Mufasa stared at the fully armored World Tree construct towering before him, genuinely caught off guard.
'Interesting!' he thought, a thrill running through him.
Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha were universally recognized as the strongest duo in shinobi history. He hadn't expected them to be the final bosses he needed to clear.
For Madara to successfully manifest his Perfect Susanoo and drape it over the colossal wooden titan—that had to be the absolute peak of this world's sheer will fighting back.
Standing triumphantly atop the armored World Tree, Madara looked down with unmatched arrogance.
"Hmph. Look closely, Hashirama," Madara sneered. "I am in no way inferior to you."
Hashirama just smiled, projecting an aura of passive acceptance.
A moment ago, the World Tree had looked like a rugged, unarmed farmer weathering a storm. Now, draped in ethereal blue armor, it was an unstoppable god of war.
The relentless barrage of Sunagakure jutsu slammed against the Susanoo armor, doing nothing but generating faint, glowing blue ripples. The explosive payloads weren't even close to scratching the actual wooden structure beneath it.
With the impenetrable defense holding strong, Hashirama finally had the breathing room to retaliate.
"Madara, brace yourself! I'm making a move!" Hashirama shouted over the explosions.
Madara scowled in clear displeasure.
He desperately wanted to take the offensive, but this colossal construct was ultimately Hashirama's jutsu. Madara was strictly relegated to defense and armaments.
"Stop talking so much nonsense!" Madara barked. "Move how you want to move!"
Despite the bickering, decades of rivalry and eventual partnership had bred a terrifying synergy. They didn't even need to speak to know exactly what the other was planning.
Boom!
Metroplex threw a massive left hook, its metallic fist colliding violently with the Susanoo's ethereal longsword. At the same time, the mecha's right arm swung forward in a devastating cross aimed straight at the World Tree's chest.
Reacting with impossible speed, the armored titan released its sword. Its left hand snapped up, flicking a massive chakra magatama in a deadly, glowing arc.
The spinning projectile sliced brutally across Metroplex's incoming right arm.
Sparks and shattered plating exploded from the wound. With its kinetic power severely dampened, Metroplex's punch was easily deflected when the World Tree threw a thunderous counter-punch of its own.
Fist met fist in a clash of titans. The resulting shockwave literally forced the massive mecha to stagger back two heavy steps.
In an instant, the momentum of the battle shifted.
Hashirama didn't waste a single second on politeness. He immediately pressed the advantage, launching a relentless assault.
Sword slashes, bone-shattering punches, and glowing magatama barrages rained down, forcing Metroplex to stumble backward under the overwhelming pressure.
Below the clash of giants, tens of thousands of shinobi watched with burning enthusiasm. The Allied Forces' battle flags whipped and danced wildly in the gale-force winds.
Looking up at that colossal wooden figure, they didn't just see a jutsu. They saw the legendary God of Shinobi, standing tall and immovable between heaven and earth.
"Shinobi!"
"Shinobi!"
The armored World Tree stood firmly on the broken battlefield, immovable as a mountain peak, as the allied forces gazed up in absolute awe.
Hashirama threw his head back and unleashed a furious, thunderous roar. The sheer volume of it tore through the clouds, rolling across the wasteland like an endless tidal wave.
It was a primal battle cry, vibrating with enough raw power to shatter the earth itself.
Deep within the allied ranks, a single shinobi screamed back. His hoarse, desperate shout was pitifully small compared to the titan's roar.
But then another ninja screamed. And another.
Within seconds, the lone voice swelled into a roaring ocean of sound. The entire army shouted in perfect unison, their combined battle cry echoing like a tsunami crashing against a mountain.
Inside Metroplex's command center, the crew flinched at the deafening noise. They blinked in sheer disbelief, staring at the monitors.
These were Sunagakure engineers who spent their days sneering at the outdated, traditional ways of the shinobi world. Yet, faced with this overwhelming momentum, they suddenly felt like a fragile, lonely boat caught in the dead center of a raging hurricane.
Clap. Clap.
Mufasa slowly applauded from his captain's chair.
"I genuinely didn't expect Hashirama and Madara to pull this off," Mufasa admitted, unable to hide his admiration. "I let my pride get the better of me. I underestimated the old guard."
On the main tactical screen, the ethereal blue flames of the Susanoo flared brilliantly. The World Tree swung its massive chakra blade, carving brutal, sparking gashes across Metroplex's armor.
Flames erupted from the mecha's severed hydraulic lines, the fires rapidly spreading and sending thick black smoke billowing into the sky.
Inside the chassis, damage control teams scrambled desperately. They fought back the fires and welded emergency patches over the breached hull, plunging the entire engineering bay into sheer chaos.
Standing proudly atop the titan, Madara let out a haughty laugh.
"Haha! This metal toy isn't even that strong! It's just a lumbering hunk of junk!" Madara gloated. "Its reaction speed and defenses are completely lagging behind us. We can dismantle this trash easily!"
Hashirama, however, remained tightly wound.
"Don't get too arrogant, Madara," Hashirama warned, his eyes narrowed. "Our opponent isn't going to be that simple."
Despite Hashirama's caution, the battlefield told a one-sided story. The armored World Tree was ruthlessly suppressing Metroplex, forcing the colossal machine into a desperate, passive defense.
Below them, the allied shinobi were already screaming in premature victory. The Kazekage and other commanders wore relieved smiles.
It looked like the mastermind, Mufasa, was finally going to face his execution right here in the dirt.
Meanwhile, inside Metroplex, red emergency sirens wailed relentlessly.
"Severe structural damage to the abdominal plating! Major fires in Sector Four, no casualties reported yet!" an officer yelled over the klaxons.
"Right arm servomotors are critically damaged! Requesting immediate engineering support!" another panicked voice chimed in.
"Core energy levels dropping by ten percent!"
The grim reports piled up, one after the other. The command center was a frantic blur of technicians screaming orders and rerouting auxiliary power.
Sitting in the center of the chaos, Mufasa simply sighed.
When masters clashed, victory was decided in the absolute slimmest of margins.
Right now, Metroplex was being manually piloted by hundreds of Sunagakure shinobi, each manning their own individual battle station. It was highly efficient for spreading the workload, but ultimately, the left hand didn't instantly know what the right hand was doing.
Against standard Kage-level fighters or massive armies, this slight lag didn't matter. The mecha's sheer durability meant it could tank hits, and a single punch was enough to flatten any opposition.
A one- or two-second delay in reaction time was completely acceptable in normal combat.
But against the literal gods of the shinobi world, Hashirama and Madara? That slight delay was a fatal flaw.
Every millisecond of lag in coordination resulted in wide-open vulnerabilities, and those two monsters were ruthlessly exploiting them.
'It seems I have no other choice,' Mufasa thought, shifting in his seat.
He leaned forward, his expression turning terrifyingly calm.
"Initiate Ultimate Control Mode," Mufasa ordered.
The frantic screaming in the command center died instantly. Every single officer turned to stare at him, wide-eyed and deathly silent.
Mufasa narrowed his eyes. "I said, initiate Ultimate Control Mode. Now."
"Y-Yes, Lord Mufasa!" the lead technician stammered, his fingers flying across the console.
"Initiating Ultimate Control Mode!"
"Ultimate Control Mode authorized!"
The override commands flashed across every monitor, locking out the manual stations throughout the mecha's massive frame.
Across the sprawling internal decks, the Sunagakure engineers abandoned their frantic repairs. They dropped their welding torches and stepped away from the artillery consoles.
Moving with practiced synchronization, the crew climbed into heavily insulated stasis pods lined up against the bulkheads. The pods clamped shut around them like metallic silkworm chrysalises.
Inside, neural cables snaked down from the ceiling, attaching to their heads and spines, syncing their collective chakra directly into Metroplex's central nervous system.
Up in the bridge, Mufasa gripped his armrests as his command chair suddenly detached from the floor. He began a rapid descent, plunging deep into the bowels of the machine.
The elevator shaft dropped him straight into the very core of Metroplex: the Neural Enhancement Chamber.
Standing quietly in the center of the dim room was Altair, waiting for him.
Mufasa offered a small, apologetic smile as his chair locked into the central dais.
"I'm sorry, Altair," Mufasa said softly. "Looks like I need your help again."
Altair stepped forward without a word. She moved smoothly behind his command chair and placed her hands gently on his shoulders.
A blinding, absolute white light erupted from Mufasa's body, linking his consciousness directly to the colossal machine.