Above the Konoha First Arsenal.
The wind pressure was so crushing that people could barely breathe.
The several-hundred-meter-long Chakra greatsword of the Complete-Body Susanoo was slowly pressing downward with an unmatched might.
The air was compressed until it burst, letting out a wail like tearing cloth.
Below, half the shoulder of the Wood Human Arhat summoned by Hashirama Senju had been sliced away. Its massive severed wooden arm, carrying several tons of rubble, crashed into the Arsenal's third cooling tower, kicking up clouds of dust.
"Madara! Stop!"
The reanimated Hashirama pressed his hands together, the cracks on his forehead clearly visible. The vines produced by Wood Release shattered inch by inch like dry straw the moment they touched Susanoo's high-density chakra shell.
"Too weak, Hashirama."
Madara Uchiha stood within the crystal at Susanoo's brow, arms folded as he looked down upon the tiny village below.
There was no pity in his eyes, only weariness toward such fragile peace.
"This is the future you wanted to protect? Worthless scrap that can't even withstand a single strike from me?"
The greatsword continued descending.
Less than fifty meters remained between it and the dome of the Arsenal's core reactor.
On the ground command platform, Tsunade gripped the railing so tightly that her knuckles turned blue. The air raid sirens wailed as miserably as death cries, while thousands of Konoha shinobi looked up in despair at the Sword of Damocles about to sever Konoha's lifeline.
Everyone understood that once the reactor detonated, half of Konoha would be wiped flat.
Madara sneered and increased his ocular power output.
"It ends here."
At that instant.
A sound never before heard in the Shinobi World abruptly tore through the clouds.
It was not the boom caused by ninjutsu.
It was the shrill scream of air as an