The Mastermind Appears

No one on the battlefield had reacted yet.

Naruto stood atop the shattered rocks, the white robe of Six Paths Mode still billowing around him, but his entire body had gone stiff. His mouth hung open, blue eyes fixed on the clump of black matter collapsing on the ground, then on Madara's shriveled form, going back and forth several times.

"What... what's going on?"

His voice was quiet, as though he were talking to himself. And he was, because everyone around him was just as bewildered.

Sasuke stood some distance away, both his Rinnegan and Sharingan open, but his expression was not one of confusion—it was cold. The kind of cold that said, "I don't understand what happened, but I won't show it." His gaze shifted from Madara to the spatial rift that was healing shut, then to the depths of the sky, to the area beneath the moon where a faint violet glow still lingered.

Someone was over there.

He could feel it.

Not through sensory perception—through instinct. The instinct honed through countless life-or-death battles, more accurate than any sensing ninjutsu, told him that something was coming from that direction. Not "coming out"—but "coming back." As though it had always been there and had only decided today to let itself be seen.

Hiruzen Sarutobi's pipe slipped from his mouth and swayed from the cord around his neck, but he did not even notice. His eyes narrowed into slits as he stared at that patch of sky, his lips trembling—not out of fear, but from the reflexive shock of an old man suddenly seeing something that should not exist.

"That Chakra..." His voice was so quiet that only Minato beside him heard it.

Minato did not answer. His hand was already resting on a Kunai, but his movement had stopped