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Crushing a tailed beast ball with his bare hands.
This scene was burned onto the battlefield.
The aftershocks of the storm slowly faded, blowing across the silent battlefield.
Shin still stood in place, his clothes fluttering in the wind, not a bit of dust on him.
It was as if what he had just crushed was not a tailed beast ball, but a fragile glass orb.
Time, at this moment, was frozen.
The surviving Kumogakure shinobi on the battlefield, the Konoha higher-ups on the city wall, and even the dark figure hiding in the distance, all had their thoughts come to a stop.
"Gulp..."
A swallowing sound came from the Eight-Tails Gyuki's massive throat.
Its huge beast eyes stared hard at the small human figure below, filled with fear and confusion.
What was that?
What did that person do?
The tailed beast ball was crushed?
As an ancient being that had existed since the Sage of Six Paths' era, Gyuki's understanding was completely turned upside down at this moment.
It had seen immortals, seen Uchiha Madara, seen Senju Hashirama.
But it had never seen such absurd, such unreasonable power!
This was not ninjutsu.
Nor was it sage jutsu.
What kind of power was this, after all?
On the city wall, Minato's face had long since lost its color, and he stared blankly at the daimyo below.
As the fastest shinobi in the shinobi world, he felt for the first time that his thoughts were so slow.
Flying Thunder God?
Rasengan?
His proud ninjutsu seemed completely ridiculous in the face of the world-destroying, yet easily stopped, scene just now.
He even had a false belief.
He and those genin who had just graduated from the shinobi academy, in front of that man, perhaps there was no difference.
Tsunade's shadow clone froze in place, her full lips slightly parted, but unable to make any sound.
The peak of medical ninjutsu was Creation Rebirth.
But the power that man had just shown left her at a loss for words to describe it.
"Monster..."
Hiruzen's shadow clone muttered to himself, his eyes behind his glasses having lost focus.
Suddenly.
"ROAR!"
A beast's roar, mixed with endless fear and madness, tore through the silence of the scene.
The Eight-Tails Gyuki moved!
Its eight gigantic, mountain-like tentacles, with an overwhelming force, wildly slammed toward Shin from all directions!
This was not an attack!
This was a struggle born of a creature's most basic instinct!
Facing the Eight-Tails' strikes, powerful enough to tear the earth, Shin didn't even blink.
"A death struggle, perhaps?"
Shin chuckled lightly, moving forward instead of back, toward the falling tentacles.
The tentacle smashed into the ground.
His tiptoes also happened to land on the tentacle's skin.
A light tap.
BOOM!
The entire tentacle suddenly sank, smashing through the ground!
The earth cracked, and dust shot into the sky.
Shin used the force to leap up, running along the thick tentacle.
The remaining tentacles swept sideways from different directions, raising a fierce wind, swearing to crush him into a pulp.
But Shin merely made a few nimble turns in the air, using one tentacle as a springboard to leap to another!
In that chaotic, all-destroying attack, each rise and fall brought him one step closer to Gyuki's main body.
The final step.
Shin leaped to the highest point, his body falling.
Then his feet landed steadily on top of Gyuki's head.
He looked down from above, staring at the beast's eyes filled with fear.
"Bear with it, it'll be over soon!" Shin clapped his hands together in front of his chest. "Sage Art: Gate of the Great God!"
Boom! Boom! Rumble!
The sky seemed to tear open, and dozens of gigantic red torii gates, carved with sealing symbols, appeared out of nowhere.
They fell from the sky with an immense force, as if to hold down everything!
"What... what is that?" On the city wall, Minato shouted in shock.
"Sage Art: Gate of the Great God!" Hiruzen's shadow clone stammered out the name. "This... this is what the First Hokage used to hold down tailed beasts..."
Before he could finish!
One torii gate had already slammed fiercely onto Gyuki's neck, pinning it firmly to the ground!
Right after, more torii gates fell from the sky.
Precisely pinning down its eight tentacles and massive body.
Layer after layer, holding it down firmly!
"Roar! Roar!"
Gyuki struggled wildly, raising clouds of dust on the ground.
But the sage art chakra flowing on the torii gates blocked off all its resistance, making it unable to move!
In the mental world, Killer Bee's consciousness was already blurry.
And the Eight-Tails Gyuki's soul trembled before an unimaginably vast golden figure.
Was that the Sage of Six Paths?
No!
It wasn't the Sage of Six Paths. Then who was he?
Why was their power so similar?
Its soul, under the gaze of that golden figure, couldn't even think about resisting.
Outside, Shin's figure slowly landed in front of the pinned Gyuki's head.
He gently placed his hand on Gyuki's forehead.
There was no violent chakra.
No world-destroying aura.
Just this gentle press.
Gyuki's massive body trembled hard.
Right away, its wild beast eyes instantly lost their light, becoming empty and docile.
Under Shin's palm, Gyuki's massive body began to shrink at a visible speed.
Flesh broke down, bones reshaped.
That vast and ominous tailed beast chakra, transformed into a crimson stream, completely pulled back and slowly contracted.
Soon, the terrifying one hundred meter tall giant beast disappeared.
Leaving only a blood-soaked, unconscious Killer Bee.
His body fell from mid-air.
Then he was held up by a gentle force and gently sent to A's side in the distance.
The two brothers lay together.
Neatly arranged.
After all this was done, the battlefield returned to silence once more.
Five hundred shadow clones stood coldly in place, surrounding all the surviving Kumogakure shinobi.
Their number, from the beginning of the battle until now, had always been five hundred.
Not one more, not one less.
No matter how many were killed, they could never be completely wiped out.
The reason they had held on until now was simply that they had placed their hopes on A and Killer Bee.
Now that hope was broken, and their fighting spirit was lost.
Clang.
Someone's kunai slipped, falling to the ground with a crisp sound.
This crisp sound was like a signal.
Clang!
Clang! Clang!
Hundreds, even thousands, of Kumogakure shinobi dropped their weapons. Their knees buckled, and they knelt on the ground.
Their faces held only numbness and despair.
A was defeated.
Bee was also defeated.
They had lost.
They had lost completely, lost without dignity.
Just then, a figure appeared instantly on the city wall, kneeling on one knee, his tone urgent.
"Fourth Hokage-sama!"
"An unknown intruder has appeared in the village. Their target, their target is Kushina-sama!"
"The Third Hokage and Lady Tsunade have already driven him away, but the opponent has a strange space-time ninjutsu and escaped!"
What?
Minato's body suddenly stiffened.
A chill shot to the top of his head!
He suddenly turned his head to look at the Anbu delivering the message, then without thinking looked at the battlefield below.
Internal and external troubles.
And he, the Hokage, was here, watching a performance he was completely powerless to step into.
A sense of helplessness and lingering fear rose up, instantly swallowing him.
As if sensing his gaze, below, in the center of the battlefield, that man slowly turned around.
Shin's face was blank.
He walked through the kneeling, surrendering Kumogakure army, through his five hundred silent shadow clones.
Then he looked up, toward Minato on the city wall.
"Minato, come down and clean up!"