Setting out for Turtle Island, the Uchiha's old scores

Early morning, at the Konoha.

The two heavy wagons were fully loaded. Kakashi stood beside the wagons, checking the final list of supplies.

"These are special medicines to resist Lightning Release paralysis, three vials per person. The red bottle contains Blood Coagulation Powder, which can maintain its effectiveness underwater." Sakura deftly tossed several scrolls to Sasuke and Naruto, her movements swift and efficient.

Today, she had her short pink hair tied up very tightly and was carrying a huge medical sealing box on her back.

Naruto caught the scroll with one hand and weighed it a couple of times. "Not bad, Sakura. When did you secretly take logistics classes behind our backs?"

"Last night, in the latter half of the night," Sakura said calmly, brushing the dust off her hands, "I can't have you guys always at the forefront of every fight, and I can't even get you a bandage."

Kakashi looked away from "Icha Icha Paradise," a hint of admiration flashing in his single, exposed eye. This girl had finally channeled all that love-struck energy into Chakra control.

"Let's go once everyone's here. The Land of Lightning won't wait for us." Naruto waved his hand and jumped onto the carriage.

Two days later. Endless Sea of Lightning.

The gale whipped up towering waves tens of meters high, slamming violently against the wooden hull of the speedboat. This ironclad vessel, chartered at great expense from the black market, tossed about like a leaf on the raging sea.

Outside the cabin, the sea breeze was biting.

Sasuke leaned against the railing, clutching a dark red scroll in his hand. It was something Tsunade had specially sent by the Anbu before their departure—an original copy of a top-secret Uchiha file that Shikamaru had dug up from the Root's basement.

The open pages fluttered in the wind. They were clearly recorded in ink every instruction given on the night of the Uchiha Clan Massacre: how Danzo forced Itachi, how he secretly sent people to harvest the Sharingan of the dead, and even the formula for the nutrient solution to preserve those eyes.

"Sizzle--"

Lightning Release Chakra burst forth from Sasuke's body without warning. Blue-white arcs of electricity traveled along his wrist, slicing three deep, bone-revealing scorch marks into the thick iron railing in front of him.

He didn't speak, but his Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun wildly in his eye sockets as he stared intently at the word "recycle" on the scroll.

"Want to go back and dislocate that old dog's other arm too?" Naruto appeared beside Sasuke at some point and slapped him on the shoulder.

A surge of violent Pure Yang Chakra flowed into his palm, forcefully but effectively suppressing Sasuke's Lightning Release, which was about to spiral out of control.

Sasuke froze, turning to look at Naruto. His Sharingan were bloodshot.

"No." Sasuke a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the bloodshot in his eyes had faded, and his pupils had returned to black.

He rolled up the scroll and stuffed it into his personal ninja tool pouch, his voice as cold as ice crystals on the sea. "Danzo is already a cripple. Stripping him of his power will cause him more pain than killing him. That's Hidden Leaf's old score."

Sasuke turned around, looking at the fog-shrouded sea ahead, his hand resting on the hilt of the Kusanagi Sword: "Itachi chose to protect the village back then. What I choose is none of that business with those dead men. What I need to do now is help the living protect this game. Anyone who dares to touch what we care about, I'll cut them down."

"That's more like it." Naruto grinned, revealing his gleaming white teeth. "After we take down that Golem, I'll go with you to the heavy punishment room when we get back, and then we'll slowly settle the interest with that old dog."

No sooner had she finished speaking than Karin let out a startled cry from inside the cabin.

"Naruto! There's something underwater! A lot of it!"

Karin stumbled out, leaning against the doorframe, her face pale. She suffered from severe seasickness and had been vomiting for two days, but Mind's Eye of the Kagura's perception was at its maximum.

"They're not fish, and they're not sea creatures... Their Chakra reactions are all pure Wood Release! Like plants!" Karin pointed to the front of the ship.

The seawater began to boil violently at that moment.

The once deep blue sea suddenly turned a nauseating grayish-white. A dozen wooden tentacles, as thick as buckets, burst from the water and coiled tightly around the keel of the ironclad ship like giant pythons.

The ship tilted sharply, emitting a piercing metallic twisting sound.

Immediately afterwards, twenty or thirty pale-skinned humanoid creatures (White Zetsu) covered in eerie spores leaped out of the water. Their arms transformed into sharp wooden blades, and they pounced on the people on the deck, treading on the water's surface.

Naruto stood there, arms crossed, making no intention of drawing the Flying Thunder God Kunai from his waist.

"Sasuke, you're in charge." Naruto yawned.

Without a word, Sasuke drew his Kusanagi Sword, and high-frequency Lightning Release instantly coiled around the blade.

"Kakashi-sensei, underwater severing! Sakura, guard the starboard deck! Haku, seal off the sea!"

The moment the order was given, the Team 7 moved.

Kakashi didn't even form hand seals; he simply conjured a blinding ball of lightning with one hand. He flipped over and leaped off the deck, plunging headfirst into the turbulent sea.

"Chidori!"

A muffled explosion came from the seabed. The wooden tentacles wrapped around the hull were instantly scorched and severed by the violent lightning, and the hull crashed back to its right side.

Meanwhile, on the starboard deck.

Two White Zetsu screech as they lunged at Sakura, who looked the most vulnerable, their long wooden swords pointed directly at her throat.

Sakura's eyes flashed with a fierce light, and instead of retreating, she advanced. She stomped her right foot on the deck for leverage, twisted her waist, and delivered a powerful punch imbued with pink Chakra, slamming it hard into the face of the White Zetsu charging at the forefront.

"Boom!"

Without any suspense, half of the White Zetsu's head was blasted into flying wood chips by the Monster Strength.

Seeing this, the other White Zetsu tried to retreat, Sakura's left hand had already reached out, her fingertips glowing with the blue light of Chakra Scalpel, precisely severing its cervical vertebrae, and then kicking it into the sea.

"Water Release: Water Wall! Ice Release: Ice Age!"

Bai stood at the bow of the ship, his hands moving swiftly, leaving afterimages in his wake. The seawater whipped up by the gale instantly froze, turning into a layer of ice several meters thick, which spread wildly outwards from the speedboat.

The remaining dozen or so White Zetsu were frozen solid on the sea surface before they could even jump onto the ship, turning into distorted ice sculptures.

Sasuke leaped high into the air, his hands Hand Seals as he stood there.

"Chidori Stream!"

A blue-white high-voltage current rapidly spread along the ice surface, penetrating into the interior of each ice sculpture. Accompanied by a series of crisp cracking sounds, all the White Zetsu ice sculptures instantly shattered into ice shards scattered all over the ground.

The battle ended in less than ten seconds.

There were no shouts or unnecessary movements. Under Sasuke's direction, the three of them turned the killing into a precise assembly line.

Kakashi, soaking wet, flipped back onto the deck, shaking the water off his hands. "These monsters have ridiculously high cellular activity. If you get entangled with them, your Chakra will be completely drained."

Naruto stepped forward and kicked the half-piece of wooden head that had fallen onto the deck. There was no blood at the cut, only a white, sticky substance that smelled of earth.

"Orochimaru's stupid experiments back then are nothing compared to this," Naruto sneered. This was Black Zetsu's creation. It seems Turtle Island has been turned into their home turf.

"The wind has changed direction," Bai whispered a reminder.

The thick fog ahead was dispelled by the icy air from the sea, and the world suddenly opened up before us.

Everyone's gaze was fixed on a colossal object that appeared on the horizon.

That's an island.

But it has a huge head, thick limbs, and even moves slowly. This is a prehistoric giant tortoise that has lived for countless years, and it is also the top secret mobile fortress of the Kumogakure.

However, the scene before them was chilling.

The turtle's shell, which should have been covered with towering trees, was now largely withered. Dark red Chakra veins, like a giant spider web, clung tightly to the giant turtle's carapace, pulsating rhythmically like blood vessels.

The giant tortoise emitted a low, painful wail, and the surrounding seawater was stained a deathly black by the exhaust fumes it exhaled.

"This thing is being drained alive." Karin clutched her chest, cold sweat beading on her forehead. "Beneath Turtle Island... there's a monster. It's so cold... that kind of Chakra doesn't belong to this world at all!"

"Bang!"

Without warning, the giant turtle suddenly raised its forelimbs and slammed them heavily into the sea, creating a terrifying tsunami tens of meters high that hurtled towards the speedboat.

At the very top of this massive, sky-covering tsunami stood a figure.

A wide black robe billowed wildly in the wind, and an orange tiger-skin mask covered his face. His right arm was an unnatural, deathly white as he looked down at the ant-like iron ship.

"You're so slow, Naruto Uzumaki."

Obito Uchiha's voice came through the mask, tinged with a hint of somberness and mockery, "But you've come at just the right time. The fertilizer here is just missing that half of your Yang Release."

Obito then Teuchi his fingers.

"Boom--!"

The ground on the giant tortoise's back cracked inch by inch, and amidst the billowing dust, a colossal wooden statue, hundreds of meters tall, emerged from the earth.

The statue was emaciated, its hands bound by thick iron chains, and its ten tightly closed eyes exuded a despairing, deathly aura under the gloomy sky.

The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path!

As soon as it appeared, the thunderclouds in the surrounding sea seemed to be attracted by a black hole, frantically converging towards its head.

Suddenly, without warning, one of the Golem's bottom eyes opened a crack.

In that instant, the air stopped flowing. A terrifying pressure, capable of stripping away all life, crossed a thousand meters of sea surface and locked onto Naruto.

The ship's deck creaked, and even Kakashi instinctively gripped his Kunai.

Naruto, however, laughed.

He stepped onto the ram of the ship, and a dazzling purple-gold light shot up from his body, tearing through the oppressive gloom of the Golem. Nine golden Chakra Chains, as thick as an adult's arm, danced wildly behind him, like nine enraged dragons.

"Rotten wood."

Naruto raised his hand, pointing at the towering monster that blotted out the sky, his voice drowning out the thunder. "Today, I'll chop you up like firewood."