The frozen tundra of the Land of Lightning's northern frontier erupted into a cataclysm of sound, light, and chakra. The roar of the Allied charge was met by the eerie, chattering advance of the White Zetsu army, a tide of flesh against a wall of steel and will. The sky, already heavy with the threat of the Sea of Storms, was lit by the first flashes of ninjutsu—fireballs streaking like meteors, lightning forks tearing jagged paths, and earthen walls erupting to meet them.
The battle did not begin as a single, concentrated clash. It exploded across a front spanning dozens of kilometers, as Madara's strategy of overwhelming, simultaneous pressure took immediate effect.
Sector Theta-7 — Behind Allied Lines, Medical Staging Area Three.
Chaos, of a subtle and insidious kind, bloomed where order was most critical. The medical corps, a sprawling complex of sealed tents, mobile surgical units, and stockpiles of medical supplies, was a hive of controlled activity. Sakura Haruno's voice was a steady drumbeat of command, directing the flow of stretchers, assigning healers, and verifying supply chains.
Then, the first scream cut through the organized din. Not a scream of pain from a wounded soldier, but of terror and betrayal.
A medic-nin from Konoha, her face pale, stumbled out of a supply tent, pointing a trembling finger at a colleague who was calmly loading a cart with blood-replenishment IV bags. "H-Him! His chakra! It just… flickered! It's wrong!"
The accused medic, a man with a gentle face known to many, looked up with confusion. "Mika? What are you talking about? We need these at the forward triage—"
Sakura was already moving, her enhanced speed covering the distance in an instant. Her senses, honed by Tsunade and amplified by her own rigorous training, flared. To most, the man's chakra felt normal—a calm, healing-green signature. But to Sakura's precise perception, there was a faint, discordant undertone, a hollowness beneath the familiar pattern, like a perfect painting over rotten wood.
"Stop!" she barked, her voice leaving no room for argument. The surrounding medics froze.
The man's expression of confused innocence melted away, replaced by a bland, empty smile. "So perceptive. The Slug Princess's student, yes?" His voice was a perfect mimic, but the cadence was ever so slightly off.
White Zetsu Impersonator. The realization shot through the corps like lightning. Before the impostor could move, Sakura's fist, encased in precise chakra, was already a blur. She didn't aim to obliterate; she aimed to incapacitate. The punch, powerful enough to crater stone, connected with the Zetsu's solar plexus. There was a sickening crunch of cellulose-like flesh, not bone. The form shuddered, its disguise dissolving into the familiar white, featureless biomass before it collapsed.
But the damage was done. Panic, the true weapon, began to spread. Who else was a fake? The shinobi bringing in a wounded comrade? The cook distributing rations? The trust that glued the medical corps together began to fracture.
Sakura (amplifying her voice with chakra): "ALL MEDICAL PERSONNEL! FREEZE IN PLACE! SENSOR TEAM, FULL SCAN, NOW! INO, I NEED YOU!"
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Allied Command Hub — Thunderhead Integration Nexus.
The holographic battle map was a kaleidoscope of swirling icons. Blue for Allied forces, red for confirmed enemy, and now, blinking yellow markers were sprouting like poisonous mushrooms inside their own formations.
Shikamaru Nara watched the spread, his face grim. "Just as predicted. Infiltration and psychological disruption. They're targeting command, logistics, and medical nodes."
Tsunade (via hologram, from the frontline command platform): "Status of the Emotion-Sensing Barrier in the rear sectors?"
Ino Yamanaka's voice came through, strained but focused as her consciousness was split across the sensor network. "Barrier is active, but the Zetsu… they're not emanating strong negative emotions like a human spy would. It's more like a 'null' signal or a perfect copy of the person they're impersonating. It's bypassing the primary emotional filters. We're having to manually compare real-time chakra signatures to pre-battle baseline records from the Thunderhead database. It's slowing identification down by 70%."
A (Supreme Commander, his voice a growl): "Unacceptable! They'll tear us apart from the inside!"
Indra's calm voice cut into the comm channel from the Special Operations platform. "Thunderhead Auxiliary Protocol 'Cuckoo' is now active. All field communication terminals and sensor units are receiving a continuous, encrypted sub-auditory data stream. It contains the verified chakra 'fingerprint' of every allied shinobi in your immediate sector, updated in real-time. Cross-reference visually. The Zetsu can mimic form and chakra type, but they cannot replicate the unique, soul-deep resonance signature the Thunderhead has catalogued. It will take them time to adapt. Use that time."
In the medical sector, Sakura's wrist-mounted Kumo communicator vibrated. A small, transparent screen lit up, showing a rapidly scrolling list of names and complex chakra waveform graphs. She looked at the next medic in line, a woman she'd worked with for years. "Chihiro. Your fingerprint, now."
The woman, wide-eyed, placed her hand on the scanner plate of the device. A soft ping, and a green checkmark appeared next to her name on Sakura's screen.
Sakura: "Verified. Continue work. Everyone, check the person next to you with your comm units! Now!"
The system was not perfect—it required a momentary pause, a point of vulnerability. But it was a lifeline. The panic began to recede, replaced by a tense, systematic purge. Cries of "Impostor!" were now followed by the swift, brutal efficiency of allied shinobi, cutting down the exposed White Zetsu before they could self-destruct or cause more havoc.
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Sector Gamma-2 — The Icy Flats.
Here, the battle was a straightforward, brutal melee. The White Zetsu clones, though individually weaker than a seasoned chunin, fought with a terrifying, mindless tenacity and could emerge from the very ground. A division of mixed Konoha and Iwa forces was locked in a grinding stalemate with a seemingly endless wave of them.
From the heart of the Zetsu tide, two figures erupted with speed that belied the chaotic press. They moved with a coordinated, predatory grace that was instantly, horrifyingly familiar to the older Kumo shinobi in the allied ranks. Twin blurs of golden and silver, wielding monstrous, pulsating tools—the Benihisago (Crimson Gourd) and the Kohaku no Jōhei (Amber Purifying Jar).
Ginkaku and Kinkaku, the legendary brothers, scourges of the Second Hokage, reincarnated through Edo Tensei. Their faces were locked in vicious grins, their chakra a corrosive, overwhelming presence tinted with the unmistakable aura of the Nine-Tails they had once partially consumed.
Ginkaku: "Keh heh heh! Look at this, brother! An army! It's been too long since we had a proper feast!"
Kinkaku: "Yeah! And look! Little Lightning bugs in the mix! Let's see if this generation's cloud shinobi are as fun to break as the old ones!"
They carved a path of destruction. A Konoha barrier team was scattered, their technique shattered by a swipe of the Bashōsen (Banana Palm Fan), which one of the brothers now wielded, unleashing a cataclysm of wind, lightning, and fire. An Iwa stone golem was bisected by the shimmering edge of the Kōkinjō (Seven Star Sword).
Commanding this sector was Darui, the future Fifth Raikage. He watched the brothers' rampage, his expression uncharacteristically severe, his lazy eye sharp and focused. "Tch. Troublesome legends. Alright, listen up!" His voice, amplified by a throat-mic, cut through the din to his elite Kumo battalion. "Standard formation does not apply. Squad One, Lightning Net suppression on my mark. Squad Two, prepare Water Release: Great Cascading Current. We'll limit their mobility. Everyone else, keep the white weeds off our backs. I'll handle the antiques."
He stepped forward, his dark skin stark against the ice, the single streak of white hair in his black mane seeming to glow. He didn't draw his chakra-blade saber immediately. He observed.
The brothers spotted him, a Kumo commander standing defiantly in their path. They lunged, a pincer movement of brutal speed, the Bashōsen fanning a wave of searing flame towards him while the Kōkinjō aimed to sever his head from behind.
Darui moved. His body flicker was a clean, precise line of black lightning. He didn't dodge through the flames; he moved around the conceptual path of the attack, his Storm Release affinity allowing him to intuitively navigate the chaotic energy. He appeared between the two brothers as their attacks crossed empty space.
Darui: "Laser Circus."
Not a massive, area-denial blast. Dozens of thin, incredibly focused beams of black and blue light erupted from his fingertips, not aimed at the brothers' bodies, but at their weapons, their feet, the ground around them—a disorienting, precision harassment. One beam scored a hit on Ginkaku's wrist, forcing a momentary flinch.
Ginkaku (snarling, looking at the faint burn): "Huh? Black Lightning? You're that brat A trained? You've got some gall, kid."
Kinkaku: "Gall ain't gonna save you from the Sage's tools!"
Kinkaku swung the Amber Purifying Jar. The air warped as a powerful suction force, capable of sealing spoken words and eventually the speaker themselves, targeted Darui.
Darui didn't speak. He had studied the archives. He flickered again, his form dissolving into a stream of water—Water Release: Water Body—that slipped around the suction vortex. He reformed behind Kinkaku, his saber now gleaming with concentrated Storm Release chakra.
Ginkaku, however, was already there, the Crimson Gourd poised. "Got you! Say your name!"
But Darui wasn't looking at Ginkaku. He was looking past him, at his own Kumo squads. "Now!"
Squad Two unleashed their combined Water Release: Great Cascading Current. A tidal wave of frigid water, directed not at the brothers, but at the ground beneath and around them, instantly turning the battlefield into a deep, freezing mire. The brothers, for all their power, sank slightly, their movement hampered.
At the same moment, Squad One's Lightning Net descended—a crackling web of electricity that conducted perfectly through the water, enveloping the area in a shocking field.
The brothers roared in annoyance, their chakra flaring to dispel the nuisance. But in that split-second of distraction, Darui acted. He abandoned his attack on Kinkaku. Instead, he sheathed his saber and brought his hands together in a single, complex seal.
Darui: "Storm Release: Laser Spear."
From his clasped hands, a single, thick, perfectly straight beam of oscillating black-and-blue light lanced forth. It wasn't fast like lightning; it was relentless, drilling through the air with a terrifying hum. It bypassed the shimmering aura of the Kōkinjō, which was designed to sever chakra and spiritual bonds, not pure, hyper-concentrated energy. It struck Ginkaku square in the chest.
The Edo Tensei body didn't bleed, but it cratered, paper and ash exploding outward. Ginkaku was thrown back, slamming into the icy mire. The Bashōsen fan flew from his grasp.
Ginkaku (struggling to regenerate, staring in genuine shock): "W-What?! You… you damaged this body? With a single jutsu?"
Kinkaku (stunned): "Brother! That's… that's not normal Lightning Release!"
Darui (exhaling a steady breath, his hands still poised): "The world didn't stop turning after you died. Kumo kept moving forward. We studied. We refined. We evolved. Your Sage's tools are just that—tools. Powerful, but clumsy in the hands of brutes who rely on them like crutches. The true power of Kumo has always been in its people."
He gestured with his chin. Around them, the Kumo shinobi of his division were fighting with a chilling, systematic efficiency. Teams of three used combined Lightning and Water techniques to create localized flash-freezes, trapping Zetsu clones solid before shattering them. A lone jonin used a derivative of the Lightning Cutter to carve a path, its precision a world apart from the brothers' wild swings. They communicated with subtle hand signals and brief bursts on the comms, their movements a dance of mutual understanding.
Ginkaku and Kinkaku, forced to momentarily halt their rampage, took it in. The sheer competence, the unified strength, the advanced techniques… it was nothing like the smaller, more clan-focused, brutal shinobi forces of their era.
Kinkaku (a grudging, confused respect in his tone): "You cloud folks… you got a lot stronger."
Ginkaku (getting to his feet, regeneration almost complete, but his arrogant smirk gone): "Tch. Stronger, maybe. Let's see how strong when we get serious, modern man."
He reached for the fallen Bashōsen. But Darui was already moving, his next order crisp. "Squad Three! Sealing tags, pattern Delta, on the tools! Don't let them rearm! Everyone else, pressure! They're just particularly tough Edo Tensei. Keep breaking them down until the specialists can seal them!"
The battle around the brothers intensified, no longer a one-sided slaughter but a grinding, tactical engagement. Darui had done the impossible: he had not only matched the legendary monsters, he had contained them, and in doing so, showed them how much the world had left them behind.
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Sector Beta-9 — The Shattered Glacier Fields.
This was a battlefield of a different kind. Less about massed troops, more about deadly artistry. The air was filled with the screech of metal on metal, the hiss of pressurized hydraulics, and the whisper of countless strings.
Sasori of the Red Sand floated, his core housed within the heavily modified, puppet-like body he now permanently inhabited. Before him, like a macabre honor guard, stood his masterpieces: the Third Kazekage puppet, its form repaired after its last destruction, clouds of black Iron Sand swirling around it; and the Fourth Kazekage puppet, Rasa, its hands perpetually dripping with shimmering, lethal Gold Dust.
Facing this nightmare from the past was the Suna Puppet Brigade, led by Kankurō. But this was not the Kankurō of the Chunin Exams, or even the one who fought in the rescue Gaara mission. His attire was darker, more armored, incorporating segments of his father's old ceremonial armor. On his back, he carried not just Karasu, Kuroari, and Sanshōuo, but a fourth, larger scroll. His face, painted in the new, severe lines of a master puppeteer and a regent's brother, was a mask of cold fury.
Sasori (his voice a dry, emotionless rasp from his puppet body): "Kankurō. You brought my creations back to me. How… thoughtful. And you've added some… sentimental modifications." His hollow eyes flicked to the gold dust accents on Kankurō's armor and puppets.
Kankurō: "They're not your creations anymore, Sasori. They're my inheritance. And today, I'm taking back what you stole. The Third's legacy. And my father."
There was no banter, no philosophical debate. This was pure, personal vengeance. Kankurō's fingers danced. Karasu shot forward, its limbs extending, blades flashing, aiming not for Sasori's core but for the chakra strings controlling the Kazekage puppets. Sanshōuo opened its maw, firing a volley of poison-tipped needles in a wide spread, forcing Sasori to divert the Iron Sand into a defensive wall.
Sasori: "Predictable."
The Third Kazekage puppet raised a hand. "Iron Sand: Drizzle." A storm of microscopic, magnetized sand particles filled the air, seeking to infiltrate and jam Kankurō's puppets' joints.
But Kankurō was ready. "Wind Release: Gale Palm!" A controlled burst of wind from his own mouth, enhanced by a tiny scroll mechanism on his wrist, cleared the immediate air around his main puppets. "Kuroari!"
The black puppet unfolded, not to capture, but to act as a mobile shield, its durable shell deflecting a follow-up "Iron Sand: Giant Hammer."
Sasori frowned internally. The boy's control was finer, his strategies less straightforward. He sent the Fourth Kazekage puppet forward. "Gold Dust: Imperial Funeral." A wave of dense, crushing gold surged towards Kankurō.
This was the moment. The moment Kankurō had trained for, dreamed of, dreaded. Facing the hollow shell of his father, wielded as a weapon.
His eyes hardened. He didn't flinch. He bit his thumb and slammed his hand onto the largest scroll on his back. "Art of the Puppet: Golden Reclamation!"
A puff of smoke, and from the scroll emerged a new puppet. It was not a humanoid figure. It was a complex, multi-armed apparatus, a fusion of Suna craftsmanship and schematics Kankurō had painstakingly studied from Kumo's non-organic designs. At its heart, fed by Kankurō's chakra, was a dense, swirling orb of Gold Dust—not stolen, but cultivated grain by grain from the desert, infused with his own blood and will.
Sasori: "What is this? A crude imitation?"
Kankurō (through gritted teeth): "It's a Magnet Release: Resonator. You stole my father's power. I inherited his technique."
The Resonator puppet hummed. The wave of Gold Dust from Rasa's puppet shuddered, its flow disrupted. The two gold sources vibrated against each other, the stolen dust responding to the call of the heir's genuine legacy.
"Now, Karasu!" Kankurō screamed.
While the Gold Dust was in disarray, Karasu shot past the Fourth Kazekage puppet, its blades now crackling with lightning-charged chakra wires—a tactic learned from observing Kumo's puppeteer collaborations. It didn't attack the puppet. It wrapped its wires around the Third Kazekage puppet, conducting a surge of lightning chakra that temporarily scrambled the magnetic field holding the Iron Sand together. The black cloud collapsed into an inert pile.
Sasori, for the first time, felt a flicker of something akin to concern. He commanded Rasa's puppet to attack Kankurō directly. But Sanshōuo intercepted, its powerful jaws clamping down on the puppet's arm, holding it fast.
"You took our greatest defenders," Kankurō snarled, his fingers a blur as he controlled four puppets at once, his chakra draining rapidly but his resolve ironclad. "You turned them into your toys. You have no idea what their true worth was. You see only parts. I see the whole. I see the village they died for."
With the Iron Sand neutralized and the Gold Dust locked in a resonant struggle, Kankurō made his final move. He released control of Kuroari and Sanshōuo, pouring every last ounce of his chakra into Karasu and the Resonator.
Karasu dismantled itself. Not destroyed—it unfolded, its components reassembling in mid-air with blinding speed, combining with the Resonator apparatus. What formed was a single, colossal, spear-like limb of polished wood, metal, and concentrated gold dust, vibrating at a frequency that made the air scream.
Kankurō: "Puppetry Final Technique: Legacy's Piercing Fang! FOR SUNA! FOR THE THIRD! FOR MY FATHER!"
The spear-limb shot forward. It bypassed the struggling Fourth Kazekage puppet. It ignored Sasori's frantic attempts to recall the Iron Sand. It punched straight through the chest of the Third Kazekage puppet, shattering its core mechanism, and continued its deadly path directly into the central chassis of Sasori's own puppet body.
There was a sound of tearing metal, splintering wood, and crumbling ceramic. Sasori's core, housed within, was exposed for a split second. He looked at Kankurō, his expressionless face somehow conveying a final, dull surprise.
Kankurō didn't give him time for a last word. A final twitch of his finger, and a hidden blade in Karasu's reassembled form snapped out, slicing through the fragile core container.
The light in Sasori's hollow eyes died. His puppet body went rigid, then collapsed into a heap of worthless scrap. The Third and Fourth Kazekage puppets slumped, their stolen power extinguished. The black Iron Sand settled into harmless dust. The Gold Dust from Rasa's puppet flowed sluggishly, then stilled.
Silence descended on that corner of the glacier field, broken only by Kankurō's ragged breaths. He staggered forward, past the ruin of Sasori, to the puppet that had been his father. With reverent, trembling hands, he placed a seal on its forehead, deactivating it. He then carefully, tenderly, began to detach the components that held the Gold Dust, reclaiming it, grain by symbolic grain.
He had done it. He had avenged his predecessors. He had slain the monster who defiled them. And he had taken the first step in reclaiming his family's legacy from the darkness. He looked up at the chaotic sky, tears of exhaustion and triumph mixing with the war paint on his face. "Temari… Gaara… one debt is paid."
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Special Operations Platform — Overlooking the Central Melee.
Indra and Rias watched the sprawling battle, not as participants yet, but as conductors monitoring an orchestra of chaos. Their platform hovered above the worst of the fighting, protected by a low-grade spatial distortion field.
Indra's Rinnegan tracked everything: the containment of Ginkaku and Kinkaku, the purge of the White Zetsu infiltrators, Kankurō's victory, the ebb and flow of a thousand smaller engagements. Data streamed across his visual field, fed by Thunderhead and Sona's analysis.
Rias: "Darui has stabilized his sector. Kankurō has eliminated Sasori. The infiltration panic is being managed. The Allied line is holding, but barely. The Zetsu numbers are… logarithmic."
Indra: "The opening moves are concluding. Madara and Obito are holding the Gedo Statue and their primary forces in reserve. They are testing our resilience, probing for weaknesses, and waiting for fatigue to set in."
Sasuke's voice came through their private comms. He was with his team, a mobile strike unit hovering on the eastern flank, watching the silent form of Edo Madara. "The Edo Tensei regeneration is slowing where we've concentrated fire. The sealing corps is making progress. When do we move on the primary targets?"
Indra: "Soon. The catalyst is imminent."
As if on cue, a new pressure descended on the battlefield. From the heart of the enemy reserve, Madara Uchiha stepped forward. He didn't shout. He simply raised a hand, and his deep, contemptuous voice echoed across the tundra, amplified by his immense chakra.
Madara: "Enough of this farce. You insects have buzzed loudly enough. Let us show you what true power looks like. The power you have forgotten."
He formed a single, familiar seal. A shadow fell over the entire Allied front.
"Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence."
The frozen ground shattered. Not from ice, but from gargantuan, roaring trees and vines that erupted with impossible speed and vigor, a forest of destruction growing in seconds, threatening to engulf, crush, and strangle the entire Allied front line. It was a technique of such scale and power that it dwarfed anything seen since the time of the First Hokage.
On the command hub, the Kage stared, aghast. "Impossible!" Ōnoki gasped.
On the Special Operations platform, Indra's eyes narrowed. "There it is. Rias."
Rias stepped to the very edge of the platform. She closed her eyes, not in fear, but in focus. She placed her hands together, not in a standard seal, but in a gesture of communion. Her chakra, a unique symphony of Uzumaki vitality, Sonic resonance, and the newly awakened True Wood Release, bloomed around her like a verdant, singing aura.
She could feel Madara's forest—a creation of brute force, of domination, of chakra强行 imposed upon the world. It was powerful, but it was loud and angry. It did not ask the earth's permission; it commanded it.
Rias's power was different. It was an invitation. A conversation.
She opened her eyes, which now shimmered with emerald and gold light. She took a breath, and her voice, when she spoke, was not a shout, but a clear, penetrating song that carried across the wind, a counterpoint to the roar of the growing forest.
Rias: "Wood Release: Symphony of Soothing Growth."
From the Allied lines, from the very ground they stood on, a different kind of growth responded. Not monstrous trees, but swift, strong, intelligent vines and woody stems. They did not attack Madara's forest. They intertwined with it. They grew along the aggressive branches, not to strangle, but to guide. They pulsed with harmonic chakra, a soothing, stabilizing frequency that resonated through the madly growing wood.
Where Rias's influence spread, the destructive growth slowed. The crushing branches diverted, weaving instead into great, living arches over the Allied troops. The strangling vines loosened, becoming lattices that supported rather than constrained. It was a breathtaking display of control—not opposing force with force, but redirecting chaos into order, violence into shelter.
Madara's forest reached the Allied front line… and then stopped, transformed into a vast, living, defensive berm, humming with gentle energy.
A stunned silence fell across both armies.
Madara's Edo Tensei face showed the first true emotion since his arrival: profound, utter shock. His Sharingan and Rinnegan whirled, analyzing the chakra. "That… that is true Wood Release. Not a stolen bloodline… but the will of the technique itself. How…?"
Obito, beside him, clenched his fists, his mask hiding a snarl of fury. "Indra… Rias…"
On the Allied side, hope, fierce and blazing, erupted. The Hokage's power, turned to their defense!
Indra looked at Rias, a flicker of pride in his impassive eyes. "Perfect." He then activated the full broadcast channel to the entire Alliance, his voice calm yet carrying absolute authority. "All forces. The enemy's first paradigm-breaking attack has been neutralized. Do not let the moment pass. This is the opening. Advance."
With a unified roar that shook the very foundations of the glacier fields, the Allied Shinobi Forces, their spirits lifted from the brink of despair by Rias's miraculous defense, surged forward with renewed, ferocious determination.
The first clashes were over. The true war for the future had just begun.
End of Chapter – 112.