Village Arrangements! Arrival at the Battlefield! Perfect Susanoo!

Uchiha Clan District.

Tobirama tossed a scroll from his hand onto the tatami.

"This is Paper Style. I won't be in Konoha for a while, so learn this ninjutsu first."

"This is a ninjutsu I created specifically for you. If there's anything you don't understand, wait until I get back and ask me."

Without looking at her, Tobirama adjusted the guards on his wrists and said, "Don't run around. It's dangerous outside lately. Just stay home and wait for me to come back."

Konan picked up the scroll and nodded.

The little one was taken care of. Now for the old one.

Tobirama turned his head and looked at the Great Elder by the door.

"I'm leaving, Great Elder."

"While I'm gone, keep the clan and the Anbu under my command on alert at all times. Don't let the Third and the others lash out like cornered dogs."

The Great Elder abruptly raised his head. Fierceness flashed in his aged eyes.

"Whoever dares touch our Uchiha Clan, this old man will bite a chunk out of them even if it costs me these old bones!"

"You won't need to risk your life."

The corner of Tobirama's mouth tugged up in a cold smile. "Deploy the Konoha Military Police Force and the Anbu. Whoever reaches out, chop off their hand. No need to ask for permission."

"Yes!"

In a flash of golden light, Tobirama Uchiha had completely left Konoha.

Land of Rain, Amegakure.

Konoha's side was almost wiped out.

They really were almost wiped out.

Fewer than a thousand people remained, squeezed onto a small hill with enemies surrounding them on all sides.

Iwa Ninja, Suna Ninja, Kumo Ninja.

They packed the area like an overturned nest of ants, a black mass surging uphill.

"Hold the line! Fucking hold the line!"

A Konoha jōnin shouted himself hoarse. He had just stabbed a kunai into an Iwa Ninja's neck when a huge blade slashed his back open.

Blood sprayed across the ground.

It was useless.

They simply could not hold.

In the sky, Ōnoki continuously surveyed the battlefield.

He barely needed to fight. He simply watched from above, occasionally extending a finger.

A beam of white light descended.

A chunk vanished from Konoha's defensive line below. More than a dozen people disappeared in an instant, not even scraps left behind.

The ground battle was an even greater slaughter.

The Third Raikage, crackling with blue lightning, charged at the very front.

The man was a madman. He did not dodge at all.

Konoha ninja slapped Explosive Tags onto him, and they detonated with bang after bang, yet they did not even break his skin. With a backhanded elbow strike, he smashed a Konoha Chūnin's head apart. Anyone unaware might have thought he was smashing a watermelon.

"Too fragile! Too fragile!"

The Raikage laughed wildly, grabbed someone, and hurled them into the crowd like a sandbag. "Is Konoha out of people already? Huh?"

Elsewhere.

Black sand filled the sky.

With a wave of the Third Kazekage's hand, the sand turned into massive hammers and spears.

The Rain Ninja who had surrendered were the most miserable. Before they could even touch an enemy, Iron Sand pierced them full of holes.

Tsunade panted there.

She was drenched in blood. She had long lost count of how many enemies she had killed, and her face was covered in blood and mud.

Her chakra was depleted.

Katsuyu beside her was listless as well, shrunk down to the size of a washbasin.

"Lady Tsunade..."

A squad captain beside her wore a miserable expression. One of his arms was broken and dangling limply. "Let's retreat... We really can't keep fighting."

"Surrender my ass!"

Tsunade slapped him across the face. "Konoha has only those who die fighting, never those who kneel! Say another word of nonsense and I'll kill you first!"

Though she spoke fiercely, she too had already reached her limit.

She looked up.

Despair.

True despair.

They were not even on the same level. The enemy had three Kage and tens of thousands of troops. What did they have? Wounded remnants, and they still had injured people to protect.

"End this."

Ōnoki in the sky seemed to have grown tired of watching.

He pressed his hands together.

"Dust Release: Atomic Dismantling Jutsu."

This beam was ten times thicker than before.

It shot straight down toward Tsunade.

Every person from Konoha had only one thought: It's over.

Tsunade did not dodge.

She could not.

She closed her eyes, and that brat's face flashed through her mind.

What a pity. I never got the chance to talk to him more.

The beam descended.

Just then.

Whoosh.

A sharp sound tore through the air.

A kunai embedded itself in the muddy pit beside Tsunade's feet.

Before anyone could react.

A hand pressed directly onto Tsunade's shoulder.

Flash!

The white beam crashed down.

But it did not hit anyone.

Tobirama had already teleported Tsunade aside.

Boom!

The ground shook.

Smoke and dust billowed everywhere.

Tsunade felt herself being held. She recognized that familiar embrace instantly.

She opened her eyes. Sure enough, it was that bastard Tobirama.

"You..."

Tobirama lowered his head and glanced at her, his eyes full of disdain.

"You got yourself into this state?"

He released her, shoved Tsunade backward, then wiped his hands on his clothes as if he had touched something filthy. "Don't say you know me when you go out from now on. It's too embarrassing."

Tsunade's tears immediately fell.

Not because she was touched, but because she was angry—and wronged.

She wanted to curse him out, but in the end only managed, "...You bastard."

Only then did the people around them recover their senses.

The entire battlefield froze.

Who was this?

The people on Konoha's side nearly had their eyes pop out.

"Lord... Lord Tobirama..."

"It's Lord Tobirama!"

"Lord Tobirama came to save us!"

The allied forces on the other side stopped fighting as well.

Tens of thousands of eyes stared at the black-clothed youth who had suddenly appeared.

Ōnoki frowned slightly in the sky and floated lower. "So this is that Uchiha brat? He looks far too young."

Lightning still crackled around the Raikage's body as he took a step forward. "That's him? Has Hiruzen Sarutobi gone stupid? He sent a brat here to die?"

"Hahahaha!"

The allied forces erupted in laughter.

Some whistled, while others slapped their thighs.

"Hey, brat, are you weaned yet?"

"Go home and find your mommy!"

The mocking laughter came in wave after wave.

Tobirama ignored them.

He stood there with his back to the Konoha forces, facing tens of thousands of soldiers.

"Tsunade."

He spoke quietly, but his voice came through clearly in the rain.

"Take them and retreat farther away."

Tsunade froze. "What did you say?"

Tobirama tilted his head, and his red eye turned slightly. "Fall back ten li."

The Konoha people were dumbfounded.

The squad captain with the broken arm stammered, "M-My lord, just you alone? H-How are you supposed to fight this?"

"If he tells you to retreat, then retreat!"

Tsunade suddenly shouted.

She understood the look in Tobirama's eyes.

"Retreat! Everyone, retreat! Now!"

Tsunade grabbed the injured people off the ground and dragged them backward.

The Konoha people were confused, but their bodies were honest. At a time like this, who would not run if they could? They all hurriedly retreated.

In the blink of an eye.

Only Tobirama remained in that muddy field.

All alone.

The enemy laughed even harder.

Even the Kazekage could no longer maintain his gloomy expression and sneered. "Interesting. Is he trying to play the hero? One man against the Three Nations Allied Forces?"

"Overestimating himself."

Ōnoki shook his head and raised a hand. "Attack. Don't waste time on an idiot. Crush him."

"Attack!"

The Raikage had a fiery temper and had long since lost his patience.

"Brat! Remember this—the one killing you is the Third Raikage!"

With a roar, he shot forward like a cannonball.

Too fast.

So fast that even his afterimage could not be seen clearly.

His lightning-wreathed fist blasted straight toward Tobirama's head.

Tobirama did not move.

He did not form seals.

He did not dodge.

The tomoe in his eyes merely connected, forming the shape of a pinwheel.

Hum.

A cold, sinister chakra suddenly erupted.

The Raikage, who had been laughing wildly moments ago, suddenly felt that the youth before him was not a boy at all, but an ultimate powerhouse.

His lethal punch stopped an inch from Tobirama's nose.

Not because he wanted it to stop.

A massive red skeletal hand had tightly gripped his wrist.

Then.

Flesh grew over the skeleton, and armor covered it.

In the blink of an eye.

A red giant hundreds of meters tall rose from the ground.

Perfect Susanoo.

The moment it appeared, half the sky darkened.

The laughter of the tens of thousands who had been laughing moments ago came to an abrupt halt.

Everyone craned their heads up, staring at Susanoo in shock.

What the hell was that?

The Raikage, who had just thought himself invincible, looked like an ant before this giant.

Tobirama stood atop the giant's head.

Looking down from above.

"Who was laughing the loudest just now?"

He raised his hand, and Susanoo raised its hand as well. The massive chakra sword in its grip gestured toward the crowd below.

"Frogs at the bottom of a well—have you ever seen a true god?"

"Today, I'll let you witness the power of the God of Shinobi."

The moment the words fell—

The giant sword swung down.