A debate on peace? No, an execution!

It was as though heaven itself was playing a final dirge for the fall of this "false god."

The rain fell harder. Fierce winds drove icy rain through the gaping breach in the shattered tower, diluting the smell of blood in the chamber but making the chill of despair even more piercing.

"Cough... cough... urgh..."

As Ryūjin Jakka pierced his chest, Nagato Uzumaki's already skeletal body trembled violently. Yet he was a man who possessed both the Uzumaki Sage Body and the Rinnegan. Even with his heart damaged, his tenacious vitality remained staggering.

He clutched Chiya's sword hand by the wrist. In his gradually unfocusing Rinnegan, there was no fear of death, only a flame of almost obsessive determination.

"Chiya... Uchiha..."

Nagato's voice was faint, yet carried the strength of a dying man's final rally.

"You won... but only in strength."

"You don't understand... why this world became what it is."

Chiya did not rush to finish him off. Instead, he raised an eyebrow with interest, looking as though he were listening to an ant's final plea before death.

"Oh? I don't understand?"

Chiya loosened his hand slightly, leaving Nagato slumped in his wheelchair, clinging to life.

"Then I'll give you a chance. Tell me about this truth of yours."

Panting, Nagato glanced at Konan, pinned against the corner by the prison of light, her face streaked with tears. Pain flashed through his eyes before he turned back to Chiya.

"In this cursed shinobi world, peace... is nothing more than charity the strong grant the weak."

"The great nations wage war for their own interests, while small nations bleed and die between them. The Land of Rain... was a sacrifice in the great nations' struggle."

Nagato's voice grew louder, as though he meant to pour out a lifetime of resentment:

"These chains of hatred can never be broken!"

"Only pain!"

Nagato's eyes suddenly widened, violet light flickering in his Rinnegan.

"Only by making the world experience true pain, by making everyone tremble in fear, will they stop fighting because they're afraid!"

"I will gather the Nine Tailed Beasts and create an ultimate weapon capable of destroying an entire nation in an instant!"

"With that power as a deterrent, I will establish peace founded on 'fear'!"

"That is... the answer god offers humanity!"

Having forced all of that out in one breath, Nagato panted heavily, seemingly waiting for Chiya's agreement-or his rebuttal.

However.

"Heh..."

A soft chuckle broke the oppressive silence in the chamber.

Chiya looked at Nagato without the slightest hint of being moved. There was only the contempt of someone who had seen through a child's tricks.

"Finished?"

Chiya shook his head, his tone full of disappointment.

"Nagato, I thought someone who possessed the Rinnegan might have something insightful to offer."

"But... that's all?"

"What?!" Nagato froze.

"Your so-called peace is far too petty."

Chiya cut him off mercilessly, his voice cold as a blade:

"Create an ultimate weapon? Nuclear deterrence? Use it to maintain a fleeting peace?"

"Foolish."

Chiya raised one finger and waved it before Nagato.

"Humans are forgetful creatures."

"Once their wounds heal, they forget the pain. Decades from now, when the fear you created fades, a new generation will take up arms for their own interests. Then they'll do everything they can to build weapons stronger than yours to counter your deterrent."

"Your peace is nothing but a powder keg that could explode at any moment, an endless vicious cycle."

Rendered speechless by the rebuttal, Nagato turned deathly pale. "Then... what gives you the right to judge me? You're nothing but a butcher who knows only slaughter!"

"The right?"

Chiya slowly straightened. In that instant, his reiatsu grew unfathomably deep, as though he were a true emperor looking down upon his subjects.

"My peace doesn't need such roundabout deterrence."

"What I want is absolute rule."

Chiya spread his arms, radiating dominance:

"I don't need Tailed Beasts. I don't need some ultimate weapon."

"I am that weapon."

"As long as I live, no one in this world will dare start a war."

"If anyone dares reach out, I'll cut off their hand. If anyone dares raise their head, I'll cut it off."

"I will establish a new order with myself as its absolute center. Under that order, the Five Great Nations will cease to exist, shinobi villages will become history, and all power will rest in my hands alone."

"That is what you call-eternal peace."

Nagato stared blankly at Chiya.

Arrogant.

Utterly arrogant.

Yet he had to admit that the power and presence this man displayed were indeed more direct than his own plan to "build a weapon to frighten people"-and far more... despair-inducing.

"You... are a tyrant..." Nagato murmured.

"A tyrant, a demon king-call me what you like."

Chiya tightened his grip on the hilt of the blade embedded in Nagato's chest, his smile turning cruel.

"History is written by the victors."

"And you, Nagato, are merely the dregs of an old era."

"The debate is over."

Chiya's gaze sharpened as he prepared to end Nagato's life once and for all and complete his final plunder.

"NO!!!"

Just then, a piercing scream rang out from the corner.

Konan, who had been immobilized by Rikujōkōrō all this time, finally erupted into one last frenzy upon hearing Chiya's declaration of death.

"I won't let you... I won't let you take Nagato away!!!"

Konan's eyes were bloodshot. Ignoring the agony of her body being locked in the prison of light, she forcibly mobilized every last bit of chakra within her, even burning through her life force!

Rustle-!

In that instant, the chamber's floor, walls, and ceiling suddenly split apart.

Revealing... densely packed, overlapping layers of white paper within.

These were no ordinary sheets of paper.

Every one bore bright red explosive inscriptions!

This was the final line of defense Konan had planted inside Amegakure Tower to protect Nagato. Although it was not as outrageous as the six hundred billion sheets in the original story, there were still hundreds of millions-enough to reduce the tower and the surrounding blocks to dust!

"I prepared this for Madara... but now, if you're going to kill Nagato, then we'll all die together!!!"

Blood trickled from the corner of Konan's mouth, her face bearing a tragic beauty born of absolute resolve.

"Dance of the Shikigami: Explode!!"

Humm-!

Hundreds of millions of Explosive Tags lit up with blinding red light at once.

Terrifying waves of energy instantly filled the entire chamber. With so many explosions packed into such a confined space, even Susanoo might not have been able to block them completely!

"Konan! Don't!!" Nagato roared in despair.

On the brink of destruction, he thought not of himself, but of the fact that Konan would die too.

However.

At the center of the explosion, Chiya looked at the Explosive Tags blanketing his surroundings without a trace of panic.

He did not even furrow his brow.

"Die together?"

"Woman, you think far too highly of yourself."

Chiya slowly raised his left hand and spread his fingers, aiming his palm toward Konan and the red light filling the air ahead.

At this moment between life and death, he calmly recited an obscure, ancient incantation:

"Beast bones scattered everywhere! Spire, crimson crystal, wheels of steel!"

"In motion, the wind; at rest, the void!"

"The clash of spears fills the lonely city!"

As the incantation progressed, an enormous square wall of light, so solid it was nearly transparent, appeared out of thin air before Chiya, completely enclosing him and Nagato, whom he could not allow to be blown up before plundering him.

This was no ordinary chakra shield.

It was an absolute defense formed entirely from high-density reiatsu, powerful enough to sever space and causality!

"Bakudō #81: Dankū!"

BOOOOOM-!!!!!!

The instant his words fell, hundreds of millions of Explosive Tags detonated simultaneously.

At that moment, the night sky over Amegakure lit up completely.

A massive mushroom cloud rose from the tower's location. A terrifying shock wave laced with flames instantly tore through the tower's steel shell and swept outward in every direction.

The entire tower, like a burning torch, disintegrated in the explosion.

In the distance, Sasuke and Izumi had to retreat again, raising their arms to shield themselves from the blinding glare and scorching blast.

"That... that's..." Sasuke's heart sank as he watched the tower get blown apart.

"Chiya..."

The explosion lasted more than ten full seconds.

Then the flames dispersed, and the smoke and dust slowly settled.

The once-imposing Amegakure Tower was now a half-collapsed ruin, covered in blackened scars and flames that still burned.

Except.

At the heart of the explosion.

One patch of space remained untouched, as though it existed in another dimension.

There, a transparent wall of light stood quietly.

Behind it, Chiya still held one hand outstretched. Not even the hem of his black robe had been singed.

Before him, outside the wall of light.

The once-frenzied Konan now knelt amid the ruins.

Her body had been devastated by her overdrawn chakra and the explosion's shock waves. Half of it had even turned into charred paper that drifted away on the wind.

She stared blankly at the perfectly intact wall of light and the unscathed man behind it.

Her eyes filled with true despair.

"How... is this possible..."

"Those Explosive Tags could have leveled a mountain..."

"Why... couldn't they even touch the hem of his robe..."

Chiya slowly dispelled Dankū.

He glanced at Konan's despair-stricken face, his tone so indifferent that he might merely have blocked a gentle breeze.

"Nice fireworks."

"Unfortunately, they still lacked power."

"If this is your final struggle..."

Chiya turned back toward Nagato, who was barely alive and equally stunned into silence by that miraculous defense.

"Then it's time to bring this farce to a close."

"No!!!" Konan gave a feeble cry of grief. She tried to rush over, but no longer even had the strength to stand.

Chiya ignored the defeated woman's wails.

He pressed his palm against Nagato's chest. The system's cold notification sounded in his mind like a pronouncement from the Death God.

"Goodbye, Nagato."

"Your pain, your ideals, and your eyes..."

"I'll put them to good use for you."

Shhk!

Ryūjin Jakka pierced clean through him.

Nagato's body suddenly went rigid. Then, amid golden flames, the light in his Rinnegan finally went out for good.

[Ding! Plunder complete!]

[Congratulations, host! Acquired: Rinnegan!]

[Congratulations, host! Acquired: Uzumaki Sage Body!]

[Congratulations, host! Acquired: Demonic Statue of the Outer Path Contract!]

An unprecedented surge of immense power instantly poured into Chiya's body.

He closed his eyes, sensing that his once-scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan seemed to be undergoing some deeper, more fundamental evolution at that moment.

The rain gradually stopped.

Chiya stood atop the ruins, the sole victor of this "battle of gods."