A cold wind blew through the plateau, carrying away the lingering sheets of summoning smoke.
Shorai looked small beneath the giants.
Katsuyu stood to one side, her massive pale body glistening in the dim light. Gamabunta towered on the other, his huge hand resting near the handle of the blade on his back. Across from them, Manda coiled around the ruined earth, his green eyes narrowed with predatory irritation.
"Shorai! Stay back!" Jiraiya's voice boomed from atop Gamabunta. "Tsunade and I will handle him! You'd better focus on detoxification!"
"Shorai?" Tsunade's previous anger faded for a brief moment as her eyes darted toward the small white-haired figure below. "You got poisoned?"
"Yeah," Shorai replied, exhaling slowly. His eyes remained fixed on the torn marks around his shins. "But I'll manage. I've already contained it. Do not let it distract you, Lady Tsunade."
The bite marks were visible through the ripped black tactical cloth.
They burned.
Not in the usual way.
Around the bite wounds, Shorai had formed a thin Aetheric containment layer—a sealed boundary that held the venom inside a small region before it could spread through his blood.
It did not behave like normal poison.
It scratched against the containment.
It pulsed.
It waited.
"Shizune," Tsunade commanded, turning toward her apprentice. "You stay back with Naruto. His recovery is your priority. If Kabuto tries to move again, look for an opening and support us."
"Yes, Tsunade-sama!"
"Katsuyu," Tsunade added. "Move Naruto behind Shorai."
"Yes, Lady Tsunade."
Katsuyu's enormous body split apart with a wet, soft sound.
Smaller pieces of the slug scattered across the plateau, slipping beneath Naruto's unconscious body and carrying him away from the center of the battlefield.
Shorai glanced at the boy as Katsuyu placed him beside a broken boulder near Shizune.
The jade necklace was exposed against Naruto's chest.
Its emerald surface caught the light.
'So the necklace returned to its owner.'
Naruto lay unconscious, exhausted after forcing the Rasengan into Kabuto's body. His breathing was shallow, but steady.
Shorai looked down toward his own feet again.
'Speed is useless when the world becomes a cage.'
The words of Orochimaru's subordinate from the Forest of Death echoed through his mind.
'Poison. Barriers. Genjutsu. Summons. Terrain. A battlefield can turn speed into nothing but a reaction.'
His fingers curled slowly.
'Another weakness.'
'I need more than movement. More than a vacuum layer. More than a shield that only stops the first attack.'
'Something that makes the cage dangerous to close.'
"I'll handle myself, Shizune-san," Shorai said as the dark-haired medic stepped toward him. "No worries."
"Shorai-kun, that poison could be—"
"It's manageable."
The sharpness of his voice made Shizune freeze.
Shorai was already going through his inventory as he added, "I need to focus, Shizune-san."
Shizune watched him for a tense moment before nodding. "Do not push yourself past the point of recovery."
"Hmn."
He sat down near the damaged boulder and pulled out a medical storage scroll.
Puff.
Small vials, needles, antidote tablets, and several marked chakra pills appeared in a neat line before him.
Above him, the Three-Way Deadlock began.
—
"You'd better satisfy my demand, Orochimaru."
Manda's green eyes looked down at the pale Sannin standing atop his head.
"One hundred sacrifices. No less."
Orochimaru's expression twitched, but his voice remained flat.
"You will receive them."
"I sense something about you. Weakness?" Manda hissed. His slit pupils shifted toward Gamabunta. "Perhaps I will begin with that fat frog. Frog soup might be a decent opening dish."
Gamabunta's mouth spread into a wide, ugly smile as he reached behind his back.
"A talking purse thinks it can look down on me?" Gamabunta growled.
Clang!
He pulled out the giant tantō.
"I'll carve you open. Your hide might still be worth something afterward."
"Katsuyu, now!" Tsunade ordered.
"Yes, Lady Tsunade."
Katsuyu opened her mouth.
Fwoosh!
A wide torrent of yellowish acid burst into the sky.
It spread like rain.
Hissss!
The droplets struck the ground, boulders, and shattered trees, leaving behind steaming, dissolving marks.
Manda moved.
For something so large, the snake was horrifyingly fast.
His body snapped through the battlefield in a blur of purple scales, dodging the acid as his coils tore deep trenches into the earth.
Then he bolted toward Katsuyu.
"Come here, my fancy snake-skin wallet!" Gamabunta roared.
Woosh!
The giant frog jumped forward, driving his massive blade toward Manda's exposed side.
Manda twisted.
Chomp!
His jaws clamped around the edge of Gamabunta's weapon.
The entire plateau shook.
Gamabunta's arms flexed as he tried to force the blade through.
Manda's coils tightened around the steel.
Slowly, with monstrous jaw strength, he began pulling the weapon away.
"The dinner can't wait," Manda hissed through the metal. "Hu-hu."
"Damn snake!" Gamabunta snarled.
Manda suddenly released his grip.
Gamabunta stumbled backward from the sudden loss of resistance.
Then Manda lunged toward Katsuyu again.
Tsunade's eyes narrowed as the snake arrived with blinding speed, his enormous coils wrapping tightly around Katsuyu's body.
"Katsuyu, split!"
Katsuyu's huge body fragmented into hundreds of smaller forms just before Manda's jaws closed around the space she had occupied.
The snake's mouth struck empty ground.
BOOM!
The impact sent rocks flying across the plateau.
Katsuyu's fragments flowed across the earth, reassembling farther away with Tsunade safely on her back.
"Are you ignoring me?" Gamabunta roared, lunging again.
Manda glanced at the rushing frog and caught the edge of the blade in his jaws once more.
"You don't learn, do you?"
This time, Manda clamped down hard and yanked Gamabunta's blade free from the frog's grip.
Then his head snapped sideways.
Woosh!
The giant tantō flew through the air toward Katsuyu.
"Ha!"
Tsunade jumped from Katsuyu's back.
She spun through the air, brought her heel down, and—
BAM!
Her kick drove the flying blade into the earth beside Katsuyu.
The ground cracked open beneath it.
Tsunade landed, then jumped back to Katsuyu's side.
Shorai glanced upward once.
'What a stupid waste of chakra.'
'A distraction. The summoners are the real targets.'
His eyes shifted toward Manda.
'But Manda is fast enough to punish anyone who forgets he is watching.'
'He moves like a creature shaped by natural energy—whether he can consciously wield it or not.'
'Ryūchi Cave… Sage Arts…'
'No time to waste.'
Shorai closed his eyes.
His chakra reached inward, circling the poison.
The Aether containment layer remained around it—a thin, invisible sphere holding the toxin inside a small region near the bite wounds.
He probed it carefully with medical chakra.
The poison reacted.
It bit back.
A corrosive sensation crawled up his pathways.
'Orochimaru's chakra is threaded through it.'
'Not only venom. A chakra-enhanced chemical compound. Acidic. Corrosive. It reacts to my detoxification chakra, altering its flow before I can neutralize it.'
Shorai took a pill and swallowed it dry.
'If I remove the Aether layer before neutralizing it, it spreads.'
'If I force too much Yang healing into it, the cells may carry it deeper instead of expelling it.'
BAM!
The plateau trembled.
Shorai's concentration wavered.
The containment layer rippled.
The poison surged against its boundary.
"Shit…"
He clenched his jaw and forced chakra through his legs with greater precision.
'Stay.'
The invisible layer steadied.
The venom stopped moving.
Shorai's focus trembled only slightly as waves of heat and cold rolled across the battlefield.
BOOOOM!
Another tremor tore through the plateau.
He held the containment layer in place and continued working, refusing to let his attention drift.
After a while, Shorai finally opened his eyes.
The poison was gone.
Not erased.
Broken down, isolated, and expelled through sweat and blood by the combined pressure of antidotes, medical chakra, and an accelerated metabolism.
His legs still ached.
But the foreign chakra signature was gone.
Slowly, he stood.
SCHNK!
The tantō fell from above, piercing through Manda's mouth and lower jaw before burying itself in the ground.
Manda's head froze.
His enormous body convulsed.
"I'd have eaten you for this if I could!" Manda roared through the side of his mouth. "Damn you! What a humiliating position!"
His eyes shifted toward Orochimaru.
"So my senses were right. You are much weaker, Orochimaru."
Orochimaru did not answer.
Kabuto crouched nearby, treating his master's injuries with shaking but precise hands.
Manda's pupils narrowed.
"I won't forgive this. Double the sacrifices will not be enough, Orochimaru. I'll eat you the next time we meet. Do you hear me?"
Puff!
Manda vanished in a cloud of smoke.
The battlefield suddenly felt smaller.
Across the battlefield, Orochimaru's breathing had grown heavier.
His arms hung at his sides, darkened and stiff beneath the Shinigami's seal.
Kabuto was bruised, bloodied, and still recovering from Naruto's Rasengan; each breath seemed measured against the damage inside his chest.
"You wasted your time," Orochimaru hissed, rising as he stared at Tsunade. "I offered you everything you truly wanted. Nawaki. Dan. Your happiest memories."
Tsunade stood atop Katsuyu, her breathing uneven.
"Now you are the one who doesn't understand me."
Orochimaru's eyes narrowed.
"You offered me a lie wearing the faces of people I loved," Tsunade continued. "For a moment… I almost accepted it."
Her eyes shifted toward Naruto.
The jade necklace rested against his chest.
"But I am still capable of changing."
Orochimaru's smile thinned.
"You speak of change while clinging to the same village that gave you graves. Have you taken some self-concocted sedative? Or has the pain finally made you hallucinate?"
"Neither. I am simply beginning to see things more clearly. Konoha may not deserve me. Returning still makes me bitter. It still hurts," Tsunade replied.
Her hands curled into fists.
"I may never forgive everything it took from me."
Her voice trembled, but she continued.
"But I will not let Nawaki and Dan become names I use to justify running away."
The wind moved through the plateau.
"They dreamed of protecting people," Tsunade said. "If I let their dreams die with them, then grief is the only thing I have allowed them to leave behind."
Orochimaru's expression remained calm.
But his eyes changed.
Shorai stepped forward.
"Lady Tsunade has acknowledged what she was running from," he said, his turquoise gaze settling on Orochimaru. "That is more than you've done."
Kabuto's eyes shifted toward him.
Orochimaru looked at Shorai.
The boy's expression was calm, but there was a coldness beneath it.
"You call her hope self-delusion because it threatens the excuse you built for yourself," Shorai continued. "If she can grieve and still move forward, then your philosophy loses the only defense you have."
He knew provoking Orochimaru was dangerous. But allowing Tsunade's choice to be reduced to weakness was worse.
A sudden killing intent rolled across the plateau.
The air seemed to grow colder.
"Little one," Orochimaru said softly, "your tongue will cut you open one day."
"Perhaps," Shorai replied. "But at least I will know the wound is real. And whatever it changes, I will remain in control of what I choose to do."
Orochimaru stared at him.
"Remain in control, you say?" His voice was quiet, almost amused. "Empty words from an inexperienced child."
Then his skin began to crack.
Dark lines spread along his cheek and neck.
The pale outer layer peeled away.
Beneath it, for one brief moment, Shorai saw another face.
Younger.
Smoother.
Almost feminine.
Filled with borrowed life.
Tsunade's eyes widened.
"What…?"
"My dream. My control," Orochimaru whispered. "You see? There is always another way."
His voice shifted slightly.
"Another vessel. Another path. Another body to carry what this failed shell no longer can."
The younger face smiled.
"You cling to age, grief, and graves. I will shed them all."
His normal face settled back into place.
"Tsunade. You and Jiraiya will grow old. You will die. Your precious Konoha will continue consuming children and calling it inheritance."
His smile thinned.
"I will outlive you both. And when that monument collapses, I will be there to observe it with a smile."
His eyes shifted toward Shorai.
"And you, little anomaly…"
The words hung in the silence.
"I have not forgotten what you did with my poison."
Shorai went still.
Orochimaru's smile widened.
"No antidote I recognize. No ordinary expulsion. No medical treatment that should have worked so quickly."
"It simply stopped spreading."
His tongue passed slowly over his lips.
"I need to know what made you this way."
Jiraiya's killing intent flared from Gamabunta's head.
"Orochimaru! Your only option here is death!"
"Death?" Orochimaru repeated, almost amused.
The ground beneath his feet softened.
His body began to sink into the earth as though stone had become water.
"I may have failed to gain Tsunade's help today," he murmured. "But, as you can see, I have not run out of options."
Kabuto watched in silence as Orochimaru continued.
"I will restore what was taken from me."
Orochimaru had sunk to his chin.
"Another body. Another beginning."
Tsunade's expression hardened.
"You have not transcended death," she said. "You are running from it."
Orochimaru laughed.
"Call it what you wish."
His smile widened.
"I am immortal."
"False immortality," Shorai muttered.
Orochimaru's slit pupils locked onto him.
For a brief moment, his expression became unreadable.
Then he laughed again as his chin neared the ground.
"Perhaps you will understand one day—when you have gained more experience."
His face disappeared into the earth.
Kabuto remained for a final moment, his eyes resting on Shorai.
"We will meet again, Shorai-kun. You have given Orochimaru-sama a question he will not stop asking."
His hands formed a sequence of seals.
Puff!
Kabuto vanished.
The plateau fell silent.
Katsuyu dissolved into smoke.
Gamabunta gave Jiraiya one final tired glance before vanishing too, taking his massive blade with him.
Only the people remained.
Jiraiya stood unsteadily, the sedative still dragging at his body.
Shizune rushed toward Tsunade.
Naruto lay unconscious among the broken stones, the jade necklace shining faintly against his chest.
Then Tsunade swayed.
Her hand rose toward her face.
The youthful appearance around her flickered.
For years, chakra had maintained the image of a woman untouched by time.
Now, after Creation Rebirth, summoning, blood loss, and battle, her control failed.
The transformation dissolved.
Her face aged.
Her shoulders lowered.
Her body looked tired.
Not weak.
Not broken.
Human.
"Tsunade…" Jiraiya whispered.
She hugged one arm against herself, avoiding their eyes.
"I need to rest," she murmured. "It is temporary."
Her eyes drifted toward Naruto.
The boy had not awakened.
Yet even unconscious, he held the jade necklace close to his heart.
Shorai watched Tsunade for a long moment.
Then he spoke quietly.
"One last wager."
Tsunade glanced toward him.
"This time," Shorai said, "it will not be against fate. It will be against the person you decide to become tomorrow."
Jiraiya's lips curved into a faint, tired smile.
"Looks like there is still something worth coming back for."
Tsunade closed her eyes.
For the first time in years, she did not turn away.