Pain (Part Two)

"Gah—"

To expand the technique to its limits, Nagato clenched his teeth and poured in all his strength.

It was fortunate that Madara had taken the Rinnegan away. Without those immensely burdensome eyes to nourish, his body no longer needed to support them, leaving him with enough chakra to control the lake water and perform the technique.

Even so, although he had chosen not to directly resist the meteor and was merely trying to alter its trajectory, it was no easy task.

The meteor fell with terrifying speed. On one hand, he had to drive the gigantic water dragon to push against it; on the other, he had to slow its descent to buy time to change its course. The pressure was immense.

Even so, he gritted his teeth and desperately maintained the water dragon, preventing the meteor's impact from tearing it apart.

But his chakra continued to drain as it struggled against the meteor's impact, making it increasingly difficult for him to hold on. In less than two breaths, he had already expended more than half his chakra.

Fortunately, through his unrelenting efforts, the meteor's trajectory was slowly beginning to shift.

At least it wasn't enough to drive them to despair.

Just then, a gigantic Wood Golem approached from the distance.

Recognizing it as the First Hokage of Konoha, Konan immediately flapped her Paper Wings and flew toward it.

"Don't panic, don't panic! I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to help, young people!" Hashirama Senju said with a smile from atop the Wood Golem.

The allied forces had surrounded Amegakure mainly to eradicate the Akatsuki, not to slaughter ordinary civilians.

Thus, he had decided to lend a hand to these innocent villagers of Amegakure.

"Resisting a meteor from beyond the heavens... This might be the craziest thing