White Zetsu's face was almost twisted into a grin.
He never expected that while on a mission, infiltrating Konoha and monitoring the movements of the Hokage and other key figures, he would witness such an amusing scene.
The Uchiha Madara and Uchiha Sogetsu, summoned and resurrected through Konoha's forbidden jutsu, started fighting among themselves even before the war had begun.
Watching the meteorites plummet from the sky in a cross-like formation, covering the entire village, White Zetsu couldn't help but laugh with pure delight.
"Looks like I can go back and report to the 'Holy Son.'"
White Zetsu was brimming with confidence. Even if Uchiha Sogetsu managed to stop the meteors, Konoha would still suffer catastrophic damage.
The war was about to end before it even started.
Once the greatest threat, Konoha, was eliminated, the remaining ninja villages would be nothing more than trivial obstacles.
"It's over… Konoha is finished!"
"Run for your lives!"
"Fourth Hokage, save us!"
Just as the meteors were about to strike, seemingly destroying Konoha entirely, the fleeing villagers witnessed it again: the golden Susanoo, radiating overwhelming pressure, erupted.
The elders who had lived through the Third Great Ninja War immediately recognized the familiar figure.
It was the hero who had once saved Konoha, the deceased Fourth Hokage!
Now, the Fourth Hokage once more stood on Konoha's soil, moving toward the meteors falling from the sky.
"Oh? You think you can stop three meteors with your power?"
Uchiha Madara crossed his arms, watching Uchiha Sogetsu with interest. He was curious to see how Sogetsu would deal with the three meteors.
Even if the meteors were destroyed, the fragments could still turn Konoha into ruins.
Unless they could stop the meteors without breaking them.
But… was that even possible?
Uchiha Madara shook his head with a smile. Even for him, such a feat was impossible.
Shattering the meteor wasn't difficult.
The hard part was figuring out how to completely intercept the fragments and protect Konoha from severe damage.
"Heh, perfect. Time to test this move."
Uchiha Sōgetsu pretended to form hand seals, but in reality, he was channeling the power of the 'Angel.'
The wind roared!
In the next moment, almost the entire sky was filled with violent winds, converging toward the center from all directions.
"Perfect. I can finally bring this technique back to life."
Sōgetsu activated Susanoo. Just like Madara's, it grew three heads and six arms.
Each arm formed a different seal, resembling a terrifying, wrathful deity.
"Surely, this time… it should be fully restored."
The wild winds abruptly stopped.
Uchiha Madara's pupils constricted as he sensed a strange aura.
The sky above Konoha seemed frozen, as if time itself had been paused.
Then, the chakra around Sōgetsu transformed, forming a throne made of countless piled-up bones.
"Fuma no Mikuri!"
A cold, echoing voice resounded over Konoha.
In an instant, countless slashes filled the sky above Konoha in less than a tenth of a second.
Millions, even billions, of glowing slashes cascaded like an endless galaxy, so dense it created an illusion, as if the scene was looping, repeatedly stuck on a single frame.
The three meteors and their surroundings seemed to detach from time and space for a fraction of a second.
When speed reaches its extreme, sharp cuts tear through space, only to be repaired by physical laws, leaving behind these strange visual remnants.
It was like a person moving so fast that afterimages are left behind.
And when space itself is destroyed too quickly, the surrounding area appears momentarily "out of sync."
Swish—!
After an incredibly brief pause, the three massive meteors instantly turned into dust.
Yes, dust.
Smaller than regular dust, almost invisible to the naked eye, yet forming a cloud that filled the sky.
There was no warning, no clear indication of what had happened.
To Madara, the entire process seemed abruptly "cut off."
In an instant, the meteors became a cloud of dust.
But the impact of the slash was far from over.
In an instant, the sky across hundreds of kilometers was almost completely cleared.
Every object, no matter what it was, was forcibly erased.
Within a radius of nearly hundreds of kilometers, it had completely turned into a vacuum.
The vacuum zone was a dead land where no life could step, a forbidden area marked by the gods themselves.
Anyone who dared enter would be annihilated by the slash.
As the slash ended, the previously empty space was flooded back by the surrounding air like a massive tsunami.
From a distance, it looked like a roaring river rushing backward, and the terrifying wind and waves swept across the storm, sending chills down the spine.
"Lord Hokage, I… I sincerely need to ask you something," Uchiha Sasuke said, swallowing hard.
At some point, her back had become wet with cold sweat, and she asked shakily, "Was our Fourth Hokage really assassinated by the Aurora Order and Danzo?"
"I…"
Tsunade, who had been full of confidence, suddenly felt a flicker of doubt.
Seeing Uchiha Sogetsu make three meteors vanish into nothing, she was momentarily confused.
She didn't fully understand how powerful the "Saints" of the Aurora Order were.
But she knew Danzo's abilities very clearly.
With his skills, could he really assassinate the Fourth Hokage without being noticed?
"Now is not the time to worry about that," Naruto said helplessly.
"Have you thought of any way to stop them yet?"
These two were simply terrifying.
If the fight continued, it wouldn't just be Konoha destroyed—the entire Land of Fire could be wiped out.
"I think maybe there's no need to rush," Kabuto, climbing out of the rubble, awkwardly wiped his glasses and put them back on.
"Look, they seem to have stopped."
Everyone then turned to the two facing each other.
After resolving the meteor issue, Uchiha Sogetsu shifted his gaze back to Uchiha Madara.
"So? Do you want to continue fighting?" he asked.
Uchiha Madara remained silent for half a second.
Susanoo slowly disappeared, and he smirked.
"No more fighting. If we keep going, the entire Konoha territory might be changed by us. Konoha is the place Hashirama and I built together. I don't want to destroy it."
Not because he didn't want to see Konoha destroyed.
Clearly, he realized from the previous attack that he was no match for Sogetsu and was just looking for a way to save face.
Would changing the territory even matter to Madara?
If he truly cared, he wouldn't have used "Tengai Shinsei". He was just forcing his pride.
Uchiha Sogetsu saw through it but didn't call him out. He smiled and offered Madara a way to step back gracefully: "Fine, then let's end it here."
"Hmph."
Madara snorted coldly, his expression darkening. "Weren't you already dead? How do you just keep getting stronger?"
He couldn't understand. Their deaths had been around the same time.
He had been formidable in his youth, but Sogetsu's situation was strange. He clearly died early, yet his soul went to the Pure Land—and somehow, he only grew stronger.
"Heh, you'll have to guess~"
Sogetsu naturally wouldn't reveal the truth. He had never truly died.
*******
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