Five Styles: Great Barrage Jutsu!!!

"Kill!"

"Charge!"

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"

Uchiha Fugaku formed Hand Seals at lightning speed, his fingers fluttering like butterflies.

A massive fireball erupted from his mouth. The dense curtain of rain around him evaporated instantly in the terrifying heat, with a piercing hiss.

The smell of charred meat mingled with the stench of blood, immediately filling the trenches.

But before Fugaku could catch his breath...

The mud on the flank suddenly exploded!

A squad of Iwagakure Ninja who had been lying in wait burst out, kunai and short blades in hand, and rushed to cut him down under cover of the rain!

There were too many of them...

He couldn't afford to waste any more chakra.

Uchiha Fugaku made a snap decision and abandoned ninjutsu.

With a clang, he drew his Ninja Blade with his right hand and gripped a specially made kunai in reverse with his left. His three-tomoe Sharingan spun furiously as he charged straight into the enemy throng.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Uchiha Style Kenjutsu danced through the rain, blood and rainwater spraying together until it was impossible to tell which drops were rain and which were blood.

But...

There were too many enemies.

He killed one, and two more rushed in. He killed two, and four more came.

It seemed they would never stop coming.

"Fugaku! Blind spot at your rear left—duck!"

A steady voice, laced with extreme urgency, suddenly rang out deep in Fugaku's mind.

Uchiha Fugaku didn't hesitate for a moment. Trusting his comrade almost instinctively, he threw himself into an awkward forward roll.

"Boom!"

A boulder the size of a millstone whistled past his scalp.

"Thud!"

A moment later, a dull, meaty crunch sounded as the boulder slammed into an Iwagakure Chunin who had been about to sneak up on Fugaku.

"Huff, huff..."

Uchiha Fugaku knelt in the mud, panting heavily. A shudder of fear ran through him as he realized just how thoroughly his stamina had been drained.

Even though his Sharingan had caught such an obvious sneak attack from behind, his body had barely managed to react in time!

If Shikaku's warning had come even half a second later...

That boulder would have hit his head instead of the Iwagakure Chunin.

Uchiha Fugaku didn't let himself dwell on it.

He looked around. Everywhere he turned, there were Iwagakure's earth-yellow uniforms.

Their Forehead Protectors, each engraved with two stones, were everywhere.

Earth Release ninjutsu rained down from all sides.

Earth Style: Earth Dragon Bullet, Earth Style: Rock Coffin, Earth Style: Earth-Splitting Palm.

One ninjutsu after another crashed over from the Iwagakure positions, as if the earth itself had turned against Konoha.

And on Konoha's side... green uniforms struggled to hold their ground amid the sea of yellow, like a few fallen leaves adrift in a vast ocean.

In both morale and numbers, Iwagakure had Konoha thoroughly outmatched.

"Thanks, Shikaku..."

Uchiha Fugaku muttered his thanks, forced himself to focus, shook the blood from his blade, tightened his grip on its hilt, and stepped back onto the battlefield.

Even with the village on the brink of life and death, the Uchiha, who had stood at the pinnacle since the village's founding, had no place in their bones for the word retreat!

"Fugaku, don't push so far forward! You're the backbone of the entire front line. If you fall, the left flank will collapse!"

Inside the concealed command post far to the rear,

Inoichi Yamanaka's face was pale, cold sweat trickling down his forehead.

But he kept the jutsu going, relaying every order from Nara Shikaku precisely to the troops.

Nara Shikaku marked positions on the tactical map at lightning speed. His voice, carried over Inoichi's network, echoed repeatedly in the minds of several powerful shinobi:

"Minato! Keep your eyes on Ōnoki at all times. Don't let him use Dust Release. If he fires into a dense crowd, an entire platoon of ours will vanish in an instant!"

"Kakashi, watch your condition! You're running low on chakra!"

"Lord Jiraiya! Forget the right flank and keep an eye on Lord Hokage... Lord Hokage has pushed too far forward!"

At the center of the battlefield, a black blur rampaged through the enemy ranks like a god of war.

"Adamantine Staff, extend!"

Every swing was accompanied by the dull crack of breaking bones.

Where the staff's shadow passed, Iwagakure Ninja flew backward like kites with severed strings, blood and flesh scattering everywhere.

"Thud! Thud! Thud!"

The blows against flesh sounded dull and relentless. Some Iwagakure Ninja had their chests caved in, others had their skulls split open, and still others were struck so hard that their bodies folded in half.

The Iwagakure Ninja were like a field of ripe wheat, their lives reaped mercilessly by Sarutobi Hiruzen, the harvester.

"Hiruzen, there are simply too many of them, and you're too far forward..."

Enma's eyes emerged from the Adamantine Staff. His gruff voice held a trace of worry.

"I know."

Without turning around, Sarutobi Hiruzen swung the staff behind him and smashed two enemies who had tried to attack from underground into a pulp.

Did he not understand Shikaku and Enma's concerns?

As commander, he shouldn't have been leading the charge.

But the battle had reached the brink of collapse.

The left flank was retreating, the right flank was crumbling, and the center was holding only because of him.

If even he, the Hokage hailed as the "strongest of all time," didn't stand at the very front and tear through the enemy formation...

Then Konoha...

Would be finished.

"Since conventional tactics are useless..."

A fierce, resolute glint flashed in Sarutobi Hiruzen's eyes. He slammed the Adamantine Staff into the ground, shattering the rock within a ten-meter radius and forcing back everyone nearby.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Poof! Poof! Poof! Poof!

Four clouds of smoke burst apart, revealing four identical Sarutobi Hiruzen clones standing to the northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest, with the original protected at the center.

"Then let me teach you young ones a lesson with this!"

The five Sarutobi Hiruzen faced the Iwagakure army surging toward them like a tidal wave. They formed Hand Seals in unison as an immense, suffocating mass of chakra compressed and boiled within them.

Five entirely different Chakra Nature Transformations reached their limits perfectly within a single person.

"Five Styles: Great Barrage Jutsu!!!"

A fire dragon roared, wind blades raged, lightning danced, an earth dragon bellowed, and a torrent of water surged!

The five ninjutsu intertwined, finally converging into a five-colored flood that could destroy the heavens and earth. It exploded at the heart of the Iwagakure position.

"Rumble!!!"

The earth split and the heavens seemed to fall.

A blinding white light swallowed everything.

The scorched earth was ripped up in whole layers, and the shockwave wiped out every Iwagakure Ninja within several hundred meters.

The tremendous blast even reached Konoha's front line, nearly knocking everyone off their feet.

"Damn it!"

Ōnoki gritted his teeth in the sky, his small body hovering amid the rain clouds, trembling with rage.

As he watched his Iwagakure Ninja on the ground ravaged by Sarutobi Hiruzen's ultimate technique, his heart bled.

It happened every time. Just when they were about to completely crush Konoha's front line, someone always stepped forward to turn the tide.

Last time it was Namikaze Minato. This time it was Sarutobi Hiruzen. Who would it be next?

Why did Konoha always have monsters who refused to die?

"Then let's see whose jutsu kills faster."

Ōnoki's expression darkened. He slowly spread his hands before his chest as a tiny, transparent cube radiating pure white light began to take shape in his palms.

If you kill my soldiers, then I'll slaughter your men!

This would cause heavy casualties, but compared to the fertile land, abundant resources, and strategic position of the Land of Fire...

These...

Were merely necessary sacrifices.

"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique!!!"

A brilliant, deadly little cube gathered between his hands.

Like a white star falling from the sky, it trailed a bright tail of light as it descended silently toward the ground.

Its light was pure and beautiful, yet it carried a chillingly intense killing intent, blanketing all of Konoha's position.

"Minato! Now!!!"

In the sensory network, Inoichi Yamanaka sensed the fully formed white cube above them almost instantly and quickly relayed the information to Namikaze Minato.

High above, Ōnoki was already smiling.

But at the critical instant, just as the white light was about to touch the ground—

"Whoosh!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen, Uchiha Fugaku, the wounded Konoha Chunin...

Hundreds upon hundreds of green figures vanished from where they stood at the exact same millisecond, without warning.

Dust Release crashed down, but turned nothing more than a deserted ruin into nothingness.

Between heaven and earth,

Only an eerie silence remained.