Chapter 312: Madara Uchiha, Is Your Susanoo Sturdy Enough?
God had flipped the switch on the world's own lights.
The Land of Frost, already dim under its perpetual snowfall, now sank into something darker still.
"Hokage. Your people haven't fully evacuated yet, have they."
"Care to guess whether this meteor lands on top of them?"
Madara — both arms still shattered — looked at the pink-haired girl before him, the corner of his mouth curling upward.
He understood the Hokage well enough by now.
Someone who'd sacrifice her own interests for her comrades. As Konoha's supreme leader, she'd feel obligated to answer for every one of them.
"MADARA UCHIHA!!!"
A furious roar rang out — though not from the Hokage. From Killer Bee, some distance away.
Not just Konoha's forces had failed to fully clear the area — a significant portion of coalition shinobi remained too. If a meteor this massive came down, it wouldn't just devastate Konoha — the coalition would take catastrophic losses as well.
Killer Bee had emptied Kumo's entire treasury to fund this war effort. He hadn't expected Madara — nominally an ally of the coalition — to treat his own side's lives with such total indifference.
"Living up to your reputation as the Asura, aren't you — not even sparing a thought for your own allies."
Sakura watched Madara's shattered arms continuing to knit themselves back together.
"Whatever wins the war."
"A general's victory is built on ten thousand corpses. If you can't stomach sacrifice, you'll never accomplish anything at all."
"You're the Hokage. I shouldn't need to explain that to you."
Madara regarded the young woman before him, his Rinnegan brimming with malice, his arms already half-restored.
"You're right about that."
"Unfortunately for you, though — that meteor's about the size of a slightly oversized pebble, as far as I'm concerned."
"If I had to sacrifice my own subordinates just to deal with a single pebble, I'd be a pretty poor excuse for a Hokage."
"Heh. Making a choice like that — is that exactly why Hashirama Senju never let you become the Second Hokage?"
Sakura watched Madara's expression darken sharply at that, let out a cold laugh, and launched herself skyward like an artillery shell.
"This woman..."
Madara ground his teeth, watching her go.
Was she implying I fall short of Tobirama?!
Absurd.
"What's the Hokage doing?"
Gengetsu watched the pink streak climbing into the sky.
"Stopping that meteor."
Naruto, still locked in combat with Gengetsu, grinned.
"That's Sakura for you!"
"Don't just answer me whenever you feel like it, kid!"
Gengetsu snapped, irritated.
"Hey, no-eyebrows, I wasn't even talking to you. Why so full of yourself?"
"Right, Sasuke?"
Naruto called over to Sasuke, still locked in his own fight with Mū.
This damned Konoha brat. Absolutely asking for it.
Gengetsu ground his teeth, furious. If he could have beaten Naruto outright, he would've done it long ago.
With his giant clam destroyed and the Vapor Detonation clone dispersed, Gengetsu was clearly starting to struggle against a Naruto now in full Nine-Tails Chakra Mode.
Blue-and-pink chakra flame burned across Sakura's entire body, and somehow the Adamantine Staff had already found its way into her hand.
Watching the massive meteor closing in overhead, Sakura drove the staff straight into it without hesitation.
Extend!
The staff — a mere sewing needle compared to the meteor's overwhelming size — pierced straight through it in an instant.
Extending dozens of meters, hundreds, a full thousand!
The massive meteor was skewered clean through, like a candied fruit on a stick.
"Interesting."
"Now for the second one — you should..."
Madara, watching from below, started to speak — but found the second meteor already skewered the exact same way.
At that, Madara's expression turned serious.
That kind of raw strength was genuinely terrifying.
No wonder the coalition can't beat her. If I keep treating this as a game, there's a real chance I capsize my own ship.
With that thought, Madara clapped his hands together, an unmistakable flicker of excitement crossing his face.
Even in this Edo Tensei body, he felt something like blood boiling, surging, inside him.
How long has it been. How long.
Since Hashirama, no one had ever put this kind of pressure on him again.
And to think — barely twenty years after his death, the shinobi world had produced something this monstrous.
Afraid?
If Madara Uchiha were the kind of man who got afraid, he wouldn't be Madara Uchiha at all.
The Fifth Hokage, hm?!
I acknowledge you.
Fitting, that you carry the Hokage's title after Hashirama himself.
In that case — I'll give you everything I have.
"Wood Release — Birth of Dense Woodland!"
Another massive Wood Release technique, on a grand scale — with Birth of a Blossoming World already proven ineffective, Madara wasn't about to waste more effort on it.
Though the flowers of Birth of a Blossoming World could paralyze enemies with pollen, Birth of Dense Woodland instead absorbed chakra outright.
The earth shuddered violently — this technique dwarfed the previous one by more than double in scale.
Countless towering, ancient trees shot skyward like pillars supporting heaven itself, surging straight toward Sakura in the sky.
In that instant, above and below alike seemed to close in — a dead end in every direction.
"Hmph."
Sensing the disturbance below, Sakura let out a cold snort, and the seal on her forehead snapped open, sage chakra flooding into her body all at once.
Sage Mode!
The instant she entered it, the two meteors skewered on her staff suddenly looked like nothing more than toys in her hands.
"Rise!"
Sakura called out, low, and with both meteors still in hand, launched herself further into the sky.
"WHAT?!"
Even Madara couldn't hide his shock at that.
Heavenly Canopy Quaking Stars weren't anything special in themselves — just rocks, ultimately — but given their sheer scale, this Hokage was now flying skyward carrying two of them at once.
Nagato lost to this? No shame in that at all.
Sakura climbed several hundred meters up, hefted both massive stones overhead, and fixed her gaze squarely on Madara below.
This woman—
Madara felt a wave of dread wash over him.
"Here's your rock back."
Sakura let out a cold laugh, and hurled both meteors — still skewered together on the Adamantine Staff — straight down at Madara with tremendous force!
A terrifying shriek tore through the sky, and everyone present stared, stunned, at the spectacle unfolding.
Wind wrapped around the falling meteors as they plummeted, like the sky itself collapsing onto Madara.
Madara immediately commanded the countless ancient trees around him, weaving them into a massive net in an attempt to intercept the attack.
Countless towering trunks wove themselves into layer after layer of net in mere moments — a feat that spoke not just to his kekkei genkai, but to chakra control on a level matched by almost no one else in the shinobi world.
But that layered net trying to catch a meteor moving at that speed was about as absurd as a fisherman trying to net a blue whale with his bare hands.
The instant the net made contact, it let out a groaning shriek under the unbearable weight, trees shattering, snapping, obliterated one after another!
Madara had no time left to dodge. The meteors struck him head-on.
The Land of Frost bordered the sea, and Sakura had deliberately angled the throw to send Madara crashing straight into the ocean.
Like Hashirama, Madara counted as a massive-scale combatant — and the Land of Frost wasn't uninhabited; a fair number of unarmed civilians still lived across its frozen expanse. To avoid harming them, Sakura had made a point of forcing the fight out over open water.
The massive meteors rolled across the earth as they fell, and nearly half the entire Land of Frost trembled visibly under the impact.
The nearest shinobi felt the full, unmistakable force of that landing firsthand.
Even with the front line pushed back into the Land of Frost, it still sat close to the Land of Fire — meaning this was, in part, Sakura's own territory too.
At that moment, a figure came charging desperately toward Madara.
That was—
Killer Bee!
Sakura's brow furrowed slightly, watching him.
He's under Sharingan control.
Was it from the very beginning?
The Adamantine Staff spun through a quick flourish and vanished. Though Enma hadn't complained about it, hurling those two Heavenly Canopy Quaking Stars had clearly taken a real toll — the sheer weight involved meant Enma would likely need real time to recover.
The Body of Indestructible Vajra wasn't actually indestructible.
As the two meteors dragged Madara straight into the ocean, a massive wave erupted, shattering the previously calm sea, sending a hundred-meter tsunami surging out toward deeper water.
Sakura shot forward as a streak of pink light, diving straight after Madara into the sea.
How long...
How long has it been since I've faced an opponent like this...
Madara, pinned beneath the crushing weight of the meteors and dragged deep underwater, felt nothing but exhilaration.
The once-clear seabed churned murky, visibility dropping to less than a meter.
Madara felt adrenaline surging through him.
Come, then.
Fight!
Fight!
Hashirama Senju!
After you — I've finally found someone else who might actually match you!
I'll beat her. And then I'll beat you too!
...
High above, the Hokage looked down at the churning sea below, her expression as unmoved as ever against the roiling water.
At that moment—
A massive shadow surfaced beneath the water.
That was—
Susanoo!
A colossal blue hand rose up out of the ocean, seawater streaming down its arm, and pressed flat against the surface. A moment later, the colossal figure itself rose fully into view.
Water cascaded off Susanoo's frame, and a towering, monk-like giant emerged into Sakura's line of sight.
Standing with its feet on the seabed, its head reaching toward the sky — even the bottomless ocean only reached its lower half.
Susanoo raised a foot and planted it against the ocean's surface, and with a single push, the entire colossal figure stood, fully upright, on the water itself.
"FIFTH HOKAGE!"
"YOU'RE WORTHY OF BEING MY OPPONENT!"
"NOW — LET ME SHOW YOU MY TRUE STRENGTH!"
Madara's arrogant voice boomed out from within Susanoo, carrying with the colossal figure's own weight, ringing across heaven and earth like a divine proclamation — and the previously churning sea settled, almost instantly, into calm beneath that voice alone.
Sakura's mouth curled into a mocking smile at the sight.
Every Uchiha's the same.
Always dressing up a fight with flashy technique.
Showing off, essentially.
Even Madara wasn't immune to it. Using sound as a medium, drawing on refined chakra control, he was putting on a display specifically for her benefit.
Subduing the ocean itself — the same sea that had been roaring furiously moments ago, now tame as a housecat under Madara's command.
At that moment, the monk-like Susanoo pressed both hands together in a Buddhist mudra, its massive eyes igniting with terrifying flame, and within moments transformed into a four-armed warrior standing tall between heaven and earth!
That warrior carried a katana, hundreds of meters long, sheathed at its waist!
"HOKAGE! COME!"
"LET'S FIGHT!"
Madara's barely-contained excitement did nothing to instill fear in the Hokage — if anything, her mocking smile only deepened.
Her lips parted, and a voice — unmistakably a young woman's — carried across all of heaven and earth.
"Madara Uchiha."
"Is your Susanoo sturdy enough?"
—
Entrance to Ryūchi Cave
By now, Hiruzen and Itachi had traced the unique connection running through Edo Tensei and located Orochimaru.
But—
Looking at the figure before them, Hiruzen's expression turned grim.
Blond hair. Blue eyes. Draped in the Hokage's ceremonial robe. The former Fourth Hokage — Konoha's Yellow Flash.
Minato Namikaze!
"That bastard Orochimaru..."
Hiruzen's face darkened.
Minato had died using the Reaper Death Seal to seal away half the Nine-Tails. By all rights, his soul should have been trapped inside the Death God's stomach — there should have been no way to summon him through Edo Tensei at all.
What method did Orochimaru use to bring him back?
Hiruzen genuinely couldn't work it out.
And looking at Minato now — expressionless, clearly stripped of his own will — it was obvious Orochimaru had erased his mind entirely, reducing him to nothing more than a killing machine that obeyed only him.
"Lord Third. Leave the Fourth to me."
"Orochimaru's up ahead."
Itachi looked at Minato and spoke, calm.
"You?"
Hiruzen eyed Itachi, dubious.
Even with his mind erased and his strength possibly diminished, Minato wasn't someone Itachi should reasonably be able to handle.
A Flying Thunder God user always held the initiative. Whether to fight or flee was entirely his own choice to make.
And with Minato's near-superhuman reflexes, even mindless, he'd remain a genuinely formidable opponent.
On top of that, he possessed an extremely sophisticated sealing technique. The Sealing Fire Formation alone meant Itachi's Amaterasu would be essentially useless.
As for Tsukuyomi — with no mind left to influence, that dōjutsu would be equally worthless.
Hiruzen genuinely doubted Itachi could win against this mindless version of Minato.
"...Please trust me, Lord Third."
Itachi hesitated, clearly holding something back.
He wanted to reveal his trump card, but with Minato standing right there, he worried Orochimaru might somehow learn of it and prepare a countermeasure.
"Fine. Be careful, then."
Hiruzen nodded. There was no better option available right now.
Madara Uchiha remained on the main battlefield — the only way to undo his Edo Tensei was to defeat Orochimaru first.
Sakura was strong, certainly, but Madara was no weakling either. Having witnessed both Hashirama and Madara's power firsthand as a child, Hiruzen understood exactly what each of them was truly capable of.
With that thought, Hiruzen shot forward, deeper into Ryūchi Cave.
Minato moved to intercept him, but a crimson, skeletal arm slammed down toward him.
Before even a blink passed, Minato had vanished — reappearing directly in front of Hiruzen instead.
Hiruzen looked closer and realized, with a start, that the entire cave entrance was already saturated with Minato's Flying Thunder God markers.
Just as Hiruzen moved to act, black flame suddenly ignited across Minato's body.
Amaterasu!
Hiruzen seized the opportunity, ignoring Minato entirely, and forced his way past with a Rasengan, pushing deeper into Ryūchi Cave.
That left only Itachi and Minato at the cave entrance.
Itachi's expression stayed calm as he watched the Fourth Hokage tear off his own burning ceremonial robe, extinguishing the Amaterasu that should have consumed everything, effortlessly.
"Didn't expect to cross blades with the Fourth Hokage himself. If I can pull his mind back from Orochimaru's control..."
"Would that lessen my own sins, even slightly..."
Itachi's voice stayed even. He stepped forward, his crimson half-body Susanoo flaring to life, and reached for the gourd at his waist.
The Ten-Fists Sword!
...
Deep within Ryūchi Cave, Hiruzen pressed forward, tracking the connection running through the Edo Tensei technique, step by step.
A cave that should have been thick with snakes yielded not a single one along his entire path.
Hmph.
Hiruzen let out a cold snort.
So Ryūchi Cave has thrown in with Orochimaru against Konoha, has it.
Once this war ends, Sakura can wipe this nest of snakes out first thing.
But that wasn't a matter for now. Hiruzen needed to find Orochimaru and break the Edo Tensei technique.
Edo Tensei wasn't unbreakable. As Konoha's foremost authority on jutsu theory, Hiruzen had his own methods.
Back when Orochimaru had first used Edo Tensei on Hashirama and Tobirama, and again more recently when Sakura's own summoning of Tobirama had thrown Konoha into chaos, Hiruzen had already spent considerable time thinking through how to counter a runaway Edo Tensei technique.
He'd assumed he'd never need to put that thinking to use again. And yet here he was.
As he drew closer to the source of the connection, a figure stepped out from the darkness ahead.
"Lord Third Hokage, is it?"
"Lord Orochimaru has been expecting you for some time now."
Kabuto regarded Hiruzen with a deferential expression.
Hiruzen's tiger-like eyes narrowed slightly, recognizing the man.
He knew this one — a relatively senior genin back in Konoha.
Never expected him to be one of Orochimaru's people.
"Lead the way."
Hiruzen said, cold.
With the Edo Tensei connection guiding him, he had no concern about being led somewhere unexpected.
"This way, please."
Kabuto led him deferentially through the darkness.
As the two of them emerged from a dark corridor, what greeted Hiruzen left him utterly frozen where he stood.
His eyes went wide, disbelieving, staring at the scene before him, and his voice came out shaking.
"F-First... Lord First?!"
There, sitting across from Orochimaru, was a towering man in crimson armor, black hair flowing like a waterfall behind him.
Playing dice.
"Ah, Sarutobi's here."
"If this young man hadn't told me you'd come, I wouldn't have believed it."
Hashirama Senju looked at the frozen Hiruzen and laughed heartily.
"Heh heh. Sensei. It's been a while."
Orochimaru smiled at his own former teacher.
"Orochimaru!"
"You actually—"
Hiruzen shouted furiously, ready to condemn Orochimaru for reviving the First Hokage through Edo Tensei once again — but looking into Hashirama's clear, lucid eyes, the words caught in his throat.
Hashirama hadn't had his mind erased at all.
"First. Do you understand who's sitting across from you?"
Hiruzen stared, unblinking, at Hashirama.
"I know. This young man's already told me everything that's happened lately."
Hashirama nodded.
"Then why—"
Hiruzen forced down his rising unease and asked.
"Sarutobi. That child — the one who once stopped Tobirama and me — has she started a war?"
Hashirama looked at his own former student, his voice grave.
"You mean Sakura?"
"She—"
Hiruzen's sense of foreboding only deepened, a bad feeling settling heavy in his chest.
"This young man told me everything."
"How she restricted the Land of Fire's export of resources, sparking the Fourth Great Ninja War three years ago."
"And now, even while maintaining an uneasy peace with the nobility, how she controlled Takigakure's Seven-Tails, assassinated a Daimyō, destroyed his residence, installed a puppet Daimyō in his place — leaving Konoha surrounded by enemies on every side, and sparking yet another war."
"Was all of that her doing?"
Hiruzen opened his mouth, but found nothing he could say in response.
He wanted to defend Sakura. But—
He genuinely couldn't.
Because every last bit of it really had been done by his own final student.
Even though Danzō had been the true instigator of the Fourth Great Ninja War three years ago, the root of it had still traced back to Sakura's own exam paper. No one, after all, could have predicted Danzō would go so far as to steal a graduating academy student's exam paper in the first place.
"I didn't want to believe any of this, at first."
"But it seems..."
A trace of sorrow crossed Hashirama's face.
He'd always had genuinely high hopes for that pink-haired girl.
"Which is exactly why I chose to wait here for you."
"And from your expression—"
"It seems this young man hasn't lied to me at all."
Hashirama's words left Hiruzen's brow drawn tight.
"Master Hashirama. Everything Sakura's done — she's done it for Konoha's sake."
Hashirama nodded at that, and continued.
"That child is Konoha's current Hokage."
"She's the pillar every single person in the village depends on. Every action she takes affects Konoha's very survival."
"Which is exactly why her path can't afford the slightest deviation."
"When the younger generation makes a mistake, it falls to the elders to correct it, to guide them back."
"When I founded Konoha, my whole reason was so children would never have to set foot on a battlefield again."
"And now, it seems that child's path needs correcting..."
Hashirama set down the dice in his hand, his expression turning fully serious as he looked at Hiruzen.
"So you're saying..."
"You intend to stop Sakura?"
Hiruzen asked, sharp.
"I know it's a shame. But Konoha shouldn't be the one to start a war — especially not with that child sitting as Hokage."
"Before Konoha itself comes to any real harm, that child needs to be stopped, now, while there's still time..."
Hashirama's words sent an icy chill straight through Hiruzen, down to his very bones.
(End of chapter.)
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