"You… you actually killed Mifune…"
Sarutobi Hiruzen's voice trembled as he stared at the motionless body of the Iron Country's leader. The clean, precise slash from Susanoo's spectral blade left no doubt—Mifune was dead.
Byakuya, floating ominously inside his fully armored crimson Susanoo, looked down at the former Hokage with disdain.
"That's right. That deluded samurai thought neutrality could protect him," Byakuya said coldly. "But in this new era, neutrality is just weakness by another name."
"You bastard…!" Hiruzen gritted his teeth. He had already realized it—he couldn't defeat Byakuya alone.
A deafening crash interrupted them as rubble exploded from the collapsed ceiling. From the swirling dust emerged the Third Tsuchikage Onoki, Fourth Raikage A, Third Mizukage, Chiyo, and Rasa, their battle-worn cloaks billowing.
"What's going on!? Who dares attack during the Five Kage Summit!?" the Fourth Raikage growled, Raiton Chakra Mode already activated, electricity dancing across his bronze skin.
Hiruzen immediately seized the opportunity.
"Raikage-dono! Be careful, it's Uchiha Byakuya! He's already killed Mifune and disrupted the Summit!"
Hiruzen didn't care about pride or politics anymore—he just needed someone else to face Byakuya while he escaped.
The Fourth Raikage's eyes sharpened at the name.
"Uchiha Byakuya…" he snarled, chakra flaring. "You murdered my father, the Third Raikage…"
Lightning surged around him as he flashed forward with Body Flicker, faster than most could track.
"Lord Raikage, wait—!" Dodai shouted, but it was too late.
With a thunderclap, the Fourth Raikage's Hell Stab: Four-Finger Lariat struck Byakuya's Susanoo head-on.
Boom!
The impact shook the room. But the Susanoo—densely layered with chakra and enhanced by both Mangekyō and Wood Release—stood unscathed. The force of the impact sent shockwaves through the rubble, but Byakuya didn't budge.
"Tch. That's all?" Byakuya smirked. "You're just like your father—brute force with no substance."
He raised Susanoo's hand, which formed a crackling Yasaka Magatama fused with Wood Chakra. But instead of hurling it, the energy shaped itself into a gargantuan chakra blade, dense and vibrating with compressed power.
"I'll grant you the death you seek."
With one swing, the blade descended.
"Lava Release: Rubber Defense Dome!" Dodai cried, desperately forming a protective barrier around the Raikage.
But the moment the chakra blade hit—
Shhhrakk!
The hardened rubber membrane shattered instantly. The Susanoo blade tore downward—
"AAARRGH!"
A blood-splattered arc traced the path of the blade. The Fourth Raikage's body was cleaved through—brutally, irreversibly.
"Raikage-sama!!"
"NO!!!"
Dodai and the guards rushed forward, but there was no saving a body so completely sundered. Even Tsunade's Creation Rebirth wouldn't have helped.
"You bastard—!"
"Kill him!"
All of the Kumogakure Jonin charged forward in unison, chakra blades and lightning jutsu flaring to life.
Amid the crumbling ruins of the Five Kage Summit hall, the battlefield fell silent—until a group of elite Cloud Shinobi charged forward.
Byakuya didn't even flinch.
With a subtle twitch of his eye, his Mangekyō Sharingan spun to life, and his fully manifested Susanoo raised its colossal blade.
"Pathetic," Byakuya murmured.
A single, sweeping arc of the ethereal sword cleaved through the air.
"Boom—boom—boom!"
The Cloud Shinobi were flung back like ragdolls, their armored bodies crashing into the broken walls, blood spraying as they hit the ground. None of them got up.
From the sidelines, the Third Mizukage—an aged, calculating figure with slicked-back hair—watched with widened eyes.
"This… this is the power of Uchiha Byakuya? To so effortlessly destroy the Raikage's elite guard…?"
His voice trembled. "I underestimated him. We all did."
Only moments ago, the Five Kage had gathered with the intention of forming a coalition to eliminate Uchiha Byakuya—an UCHIHA shinobi who not only awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan but also wielded Wood Release, a power once exclusive to the First Hokage.
Now, the hall lay in ruins, and Byakuya stood untouched.
On the other side, the Third Tsuchikage, Ōnoki of Iwagakure, had originally arrived with righteous fury.
But now?
Ōnoki's eyes darted back and forth between the bodies and the glowing Susanoo.
"Retreat! Immediately!" he barked to his guards, his aged body already rising into the air using Light-Weight Rock Technique.
"The Five Kage Conference is over. This is no longer a political meeting—it's an execution ground!"
"Tsuchikage, wait! Don't leave me here alone—let's face him together!" Sarutobi Hiruzen, the former Third Hokage of Konoha, called out in desperation.
But Ōnoki didn't turn back.
Next, Hiruzen turned his hope to Chiyo and Rasa, the elder and newly reinstated Kazekage of the Hidden Sand.
"I supported your claim to Kazekage! Now is the time to repay that loyalty!"
Chiyo and Rasa exchanged a glance. Then—poof—they vanished using the Body Flicker Technique, not even sparing a word.
"Forget him," Chiyo muttered during the retreat. "We owe him nothing."
Even the Third Mizukage, though initially frozen in awe, made his decision. With a solemn expression, he signaled his men and turned away.
"I will not die here for a cause I never believed in."
One by one, all the Kage fled—leaving Hiruzen alone before Byakuya.
The former Hokage's hands trembled.
"Damn cowards… I raised half of you…"
Byakuya's cold, indifferent gaze fixed on him.
"Now, Sarutobi Hiruzen… no one left to hide behind."
The thunderous silence that followed was more terrifying than the battle itself.
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