Chapter 306: The Death of Nagato
The sky shuddered. The imprisoned star wept. The tower of living wood groaned in pain.
The single most powerful sealing technique the Rinnegan could produce — and it was already failing to hold the Hokage contained inside it.
The outer layer of trees cracked and snapped, one after another. Nagato, straining to steady his own churning chakra — as unsettled as his own state of mind — watched the scene unfold, grim.
Gold flame seeped out through crack after crack across the surface of Chibaku Tensei, licking at the edges of his strongest sealing technique.
If someone had told Nagato, before any of this began, that anyone could break free of Chibaku Tensei by force, he would have taken it as a joke.
And yet now, that same absurdity was unfolding right in front of him.
BOOM!
A massive boulder broke free and plummeted from the sphere, kicking up a wall of dust, whipping at Nagato's robes.
As the stone fell, the gold flame only burned brighter, spreading rapidly across the entire surface of the sphere.
Like a blazing sun had taken root in the middle of the Land of Rain's perpetually gray sky.
Boulder after boulder kept falling.
The wooden tower holding it all aloft snapped apart, section by section. The ground below cratered and split under the impacts.
A massive ball of "fire" filled Nagato's vision.
Such an overwhelming amount of chakra.
Nagato stared at the sight before him, grim.
Within that golden fireball, a single figure stood.
Pink hair. Gold eyes. Standing, unbowed, at the center of it all.
A pair of cold eyes regarded him like something divine looking down on a mortal.
Even sealed inside both Chibaku Tensei and the Birth of Dense Woodland technique together, it seemed to have registered, for her, as little more than a threshold in her path.
Something to step over, and keep walking.
Nagato watched, grim, as the Hokage broke free from the wreckage above, the golden sun around her steadily drawing back into her own body.
Until, finally—
It vanished entirely.
But Nagato understood — this wasn't over.
Those cold, golden eyes were still fixed on him.
In the next instant, the Hokage raised a hand and pointed — straight at him.
A wave of danger surged through Nagato's chest.
"Behind you."
The Hokage said.
Behind me?
Confusion flickered through Nagato's mind — and then a sharp, tearing sound roared up behind him!
He spun around instantly!
A colossal white giant had appeared behind him without warning!
And now, that hundred-meter titan was bringing a massive spear down toward him!
That was — Sasuke, arrived at the battlefield.
What?!
Fury and shock surged through Nagato in equal measure.
Nearly on reflex, he unleashed Shinra Tensei, meaning to block the blow entirely.
But—
At that same instant—
The Hokage had already appeared behind him!
Caught in a pincer attack from both sides, Nagato had no possible way to escape.
"Shinra—"
"—TENSEI!!!"
Nagato pushed his chakra to its absolute limit.
With a furious roar, an overwhelming repulsive force erupted outward from his body, indiscriminate, in every direction.
"Nagato!!!"
Out of the corner of his eye, Nagato caught sight of Konan running desperately toward him, staggering.
For a single instant, something in his heart hesitated.
And that instant was all it took.
A hand appeared directly in front of him!
It pressed against his Shinra Tensei — unleashed with everything he had — and closed over his face.
Then a wave of unbearable, gut-wrenching pain tore through him, radiating out from his left eye.
The Rinnegan—
One of them had just been torn out.
Nagato, no longer able to spare a thought for anything else, blind in one eye, tried to wrench himself free of the vice closing in between the giant and the Hokage.
But with one Rinnegan gone, his field of vision had already collapsed drastically — and in the blind spot he couldn't see, a second hand closed over his remaining eye.
"AAAHHH!!!"
Both Rinnegan, torn from him by force, and Nagato's entire world went dark, nothing but emptiness.
At that moment, the Hokage pulled back.
But the massive spear from Sasuke's full Susanoo had already fallen.
BOOM!!!
The spear slammed down onto Nagato's body with tremendous force, kicking up an endless cloud of dust.
"NAGATO!!!"
A voice tore through the air, raw with grief.
Konan stared, disbelieving, at what had just happened.
Again. Once again, she was watching someone she loved torn away from her, right before her eyes.
Grief closed around her heart, unbearable.
But then—
Hmmm!!!
An invisible repulsive force burst outward from beneath the massive spear!
That was—
Shinra Tensei?!
As if sensing something, Sakura glanced down at the two Rinnegan eyes clutched in her hand, wrapped in golden flame.
One of them dissolved into transparency before her eyes, like a fading illusion, and vanished entirely.
This was — Obito's Izanagi.
Though it seemed he'd triggered it just slightly late.
Sasuke's full Susanoo spear was knocked aside, and a figure shot free from beneath it.
Meanwhile, Nagato, breathing hard, reached up to feel where his right eye had been.
"How is it?"
Obito arrived at Nagato's side. His own three-tomoe Sharingan, the one he'd used, had already gone completely white, burned out entirely.
"Thanks."
Nagato, gasping for breath, glanced at Obito's ruined eye and said nothing further.
"Surrender, or die."
Sakura's expression stayed calm, looking at the two men before her.
Whether they had the full pair of Rinnegan together no longer mattered at this point.
Even a single Rinnegan could access all of its abilities.
Including the Outer Path — Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique.
"Figured out how you're going to handle this?"
Obito, too, looked worse for wear right now.
Though Inner Sakura's strength had noticeably declined, her top-tier combat toolkit still made her no easy opponent to shake off.
"Konan. Get out of here now."
Nagato didn't turn around, his voice quiet, resolute.
He'd lost. Neither of his Rinnegan had been a match for the Hokage. What difference would one make?
Even with Obito's help now, the enemy had Sasuke on their side too.
Nagato had already made peace with dying here.
"Nagato!"
Konan had more to say, but seeing the resolve set in his back, she stopped herself.
"Go home."
Nagato's voice reached her.
Konan's whole body trembled, her eyes filled with desperate pleading.
"Obito Uchiha. I need to ask you for one thing."
"Whatever it is you want — take it."
"Just leave Konan alone from now on."
With that, before Obito's stunned eyes, Nagato reached up and gouged out his own remaining Rinnegan — his last one — and threw it to Obito.
Then he charged forward, alone, straight at the Hokage and her towering Susanoo.
Watching Nagato's back, Obito thought, for a moment, he was looking at a reflection of his own younger self.
"Nagato!"
Konan cried out in anguish at the sight.
"Let's go."
Obito grabbed Konan by the shoulder and activated Kamui immediately, meaning to escape.
"Think you're leaving? You really think you can?"
The Hokage let out a cold laugh, and the ground beneath her exploded, launching her straight at Obito.
At that same moment, wind and fire surged together, sweeping toward her.
Nagato — completely blind now — had just cast a technique against the high-speed Hokage anyway.
This was—
Mind's Eye of the Kagura!
The moment his Rinnegan came out, the full extent of Nagato's Uzumaki bloodline had, at last, been unleashed.
Just as Kakashi had once been suppressed by the Sharingan itself.
The Sharingan had suppressed Kakashi's own chakra.
The Rinnegan had suppressed Nagato's own bloodline.
And both of them, once free of their respective dōjutsu, had finally reclaimed what should have been theirs all along.
A massive spear intercepted the space between Nagato and the Hokage, and the combined wind-and-fire technique — as devastating as it looked — was blocked outright.
But in that same brief instant—
The Hokage had already closed the distance to Obito.
And Kamui had only just finished pulling Konan through — Obito himself hadn't been transported yet.
Facing the Hokage now, right in front of him, Obito laughed instead of panicking.
The Hokage looked at him, cold, and drove her fist forward without a moment's hesitation, punching straight through his body.
More than half of Obito's body shattered under the blow, scattering in white fragments across the ground.
Obito had died again.
But the Hokage's expression turned darkly grim — no hint of satisfaction at killing him at all.
Because she'd just seen it: a single crimson eyeball, embedded into the body built from Wood Release cells.
Under her cold gaze, that crimson eyeball dimmed, steadily, and finally dissolved into a pale, empty white.
Izanagi. Again.
After being killed by the Hokage once before, Obito had implanted another Sharingan into the half of his body grafted with Wood Release cells.
Clearly, he'd set up this second Izanagi in advance, well before the battle even began — insurance for exactly this scenario.
Dammit!
Sakura couldn't stop the curse from slipping out.
Her cold gaze swept across the scattering coalition forces fleeing in every direction.
But nowhere in sight was Han, the Five-Tails jinchūriki.
"Sakura!"
Far off, from atop the crystal horn on Susanoo's forehead, Karin shouted down to her:
"Something dark and shapeless just took control of Iwagakure's jinchūriki!"
Black Zetsu!
In that instant, everything clicked into place for Sakura.
Obito and Black Zetsu's goal had never been to defeat her at all.
Their real objective had been Nagato's Rinnegan, and the jinchūriki.
She just hadn't expected that even at full strength, Nagato still hadn't stood a chance against her — losing one of his Rinnegan in the process regardless.
Looking down at the eye still in her hand, Sakura's expression eased, slightly.
Whatever else happened, there was no way Madara could take this eye from her now.
With that thought, she formed a hand seal.
"Summoning Jutsu."
With a soft puff of smoke, a palm-sized slug appeared before her.
"Sakura. Need my help with something?"
Looking at the blue-and-white slug before her, Sakura's expression eased further.
"Lady Katsuyu. Please keep this eye safe for me."
Sakura placed the Rinnegan in front of Katsuyu.
"This is... the Rinnegan?!"
Katsuyu stared, astonished.
She'd met the Sage of the Six Paths personally, once. She knew exactly how formidable the Rinnegan truly was.
"Yes. A spoil of war."
Sakura nodded.
"In that case, Sakura, rest easy."
"As long as I'm here, no one will ever take it from him."
Katsuyu nodded firmly.
With that, Sakura pressed the Rinnegan against Katsuyu's body, and under her watchful eyes, the pale-lavender, ripple-patterned eye sank into the slug's form completely.
Releasing the summoning technique, Sakura stood and glanced once at Nagato's body, run through by the full Susanoo's spear, then turned her gaze away.
"Clean up the battlefield. Finish off the stragglers."
It was time to head to the Land of Frost front.
(End of chapter.)
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