Kushina had only just made it back into Konoha when she saw Uzumaki Mito open her eyes.
She broke.
"Grandma Mito!"
Kushina threw herself forward, crying as she hugged her tight.
Mito smiled gently and patted Kushina's back. "I'm fine."
A medical-nin at her side warned urgently, "Kushina—don't squeeze so hard! Mito-sama only just woke up!"
Kushina immediately loosened her grip, eyes red. "Grandma… are you really okay?"
Mito nodded, still smiling. "I'm—"
Then she froze mid-sentence, staring past Kushina.
Her face drained.
"…That's Susanoo."
Everyone followed Mito's gaze.
And collectively, the air seemed to leave the world.
A towering blue skeleton of condensed chakra, easily ten stories tall, stood high above the battlefield—its presence crushing, its silhouette like a god of war.
The Uchiha trembled.
Susanoo was their clan's forbidden legend—something said to exist only for those who awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan.
And now the legend was standing in their village.
Worse—
the long-haired man controlling it matched the old portraits etched into Uchiha memory.
Madara.
And he'd just reduced their current clan head to paste without even blinking.
For a moment, the Uchiha didn't know whether Madara meant rebirth…
or annihilation.
The Hyūga—Konoha's other great dōjutsu clan—stared with wide, horrified eyes.
So this was Uchiha Madara?
That blue skeletal giant wasn't a technique.
It was a declaration of destruction.
Hiruzen, still under treatment, shuddered at the sight. ANBU and medics around him stiffened, fear spreading like infection.
Minato staggered in right then—still hauling the unconscious A—and froze.
"…What is that?"
Even as an honor student, Minato had never seen anything like this on a battlefield.
Not even close.
The spies hidden among the chaos—agents from other villages—went white with terror.
Many immediately moved to transmit news by any means: messenger birds, summons, coded runners, blood messages.
Today's information was too explosive.
Madara appears. A mysterious statue descends. Konoha is devastated. Madara absorbs it and rejuvenates. A blue chakra giant manifests—Uchiha forbidden technique.
Just hearing it would shake nations.
Madara stood within Susanoo, high above, looking down at Konoha like it was a broken toy.
And for the first time in a long time, his mind drifted back—
to the end of the Valley of the End.
Two monsters fighting until they were empty.
Until only fists remained.
Until the final strike.
Hashirama's hand pierced his back.
"I want to protect our village!"
"Protecting the village means protecting the people—the shinobi—the children! Friends, brothers… even my own kids! Anyone who threatens the village, I will never forgive!"
"You changed, Hashirama…"
"You got it backwards. One day… that 'village' will become its own darkness."
Madara's gaze sharpened as it returned to the present.
And to Kazuki.
"Is this… reincarnation?" he murmured coldly.
Susanoo raised its massive blade—
and swung down at Kazuki.
The sword hadn't even landed yet.
The pressure alone turned faces pale.
"MOVE!" Hiruzen barked, still half-burned, snatching a medic beside him and yanking her away.
BOOM—!!
The ground where Hiruzen had been standing split open into a trench so deep it looked bottomless.
Madara's target was Kazuki—
but Hiruzen still got clipped by the disaster zone of a god's swing.
The medic, finally understanding she'd been saved, slapped Hiruzen a second later anyway.
"Hokage-sama, what is wrong with you?!"
Hiruzen looked like he'd swallowed glass.
Kazuki flashed away with Body Flicker—
and in the same motion, grabbed Kushina and pulled her with him.
They reappeared over a hundred meters away.
"Careful," Kazuki said low.
Kushina blinked, then nodded.
Then—hesitating only a heartbeat—she kissed him.
"You have to be careful."
Kazuki felt like someone had plugged him into an outlet.
He nodded once. "Yeah."
Madara's eyes narrowed.
"Not bad, brat."
"Let's see how tough you really are."
He inhaled.
"Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!"
Chakra flooded his mouth—
and a sea of flame erupted, rolling upward like a blazing ocean, lighting everyone's faces stark white.
Kazuki snapped seals.
"Wood Release: Tree Boundary Wall!"
Layer upon layer of trees surged up, forming a living fortress wall that split Konoha in two—
Kazuki and the shinobi on one side…
Madara on the other.
Even blocked, the heat was suffocating. The air shimmered. People felt their skin sting from sheer temperature.
Then—
a young voice shouted from the back.
"I've got him!"
Nara Shikaku, newly promoted to jōnin, slammed his hands down.
"Shadow Possession Jutsu!"
Under the sun, Madara's shadow overlapped his.
Madara's movements stalled—barely.
In the same breath, the other two of the Ino–Shika–Chō moved.
"Mind Body Switch Technique!"
Yamanaka Inoichi focused, spirit compressing to a needlepoint as he launched his consciousness.
"Partial Expansion Jutsu!"
Akimichi Chōza ballooned into a giant.
And then—
"KONOHA STYLE—HUMAN BULLET TANK!"
Chōza curled into a monstrous rolling mass and rocketed forward.
Ino–Shika–Chō.
All three.
Everyone's eyes widened with hope.
"Drag him out of Susanoo!"
But Madara only smiled—like an adult watching toddlers try to lift a boulder.
"Human Bullet Tank… nostalgic."
"Did your ancestors never tell you?"
"The Ino–Shika–Chō formation… doesn't work on me."
Faces changed instantly.
Susanoo lifted its blade—
and brought it down.
BOOM—!!
Chōza's massive form was smashed backward like a toy, slamming into the Tree Boundary Wall so hard even the living barrier dented inward.
"CHŌZA!"
Kazuki flashed in and hauled him back toward medics.
Chōza had a deep cut from forehead to waist—blood everywhere—unconscious.
The healers went pale, thinking he'd been split in half.
But he still had breath.
Madara chuckled. "Tough. You've got some of your ancestors in you. They were almost cut in half too."
Inoichi suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood—his Mind Body Switch shattered on contact.
Madara's gaze slid toward Shikaku.
"Shadow binding?" he murmured. "Come here."
He beckoned with one finger.
And Shikaku's body ripped forward uncontrollably, dragged through the air like a puppet.
"No!" people screamed.
A yellow flash cut in—
Minato grabbed Shikaku midair and vanished.
Madara's eyes flicked.
"Flying Thunder God…"
His expression darkened like a storm.
"The inheritance of that trash technique."
He appeared in front of Minato in a blur—too fast.
And kicked.
Minato's eyes widened—
then he and Shikaku were launched backward like cannonballs, Minato's chest caving as he spat blood.
One blow.
Minato was nearly killed.
Less than ten seconds—
four elite jōnin were neutralized.
The terror of Madara settled into everyone's bones.
And then—
everyone's eyes widened again.
Kazuki was suddenly in front of Madara.
BANG—!!
The impact was louder than Madara's kick had been.
Madara was knocked backward, blood at his lip—
but he stopped midair, then lunged again.
Kazuki met him.
They vanished into motion so fast no one could track it.
Only the sound remained—
fist on flesh.
Shockwaves cracking air.
A brutal, constant percussion that made hearts pound out of rhythm.
People stood frozen.
Everything they'd seen before looked like children playfighting.
This was the real thing.
Tsunade was treating Minato on the ground, hands glowing, face tight.
Kushina and Mikoto stood back, fists clenched so hard their knuckles whitened, praying.
A full minute passed.
Thousands of exchanges.
Then both fighters separated.
Madara wiped blood from his mouth, eyes bright.
"Good."
Kazuki also had blood at the corner of his mouth—just a trace.
"Yeah," Kazuki said calmly. "You're strong."
Madara's grin widened.
"For the first time since Hashirama…"
"You're my second acknowledged enemy."
"I'll admit it—Kazuki."
"You're one of the strongest opponents I've ever faced."
Then Madara's hands sealed again—
and chakra flooded out so thick it became visible, like smoke made of pressure.
"Perfect Susanoo."
Mito's eyes went wide with fear.
"That's—complete Susanoo…!"
The chakra skeleton exploded into a fully armored tengu-like titan, wings unfurling—towering, oppressive, carrying the weight of apocalypse.
Kazuki's eyes burned with battle intent.
"Perfect Susanoo?"
He formed seals.
"Sage Art…"
"True Thousand Hands."
The ground ruptured.
A wooden titan rose—
then rose—
then kept rising—
until even Perfect Susanoo looked small beside it.
Thousands of Buddha hands unfolded behind it, filling the sky like a storm of palms.
"BACK!" Hiruzen shouted hoarsely.
The Konoha forces retreated to the outskirts at full speed.
Even a graze from that scale of battle was instant death.
Hiruzen, seeing the wooden Buddha again, felt the same crushing helplessness as the first time.
It was obscene.
A hand bigger than a house.
How did you fight something like that?
Madara stared, eyelids twitching.
That shape—
that presence—
that impossibility—
He knew it too well.
"…True Thousand Hands…"
Old men in Konoha, who'd lived long enough to remember stories, dropped to their knees.
For them, it wasn't just a technique.
It was the image of the Shinobi God.
Madara's pride faltered for the first time.
It was too big.
And it was still finishing its rise.
A flicker of dread struck him.
He attacked first—before it fully settled.
Perfect Susanoo drew its blade—
and slashed upward.
The sword wave screamed through the world.
A distant mountain was cleaved cleanly and flattened in a single roar of impact.
But against True Thousand Hands—
it left only a shallow scar.
And that scar regenerated as if it had never existed.
Madara's face twisted.
He attacked again.
And again.
Then Kazuki's voice cut through everything—calm, cold.
"You've had your turn."
"Now it's mine."
For a heartbeat—
everything felt still.
Even Madara's expression showed the first trace of panic.
Then the sky darkened.
Not from clouds.
From hands.
An ocean of colossal palms rose overhead, blotting out sunlight.
And then—
they came down.
A thousand strikes.
Ten thousand strikes.
A world-ending barrage.
Perfect Susanoo was swallowed by fists.
BANG—BANG—BANG—!!
It was like millions of tons of steel hammers pounding the earth.
The explosion's light turned the horizon red, like a false sunset.
Konoha's outer walls shattered.
Even at the village outskirts, shinobi were thrown backward by the shock—
until Kazuki's Tree Boundary Walls rose in a ring, shielding them from total annihilation.
It lasted only a minute.
Perfect Susanoo lasted only a second.
Madara spat blood—
and was suddenly caught in the wooden giant's hand.
Then—puff.
Smoke.
A shadow clone.
The real Madara had already jumped away, battered, bleeding at the mouth, still somehow wearing that calm look like he hadn't just been pulverized.
And then Kazuki saw it—
behind Madara, two Susanoo forms appeared, back-to-back.
Kazuki's eyes narrowed.
A bad feeling crawled up his spine.
Madara and the two Susanoo moved together—
hands sealing at the same time.
Kushina clutched her chest, heart hammering.
Something—something huge—was coming.
Almost everyone looked up at the same time.
And then their faces froze.
In the dark clouds above—
an enormous black shadow began to take shape.