Amid thunderous roars as if the heavens were shattering, a blue comet tore through the smoke-filled battlefield.
Just as the Crimson Sky Puppet's Dragon Vein greatsword was about to fall, the clouds were suddenly twisted into a spiraling hollow by a violent vortex of chakra.
Everyone looked up—only to see the Great Tengu-form Complete Body Susanoo diving down like a falling meteor.
The dark-blue chakra armor ignited with azure flames from the intense friction. When its wings fully spread, they blotted out hundreds of meters of sky. Every beat of its wings unleashed hurricane-force winds, forcing the Sand Shinobi on the ground to stagger backward.
"That's... the Hokage! Lord Hokage is here!" a Konoha ninja cried hoarsely, his voice drowned out by the sonic boom of the Susanoo tearing through the air.
An oppressive presence, like the arrival of a savior, swept across the battlefield.
The scarlet Sharingan beneath the Great Tengu helmet suddenly blazed to life. Madara stood with his arms folded within the Susanoo's crystalline core, his Crimson Armor snapping wildly in the chakra currents.
As his cold gaze locked onto Reto, the two enormous blades on the Susanoo's back suddenly erupted with dazzling chakra flames—their hundred-meter blades instantly extended to one hundred and fifty meters, while blue lightning-fire coiling around their edges ionized the air into web-like trails of light.
"Reto!" Madara's roar exploded like thunder. "You don't get to write Konoha's ending!"
The instant the twin blades fell, time seemed to freeze.
The left blade struck the Crimson Sky Puppet's Dragon Vein greatsword first. The shockwave produced by the collision of the two energies expanded in a sphere, shaving three meters off the sand and earth within a radius of hundreds of meters.
Just as Reto controlled the puppet to retreat and dissipate the force, the