"Is that...?"
Uchiha Madara's eyes turned blood-red in an instant. The tomoe linked together, and the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan spun rapidly until the crimson hue dissolved into a faint lavender. Like a droplet of water rippling across a calm pond, concentric circles spread outward.
The evolution from Sharingan to Rinnegan granted Madara perception beyond mortal limits.
High above, he could see it clearly—the flaming object descending through the atmosphere, its surface igniting from friction. Wrapped in fire, the sharply geometric, conical silhouette declared itself unmistakably: not a creation of nature.
"So... they've come."
"Hashirama!"
Madara didn't even need to call attention to it—the anomaly in the sky had already caught the eyes of everyone in the Allied Shinobi Forces' headquarters.
Ending the awkward attempt at explanation—one that required his eloquent younger brother Tobirama's help to fully convey why he had agreed to cooperate with the "villain" Uchiha Madara—Hashirama landed beside him.
The two stood shoulder to shoulder, both clad in layered crimson armor. Madara glanced sideways, a faint smile tugging at his lips. He relished this—fighting once more beside the only friend he had ever truly acknowledged.
It might have been an unexpected crisis, but perhaps, he thought, a blessing in disguise.
"Is it Them?"
The First Hokage's dark eyes gazed upward at the "meteor shower" streaking across the heavens.
"Uncertain. But whoever they are, they're no allies. What of the Nine-Tails boy?"
"Though it was hard for him, Naruto and Kurama have forged a genuine bond of comradeship. Yet he's chosen to hand over the Nine-Tails for the greater good. Many of his peers tried to dissuade him, but he's in the sealing space now—apologizing to the Nine-Tails..."
"Hmph. I may have overestimated him. Forming emotional ties with a chakra beast—mere tools—what foolish sentimentality."
Almost simultaneously, reports flooded in from the Allied Shinobi Headquarters: from Konoha's Intelligence Division led by Yamanaka Inoichi, and the Sensor Division under Kumo's jonin, Cee.
"Report! Third Division under attack by unknown enemies! Fourth Division hit by unidentified ninja weaponry!"
"The enemy isn't White Zetsu!"
The sound of comrades' bodies being torn apart, the metallic screeching—clank, clank!—echoed through the communication channels. The roaring hum and explosions—like industrial pile drivers and shredders—filled the air. The intelligence officer maintaining the link went wide-eyed, trembling as sweat poured down his face.
"Enemy numbers... one thousand, ten thousand... no—one hundred thousand... two hundred thousand! Over three hundred thousand! The numbers are still rising! Frontline shinobi can no longer estimate—enemy troops cover the mountains! Requesting immediate reinforcements!"
"What?!"
"Could it be a sensory error?!"
"Impossible! My team's dead! You think his dying report was a lie?!"
...
The Allied Headquarters erupted into chaos. Shouts overlapped, arguments flared—ninja from the Five Great Nations, already overwhelmed by conflicting orders and conflicting news, were thrown into utter confusion.
With the Five Kage still incapacitated from their battle against Edo Tensei Madara—some gravely injured, some unconscious—only the medical units under Shizune's command kept them stable. The Allied Forces had no true leader.
Konoha still had Hokage, of course—but without the cooperation of the Tsuchikage, Raikage, Mizukage, and Kazekage, why should ninja from other villages entrust their fates entirely to Konoha's command?
Swish!
Standing three paces behind, clad in a black combat suit and hood, his Edo Tensei body showing his elderly form, Hiruzen Sarutobi raised his wrinkled, timeworn face. The Third Hokage looked up at the two founders of Konohagakure before him, both still youthful and resolute.
"First Hokage-sama... what should we do?"
He could already see it.
Several kilometers away, the deafening whistling and explosions of the "meteor shower" filled the horizon, echoing across mountains and forests.
Dust billowed high, blotting out the sky.
In the flickering glow of the fires, dark, pyramid-shaped metallic structures towered amid burning forests and shattered ravines. Their blade-like edges glinted crimson in the blaze.
"Do what? There's nothing you can do, little monkey of the Sarutobi clan."
Madara narrowed his eyes in disdain and shook his head. "The best way you can help is by not getting in our way—yours or Hashirama's. The so-called Allied Shinobi Forces... barely worth the name. Rather than—"
"Madara!"
The First Hokage's sharp rebuke cut him off. Their ideals had always diverged, but Madara merely waved a hand, unwilling to waste time on another meaningless argument.
"Right or wrong doesn't matter, Hashirama. You've seen it yourself—the speed of Their approach. As expected, that direction... the Ten-Tails is their target."
Pointing toward the clouds of smoke and dust on the horizon, Madara gave Hashirama a sidelong glance.
"We'll settle our old debate later."
Voom!
In perfect synchrony, the two flared with chakra, power rippling through the air like a storm.
"Monkey brat," Madara called out over his shoulder, "tell Uzumaki Naruto this: if his resolve is more than just empty words... I, Uchiha Madara, acknowledge his will. Hashirama and I will wait for him at the Ten-Tails' location. The malice from beyond the void has already arrived—and only the Nine-Tails remains before the Ten-Tails' full revival."
With that, boom!—the ground cracked and the platform beneath them collapsed. The two crimson-armored warlords of the Warring States vanished from sight.
"Third Hokage-sama... should we support them?"
A Konoha ninja hesitated, watching as Hiruzen Sarutobi stood silently in place.
"Hah..."
Exhaling heavily, the old man straightened his bent frame and turned toward the unconscious Naruto seated on the sofa, his mind within the sealing space. Hiruzen's face was full of quiet guilt.
"Naruto... this old man owes you dearly. Konoha shinobi, hear my command—support the First Hokage! Our enemies are not of this world!"
"Yes, sir!" ×N
At once, dozens of Sarutobi-clan ninja stepped forward.
With a leader taking the initiative, more and more Konoha ninja followed, leaping after Hiruzen's small but resolute figure toward the frontlines.
As the longest-serving Hokage—touted as the "Strongest" for the sake of village propaganda—Hiruzen's authority still carried weight. Even after the Senju and Uchiha clans had perished, the Hyūga had withdrawn into seclusion, and the Sarutobi clan had grown in influence—his word still commanded respect.
...
Rumble—!!
A storm of metallic firepower erupted around the dormant shell of the Ten-Tails' incomplete body.
The deep crimson glow of explosions illuminated the shattered forests and jagged ravines, thick smoke rising into the air.
The battlefield was pure chaos—deafening roars, relentless detonations, and the overwhelming stench of blood. The smell alone was enough to knock an ordinary man off his feet.
Crimson fluid drenched the scorched soil, staining it rust-red. Bodies lay scattered—mangled and torn—organs missing, limbs shredded, flesh pulverized into grotesque shapes.
"Shoichi!"
A desperate scream tore through the din.
Huddled inside an earthen trench shaped by a Doton jutsu, a kunoichi in the green flak vest of Konoha wept uncontrollably, pressing her glowing green palms over her comrade's abdomen—what was left of it, anyway. His stomach had been ripped open, intestines and organs completely gutted.
"Medical Palm! Medical Palm! Medical Palm!"
Her chakra flared desperately, but no matter how hard she pressed, more blood and tissue poured out of the gaping wound.
"Yato... go... you're the squad's medic... with all the combat ninja dead... you can still retreat..."
His voice was weak, each word choked with blood. The chūnin's eyes lost their light soon after.
Boom!
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
Another thunderous explosion shook the ground. The metallic screeching of ruptured armor followed by a heavy crash echoed nearby.
Thud!
A scorched, oval-shaped object rolled into view. The kunoichi looked up reflexively—and froze, eyes widening in terror.
It was a humanoid metal skull. One eye still glowed crimson, the other had burst under the Fire Release blast. Its face, though metallic, was disturbingly lifelike—like the flayed visage of a human stripped of its flesh, leaving only exposed bone.
"Damn it! There are too many of them! These things aren't people—they're puppets! Full-metal puppets!"
"Retreat! Fall back! Contact headquarters—we need reinforcements!"
"Yato! Don't just stand there—move!"
As the medical kunoichi was pulled away by another squad of allies, she happened to look back—and what she saw froze her breath.
Through the burning forests, where visibility was reduced to near nothing by fire and smoke, countless crimson eyes flickered to life. Marching in formation like disciplined infantry, ranks upon ranks of metallic, humanoid machines—each about two meters tall—advanced in unison, their weapons gleaming coldly.
Ratatatatatatata—!
The storm of bullets erupted. The majority of the mechanical army's weapons unleashed tongues of fire, raining metal like a torrential downpour upon every corner of the Allied Forces' line. Crack-crack! echoed alongside screams and explosions.
"Earth Release: Tectonic Core!"
As the tireless metal killers marched into the prepared kill zone, the Iwagakure shinobi lying in wait sprang their trap—unleashing a coordinated barrage of Earth-style jutsu!
Rumble! The ground shook violently. Chakra surged through the terrain as the earth rose, sank, crushed, and folded in on itself, swallowing thousands of the advancing machines within seconds. But before any cheer could escape their throats—
Boom-boom-boom!
A cold, metallic tide surged forward again, explosions churning through the landscape, obliterating everything.
Ancient trees—remnants of Hashirama's great Mokuton forests—collapsed one after another, burning and disintegrating into ash. In their place, as far as the eye could see, a black wave of war machines advanced in perfect lines, an endless mechanical phalanx rolling forward like an unstoppable steamroller.
That crushing, devouring momentum—the ceaseless, unfeeling advance, the scale beyond reckoning—
At that moment, the Iwagakure jonin leading the ambush felt his resolve snap, like rebar torn from a crumbling wall.
They couldn't hold.
Their chakra reserves wouldn't last.
Each individual puppet wasn't insurmountable—any competent chūnin could destroy a hundred—but thousands? Tens of thousands?
The sheer accumulation of numbers magnified their firepower exponentially, stripping away the ninja's greatest advantage—speed and agility.
And their weapons—their rapid-fire projectiles—each round inflicted damage no less lethal than a kunai or shuriken.
One hit, and the body would seize up; within seconds, a shinobi would be riddled with holes.
Death was certain.
Not everyone was a Raikage or a Might Guy. Most ninja were still flesh and blood—fragile, soft, and mortal. No matter the rank—jōnin or genin—a 7.62mm full-power round to the head meant the same thing.
And worst of all, these machines weren't limited to shooting "kunai" or "shuriken."
...
Ratatata!Boom!
High-explosive rounds, incendiaries, and fragmentation grenades rained down. The human body's oils vaporized from the heat, sizzling audibly as they dripped onto scorched earth, filling the air with the nauseating stench of roasted flesh.
"They resemble the puppet techniques of the Sand's toymakers," Madara remarked, his skeletal blue Susanoo manifesting amid the metallic storm. Facing down a barrage from over five thousand robotic soldiers, he seized one of the metal skulls by the throat, searching for chakra threads—or perhaps a human core to absorb with his Rinnegan.
But nothing.
No chakra. No life.
He scowled. "Compared to Monzaemon's 'Ten Puppet Brigade,' these are crude... but easier to mass-produce. Every part identical, every design repeated—it's as if they were made..."
"For slaughter. For war," Hashirama answered grimly. Clapping his hands together, he unleashed, "Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!"
The battlefield shook as titanic trees surged from the earth, crushing swathes of machines in their roots and branches.
He gazed toward the massive, black pyramidal structures from which the army emerged, his expression dark.
"I don't know why these things were made—whether for Their desire, or as weapons to suppress others... but whoever designed them..."
Naive he might seem, but Hashirama Senju was no fool. In only moments, he'd already begun to piece together the truth—the enemy was gathering intelligence. The robotic army wasn't meant for conquest.
It was reconnaissance.
"They're observing us... testing our strength?"
Hashirama gritted his teeth. "Then let's drag them into the open!"
"Wood Release: Flowering Forest Cataclysm!"
Rumble!
The ground roared. Even greater than the last, an ocean of colossal trees erupted from beneath the earth, their roots and tendrils tearing apart thousands of machines as they surged toward the meteor's impact site.
Crash! Boom!
One after another, the armored ranks were crushed and thrown aside. The nearest root-tentacle was less than two kilometers from the enemy's base when—
Crack!
A blinding spear of searing light struck down from the heavens, so intense it momentarily blotted out the sun.
"Cheap or not, those machines were just for the small fry," came a clear, proud voice. "King faces king. General faces general. Ever heard of that?"
A petite knight in silver-white, horned armor stepped forward, hefting a radiant greatsword etched in crimson runes.
"You call yourselves warriors—and yet you dare to bully my soldiers?"
—
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