"So, I'm taking everything back, as per my promise when you took this seat from me."
Hiruzen's words were a whisper in the burning battlefield.
Facing off against an armored spectral warrior of pure white radiance, the Third Hokage's gaze did not waver. Despite the bludgeoning presence of the Susanoo, he knew that Danzo was on a timer.
'Without the rest of Lord First's cells, it's unlikely that he can keep that up for long.'
Danzo was no Uchiha.
Nor was he someone with limitless chakra reserves.
That Susanoo?
'It will run out soon.'
What Hiruzen was more wary of would be the presence of a different being entirely.
'Suguru,' His eyes flitted across the empty space. 'Where did you go?'
In Danzo's rage-filled eruption, Hiruzen saw Suguru flung away like a rag doll, thrown into an inferno of reining chaos. The Nibi's jinchuriki had found a hole in Konohagakure's formation due to Bishamonten's disappearance.
The Genjutsu battlefield no longer worked in Konoha's favor.
Those powerful Tailed Beast Bombs now truly dealt damage. No illusory Danzos were wielding their Susanoo to parry and block.
Rather... there was no Bishamonten to fake the entire ordeal.
Now, the Land of Fire was facing the wrath of an unleashed jinchuriki. Mountains might disappear in the blink of an eye.
Hiruzen had no choice but to be wary of this too.
"You?"
Suddenly, a scoff scratched against Hiruzen's ear.
"Taking everything back?"
—Creak.
It was the sound of spectral bones creaking under the stress of an unsheathed sword. The white blade screamed as it was swung back, primed to strike.
"With what power?"
Danzo's eyes flashed with a malevolence even deeper than before. His Susanoo aimed for the annihilation of the man before him. It screeched through the air with a harrowing certainty:
[Your death shall be mourned on this very day.]
Directed to none other than Hiruzen himself, such was the blade's verdict.
—Vwhoom!
And so, the battle between the Third and Fifth Hokage had begun, uncaring for the turmoil around them.
***
Yugito had canceled her transformation, reverting to her previous form — more lithe and agile. Excelling in stealth more than those trained shinobi themselves.
It was with feline beauty that she fled the ambush, finally finished reaping all those lives with the flames she breathed.
'What the hell is happening?!'
As far as she knew, Konohagakure's Third Hokage had joined the battlefield — and his enemy seemed to be the army commander. Was it Shimura Danzo — Konoha's Shinobi of Darkness?
"Tsk," Yugito couldn't help but click her tongue.
The context of it all eluded her.
She was tired.
Wounded.
And low on chakra.
For now, she planned to report back to Kumogakure. With the aggressive ambush directed against Kumo and Iwa, Konoha would surely have an earful to deal with.
'Perhaps Ay will find this more interesting than I have.'
Yugito no longer looked back, rejoining her battered squad to return to the Land of Lightning.
***
—VWHOOOOM!
Blooming from a mere speck of flames, a pillar of fire was summoned into the world, parrying the blade that sought its creator's death.
The wind whined from the blazing flames, and Hiruzen diverted the explosion across his body. The ground around him shattered, forced down by his chakra's reaction to all that firepower.
"Hah!"
Then, with a heavy breath that could weigh down mountains, Hiruzen's fist flashed with a sudden golden glow.
A light that swiftly receded, compressed into whatever he held in his right hand.
"..?"
Danzo, who faced Hiruzen directly, felt a pertinent ringing sound that made his skin tingle. It seemed to resonate throughout the world, yet emanated directly from Hiruzen's fist.
"What is that?"
Despite observing with his Mangekyou Sharingan, Danzo couldn't understand what Hiruzen was doing. The latter's chakra had converged in an instant, a feat so eerie that it might've been a nightmare.
Thus.
Danzo followed his instincts. He commanded his Susanoo to pull its sword back and prepare to defend.
Yet the world felt like it was moving in slow motion. The creaking of his Susanoo seemed insufficient despite the strain he was enforcing upon it.
Danzo could feel every cell in his body wailing in desperation.
This was too much.
He was overloading himself, no longer able to tap into Hashirama's uncannily powerful cells.
—Swish.
In this moment of Danzo's silent struggle, Hiruzen stepped forward.
Movement so light that it could've been a feather brushing across the earth. Chakra that felt nonexistent despite the apparent mass it held, straining Hiruzen's muscles beyond any other jutsu he was capable of.
An attack that made everyone's alarm bells ring in their minds.
—Eeeeeeeng!
Impending doom.
Felt only by a single person thus far.
Had Orochimaru been here, he would've fled the moment Hiruzen clenched his fist. However, Danzo had been battling Jiraiya and Itachi, too busy to sense the dreadful aura that Hiruzen wielded.
Danzo's eyes merely gleamed with uncertainty. Blood continued to flow down his cheeks, forced open to empower his Susanoo.
'I need to parry this.' Danzo thought.
Perceiving a vague danger with his senses, he swiftly adjusted his stance. His Susanoo held his saber at an angle with Hiruzen's trajectory.
However...
A part of his mind still whispered to him.
It won't be enough.
It was then.
Approaching like a meteor. Appearing before him in an instant.
Danzo's patterned pupils dilated in absolute shock.
'Fire Release: Phoenix King's Haymaker,'
...For a moment there was silence.
Unlike the jutsu that Hiruzen used against Orochimaru, this one was a concentration of force very similar to Suguru's Plasma Rasengan.
However, there was one key difference.
These flames did not burn. No...
Instead of a conical area reduced to ashes—
—Crack.
Hiruzen's punch was a blast equivalent to a Tailed Beast Bomb forced into a single point.
—BOOM!
And thus, only a pure-white brightness would consume the world, blinding all.
***
Suguru had realized the nature of Hiruzen's jutsu much earlier and at a greater depth than Danzo.
With a mere glance, terror had poured into every fiber of his being.
Ignorance was bliss, after all.
"Hiruzen, you crazy old man!" Suguru's exclamation was partnered with a hurried weaving of seals.
Summoning layers of earth to cover his eyes, Suguru also deactivated his Kaisu-Byakugan.
He, who had invented the Blaze Battle Body and the Plasma Rasengan, hadn't thought that there was still a higher heaven to achieve.
'This is insanity,' Suguru lamented at his own narrow horizons.
—Eeeeeeeng!
Perhaps only someone with decades upon decades more experience like The Professor was capable of painting several strokes of genius using the ink that Suguru had provided.
Someone who had witnessed the destruction of a Tailed Beast Bomb more than once.
Furthermore, someone who had the humility to learn from a child.
Sarutobi Hiruzen was exactly that man, and Danzo now faced his wrath.
Thus.
It happened within only a few breaths.
—BOOM!
As the world was dyed in white light, it felt as if the Sun's surface had been summoned. Suguru bore only a single thought.
'Perhaps this is what the original Sasuke felt when he fought Naruto one last time?'
Suguru couldn't even laugh.
'No matter how powerful Sasuke's Dojutsu was... There were jutsus more powerful than what his eyes were capable of.'
Secretly, Suguru hoped that Danzo would survive this.
After all...
He wanted Uchiha Fugaku's eyes.
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