The explosion's beam-ringing roar shook the heavens, unleashing a furious storm across the land. A sand-choked hurricane swept up rocks and broken branches, hurling them in every direction in the explosion's wake.
The tumbling rocks slammed into the steep mountainside, carried by the gale. Feeling the stone wall shake, Tobirama clenched his jaw, his face taut as he maintained a steady output of chakra to reinforce the Earth Flow Rampart.
The wind began to die down. Red eyes swept over the surrounding scene of ruins, glimmering with relief. His tense body relaxed. Thank goodness they had reached the ground in time. If they had still been up in the treetops, who knew where the gale would have blown them?
He had faced a scene like this before.
No, he corrected himself. The scene he remembered had been even more spectacular.
That had been Madara's first battle after awakening the Eternal Mangekyo. Well, the memories in his heart began to fade like the gale outside. Tobirama rose and looked with concern at his students, asking if anyone was hurt.
"I knew it. You made this cliff."
Once the wind had weakened, a group of figures used the Body Flicker Technique to rush over, stirring up a commotion in the cave. Thankfully, their unmistakable red hair revealed them as shinobi of the Uzumaki Clan.
Kaimi's brilliant red hair was covered in dead leaves and broken branches, and dust stained her clean shinobi clothes. Her casually open jacket clung tightly around the wooden box against her chest. After confirming the box was unharmed, she turned to look at her clanmates sitting on the ground. They took in one another's disheveled appearances and burst into carefree laughter.
A battle-hardened veteran, Tobirama watched them calmly. He knew what their complicated laughter concealed: panic, and relief at having survived.
Big Brother and Madara had done everything they could to direct the Nine-Tails' attacks away from them. But from so close by, the towering waves of fire and endlessly trembling earth had surged toward them like the apocalypse.
Fortunately, they didn't seem to have been affected. Instead, they sat slumped on the ground, enthusiastically discussing the figures clashing like gods and demons.
The human heart was truly complicated. A faint sadness stirred in Tobirama. Such blind trust was almost painful to witness.
"Quiet." Uzumaki Ashi dragged his exhausted body over to Tobirama and asked, "What's happening on the battlefield now?"
Tobirama, still steadying himself, smiled and called out, "Taiichi!"
"Here!"
The boy in black sunglasses stuck out his sleeve. The Kikaichū had multiplied again, their wings buzzing as, under his chakra's control, they clung to the Uzumaki shinobi's ankles like chains.
Their chakra connected. With the Yamanaka Secret Technique transmitting the images seen through the Byakugan, the scene instantly appeared in their minds.
The Nine-Tails crouched and raised its head. One Tailed Beast Bomb after another shot from its mouth toward the Wood Golem in the sky. The violent recoil made the ground beneath it sink rapidly.
The Wood Golem, clad in blue armor, calmly drew another long sword from its waist while airborne. A fierce glint of steel flashed across the sky, slicing every black orb in half. They flew off into the distance and exploded together in the forest.
"Madara, this can't go on!" Hashirama looked anxiously at the deep crater the explosions had left in the earth behind them. Thank goodness the area was an uninhabited wilderness. If the Nine-Tails kept bombarding the land, the whole region would be in trouble.
"I know!" Madara controlled the Wood Golem as it sped toward the Nine-Tails on the ground. "Chakra, Hashirama. I need Wood Release chakra."
"No problem!"
The scenery rushed past. Hashirama clasped his hands together, smiling.
"The Nine-Tails has nine tails. Shouldn't we have nine arms, too?"
Madara's voice was gentle, but his reasoning was impossible to refute. Hashirama nodded firmly, arms folded.
The Wood Golem looked bulky, but it had an unexpected agility. It soared through the sky, dodging all the Nine-Tails' attacks, while the long sword in its hand teased the little fox, whose fur stood on end, like a cat toy.
Their chakra began to mingle. Within the blue armor, the Wood Golem's bluish-green body began to twist. A creaking, grinding sound came from its head as identical faces appeared on either side of it.
Its broad shoulders changed strangely as the faces emerged. Massive, powerful arms surged forward, swinging huge hands like fans with wild abandon.
"Nezha?" Hidden in the cave, Rikusei stared in disbelief, nearly losing control of the Sharingan in his eyes. He raised a hand and rubbed his face. "No, that's three heads and nine arms. It's the Uchiha and Senju's Mokutaku."
Beside him, Naori turned her lively eyes toward the boy, curiously studying him. The Wood Golem looked pretty cool to her: three heads, nine arms, and two long swords at its waist. Its blue armor gleamed beneath the gloomy sky, shining like the morning star. Did Rikusei not like it?
The sudden change on the battlefield left no time for Rikusei and Naori to think. They hurriedly turned their attention back to the fight.
The Wood Golem flew behind the Nine-Tails. All nine arms strained at once, grabbing its tails and hoisting it into the sky. The upside-down Nine-Tails struggled desperately. As its body swayed, the Tailed Beast Bomb forming at its mouth gradually turned transparent, then vanished completely.
Madara kept pouring chakra into the Wood Golem as he controlled it to soar higher and higher. He glanced at the armor shattered by the Nine-Tails' claws and repaired it completely. Then he stared into the fox's eyes and said in a deep voice, "Nine-Tails, do you want to dance?"
Thousands of meters above the ground, the Wood Golem hovered in the sky, its wings beating. Sunlight cautiously slipped through the clouds and fell upon its armor, as if afraid to disturb the unprecedented sight beneath the Sky Curtain.
"The Nine-Tails is dangling like a chicken." Hiruzen's mouth hung open, his teeth chattering involuntarily. He grabbed Danzo beside him, hoping to see the same expression on his face.
But he was disappointed.
Danzo's narrow eyes had lost their light. When Hiruzen turned him around, only then did a flicker of emotion cross his otherwise motionless face.
"Is this real?"
Danzo asked in disbelief. He could accept the Wood Golem and the Nine-Tails fighting hand to hand. In fact, when the Wood Golem punched the Nine-Tails, it felt as though he were throwing the punches himself. The pure Taijutsu contest had been exhilarating.
But the one-sided situation now left him at a loss. He couldn't believe that Lord Hokage and Madara had just been playing around.
Yet the Nine-Tails, being tossed back and forth through the sky, seemed to tell him that they really had been playing.
"Are you all right, Danzo?" Seeing his dazed expression, Hiruzen stepped forward worriedly and touched the cold sweat on his forehead. His temperature was normal, so Hiruzen guessed he was just as stunned as he was.
"Hiruzen, look!"
Sarutobi Biwako gently alerted him to another change in the battle.
"Your dancing was passable," Madara said appreciatively after tossing the Nine-Tails around to his heart's content. "It's a shame the first Dance King tournament was won by the Sarutobi Clan! Hashirama, you're mostly to blame."
"Huh?" Dizzy from being tossed around, Hashirama slowly shook his head to clear it and answered. He seemed to be getting airsick from riding the flying blue Wood Golem.
"Your turn now."
Madara smiled indifferently and controlled the Wood Golem's nine arms to lift the orange fox high into the air. Then, in a sudden motion, he hurled it toward the ground.
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