Naruto and Sasuke Rise Again, Majestic Attire Susanoo Nine-Tails Is About to Arrive on the Battlefield

When Minato landed with Naruto and Sasuke, all three of them nearly fell into the pile of rubble at the same time.

The light of the Flying Thunder God faded from the air, silver-white motes drifting through the darkness like fireflies. After landing, Minato's reanimated body staggered two steps, and a fresh crack appeared at his right knee. It spread up his thigh all the way to his waist. He braced himself against the ground with a Kunai, steadied his body, then turned to look at the two behind him.

Naruto lay face-down, his face buried amid rubble and dirt. The original color of his orange jacket was completely unrecognizable—blood, mud, ash, and soot had mixed together into a color somewhere between brown and black, like a dried-up swamp. His fingers were still dug into the soil, but he no longer had the strength to clench them. They merely rested loosely on the ground, like five branches carelessly laid there.

Sasuke lay on his back atop a larger piece of rubble, blood still seeping from the wound in his right shoulder. It ran down the sharp edges of the stone and pooled beneath it in a small patch of dark red liquid. His left hand rested on his abdomen, his fingers slightly curled, his breathing shallow and rapid. At some point, his right eye had closed. Only his left remained half-open, its pupil unfocused as it stared blankly at the tiny gap left in the night sky beyond the God Tree's canopy.

They had been transferred farther from the God Tree's main trunk—to the middle of a blasted mountainside. A slanted rock wall stood behind them, while open ruins stretched out before them. This might once have been a logistical outpost for the Allied Forces, but now only several wooden