Chapter 311: The Witch vs. The Asura
Land of Frost battlefield
"BROTHER!!!"
A cry, half-grief, half-fury, tore across the battlefield — Killer Bee watching, helpless, as his brother was sealed inside the Red Gourd.
Just as the Hokage's Binding Rope had been about to catch Killer Bee, the Fourth Raikage had suddenly thrown himself in front of him instead, blocking the attack — which forced his own word of power out of him, and Tobirama had wasted no time striking it with the Seven-Star Sword, sealing the Fourth Raikage away in the process.
"Bee. Stand down."
A thick, powerful arm blocked Killer Bee's path.
"Third!"
Killer Bee wanted to keep fighting, but the Third Raikage's gaze had already shifted, fixed on something far in the distance.
There—
A chakra signature had appeared. One that should have been long dead.
So the one behind this Edo Tensei has even found him, then.
Which meant this fight was far from over.
Not just the Third Raikage — Sakura and Tobirama both turned toward that same direction.
"That's... Madara Uchiha."
"Damn Orochimaru..."
Tobirama's expression tightened.
He was operating in his own living body right now, and dealing with the Gold and Silver Brothers had already drained a substantial amount of his chakra. If Madara Uchiha joined the fight now, there wasn't much more he'd be able to contribute.
Not just Sakura and Tobirama — Hiruzen, Itachi, even Sasuke, all turned toward the same direction.
"Old man. You and Itachi go find Orochimaru."
"Take him down."
Sakura turned to look at Hiruzen and Itachi.
"Sakura, what about me?"
Naruto popped up from the side.
"Go help Sasuke. A bandaged guy and someone with a little mustache, and you two still haven't finished them off."
"What about Madara Uchiha..."
"I'm worried—"
Tobirama started, grave, but was cut off before he could finish.
"Worried?"
"About the man who lost to the First Hokage?"
"Why would he not be worried about me?"
The Hokage let out a cold laugh, as if this legendary figure — who'd once dominated the shinobi world decades ago — meant nothing at all to her.
And to be fair, when you actually tallied it up, this Hokage's own record of accomplishments hardly fell short of the so-called Shinobi's Asura himself.
"Watch."
She raised a hand toward Killer Bee, and that single, simple gesture alone was enough to put both him and the Third Raikage on full alert.
The Hokage let out a soft laugh at that and lowered her hand.
"The Shinobi's Asura, huh."
"Guess I'll find out exactly what he's made of."
Her words eased some of the tension that had gripped everyone present.
A new legend now stood right in front of them. Why fear some relic from a bygone era?
"Let's go."
Hiruzen gave the Hokage — still standing atop Matatabi's head — one long, deep look, then turned to Itachi.
Itachi nodded quietly in return.
The two of them would need to trace the connection running through Orochimaru's Edo Tensei technique to locate him directly, and end him.
...
Atop the rise
A man clad in crimson armor slowly opened his eyes.
"So that's how it is. Nagato's grown up, has he?"
Madara opened his eyes and looked down at his own hand — but his first words alone made Orochimaru, standing beside him, narrow his eyes.
"Looks like there's more going on here than meets the eye."
Orochimaru ran his tongue across his lips, and the newly awakened Madara turned to look at the man beside him.
"Who are you?"
No sense of touch. No sense of taste. And his body felt unnaturally fragile.
Madara took stock of his own condition, then looked at Orochimaru.
"Just a nobody, really."
Orochimaru's answer made Madara's brow furrow.
So that brat Obito couldn't even keep my own remains properly secured...
Letting an outsider get their hands on them, and use them for Edo Tensei, no less.
Madara understood the mechanics of Edo Tensei perfectly well. That treacherous white-haired rat, Tobirama, had once used exactly this technique on relatives of the enemy, rigging them with Mutual Detonation Explosive Tags specifically to target opposing powerhouses.
Madara had always found the tactic thoroughly beneath him.
And now, here he was, revived through Edo Tensei — not through the Outer Path — Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique he'd expected.
"A nobody?"
Madara studied the man before him — this was, evidently, an avatar of whoever had performed the Edo Tensei summoning. An unusual one, though — Madara could clearly sense actual flesh and blood within him.
"Managing to revive me through Edo Tensei means you're no longer a nobody at all."
"Take pride in that."
Madara regarded Orochimaru calmly. He could tell the man's control over him wasn't especially strong — which was exactly why he was willing to engage in this conversation calmly at all.
"Speak, then. What do you want from me?"
Madara looked out over the battlefield, his gaze settling, unbidden, on the white Susanoo among the coalition's ranks.
By now, that Susanoo had shed its full form, engaging the Second Tsuchikage and Second Mizukage with only its half-body armor.
"That's the pair from Iwagakure and Kirigakure — both worthless."
"So that's the current generation's Uchiha, then."
"Not bad."
Madara gave the appraisal like a critic weighing in, satisfaction visible as he regarded the Susanoo in the coalition's ranks.
"Correct. That's the current Uchiha."
"But you don't need to deal with him."
"There's someone else. Stronger than him."
Orochimaru stepped up to stand beside Madara.
"Oh?"
"Who?"
Orochimaru's words caught Madara's interest.
With his own eye for these things, he could already tell that Uchiha in the coalition's ranks wielded the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
If even the Eternal Mangekyō wasn't the strongest this era had to offer, then who exactly could claim that title?
"Look over there."
Orochimaru pointed off into the distance, and Matatabi's massive form came into Madara's view.
"That's the Two-Tails..."
"No..."
Across several thousand meters, a pair of calm, unshaken green eyes met Madara's own.
"Interesting."
The corner of Madara's mouth curled upward. What had he seen in those eyes?
Calm.
A calm that extended to everything.
"That's the Hokage. The Fifth Hokage."
"The strongest person alive in the shinobi world today."
"Even that Nagato you mentioned earlier — he died at her hands."
Orochimaru's words made Madara's expression darken considerably.
"Nagato... is dead?"
The Rinnegan in Nagato's eyes had been central to Madara's own resurrection plans. If Nagato was dead now, whose hands did that Rinnegan rest in?
"Nagato led a coalition force of twenty-three thousand shinobi from the Land of Wind, the Land of Earth, the Land of Rain, and the Land of Snow to confront the Fifth Hokage directly on the Land of Rain front."
"The Hokage brought three hundred of her own. Total victory."
"Beyond the Third Tsuchikage and the acting Kazekage both dying, five more top-tier fighters died and two fled — Obito Uchiha being one of the ones who escaped."
"The entire coalition force of over twenty thousand was completely routed."
Orochimaru crossed his arms, laying out the events of the Land of Rain front with casual ease.
Madara's eyes narrowed slightly at that.
He'd already learned this classified intelligence through the coalition's own channels. Barely a day had passed since it happened — right now, only a handful of people in the entire coalition even knew this information existed.
"If that's true, then this Hokage really is formidable."
"You want me to deal with this Fifth Hokage, then?"
Madara nodded slightly. Orochimaru had specifically mentioned Obito by name, though.
Does this man know something?
"Naturally. Without you, we've found no other realistic path to victory."
Orochimaru said with a light laugh, entirely unhurried, as though none of this pressed on him at all.
"The vessel I selected for your Edo Tensei was arranged specially, in coordination with the White Snake Sage of Ryūchi Cave."
"It should restore your strength to the peak you held while alive."
At Orochimaru's words, Madara glanced sideways at him, and something dangerous slipped into his otherwise calm tone.
"You've witnessed my strength at its peak?"
"No. I haven't. Care to show me?"
"I can."
Madara had no particular objection to demonstrating his strength to this man who'd revived him through Edo Tensei.
From the moment he'd been brought back through this method, there was no version of events where this scheming man could actually control him.
And besides — he needed to learn exactly where the Rinnegan, and Obito, currently stood.
Which made the ideal target abundantly clear.
The Hokage who'd killed Nagato.
Madara leapt down from the rise, landing on the ground below in a flurry of snow, and walked forward without a glance at the surrounding coalition shinobi.
He ignored the Second Tsuchikage. Ignored the Second Mizukage. Ignored Sasuke, still rampaging through the coalition ranks.
Step by step, he walked forward.
Onto the path that led straight to the Hokage.
The coalition shinobi, seeing the marks of Edo Tensei across Madara's body, understood immediately that he was an ally, and cleared a path for him without hesitation.
That man...
He's no ordinary presence!
Sasuke — having just used Amatsukami to guide Mū's hidden Dust Release strike straight into the Second Mizukage's concealed giant clam — spotted Madara walking, step by step, toward the battlefield.
He immediately swung his massive spear at Madara.
Earth Release — Golden Rigid Technique!
But a towering stone giant materialized directly in Susanoo's path, intercepting the blow.
Madara didn't so much as glance at Sasuke, continuing forward without pause.
"Didn't expect even you'd be summoned back."
Mū, in the air, released his seal and looked at Madara.
"Heh. Be grateful. This time, you're not my enemy."
Madara only acknowledged Mū with that single reply, not slowing his steps at all.
"You haven't changed a bit, have you."
Mū glanced at him and said nothing further.
Madara had no interest in the exchange either way.
Step by step, he closed in, walking directly onto the battlefield where the Hokage stood.
"A woman?"
Madara looked at the figure ahead of him, faintly surprised.
The Hokage had leapt down from atop Matatabi, landing on the ground below.
Dust stirred faintly beneath her feet.
It felt like two entirely different worlds — behind Madara lay endless snow and bitter cold; behind the Hokage, a lush, verdant forest.
"This era really is full of worthless people, if they can't even bring down a single girl."
Madara shot a cold glance at the Third and Fifth Raikage.
"Madara Uchiha. You're nothing more than a missing-nin of Konoha."
"And you dare speak so freely here."
"As Konoha's Hokage, I've never once shown mercy toward a missing-nin."
The Hokage said it calmly, and something tightened in Tobirama's expression behind her.
Konoha's missing-nin...
In a certain sense, calling Madara that wasn't just accurate — he'd been Konoha's very first missing-nin.
"Madara Uchiha. Watch yourself."
"Wouldn't want you capsizing your own ship in calm water."
The Third Raikage rumbled from behind Madara, low and gruff.
"Since when does a brat like you get to lecture me?"
Madara let out a cold laugh, his black eyes fixed on the Hokage ahead of him.
He was Madara Uchiha. The Shinobi's Asura. With Hashirama Senju gone, who could possibly be his match?
"Keep the Eight-Tails here. You can leave."
Madara's words carried not a shred of courtesy, and the Third Raikage's expression darkened at the dismissal.
"Tobirama Senju. Didn't expect you'd been revived too."
"Not that it matters. This way, I get to kill you with my own hands again."
With Madara's own sharp eye, he'd immediately recognized Tobirama's true condition.
"Heh heh. Feel free to try."
Tobirama returned Madara's stare with a cold laugh of his own.
"The Fifth Hokage, is it?"
"Tell me. Where's the Rinnegan right now?"
Madara crossed his arms, an unspoken, commanding presence radiating from him without effort.
At that moment, with both sides' strongest fighters finally facing each other, every other battle across the field ground, involuntarily, to a halt.
Everyone gathered behind their respective champions.
The Hokage and Madara, facing off at the center of it all.
The Asura of old, against the Witch of the present.
Which of them would prove the stronger?
"Sakura. This guy..."
Sasuke, breathing hard, watched the confrontation with a grim expression.
"I know."
The Hokage said, calm.
"Pass the word. Everyone below elite jōnin, fall back."
Kakashi's expression sharpened, and he immediately began directing Konoha's forces to retreat to a safer distance.
Madara, watching the Hokage regard him as though he were nothing at all, felt no anger at the dismissal — only genuine curiosity, studying her closely.
"I'll give you one chance. Submit to me."
"There'll be a place for you at my side, going forward."
As far as Madara was concerned, aside from Hashirama Senju, no one alive had ever been worth his full effort.
Not even the Hokage standing before him now.
"Heh..."
"Madara Uchiha. Have you lost your grip on the current situation?"
"A mere missing-nin — if the First Hokage hadn't shown you mercy back then—"
"Do you really think you'd have any chance of standing before me today?"
Pink hair streaming in the wind, Sakura fixed the man before her with a cold, sharp gaze.
"Lost my grip on the situation?"
"And exactly who is it that's lost theirs?"
Madara let out a scornful laugh — and in the next instant!
His body vanished entirely!
Madara's movement seemed to serve as the signal, and every other fight across the field erupted back into motion at once!
But Madara's own target was unmistakable.
Sakura, the Hokage herself.
"Wait—"
The Third Raikage, seeing Madara move to engage the Fifth Hokage in pure taijutsu with such arrogance, instinctively moved to stop him.
But before he could finish the word—
A dark shape shot backward past him at tremendous speed!
That was—
Madara Uchiha!
Madara scrambled to correct his own trajectory mid-flight, using the ground to bleed off the overwhelming force.
His feet tore two deep trenches into the earth before he finally, barely, came to a stop!
This—
Madara's expression shifted slightly. One of his arms had already shattered, countless fragments of paper rapidly reassembling.
That's an incredible amount of raw strength.
A single blow like that could have killed a tailed beast outright.
"Oh?"
"That was some pretty big talk for someone performing like this."
The Hokage still held her fist extended from the punch, a faint wisp of smoke curling up from her knuckles.
The entire battlefield fell silent.
Every eye stared, wide, at what had just happened.
The so-called Shinobi's Asura, Madara Uchiha, hadn't lived up to the reputation everyone had expected of him at all...
Rasa had been crushed with a single punch by the Hokage earlier. And now Madara had just been crushed the exact same way.
Which meant, as far as the Hokage was concerned—
Rasa equaled Madara Uchiha?
"Raw strength like that — even Hashirama himself never possessed it."
"Of every shinobi I've ever encountered, none has ever matched your strength."
"On the matter of pure power, I, Madara Uchiha, would call you the strongest alive."
Madara brushed dust from his shoulder, speaking unhurried.
"Heh. Quite the arrogant statement."
"Do I need your approval for that?"
The Hokage's expression didn't shift, watching him with a cold smile.
"Arrogant? Who exactly is being arrogant here?"
Madara formed a seal with both hands, having already, roughly, worked out her fighting style.
Raw strength. Unmatched by anyone.
That strength had turned her body into something monstrously formidable — a single casual punch that no one could withstand.
And beyond that, that same strength granted her absolute explosive speed as well.
Can't afford close-range combat with her...
"Fire Release — Great Annihilation Fire."
A raging sea of flame erupted from Madara's mouth, sweeping toward the Hokage ahead of him.
Like Water Release, Fire Release's power scaled directly with the caster's chakra reserves. A blaze covering that much ground alone spoke to the sheer scale of Madara's chakra.
"Wide-area technique."
Tobirama observed the all-too-familiar sight.
"I've got this!"
A slender figure shot forward from behind, hands weaving through seals.
"Water Release — Water Flow Wall!"
Mei Terumi's Water Release rose in a wave every bit as overwhelming as the wall of fire bearing down on it.
Steam erupted where fire met water, filling the battlefield, obscuring everyone's vision entirely.
At that moment, the Hokage's expression sharpened — a shape like a small mountain was closing in on her through the white steam.
Water Release — Vapor Detonation Technique!
Concealed within the steam, Gengetsu was controlling a bloated, twenty-to-thirty-meter clone, primed to detonate at any moment.
The Hokage regarded it coldly, and at that moment, another figure shot forward beside her.
"Wind Release — Rasengan Shuriken!"
Naruto hurled a technique that screamed through the air with an ear-splitting shriek, resembling a massive Wind Style shuriken, straight at the bloated Vapor Detonation clone.
The Rasengan Shuriken looked, on the surface, like a devastating, city-leveling technique.
But that was only its most superficial layer of power.
In truth, it worked by using razor-sharp, all-permeating Wind Release chakra to attack at the cellular level.
The Vapor Detonation Technique, meanwhile, worked by exploiting the properties of water and oil, accumulating built-up steam inside the clone's body for repeated high-temperature explosions.
A single Rasengan Shuriken struck, and the Vapor Detonation clone's water and oil separated instantly, the technique collapsing outright!
"Huh?"
"That technique's actually pretty weak."
"Sasuke, you got held up by this guy for that long?"
Naruto, watching the clone collapse so easily, couldn't help but comment.
"..."
Sasuke had something to say to that, but the scene in front of him left him without a response.
If he hadn't used Amatsukami earlier to steer Mū's Dust Release into destroying Gengetsu's hidden giant clam, that single Rasengan Shuriken wouldn't have even grazed the Vapor Detonation clone at all.
"No more talk."
"Naruto, Sasuke, Karin — you three go seal the Second Tsuchikage and Second Mizukage."
"Mei, take the Fourth Mizukage and Fourth Kazekage."
"Tobirama, seal the Fifth Kazekage."
"Kakashi, Guy, Asuma, Hiashi — handle the Third Raikage. If you can't finish him, wait for reinforcements."
"Madara's mine."
The Hokage launched herself forward, straight into the endless wall of steam.
At her command, Konoha's fighters scattered instantly, each moving to their assigned target.
Sakura dove headfirst into the steam, activating the Heavenly Canopy Method instantly.
With her own natural speed, she could locate Madara almost immediately.
By then, Madara had already finished forming his seals. He knew exactly that the Hokage was closing in on him, and to avoid close-quarters combat with her, he chose to rely on his own techniques to end this instead.
His choice—
"Wood Release — Birth of a Blossoming World!"
In an instant, the earth surged to life, the ground beneath Madara's feet granted life itself, and countless massive vines burst up from the earth!
Towering, ancient trees materialized before everyone present.
Wood Release — the very power Hashirama Senju had once wielded to sweep across the entire shinobi world and end the Warring States era — manifested once again.
This was the technique Madara had cultivated after their final battle at the Valley of the End, having torn a piece of flesh from Hashirama's own body and cultivated it into a power that stood above every other kekkei genkai in existence.
Those countless towering, ancient trees surged forward like a tidal wave, straight at the charging Hokage.
And beyond that, massive flower buds bloomed across the trees!
Driven by Madara's chakra, they burst open all at once, releasing a thick cloud of pale yellow pollen into the air!
But the Hokage only let out a cold laugh at the sight.
Using poison against her?!
How laughably naive.
Everyone in the shinobi world knew she was the single strongest medical shinobi alive!
She ignored the pollen cloud engulfing her entirely, charging straight at Madara without deviation.
Any tree that dared block her path was shattered instantly beneath her iron fists.
"A relic of a bygone era shouldn't embarrass itself here."
The Hokage let out a cold laugh, already closing in on Madara.
Blazing pink chakra gathered across her fist, and without hesitation, she drove it straight at him.
But Madara's eyes snapped open sharply, and in an instant, his black eyes transformed into the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan!
Green eyes met the Eternal Mangekyō in that same instant.
Sharingan — Mirror Heaven and Earth Reversal!
Madara meant to use genjutsu to buy himself the distance he needed to disengage.
At this range, given the raw power she'd already displayed, even his first-stage Susanoo wouldn't be enough to block her outright.
Which left genjutsu — the Uchiha's own signature specialty.
But Madara's genjutsu had no effect on Sakura whatsoever — the blazing pink fist landed squarely on his shoulder without hesitation!
Paper scattered violently outward. If not for Madara's own lightning reflexes, that single punch would have taken his head clean off.
Before Madara could recover, another punch landed on his other shoulder!
Another arm shattered apart!
"Tch..."
Madara looked down at his own ruined arms, unable to hold back a curse.
At that moment, his eyes shifted from the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan into a pair of pale-lavender, ripple-patterned eyes.
The Rinnegan!
"Shinra—"
"—Tensei!"
An absolute, indiscriminate repulsive force erupted outward from Madara's body in every direction.
The trees around him were obliterated instantly by the force — but the Hokage's robe merely snapped in the wind, her pink hair whipping wild, as she held her ground against Shinra Tensei through sheer physical force alone.
"Hm?"
"What?!"
Madara's expression shifted with genuine shock, and at the same moment, he felt an invisible force suddenly bearing down on him.
His already-shattered, armless body, under that added pressure, crumbled apart entirely.
Because of how the force interacted, Shinra Tensei ended up acting directly on his own already-fractured Edo Tensei body.
And because of that same technique, he found himself sent flying backward once again!
"A shinobi of the modern era, hm..."
Mid-flight, Madara looked deeply at the Hokage giving chase behind him.
"So what will you do now..."
At that moment, a massive shadow fell across the entire battlefield!
"HEAVENLY CANOPY QUAKING STAR!!!"
(End of chapter.)
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