Fierce Battle and Teasing

The blade descended.

A deep-blue radiance tore across the sky like judgment falling from heaven. The air split apart with a shrill blast, while the ground cracked beneath the sword's pressure, fissures racing from beneath Madara's feet toward the Five Kage.

Tsunade did not retreat.

"Move!" she roared, slamming both hands into the ground.

Chakra surged from her palms, green light spreading across the ground like a web. The rocks ahead abruptly rose under the infusion of Chakra, forming a thick stone wall—but before Susanoo's blade, that wall was as fragile as paper.

The blade cleaved through the stone wall and continued downward.

But that instant of resistance gave the others an opening.

Gaara's sand surged in from both sides, forming a hemispherical sand barrier over the Five Kage. Gold dust flowed across the barrier's surface, layers upon layers of sealing patterns forming a massive shield.

The blade struck the sand shield.

Boom—!

Gold dust flew everywhere as the barrier shook violently, cracks spreading across its surface. Gaara's arms trembled, his sand being continuously shaved away, but he gritted his teeth and poured more Chakra into it.

"Now!" Gaara forced out through clenched teeth. "I can't hold it much longer!"

Ōnoki moved.

His body rose behind the sand shield. As his hands formed seals, Chakra condensed in his palms into a white light even more dazzling than before. His expression was grave to the extreme, every wrinkle on his aged face seeming carved by a blade.

"Dust Release: Boundary Stripping Technique!"

This time, it was no longer a pillar of light, but an enormous cubic light barrier that spread from between Ōnoki's hands and enveloped Susanoo. It was an advanced form of Dust Release—a cubic barrier that completely stripped the target area down to the atomic level.

The light barrier