The shockwaves from Indra's confrontation with the founders still resonated across the battlefield, a psychic tremor that left friend and foe alike reeling. But war does not pause for existential revelations. While the central drama unfolded, other fronts of the colossal conflict burned with their own intensity.
Sector Omicron-3 — The Glacier's Heart.
Here, the fight was both intimate and apocalyptic. The air shimmered with the residual heat of colossal techniques and the bone-deep chill of the frozen waste. Standing at the center of a crater of melted and refrozen ice was Rias Uzumaki. Before her, arrayed in a semi-circle, were figures that made the very history of her bloodline manifest.
To her left, a woman of serene, timeless beauty, with vibrant red hair piled high, wearing the traditional robes of Uzushiogakure. Mito Uzumaki, the first Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails, wife of Hashirama Senju.
To her right, a stern-faced man with a warrior's bearing and eyes that held the weight of a lost nation. Ashina Uzumaki, the last recognized Lord of Uzushiogakure, a fuinjutsu grandmaster.
And between them, a woman whose fiery spirit was almost palpable even through the Edo Tensei's grey pallor, her long, red hair whipping in an unseen wind. Kushina Uzumaki, the mother of Naruto.
Around them stood a dozen other revived Uzumaki shinobi, their expressions ranging from confusion to grim determination.
They had been summoned by Kabuto as a cruel twist—a family forced to slaughter one of their own last descendants. But the woman before them was no trembling survivor.
Mito (her voice melodic, tinged with sadness): "An Uzumaki. But your chakra… it sings a song I do not know. And you stand with the Storm Cloud."
Ashina (eyes sharp, analyzing): "Her sealing arrays are passive, woven into her very attire. Advanced work. Not purely Uzumaki in style. Hybridized."
Kushina (glaring, protective): "Who are you? Another tool of this war?"
Rias took a steadying breath. This was not an enemy to be met with raw destruction. This was a legacy to be addressed, and if necessary, respectfully laid to rest. She planted the butt of her spear, Gae Bolg, into the ice. The Adamantine tip hummed softly.
Rias: "I am Rias Uzumaki. Daughter of Zeoticus and Venelana Uzumaki. Citizen of Kumogakure. Student, partner, and betrothed to Indra Uzumaki-Uchiha." She raised her left hand, allowing the Eternal Diamond engagement ring to catch the bleak light. "And I am here to tell you that the Uzumaki clan is not dead."
The statement landed with the force of a sealing tag. The Edo Uzumaki stared.
Kushina: "What… what do you mean? Uzushio fell! I was one of the last!"
Rias: "Uzushio fell. The clan was scattered, hunted, betrayed. Many died. But some survived. Fifty of us were found by Indra, living in hidden enclaves, in the Land of Snow, in forgotten corners of the world. He offered us sanctuary in Kumo. Not as refugees, but as citizens. As a clan reborn."
She swept her hand, as if painting a picture in the frigid air. "We number over one hundred and fifty now. Our district in Kumo thrives. We have homes, forges, research labs, hospitals. Our children learn not just fuinjutsu and healing, but engineering, chakra theory, and diplomacy. We have integrated with the people of Lightning, but we have not assimilated. We celebrate our heritage. We have revived our arts. Our sealing techniques are taught in Kumo's academy, adapted for modern use. We are the heart of the village's medical and barrier corps."
Ashina's stern face showed the first crack—a flicker of desperate, hungry hope. "One hundred and fifty…? Living? Thriving?"
Mito placed a hand over her heart. "The whirlpool… still turns?"
Rias: "It does. In a new ocean. We are protected. We are respected. We are home. Indra built a fortress, and he made the Uzumaki one of its cornerstones."
Kushina's anger faded, replaced by a profound, aching wonder. "Naruto… my son… does he know?"
Rias: "He knows. He has met our elders. He has been gifted scrolls, stories of you. He carries the Uzumaki name with pride, Kushina-sama. He is not alone."
The emotional weight of the moment was a tangible pressure. But the Edo Tensei's compulsion was a relentless engine. Ashina's hands twitched, forming the first seal of a binding technique. "The caster's will… it demands combat. Forgive me, daughter of our blood. We cannot resist."
Rias nodded, her expression softening with understanding. "Then let this combat be our reunion. Let me show you what the last Uzumaki of the old world, and the first of the new, have achieved together."
The Edo Uzumaki attacked. It was not a frenzied assault, but a coordinated, devastating display of classic Uzumaki might. Chains of chakra—Adamantine Sealing Chains—erupted from Mito and Kushina, crisscrossing the air with intent to bind and drain. Ashina unleashed a volley of explosive sealing tags that arced on complex trajectories. The other Uzumaki layered barrier seals in the air, trying to restrict Rias's movement.
Rias did not retreat. She sang.
A single, clear note from her lips became a physical force. "Sonic Release: Domain of the Still Tongue." The air in a sphere around her thickened, becoming a medium that absorbed and dampened sound-based chakra vibrations. The incoming chains, which relied on precise chakra frequency to maintain their form and cutting edge, wavered and lost cohesion before they could reach her.
Then she moved. Her body was a blur of crimson and green. She didn't bother with hand signs for the simpler elements. She breathed them.
"Lava Release: Obsidian Guillotine." A whip of molten, quick-cooling rock snapped from her free hand, slicing through a barrier seal and forcing two Uzumaki back.
"Ice Release: Glacial Fortress Genesis." She stamped her foot, and a wall of instantly-formed, diamond-hard ice erupted to block a fusillade of wind-enhanced kunai.
"Crystal Release: Prismatic Refraction Field." Shimmering crystals grew around her, not as armor, but as lenses. A concentrated beam of fire from an Uzumaki elder was caught, split, and refracted into a dozen harmless beams that melted the ice around them.
The Edo Uzumaki regrouped, their eyes wide. This was not a style they recognized. It was fluid, intuitive, and utilized elements that were the domain of Kekkei Genkai, yet she wielded them not as bloodline limits, but as languages.
Ashina (during a momentary lull, his voice full of awe): "You command the elements as a master painter commands colors… not as separate tools, but as a unified palette. And your spear… it is a sealing focus of incredible complexity."
Mito: "The harmony in your chakra… it is as if you are conducting an orchestra."
Rias smiled, a fierce, proud thing. "My foundation is Uzumaki vitality and sensory prowess. My technique is a synthesis. From my partner, Indra, I learned precision, spatial awareness, and the architecture of power. From my training across worlds, I learned to listen to the song of energy itself." She spun Gae Bolg, and the air around the spearhead began to scream at a frequency that made the ice beneath their feet fracture. "Sonic Release: Resonance Pierce."
She thrust. The spear didn't just move forward; it vibrated through multiple dimensions of space. It bypassed three layered barrier seals as if they weren't there and stopped a millimeter from Ashina's chest. The shockwave alone forced him back several steps.
But the compulsion was strong. Kushina, with a cry that was both anguished and determined, unleashed a torrent of her signature chains, this time infused with the violent, red chakra of the Nine-Tails she once held. "I have to fight! I can't stop!"
Rias's expression became one of profound respect. She sheathed her sonic vibration and instead brought her hands together in a seal that was unmistakably, profoundly Uzumaki, yet refined to an impossible degree. The air around her grew heavy with the scent of parchment and ozone.
"True Wood Release: Symphony of Binding."
From the ice, from the air itself, grew not the monstrous trees of Hashirama, but living, singing wood. Vines of humming, golden-hued wood, etched with minute, glowing sealing formulae, erupted. They didn't pierce or crush. They encircled. They moved with a gentle, inevitable grace, weaving around Kushina's chains, not breaking them, but harmonizing with their chakra frequency and gently guiding them aside. The wooden tendrils then coiled around Kushina, Mito, and Ashina, not as a prison, but as an embrace. The intricate seals on the wood pulsed, not with a force of suppression, but with a frequency of calming, of spiritual resonance.
Ashina (stunned, as the wood held him with impossible tenderness): "This… this is a sealing art beyond grandmastery… It speaks to the soul of the technique… It is… beautiful."
Mito (tears of ash forming in her eyes): "You have taken our art… and given it a kinder voice."
Kushina (struggling less, feeling the genuine care in the bindings): "You… you really are one of us."
Rias approached them, the combat concluded. She placed a hand on the singing wood surrounding Kushina. "The Edo Tensei is a seal. A cruel, crude one. I cannot break the caster's control from here. But I can give you a better vessel. A more dignified rest."
From a scroll at her hip, she produced four ornate sealing tags, each a masterpiece of calligraphy and intent. "These are Soul-Calming Seals. They will temporarily override the Edo Tensei's binding, not with force, but with an offer of peace. You will be drawn into the tags, into a state of dreamless, tranquil stasis. When this war is over, we will release you properly, with all the rites and honors of the Uzumaki clan."
She looked at each of them. "Will you accept this gift? Will you trust the legacy you see in me?"
Mito was the first to nod, a serene smile on her face. "You carry our future. It is bright. We trust you, child."
Ashina bowed his head. "Do it. Let us rest knowing the whirlpool endures."
Kushina looked at Rias, her eyes pleading. "My son… tell him… tell him I'm so proud. And… thank you. For being his family when I couldn't."
Rias's eyes glistened. "I will. And if the opportunity ever arises… if we can find a way that doesn't defy nature and ethics… I will bring you to him. I promise."
With gentle precision, she placed the seals on their foreheads. The grey Edo Tensei material began to dissolve, not into ash, but into streams of gentle, golden light that flowed into the tags. The other Uzumaki followed suit, accepting the seals with grateful nods.
As Mito's form faded, she reached out a translucent hand and touched Rias's cheek. "Your union with the Uchiha boy… it is not a merging of two dying embers to make a last flame. It is the confluence of two rivers, creating a new sea. You have our blessing."
Ashina added, his voice already distant, "Build your fortress well, granddaughter. Protect our people."
Kushina's last words were a whisper, "Take care of my boy… and be happy."
The golden light vanished into the tags, which Rias carefully stored. The sector fell silent. She stood alone for a moment, the weight of the encounter heavy on her heart, but also a fierce pride burning in her chest. The past was acknowledged, honored, and laid to rest. The future was hers to protect.
________________________________________
Central Battlefield — The Gedo Statue's Maw.
While Rias sealed her ancestors, the main horror of the war was reaching its crescendo. Obito, having watched Madara's ideological collapse with a deranged sense of purpose, decided to force the endgame.
"The old ghosts fail," he snarled, his voice echoing from his cracked mask. "Their methods are obsolete. Their pain is meaningless. But my pain… my dream… is pure. And I will have it NOW!"
He stood before the grotesque, flowering Gedo Statue. The eyes representing the One, Four, Five, and Six-Tails blazed fully. The Two and Three-Tails' eyes were dimmer, only partially lit. It was an incomplete collection, but Obito was out of time and patience.
He performed a series of hand seals, not of the Uchiha, but of the forbidden Uzumaki-Kinjutsu he had learned from Madara's scrolls. Black receiver rods shot from the Gedo Statue, impaling Obito's body. He didn't scream. He laughed, a raw, broken sound.
"Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life — Forced Descent!"
The Gedo Statue shuddered. Its stone skin cracked open, revealing pulsating, organic matter within. It began to melt, to flow, not into the Ten-Tails plant form, but directly into Obito. The colossal mass of stolen chakra, the amalgamation of five full and two partial Tailed Beasts, surged into his body in a torrent of violent, multicolored energy.
The Alliance watched in horror as Obito's form was swallowed by a cocoon of swirling chakra and stone. The ground quaked. The very air screamed as reality strained under the weight of the forcibly condensed power.
From the Special Operations platform, now reunited with Rias, Indra's Rinnegan and analytical sensors focused on the transformation. Data streamed across his vision. "He's bypassing the intermediate Ten-Tails form. He's using his body as a crucible to force an unstable Jinchuriki transformation directly. The chakra matrix is chaotic. Inefficient."
Rias, her senses still humming from the encounter with her ancestors, nodded. "The harmonic dissonance is severe. It's like a orchestra where every musician is playing a different song. It's powerful, but it's tearing him apart even as it forms."
Indra: "Quantify."
Rias closed her eyes, her Sonic and sensory abilities reaching out. "The Ten-Tails chakra is at… 68% of theoretical maximum cohesion. The gaps are not just in volume, but in spectral harmony. The Three-Tails' watery resonance is missing its depth. The Two-Tails' flame is faint. The Seven and Eight-Tails' signatures are absent entirely. It's a crippled god."
On the ground, the cocoon exploded.
What emerged was Obito, Jinchuriki of the Incomplete Ten-Tails. He floated in the air, encased in a swirling shell of unstable, blotchy chakra. Black receiver rods protruded from his back like broken wings. In his hand, he held the Sword of Nunoboko, a blade of solidified truth-seeking power, but its form flickered and wavered. A single Rinnegan and a Sharingan blazed in his face, but his expression was one of agonized ecstasy. Power, vast and terrible, radiated from him, but it was a wild, sickly power, like a fever dream given form.
Naruto Uzumaki, enveloped in the stable, crimson cloak of his partnership with Kurama, landed on a rise alongside Sasuke Uchiha, whose Eternal Mangekyō spun coldly. Behind them, the assembled might of the Allied Shinobi Forces solidified, a wall of determination against the hovering abomination.
Naruto: "Obito! This ends now! Your dream is a lie!"
Obito (his voice layered, distorted): "Lies? Pain is the only truth, Naruto! And this power… it will make the pain stop for everyone! FOREVER!"
Sasuke: "You're just a man throwing a tantrum with stolen toys. Your power is as hollow as your理想 (risō - ideal)."
Obito roared, and a rain of black Truth-Seeker Orbs, misshapen and pulsing erratically, rained down. Naruto and Sasuke moved as one. Naruto created a shield of layered Rasengan and Tailed Beast chakra, while Sasuke used his Susanoo's skeletal ribs to deflect others. The Alliance responded with a colossal combined Ninjutsu barrage—fire, water, earth, lightning, wind—that lit up the sky, clashing against the descending orbs in a cataclysm of light and sound.
The battle was joined. Naruto, a blur of golden-red, engaged Obito in close combat, his Rasenshuriken clashing against the unstable Sword of Nunoboko. Sasuke provided pinpoint support, his Amaterasu and Chidori striking at the flickering gaps in Obito's chakra shell. The Kage and elite jonin coordinated attacks, exploiting the instability Rias had identified.
It was a titanic struggle. Obito's power was immense—each swing of his sword carved canyons in the ice, each orb that landed vaporized entire squadrons. But it was sloppy. Unfocused. The chakra leaked, bled, and rebelled against its own wielder. He was a man trying to steer a tsunami with his bare hands.
On the platform, Indra and Rias observed, not with anxiety, but with the calm of master engineers watching a flawed prototype undergo a stress test.
Rias: "The harmonic instability is increasing. His control is degrading by 2.3% per minute. The chakra is consuming him."
Indra: "The structural flaws are inherent to the forced fusion. He cannot stabilize it without the complete set. The gaps act as pressure points, accelerating systemic failure."
A's voice boomed over the Thunderhead comms. "Indra! Rias! He's tearing through the Alliance! We need your power now!"
Indra (calmly): "Understood, Supreme Commander. But direct intervention now would cause maximum collateral damage and risk forcing a catastrophic detonation of the unstable chakra mass. We are containing the scenario."
Tsunade (frustrated): "Containing?! Our people are dying!"
Rias (her voice gentle but firm): "Every death is a tragedy, Hokage-sama. But a strategic pause now will save tenfold more. Naruto and Sasuke are holding him. They are probing the weaknesses we identified. They are learning. And Obito is weakening himself faster than he is weakening them."
They watched as Naruto, in a moment of brilliant insight, used a Wind Release: Rasenshuriken not against Obito, but against the space between two of the flickering Truth-Seeker Orbs. The destabilizing vortex of wind chakra disrupted the already-tenuous connection, causing the orbs to sputter and fade. Sasuke, seeing this, used his Blazing Volt to carve a burning, black-lightning path through Obito's chakra field, not to reach Obito, but to sever one of the black rods on his back. The rod shattered, and a gout of mismatched, wild chakra erupted from the wound, causing Obito to scream in pain and frustration.
Indra nodded, a hint of approval in his eyes. "See. They are applying the data. The system is working."
Rias: "The 68% solution is failing. It was always going to fail. It is a monument to desperation, not to power."
On the battlefield, Obito, bleeding power and sanity, raised his trembling Sword of Nunoboko for a final, world-cleaving strike. "I WILL HAVE MY DREAM!"
Indra finally moved. He didn't descend. He raised a single hand from the platform. The sigils of Palkia and Dialga in his Rinnegan glowed in tandem. "Spatial-Temporal Law: Localized Stasis Field — Compression."
A sphere of silent, shimmering energy, perhaps a hundred meters in diameter, encapsulated Obito and the immediate area around him. Within it, space folded in on itself, and time slowed to a near-absolute crawl. Obito's mighty swing became a glacial, creeping arc. The erupting chakra around him froze in beautiful, terrifying crystal-like formations.
The battlefield fell silent, the sudden absence of the cataclysmic clash deafening.
Indra's voice was clear. "Allied forces, disengage from the containment zone. The target is now in a recursive space-time loop. He is not a threat for the next 87 seconds, objective time. Jinchuriki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke. The core's instability is at its peak. Its spiritual coordinates are vulnerable. You have one synchronized strike to sever the connection. Use it."
Naruto and Sasuke, panting but resolute, shared a look. No words were needed. An understanding born of rivalry, partnership, and shared burden passed between them. They gathered their power—Naruto's Rasengan swirling with the combined chakra of all nine Tailed Beasts in miniature, Sasuke's Blazing Volt condensing into a spear of absolute annihilation.
They struck as one, aiming not for Obito's heart, but for the fractured, screaming nexus of the incomplete Ten-Tails chakra within him.
Indra and Rias watched, their hands linked, the architects observing the final, decisive blow delivered by the heroes of the present against the crippled god of the past. The Ten-Tails' weakness was not just its missing parts; it was the fundamental flaw of a dream built on theft, pain, and lies. And that was a weakness that no amount of stolen power could ever fix.
End of Chapter – 116.