinary shinobi become the ceiling every other shinobi in the world measured themselves against?
He carried the Rinnegan, after all!
Having just been forced to shield his body with Earth Release again, weathering the Hokage's punch head-on with Shinra Tensei, Nagato dropped quickly back down to the ground.
If I lose here...
Then Konan can never be brought back.
Her target was the Rinnegan itself.
Thinking of that, Nagato had no idea whether what he was about to try would even work — but he had to use every option he had, or lose everything.
A third arm suddenly emerged from his shoulder, and with a mechanical whine, transformed into a laser cannon aimed at the Hokage, high above.
The Asura Path!
A beam of white-hot laser fired from the cannon.
At the same time, Nagato pressed his palms together, drawing all his chakra into a single, converging point.
Clearly, the Asura Path's cannon had only ever been meant to buy time for the next technique.
Watching the white beam bearing down on her, the Hokage's chakra ignited, blazing pink around her raised hand, absorbing the terrifying heat of the beam outright.
And then—
She crushed it.
A violent explosion erupted from her palm — but for all its apparent power, the blast did nothing more than stir the Hokage's ponytail slightly.
Given how often her raw chakra output tore through cloth hair ties, she'd started using a metal accessory to bind her hair instead, at some point.
Nagato felt no real surprise at watching the Asura Path's laser get crushed with one bare hand.
Or rather — for a technique with power comparable to an A-rank jutsu to be casually crushed like that was, at this point, simply what one expected from the Fifth Hokage.
No other explanation needed.
Simply because his opponent was her.
But the Asura Path's ability had bought him exactly the time he needed — his own technique was already fully prepared.
Between his hands, a black sphere had taken shape.
A sphere black beyond black. Terrifyingly, impossibly dark.
As though not even light itself could illuminate it.
This was the technique Nagato had staked everything on.
"Chibaku Tensei!"
The black sphere shot skyward, straight at the Hokage.
The legendary technique the Sage of the Six Paths himself had once used to seal his own mother, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
Once unleashed, even a Six Paths-level being couldn't break free of it!
But—
That had been the Sage of the Six Paths.
The black sphere hovered before the Hokage, and then—
A miracle unfolded.
The earth trembled. The air shrieked. The sky itself seemed to weep.
Dust, boulders, trees, even entire mountain peaks defied gravity in that instant, hurtling skyward.
"EVERYONE!"
"FALL BACK!"
Yuki sensed the danger of the technique immediately, and Matatabi screamed at her, frantic, from within to flee.
"Think you're leaving?!"
Nagato's expression sharpened, and he thrust his palm toward Yuki, a thousand meters away.
He wasn't just here to crush the Hokage. He'd take the Two-Tails jinchūriki while he was at it.
"HAH!"
At his furious shout, countless stones and earth shot toward Yuki at tremendous speed!
At the same time, Yuki sensed a force pulling at her, her body dragged inexorably toward the swelling black sphere overhead.
"Damn it!"
Yuki's eyes went hard, ready to transform to escape the pull — but Matatabi screamed at her, frantic, not to be so reckless.
Bigger body, more surface area for the pull to grab.
At that exact moment, a shooting star wreathed in pink flame streaked down from the sky, shattering the boulder about to seize Yuki, in an instant.
Nagato's chest tightened at the sight.
A kunai. Launched from the sky.
Carrying the unmistakable signature of that particular chakra flame.
He looked up — and saw the Hokage already caught, pulled into Chibaku Tensei, only a single green eye visible through the gaps in the swirling debris, watching him, cold.
And as another chunk of earth swallowed her from view, Nagato couldn't be sure if it was his imagination—
But in that instant, that emerald eye had seemed, briefly, to flash gold.
Not now. Not the right moment to go after the Two-Tails.
The Hokage first.
With that decided, Nagato formed another seal, the vast torrent of chakra inside him surging violently once more.
"Wood Release — Birth of Dense Woodland!"
This was the one Wood Release technique he'd managed to learn in these three days. He had no idea why Obito had access to the First Hokage's own techniques, but that hardly mattered right now.
Nagato's chakra poured into the earth, and in that instant, he breathed life into the ground itself.
Massive trees, thick as buildings, shot upward from the soil as if time itself had been sped up.
Growing.
Growing.
Spreading, reaching toward the massive sphere hanging in the sky.
Hundreds of meters up, within moments, countless trees had already wound their way into the sphere, sprouting, branching, growing further still.
It was some time before, finally, everything settled.
Nagato looked up at the colossal structure now hanging before him, released the seal, and doubled over, gasping for breath.
This was Nagato's strongest sealing technique — his single most powerful jutsu, period.
The chakra it consumed dwarfed even Super Shinra Tensei by an order of magnitude.
And now, that colossal creation stood before everyone present.
The massive sphere, wrapped entirely in a tower of living wood, stretched from the sky to the earth, forming something like a vast, verdant structure that might have grown there naturally, on its own.
"This... is the power of the Rinnegan?"
Kitsuchi, having safely retreated to a distance, stared, trembling, at the almost divine creation before him.
It wasn't just Kitsuchi — even Obito found his attention drawn entirely to the towering structure.
Inner Sakura stared blankly up at the thing in the sky, then vanished with a soft pop, right in front of Obito, dissolving into white smoke.
"Now..."
Nagato glanced at Yuki, retreated with her forces to the edge of the battlefield, and chose not to pursue her again.
Chibaku Tensei had already fully formed — he couldn't use it again to capture her now.
What he needed to do now was bring Konan back.
The longer someone stayed dead, the harder resurrection became. Once a soul died, it traveled toward the Pure Land. Nagato had to pull Konan back from that threshold before her soul crossed over completely.
Even having just cast Chibaku Tensei, reviving one person wasn't beyond what his fully restored body could manage.
He pressed his hands together in a seal, and Konan's body materialized before him once more.
Looking at the woman before him, still as though merely asleep, Nagato's expression softened.
"Wait for me, Konan."
Ignoring the emptiness draining through his body, Nagato pressed his palms together once more.
The Rinnegan in his eyes spun, pushed to its absolute limit.
"Outer Path — Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique!"
A terrifying statue of the King of Hell materialized as the technique activated.
Then, before Nagato's eyes, a green soul shot out from the statue's mouth, settling instantly onto Konan's body.
At the same moment, Konan's body began healing at rapid speed, the heart — reduced nearly to pulp — reforming, restoring itself, and beginning to beat once more, all under the Rinnegan's power.
Nagato released the technique immediately afterward.
Every resurrection took its toll on his body. Only Konan — only Konan alone — was worth that price.
"Na... Nagato."
"You..."
In his arms, Konan's eyelids fluttered, and she looked up at the familiar man before her.
"Konan."
Seeing her alive again, Nagato couldn't stop himself from pulling her into a tight embrace.
"Konan, I..."
Seeing the woman he loved brought back to life, Nagato opened his mouth, ready to say something more.
But—
A sound reached him, and his eyes flew wide.
That was—
The sound of a small stone striking the ground.
An ordinary, unremarkable sound under any other circumstances — and yet it landed on Nagato's heart like a hammer blow.
He looked up almost involuntarily.
Toward the sky. Toward Chibaku Tensei, wrapped entirely in that towering wood structure.
That stone — it had fallen from the sphere itself.
Like a line of falling dominoes, that single stone triggered a tremor across the entire structure!
The massive sphere, held aloft by its tower of living wood, began to shake. To crack. To groan, as if in pain.
As the massive sphere in the sky split open, a blinding thread of gold flame burst out through the fracture.
"What... is that?"
Konan sat up in Nagato's arms, staring, grim, at the sphere overhead.
She didn't need to ask. She already knew.
That was the Hokage.
Watching this, Nagato's expression softened suddenly, and he turned to look at the woman who'd stood beside him for half his life.
"Konan. Go back now."
"I'll handle this."
Before Konan could respond, Nagato moved to fly up and reinforce the crumbling sphere.
But a delicate hand caught his wrist.
"Nagato..."
Konan looked at him, her face full of sorrow, tears welling as she pleaded.
"Don't..."
"Let's go home. Back to that little house we used to have."
"You have no obligation to face an enemy you simply cannot beat."
"You must understand that by now!"
Having died once, and been brought back, Konan no longer wanted to keep fighting.
She was tired.
All she wanted was to live — safely, peacefully, quietly — beside Nagato.
"Cannot beat...?"
"I... don't understand what you mean."
Nagato gently but firmly pried Konan's hand from his wrist, and strode forward, resolute, even as her tearful eyes watched him go.
Things had gone too far now. There was no walking away from this.
However this played out, if he ran, the shinobi coalition wouldn't spare him. And neither would the Hokage.
(End of chapter.)
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