"Report! The third defensive line has collapsed! Madara Uchiha... Madara Uchiha has appeared!"
The communications ninja's voice burst from the crystal ball in headquarters in a tearing shriek.
Inoichi Yamanaka abruptly pressed his temples. His sensory network was instantly overwhelmed by a torrent of chakra so vast it was suffocating. These were not the lifeless fluctuations of someone brought back through Impure World Reincarnation, but a savage vitality like a dormant volcano suddenly erupting, carrying the majesty and will to destroy accumulated over a thousand years as it spread unchecked across the battlefield.
"Madara Uchiha..." The tactical pen in Shikaku Nara's hand clattered to the floor. "How could he... Hadn't Lord Shengu Xuan already dealt with Kabuto Yakushi's Impure World Reincarnation..."
"Report!" Another messenger scrambled into headquarters, his face drained of blood. "Kabuto Yakushi's life signs... have disappeared! But the Impure World Reincarnation formula hasn't been dispelled! Madara... Madara has broken free of control! He's on the battlefield... summoning something..."
Before he could finish-
The entire headquarters shook violently, dust raining from the ceiling. Everyone turned toward the sky on the magical screen, where firelight and darkness intertwined.
The sky split open.
Not figuratively, but literally. High, high in the heavens, space twisted and peeled away like fragile glass, revealing the depths of the cosmos beyond. Then a... meteor, more than fifty meters in diameter and burning with white-hot flames, was forcibly dragged out of another dimension.
It hovered directly above the battlefield.
Its shadow shrouded the earth, swallowing every last trace of twilight. The Shadowkhan and White Zetsu locked in combat, the reincarnated fighters surrounded by the Sealing Squad, the Allied Forces ninja struggling to break through... everyone stopped and looked up at that terrifying celestial body as it slowly rotated like an eye of divine punishment.
"Wh-what the