Five Styles: Great Barrage Jutsu!!!

"Kill!"

"Charge!"

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"

Uchiha Fugaku performed hand seals at lightning speed, his fingers dancing like butterflies.

A massive fireball erupted from his mouth, instantly evaporating the dense curtain of rain and creating a piercing hiss from the terrifying heat.

The smell of charred meat mixed with the scent of blood, immediately permeating the trenches.

But before Fugaku could even catch his breath...

The mud on his flank suddenly exploded!

A squad of Iwagakure ninja, who had been lying in wait, burst forth, wielding kunai and short blades, closing in on him under the cover of the rain!

There were too many of them...

He couldn't afford to waste any more chakra.

Uchiha Fugaku made a split-second decision, decisively abandoning ninjutsu.

With a sharp clang, he drew his ninja blade, gripped a custom kunai in his left hand, and with his three-tomoe Sharingan spinning wildly, he charged straight into the tide of enemies.

Swish!! Swish!! Swish!!

Uchiha Style Kenjutsu danced through the rain, blood and water splashing together, making it impossible to distinguish one from the other.

But, The number of enemies was simply too great.

Kill one, and two more surged forward. Kill two, and four more took their place.

It felt as if they were endless.

"Fugaku! Blind spot, back left, duck!"

A calm voice, yet laced with extreme urgency, exploded deep within Fugaku's mind without warning.

Uchiha Fugaku didn't hesitate for a second. Driven by an almost instinctive, absolute trust in his comrade, he threw his body into a desperate, ungainly forward roll.

"Boom!"

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

"Splat!"

Immediately following, a dull sound of crushing flesh echoed as the boulder slammed heavily into an Iwagakure chunin who had been attempting to ambush him.

"Haa... haa..."

Uchiha Fugaku knelt in the mud, gasping for air. A wave of lingering fear washed over him; his stamina had been pushed to such an extreme.

Even with his Sharingan capturing the obvious ambush from behind, his body had almost failed to react in time!

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

That boulder wouldn't have hit the Iwagakure chunin; it would have crushed his own skull.

Uchiha Fugaku didn't let himself dwell on that thought.

He scanned his surroundings, and everywhere he looked, he saw the earth-yellow uniforms of Iwagakure.

Everywhere were those headbands engraved with the two stones.

Everywhere were Earth Style ninjutsu raining down upon them.

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

One ninjutsu after another slammed into them from the Iwagakure lines, as if the earth itself had turned against Konoha.

And on the Konoha side... the green uniforms struggled against the tide of yellow, like fallen leaves drifting in a vast, turbulent ocean.

Whether in morale or sheer numbers, Iwagakure was completely crushing Konoha.

"Thanks, Shikaku..."

Uchiha Fugaku whispered his thanks, forced himself to rally, shook the blood from his blade, tightened his grip on the hilt, and stepped back into the fray.

Even though the village was at a life-or-death crossroads, as an Uchiha—a clan that had stood at the pinnacle since the village's founding—the word "retreat" did not exist in his bones!

"Fugaku, don't push so far forward! Your position is the backbone of the entire line; if you fall, the left flank collapses!"

Inside a hidden command post far in the rear.

Inoichi looked pale, cold sweat streaming down his forehead.

Yet, he held firm to his technique, precisely relaying every command from Nara Shikaku to the various units.

Nara Shikaku marked the tactical map with lightning speed, his voice echoing through Inoichi's network into the minds of several powerful shinobi:

"Minato! You must keep your eyes on Ōnoki at all times. Do not let him unleash Particle Style; if he releases it in a crowded area, an entire company of ours will be vaporized in an instant!"

"Kakashi, watch your condition! You don't have much chakra left!"

"Lord Jiraiya! Forget the right flank, go watch over the Hokage... the Hokage is pushing too far ahead!"

At the center of the battlefield, a black afterimage was rampaging through the enemy ranks like a god of destruction.

"Adamantine Staff, extend!"

Every swing was accompanied by the dull thud of shattering bones.

Wherever the shadow of the staff passed, Iwagakure ninja were sent flying like kites with broken strings, flesh and blood spraying through the air.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!!"

The sound of the staff striking flesh was dull and rhythmic. Some of the Iwagakure ninja hit had their ribcages caved in, others had their skulls cracked, and some were folded in half by the sheer force of the impact.

The ninja in the Iwagakure formation were like a field of ripe Komugi, being frantically harvested by the reaper that was Sarutobi Hiruzen.

"Hiruzen, there are simply too many of them, and you've pushed too far ahead..."

Enma's eyes peered out from the Adamantine Staff, his gruff voice laced with a hint of worry.

"I know."

Sarutobi Hiruzen didn't even turn his head, backhanding a strike that smashed two enemies attempting a subterranean ambush into pulp.

How could he not be aware of the concerns held by Shikaku and Enma?

As the commander-in-chief, he truly shouldn't be charging into the fray.

But the current battle had reached a critical breaking point.

The left flank was retreating, the right was collapsing, and the center was being held up entirely by him alone.

If even he, the Hokage hailed as the "Strongest of All Generations," didn't stand at the very front to tear through the enemy's formation.

Then Konoha...

Would be completely finished.

"Since conventional tactics are useless..."

A flash of ruthless determination crossed Sarutobi Hiruzen's eyes. He slammed the Adamantine Staff into the earth, shattering the bedrock for ten meters around him and forcing those closing in to back away.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Poof! Poof! Poof! Poof!

Accompanied by four bursts of white smoke, four identical copies of Sarutobi Hiruzen stood at the north, south, east, and west, shielding the original in the center.

"Then let this technique teach you youngsters a lesson!"

Facing the tidal wave of the Iwagakure army, the five Sarutobi Hiruzens formed hand seals in unison. A massive, suffocating amount of chakra compressed and boiled wildly within his body.

Five distinct nature transformations reached their critical point perfectly within the same person.

"Five Styles: Great Barrage Jutsu!!!"

Fire dragons roared, wind blades raged, lightning danced, earth dragons bellowed, and water surges crashed!

The five ninjutsu intertwined and entangled, finally converging into a cataclysmic, five-colored torrent that exploded at the heart of the Iwagakure formation.

"Rumble--!!!"

The heavens collapsed and the earth split.

A blinding white light swallowed everything.

The scorched earth was lifted in a massive layer, and the shockwave instantly cleared the Iwagakure ninja within a radius of several hundred meters.

The immense blast of air even reached the Konoha lines, blowing everyone off balance.

"Damn it!"

High in the sky, Ōnoki gritted his teeth. His small frame hovered amidst the rain clouds, trembling with rage.

Watching his own Iwagakure ninja being devastated by Sarutobi Hiruzen's ultimate technique, Ōnoki's heart was bleeding.

It was always like this. Every time they were on the verge of completely crushing the Konoha lines, someone would always stand up to turn the tide.

Last time it was Namikaze Minato, this time it was Sarutobi Hiruzen, and who would it be next?

Why did Konoha always have these unkillable monsters?

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

Ōnoki's expression turned grim to the extreme. He slowly spread his hands before his chest, and a tiny, transparent cube emitting a pure white light gradually condensed in his palms.

Since you are slaughtering my soldiers, I will slaughter your subordinates!

Although this would cause massive casualties, compared to the fertile land, abundant resources, and superior strategic position of the Land of Fire...

These...

Were merely necessary sacrifices.

"Particle Style: Atomic Dismantling Jutsu!!!"

The brilliant and lethal small cube finished charging between his hands.

Like a white star falling from the sky, trailing a bright tail of light, it descended toward the ground in total silence.

The light was pure and beautiful, yet it carried a killing intent so cold it reached the extreme, shrouding the entire Konoha position.

"Minato! Hurry!!!"

Within the sensory network, Inoichi sensed the white cube already taking shape above them in an instant, rapidly transmitting the information to Namikaze Minato.

High in the sky, Ōnoki had already begun to smile.

However, at the critical moment when that white light was about to touch the ground.

"Whoosh--!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen, Uchiha Fugaku, the battle-scarred Konoha chunin...

Hundreds upon hundreds of green figures vanished from their spots at the exact same millisecond, without the slightest warning.

The radiance of Particle Style crashed down, yet it only reduced a patch of empty ruins to nothingness.

Between heaven and earth.

Only an eerie silence remained.