Top Transformed Buddha, Crushing Everything

Three red pupils spun wildly on Danzō's Sharingan arm.

Chakra rampaged through his right arm, and the First Hokage's cells began to lose control under the suppression of a genuine Sage Body. Blood seeped from the gaps around the Sharingan embedded in his skin, while the patterns on his grayish-white arm shifted from dark gray to pale green—the cells were rebelling.

It hurt.

Danzō clenched his back teeth. This was no ordinary pain. His own arm was trying to leave his body and return to the embrace of its true owner.

"Move."

Atop the hundred-meter-tall Wood Buddha, Nawaki uttered a single word.

Hundreds of giant palms behind him descended at once.

They did not slap down—they smashed.

Like a torrential downpour pounding an anthill.

The instant the first row of giant palms struck the ground, the shockwave sent the six experimental subjects behind Danzō flying. Three were intercepted midair by the second row of giant palms, wooden fists closing around them like they were crushing dry walnuts.

The wooden shells gave short, crisp cracks beneath the pressure.

There were not even any screams. Their mouths hung open, but their vocal cords snapped the instant they were crushed flat.

"Command—scatter—"

Danzō's throat roared hoarsely. The Root operatives' formation had already been shattered by the first wave of impact. Fewer than thirty could still stand. They heard the command, but their legs would not obey.

It was not that they did not want to run.

They simply did not know where to run.

The Four Red Yang Formation was outside. The Amaterasu Cage was inside. The hundred-meter Wood Buddha above had blotted out the sky. There were less than two seconds between the descending giant palms—far too little time to make any effective move.

The third row of giant palms crashed down.

Twenty-three Root operatives. Gone.

Sakumo stood at the northwest corner, the White Fang short blade held before him. He did not move.

There was no need for him to move.

This was not a battle.

A battle was something where both sides exchanged blows. What was happening before him had a more accurate name.

An execution.

A giant palm slammed Danzō into the ground. His Sharingan arm desperately braced against the wooden fingers overhead. His knees sank half a foot into the mud. The First Hokage's cells in his arm multiplied madly, trying to grow wooden structures thick enough to offset the pressure—

Pop.

The Sharingan closest to his shoulder exploded.

It had not been crushed. The cells had gone out of control and swollen until it burst from within. Fragments of the eyeball and green fluid sprayed from cracks in his skin.

Danzō grunted.

The giant palm withdrew. A two-second opening.

Danzō staggered out of the crater. Half his body had collapsed, and only two Sharingan on his right arm were still spinning.

He looked up.

A hundred meters high. The wind lifted Nawaki's hem, and the markings of Sage Mode stood out clearly in the dusk.

Twelve years old.

He was only fucking twelve.

"Izanagi..."

Danzō's right hand began forming seals. One of his two remaining Sharingan abruptly enlarged, the tomoe within its pupil spinning and merging—Izanagi. A forbidden technique that rewrote reality. Once activated, it could rewrite his state from "struck" to "not struck."

Even death could be rewritten.

This was his final trump card.

"The thing on that arm of yours irritates me just looking at it."

Nawaki's voice drifted down from above.

It was not anger. It was not even indifference.

It was disgust, as though it were filthy.

The Wood Buddha's right hand rose alone. Not a fist—its five fingers spread wide, palm facing down.

From the very center of its palm, a wooden spike grew at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Precise.

Fast.

The spike fell from a hundred meters up, pierced through the chakra shield Danzō hastily raised, and drove straight through his right forearm.

Not his shoulder. Not his hand.

The exact center of his forearm.

The spike nailed into the ground, pinning Danzō's entire right arm to the shattered stone slabs.

"Aah—!"

Danzō finally screamed.

The point where his forearm was pierced happened to be where the second Sharingan was embedded. The eyeball shattered from the impact of the wooden spike piercing through it. Red fluid mixed with grayish-white cellular tissue and gushed from the wound.

His Izanagi hand seals were broken.

His chance to rewrite reality was gone.

"One left." Nawaki lowered his head and counted. "Want me to help you pluck that one out too?"

Danzō knelt on the ground, his right arm nailed down, his left hand supporting him against the earth. His eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the Wood Buddha overhead.

A lifetime.

He had spent a lifetime chasing this power. Hashirama's Wood Release, the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan—he had stitched other people's things onto his own body, one by one, for thirty years.

And in the presence of their true owner—

They were all scrap metal.

"Senju... Nawaki..." Danzō's voice was hoarse. "Do you think killing me... means Konoha will belong to the Senju Clan? The Third Hokage won't—"

"The Third Hokage?"

Nawaki cut him off.

One giant palm of the Wood Buddha extended past the walls of the Senju Clan Compound and pointed toward the end of the street to the northeast.

Danzō turned his head with difficulty.

The direction of the Hokage Building.

On the street, a small figure was striding over under the escort of Anbu. The ember of a pipe glowed and dimmed in the night.

Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Hiruzen Sarutobi stopped outside the gates of the Senju Clan Compound.

The gates no longer existed. Along with the section of wall carved with the Senju Clan crest, they had been reduced to wood chips scattered across the ground.

The air was thick with a pungent blend of vitality and blood.

Under the night sky, the hundred-meter wooden Buddha was collapsing and disintegrating. The massive chunks of wood did not fall to the ground; instead, they rapidly weathered in midair, turning into green motes of light that scattered away.

Choza Akimichi's plump body trembled. He clenched his fists.

The heads of every major clan had been alarmed by the earthquake just now. They had followed the Anbu here, expecting to witness the destruction of the Senju Clan.

Instead, they saw a myth.

Hiruzen Sarutobi's gaze swept over the humanoid wooden stakes covering the ground. They had been eighty-six Root elites. Now, not one of them was breathing.

His gaze continued forward.

At the center of the ruins, Shimura Danzo knelt amid the rubble. A thick wooden spike had pierced his right arm, pinning him firmly to the ground.

Half of Danzo's black robe had been shredded. The right side of his body was exposed to the air.

Stitched scars. Grayish-white skin. And twisted branches growing outward uncontrollably.

Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyelids twitched sharply.

He knew Danzo had been researching the First Hokage's cells. He had allowed it. But he had not known Danzo had planted the thing inside his own body.

At the deepest part of the ruins, Nawaki stood atop a remnant wooden stump.

The markings of Sage Mode were fading from his cheeks. He patted the corner of his clothes, a smile hanging from his lips.

"Lord Third Hokage, come in and have a seat. I just brewed some tea."

The words echoed through the deathly silent ruins.

No one moved.