"Judgment of the Abyss!"
Just as Obito Uchiha, having ascended as the Ten-Tails' Jinchūriki and gained the power of Ōtsutsuki Shinra Banshō, finally realized the true reason why Madara Uchiha had chosen to cooperate with the Allied Shinobi Forces, a massive 'spear' fell from the heavens.
Boom...
The air compressed into a violent cyclone. Even the ground below was swept by a hurricane as the earth began to quake. The crimson sky turned to a deep blue starfield, and the thick ash and smoke blanketing the sky were torn apart visibly to the naked eye.
Brilliant starlight poured down upon the war-torn land, thunderous with artillery and chaos. This time, it did not bring hope—it brought annihilation.
"Move!"
Hidden deep underground, Zetsu reacted instantly. While rapidly activating the Mayfly Technique to its fullest, he simultaneously reached out to the seemingly dazed Obito Uchiha.
Honestly, Zetsu was panicking. Hurry up and cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi already!
Don't tell him he was about to start ranting about his ridiculous "Rin Rin Rin Rin... whatever world" nonsense again.
Zetsu's ears had grown calluses from hearing it.
Would he really have to rely on Madara again? But if he revived Madara, what excuse could he possibly give? Madara was not like Obito. Zetsu had already betrayed his plan once—tricking him again wouldn't be easy.
Merging his body with the earth and vegetation, Zetsu brainstormed furiously while continuing to move—feet greased, ready to flee.
If Obito became the Ten-Tails' Jinchūriki and still failed, what should he do? He had no idea, but his hands didn't stop moving.
Once his essence merged into the roots of plants and the network of groundwater beneath, Zetsu cut off every trace of his presence. Within a single breath, he had already fled tens of kilometers away.
Stay behind to urge Obito to cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi, or run? Zetsu decisively chose the latter.
The enemy wasn't of the shinobi world—it was someone even Mother feared. One could never be too cautious. Better to flee far away and avoid being collateral damage.
He had done all he could. The rest was beyond his control.
Everything happened in the blink of an eye.
In the massive crater where the Ten-Tails' presence had vanished, the Allied Forces—composed of ninja from the Five Great Nations and samurai from the Land of Iron—had just been shouting in outrage over Obito Uchiha's betrayal. The next instant, every single one of them froze, eyes wide, staring at the colossal blue-and-white lance descending from above.
It could not be blocked. The Edo Tensei bodies would be corroded and contaminated.
Seeing this, Madara Uchiha—already irritated beyond measure by the mysterious energy attached to the attacks of those armored knights and massive humanoid war puppets—made a split-second decision.
"Reverse Summoning!" The blast radius was far too large; even Body Flicker would not suffice.
Instantly, it was as if a signal had been given. Under the command of the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, those revived by Edo Tensei activated every space-time and teleportation jutsu they knew—Flying Thunder God, Body Flicker, Heavenly Transfer, Reverse Summoning—each showing their own unique escape technique.
In short: run!
This thing was more terrifying than Madara's Chibaku Tensei or a Tailed Beast Bomb.
What? You don't know space-time ninjutsu or summoning? Your shunshin isn't good enough?
Then you're out of luck. Prepare to die.
Of course, as the de facto architect and developer of the Konoha system, Tobirama Senju wouldn't abandon his younger comrades. Utilizing the Flying Thunder God and his godlike reaction speed, he frantically began teleporting Konoha ninja out of danger.
His priority was the jōnin, special jōnin, and a few conveniently close chūnin.
As for the other allied ninja from different villages—he could only apologize.
Allies in peacetime, but when calamity struck—each flew their separate ways.
He could barely protect his own; how could he worry about others?
Minato Namikaze, too, forced himself to stand. Having already teleported the dying Naruto Uzumaki—robbed of the Nine-Tails by Obito's sneak attack—to safety, he followed Tobirama's lead, using the Flying Thunder God to rapidly evacuate as many Konoha shinobi as possible.
But how many could they truly save?
The tip of Hler's Ataraxia struck the ground. In an instant, the explosion that followed shattered the heavens.
Rumble—!
The crust split apart. Gigantic fissures extended for hundreds of kilometers, their depths unseen. The ground convulsed violently; magma burst forth, flung skyward in torrents of fire that fell like burning rain.
From orbit, one could see it clearly—a colossal shadow engulfing the prismatic stars and even the blazing sun. The heavens themselves were torn open as azure flames of stellar origin descended from the sky—pure Honkai energy raining down like endless blue meteors. They converged, sculpted, and fused—forming a spear.
Then the spear struck—driving mercilessly into the shattered land where, just moments ago, the towering God Tree had stood.
Whether man-made deserts, forests, or mountains conjured by ninjutsu, whether Earth Walls or Seismic Defenses—it made no difference. Everything was reduced to dust.
All automated units within the blast radius were destroyed. Those humanoid guide-type mechs that received the early warning retreated at once, activating energy shields and pushing their engines to maximum power to withstand the incoming shockwave.
The battlefield of the shinobi world—already reduced to ruins—was now completely engulfed by fiery eruptions and poisonous ash spewing from the depths of the earth.
Except for a few stationed shinobi guarding the rear lines or maintaining perimeter defenses around their villages, everyone present at the main front—tens of thousands of allied ninja—had been wiped out. Not one survived.
"Pff..."
Pushing aside the molten rock that had buried him, Obito Uchiha deactivated the black-and-purple Truth-Seeking Orb shield protecting his chest and spat out a mouthful of blood.
The freshly minted Ten-Tails Jinchūriki looked anything but divine.
His entire body was covered in magma burns, torn apart by the explosion of the Heavenly Lance. His skin looked like boiling glass—cracked and molten—his body shredded and smoking, a grotesque mockery of the godlike power he had just obtained.
From newly forged to half-scrap in seconds—headed straight for total collapse.
"Zetsu? Madara? Those bastards..."
Searching for his two former allies, Obito's now-ashen face twisted into a hideous grimace, his features warped and melted, devoid of any trace of the serene aura of a sage—only hysteria and madness remained.
Until he felt it—that dreadful, unrestrained aura pressing down from the heavens. His heart jolted violently as, high above, a figure appeared against the sky.
"Battlefield cleansing complete. Now then, guardian of the God Tree from the Ōtsutsuki lineage... you can't escape."
It was a figure woven from light—an intricate network of luminous filaments.
Clad in blue-and-white Valkyrie armor, she descended like a falling star, wings of radiance flaring behind her, scattering the volcanic ash that hung thick in the air. Hovering gracefully, Durandal leveled her gleaming lance directly at Obito Uchiha.
"Hand over the God Tree."
Even without illumination, her mere presence was like an icy summit—cold, immovable, absolute.
"So, you're one of Her apostles?"
With golden, wavy hair tinged coral at the tips, the woman before him was breathtakingly beautiful—but in Obito's eyes, she was utterly repulsive.
Wiping the blood from his lips, he sneered coldly. "I refuse."
"This power—the power to destroy and remake this world of nothing but pain—the power to create the world Rin dreamed of—I will never give it up!"
As he spoke, one of his Truth-Seeking Orbs elongated, piercing through his palm and forming a black lance aimed squarely at Durandal.
"Ten-Tails: Multiple Tailed Beast Bombs!"
Crimson auroras flared as black-red chakra converged, weaving into a complex, blinding brilliance.
Boom!
The air surged like crashing waves. The molten terrain—barely cooled—was blasted skyward like shattered toys. Some chunks vaporized into ash, others spun off as burning debris flung miles away.
"Shield of the Holy Spirit."
Engulfed by the searing blast, the knightly Valkyrie stood unmoving—unyielding as a mountain.
She didn't understand what this man was raving about, but she understood enough: he wouldn't surrender willingly. Then she would take what she wanted by force.
Frowning, her aura turned colder and sharper, the very air freezing around her.
"Silent Maelstrom!"
The tip of Hler's Ataraxia flared to life. The unleashed surge of power caused even space itself to tremble in fear.
Boom!
Shockwave after shockwave overlapped—like a chain of airborne bombardments detonating in quick succession. The physical shockwave rolled outward in an unstoppable torrent, cutting through the incoming barrage of exploding Tailed Beast Bombs.
As expected.
"What the Sage of Six Paths could do—what Madara could do—I can do too!" Obito roared.
Most of all—Rin. It was almost within reach. Why—why must they stop him now?
In that moment, for the first time, a flicker of fear touched him—a fear of the unknown, of losing control.
He knew he had usurped a seat that wasn't his—stolen Madara's plan and seized his Rinnegan, forcing himself into a destiny he could never truly control.
But he did not regret it.
"Ahhhh—!!!"
Obito roared, the sound shaking the heavens. Wielding the Six Paths staff before him, he commanded his Truth-Seeking Orbs to shift into various weapons, attacking and attempting to hold back his foe.
Crack, crack, crack!
"Oh? Is that so?"
Durandal's spear danced in dazzling arcs, silver streaks slicing the air. Each clash resounded with a chain of booming detonations—bang, bang, bang!—as every blade, spear, arrow, halberd, and shield formed from the Truth-Seeking Orbs shattered against her heavy lance as though made of glass. Sparks flew from their collisions with Obito's Six Paths staff.
Clang! Boom! Clang! Bang...!
Weapon strikes rang out in unending succession.
One side fought with the sole intent to complete her mission—though her actions might seem ruthless, Durandal truly wished to minimize the destruction to this world. She had already been controlling her output to limit damage to the continental shelf; the prior strike from the heavens had been merely to clear the battlefield of armed hostiles.
The other side, Obito, cared for none of that. This woman was neither of the shinobi world nor a familiar face—there was nothing to say.
Neither exchanged a word. From initial probing, the battle shifted instantly into a flurry of fatal strikes aimed directly for the heart.
Each collision sent shockwaves that rippled through the atmosphere, shaking the very strata thousands of meters below. Mountains cracked, rivers split apart, and the sulfur in the air grew ever stronger. The pressurized magma and scorching fire from deep within the planet found new outlets, erupting outward in a volcanic frenzy.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
In just a few breaths, after hundreds of furious exchanges, Durandal had gauged her opponent's weaknesses and overall energy output level.
He was far beneath her current power.
The classification of power in the Sacred Selene Empire was simple and absolute—it depended on the scale of your maximum destructive potential.
The Shield of the Holy Spirit flickered again and again.
Obito's legs had both been shattered; his ribs were pierced through by multiple gaping wounds from the Valkyrie's lance. The Six Paths power of the Shinra Banshō allowed him near-instant regeneration—but he was being wounded faster than he could heal.
Each strike left behind invasive blue motes of corrosion that clung to his body, spreading like a curse.
"You haven't even mastered your own power."
Durandal could feel the unfamiliarity in his movements—the hesitation, the clumsy control. A faint smile crossed her face. Then, in an instant, her lance halted. Feinting an opening, she lured in the frenzied blow of Obito's staff.
As he struck, she lunged in close—one gauntleted hand glowing with condensed Honkai Energy. She seized the Six Paths staff mid-swing, gripping it tight.
With her other hand, she swung Hler's Ataraxia downward.
Slash!
A geyser of blood burst forth. Obito's abdomen split open under the crushing blow, blood spraying against Durandal's armor and painting the air with crimson droplets that twisted mid-flight from the heat.
Whoosh—!
Obito was hurled diagonally across kilometers of shattered terrain, crashing into the ground and plunging deep into the molten crust. His body skipped and rolled across the magma's surface like a stone across water, carving a burning furrow through rock and lava alike until he crashed through the bedrock of the crater itself.
"Then die—for this world's sake."
Hler's Ataraxia: Divine Verdict was unleashed. A shimmering rain of light descended, threads of blue lightning wrapping around her weapon's edge, the radiant energy of judgment gathering.
Durandal took aim, adopting a throwing stance.
"World-Ending Torrent!"
...
Boom!
Elsewhere on the battlefield, a shattered purple Susanoo crashed violently into the ground.
"Cough... cough..."
Sasuke Uchiha emerged from the crystal at its forehead, releasing the Susanoo's manifestation. Landing hard upon the ravaged earth, he doubled over, coughing blood.
"Sasuke!"
From within the remnants of the Susanoo's protection, a red-haired woman with crimson eyes and narrow brown glasses—Karin—cried out. She extended her right hand, marked with numerous bite scars, toward him.
Without hesitation, Sasuke sank his teeth into her wrist.
Karin's unique vitality and healing ability could restore chakra and heal injuries rapidly through contact with her blood.
"How terrifying... What's happening to this world? Even the Five Kage—standing at the top of the shinobi world—are grievously wounded. And now... beings from beyond the heavens have descended..."
Sweating profusely, Suigetsu Hōzuki—white-haired, purple-eyed, sharp-toothed—hid behind their teammate Jūgo, clutching his decapitating sword tightly as he stared in terror at the apocalyptic scene before him, where the blue-white spear had fallen from the sky.
For an ordinary shinobi like Suigetsu, the sight before him was nothing less than the end of the world—heaven and earth collapsing, divine power laid bare. The might of a god of shinobi incarnate.
"Sasuke... maybe we should retreat. The Fourth Shinobi World War—there's really no reason for us to be part of this anymore."
"You're still the same cowardly fool you've always been..."
With a puff of dispersing smoke, a scarred white serpent writhed free from the rubble. Its jaws hung broken and slack, and from within its slimy innards, a pale hand emerged, dripping with fluid.
"Cough... cough..."
From the serpent's gaping mouth crawled a man with long black hair and golden, slit-pupiled eyes—Orochimaru. His entire body was slick with mucus as he hacked and wheezed, his sharp gaze sweeping over the devastated landscape with grim amusement.
"It seems... much has changed in the shinobi world while I slumbered... how strange, how unfamiliar."
A hoarse laugh escaped him, his serpentine eyes gleaming with a mix of fascination and dark excitement.
"Or perhaps... this is the true face of the shinobi world. No, of the universe itself. We were nothing but ignorant natives staring up from the bottom of a well."
In this world where most shinobi barely completed formal schooling—where even academy graduates quickly forgot whatever math and science they'd learned—Orochimaru stood as an anomaly. Learned, brilliant, and insatiably curious, he was a true scholar among warriors.
After assisting in the rescue of the Five Kage, he and Sasuke's Team Taka had traveled across the war-torn land, arriving at the Ten-Tails' location. The battlefield was littered with the wreckage of strange machines—mechanical soldiers, automata unlike any puppet from Sunagakure.
Orochimaru had recognized it instantly.
These constructs required no chakra threads for control. They moved autonomously, executing programmed commands. Upon dissecting one's circuitry and analyzing its internal core, he found no trace of chakra conduits at all—only intricate wiring and a power source that converted chemical energy into electricity.
Such precise industrial and mechanical sophistication... could never have been achieved by hand or chakra alone.
By tracing this glimpse of advanced technology, Orochimaru felt as though he had peeked beneath the ocean's surface at the massive iceberg that was the power of the invaders from beyond the stars.
"The age of shinobi... may soon become history."
"Sasuke-kun, will you still fight? I'm curious to see your choice. But as for the future of this world... to be frank, even with you, Naruto, and the previous Hokage combined, I don't hold much hope."
"Haa..."
Exhaling slowly, Sasuke's color returned somewhat. He ignored Orochimaru's words meant to sow doubt. His gaze turned toward where Naruto was fighting, and deep within his eyes flickered an unhidden concern.
"Oh? What do we have here... a fine catch. You brats' heads will fetch a high price."
Boom!
A blazing figure wrapped in flame crashed down from the sky with a thunderous impact.
"That's—"
Even Orochimaru's eyes widened, as did those of Team Taka.
Though the red, layered armor was somewhat altered, that aura—the immense vitality of Wood Release chakra—belonged to only one man.
The First Hokage, Hashirama Senju.
But this was no longer the serene, benevolent God of Shinobi.
Arrows were embedded through his skull, blades and spears had pierced his torso, and his Edo Tensei body bore gaping cone-shaped holes infected with lingering purple-red Honkai particles that refused to heal.
Thud! Thud! Thud-thud!
Several heavily armored figures landed one after another. At their head strode Mordred, her silver sword now stained crimson, lightning coursing across its blade.
But everyone's attention turned toward the figure walking forward behind her—cold, regal, and radiant. Surrounded by four armored knights, she carried a shining spiral spear of pure white.
It blazed like a fragment of a star.
...
Meanwhile—
Konohagakure. The Valley of the End.
"That fool Obito—does he even know how to wield the Sage of Six Paths' power properly?!"
Through Reverse Summoning, Madara Uchiha had teleported here, muttering curses under his breath.
His expression darkened further as he prepared to return to the battlefield—when suddenly, the air before him rippled with a familiar spiral distortion.
Kamui?
A tall figure stepped out—her attire utterly unlike any shinobi's.
"The Valley of the End... hmm? Madara Uchiha. What are you doing here?"
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