The Chess Player's Impending Intervention

He stepped down from the stone platform, his bare feet touching the cold flagstone floor. Every step was as steady as a mountain in motion. Chakra circulated through his body, but it was no longer the chakra of an ordinary ninja—it was primordial power, the force of a higher life-form that had fused into his blood after absorbing Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.

That power had slumbered within him for far too long.

So long that even he had nearly forgotten when he had last fought in earnest.

"Zhi Li." Cang stopped at the top of the stone steps, his back to his disciple. His voice was not loud, yet it carried an unquestionable weight.

"Here." Zhi Li dropped to one knee.

"Prepare to intervene in the shinobi war at any time."

Zhi Li's body trembled sharply. She had waited more than twenty years for those words. "Yes. Who is the target? Obito? Kabuto? Or Uchiha Madara?"

Cang turned around. Purple light blazed within his Rinnegan like cold flames kindled in the depths of hell.

"None of them."

His gaze pierced through layers of rock and spanned hundreds of miles, landing upon the battlefield engulfed in flames. Within his sight, two immense chakras were colliding across that land—one, the vitality and grandeur of Wood Style; the other, the destruction and pride of Susanoo.

Hashirama and Madara.

Asura and Indra.

A reunion spanning decades. A duel transcending life and death.

"Madara and Hashirama." An emotion appeared in Cang's voice, one that had never been there before—fighting spirit, longing, the boiling fervor rising from the depths of the soul when one who stood at the pinnacle of power finally encountered an opponent worth fighting. "The previous generation's Asura and Indra, meeting again. How... exciting."

The corners of his mouth slowly rose. It was not the