A trace of melancholy flickered in Tsunade's gaze.
She knew that ever since the great villages were first established, the seeds of the shinobi world wars had already been sown.
She lacked the power to change this, and no means to do so — because Konoha itself was one of the beneficiaries of the current order.
Tsunade could no longer argue against Terumi Mei's words. Or rather, she understood that continuing to debate would serve no purpose.
What Tsunade saw as wrong was, from Terumi Mei's perspective, right.
This had long since ceased to be a simple matter of "right" and "wrong."
Tsunade let out a soft sigh. A faint glimmer of uncertainty crossed her once-steady gaze.
But when she returned to herself, Tsunade's conviction remained. Konoha would prevail — because it was her home, and she was its Hokage.
Terumi Mei gave Tsunade a brief, indifferent glance, then looked away. She did not speak again.
Their positions were fundamentally different. Further words would serve no purpose.
"Unifying the shinobi world... I'm actually rather looking forward to it."
Terumi Mei brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and folded her arms across her chest, the thought quietly forming in her mind.
High in the sky, fine cracks began to spread across the massive boulder formed by the Chibaku Tensei.
At first the sound was barely audible. But it grew steadily louder.
The hairline fractures spread across the nearly two-hundred-meter boulder at blinding speed.
Huge chunks of rock sheared off the outer layer and plummeted to the ground, gouging out enormous craters on impact.
A thunderous boom echoed across the sky. A gigantic wooden hand punched through the rock from inside, gripping the edge of the boulder.
Then another massive wooden hand emerged, grabbing the opposite side. Both hands pushed outward with tremendous force, tearing the boulder apart.
Under the horrifying strength of the wood golem, a massive crack split across the boulder's surface, radiating outward from between the two hands.
The wood golem's head burst free from the rock with a roar.
As the head emerged, a thick, wooden lock of "hair" on top of the golem's head shifted and writhed.
Senju Hashirama pulled himself out from within the wooden strand, gasping for air and coughing up a mouthful of blood.
"Good thing I reacted in time. Otherwise, I'd have been crushed by the rock or suffocated in there."
Senju Hashirama panted as he spoke, his tone wry with self-deprecation.
At this moment, Senju Hashirama's aura had grown even more terrifying. A faint blue chakra shrouded his entire body.
It was clear — Senju Hashirama had opened the Fourth Gate of the Eight Gates: the Gate of Pain.
With Hashirama freed from the Chibaku Tensei, the wood golem under his control grew more and more violent.
The massive boulder, nearly two hundred meters across, began to crack on a massive scale. Enormous volumes of rock broke free and rained down from the sky.
More than half of the wood golem's body had now emerged from the boulder, preparing to drop toward the ground below.
Down in the bottomless crater that Senju Hashirama had carved into the earth, a figure rocketed upward from the deepest point.
In the blink of an eye, the figure reached the crater's edge and touched down on solid ground.
Uchiha Madara was also panting heavily. His clothes were in tatters, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Most striking was the visible depression in Madara's chest.
Clearly, a direct hit from Senju Hashirama in his Eight Gates state had dealt Madara a serious wound.
If one looked closely at the depression in Madara's chest, they could see it slowly but stubbornly filling back in with each breath Madara took.
Madara looked up and spotted Senju Hashirama about to break free from the Chibaku Tensei above. He paused for a moment.
Then Uchiha Madara's face split into a grin of pure exhilaration, and he let out a wild laugh.
"Now this is a real fight to the death!"
"This is what true battle looks like, Hashirama!"
Madara's voice brimmed with excitement, utterly unconcerned that his loud shouting was aggravating his injuries and drawing more blood from his lips.
Madara had originally believed that with the Rinnegan, his power had surpassed Senju Hashirama's by an entire tier.
This fight should have ended quickly, in his plan. But who could have predicted that Senju Hashirama had learned the Eight Gates?
In an instant, it had dragged the disadvantaged Hashirama back to equal footing.
More than that — facing a Hashirama who had mastered the Eight Gates, Madara could feel the genuine specter of death.
Most people would have felt fear in such a situation. But not Uchiha Madara. He grew only more thrilled.
A thunderous crack echoed across the sky. Senju Hashirama wrenched the wood golem fully free from the Chibaku Tensei.
The technique shattered into countless fragments that rained down from above.
It was like a storm of falling stone, pounding the earth into a cratered wasteland.
Senju Hashirama stood atop the wood golem, descending from the sky with overwhelming force and presence, bearing down on Uchiha Madara.
The air pressure from the descent generated a terrifying downward force. An ordinary person would have been flattened to the ground instantly.
Madara endured the crushing air pressure from the falling golem, stared up at the sky, and roared.
The Rinnegan in Madara's eyes glowed with an eerie blue light. His immense ocular power poured forth.
Three shadowy figures materialized beside Madara simultaneously.
There should have been a fourth, but it had been destroyed by Senju Hashirama earlier in the fight and had not yet regenerated.
Madara and the three shadows all summoned their Complete Body Susanoo.
Four Susanoo, each the size of a small mountain, radiating terrifying auras, appeared upon the earth.
With a succession of booming shockwaves, all four Complete Body Susanoo engaged their instant movement, taking up positions at four compass points.
Simultaneously, each Complete Body Susanoo drew a massive chakra blade — roughly a hundred meters long — from its hip.
In a coordinated pincer attack, all four swung their blades at the wood golem descending from the sky.
The four chakra blades sliced through the air at extreme speed, unleashing a cascade of sonic booms.
Senju Hashirama's pupils contracted. But by now, halting the wood golem's descent was impossible.
Even a wood golem of its strength could not block all four blades when surrounded on every side.
The four chakra blades collided with the wood golem in a deafening roar that shook the heavens.
The golem barely managed to deflect two of the blades, but the other two carved deep into its body, cleaving the massive figure into several segments.
Senju Hashirama, perched atop the golem's head, sensed the danger in a fraction of a second and leapt clear.
Bolstered by the chakra coursing through his body, Hashirama's form became a straight line, hurtling from the sky to the ground below.
The instant he touched down, Hashirama's feet gouged a crater roughly ten meters deep into the earth.
Determination and fighting spirit blazed in Senju Hashirama's eyes. He did not pause for even a moment — both hands slammed into the ground.
A new wood golem surged up beneath him. In an instant, Senju Hashirama stood atop its head, positioned squarely among the four Complete Body Susanoo.
Senju Hashirama let out a low roar. The pale blue chakra enveloping his body deepened to a vivid, dark blue.
Drawing on his already vast chakra reserves, this dark blue energy spread from Hashirama across the entire wood golem in a wave.
The mountain-sized golem began to glow with deep blue light, like a radiant giant — a god walking the earth.
The golem moved. Its enormous body unleashed speed beyond imagination.
In a flash, it appeared before one of the Complete Body Susanoo and threw both fists forward simultaneously.
That Susanoo never even had time to react. Its head and chest were smashed apart in a single blow.
The shadow inside the Susanoo's head was eliminated in that same instant.
After destroying one Complete Body Susanoo, the wood golem pivoted and charged toward another.
Only then did the remaining three Susanoo react, raising their chakra blades and swinging at the golem.
The wood golem dodged all three strikes with effortless speed. It twisted its body and appeared before yet another Complete Body Susanoo, raising both arms and clasping its hands together into a single enormous fist, which it brought down from above.
The blue-glowing fist, carrying apocalyptic force, shattered the Susanoo's head and pulverized its body entirely.
A rare flicker of shock crossed Uchiha Madara's eyes. He immediately pulled his Susanoo into a hasty retreat.
The Susanoo controlled by the remaining shadow did the same, falling back to widen the distance from Senju Hashirama.
Madara knew that even with the Eight Gates boosting him, channeling his chakra into the enormous wood golem was an enormous drain.
No matter how vast Senju Hashirama's chakra reserves, he could not sustain such expenditure indefinitely.
As Madara rapidly retreated, the wings on his Complete Body Susanoo's back beat once, lifting him into the sky.
What Madara did not expect, however, was that Senju Hashirama was faster.
A massive shadow fell over Madara.
More precisely, Senju Hashirama had seized another one of the Complete Body Susanoo and hurled it into the air, slamming it directly into Madara.
Two Complete Body Susanoo collided in midair. The sky itself shuddered.
The shockwave from the impact radiated outward, blasting every cloud from the sky in an instant.
Madara's real body plummeted from the sky.
As he fell, Senju Hashirama maneuvered the wood golem beneath him with blinding speed.
The golem raised its enormous arms and clapped its palms together, like swatting a fly — intent on crushing Madara flat.
Madara let out a roar. A terrifying repulsive force erupted from his body in all directions, forming a vast Shinra Tensei field.
The golem's arms plunged into the repulsion field. Its forward momentum slowed, but it continued to push through.
Senju Hashirama looked toward Madara and let out a great shout.
"Hashirama! Did you think this level of power would be enough to defeat me?!"
At Senju Hashirama's words, Madara's eyes blazed and he roared back.
The already-terrifying repulsive force surged several times stronger, its reach expanding massively.
The golem's closing palms ground to a halt, then were violently shoved apart.
Even the wood golem itself was hurled hundreds of meters by the colossal Shinra Tensei.
"The power of the Rinnegan... troublesome indeed."
Senju Hashirama stood atop the golem, breathing hard. He also began reabsorbing the chakra that had been coating the wood golem.
Just as Madara had suspected from the start, this approach — channeling chakra into the golem — had multiplied its combat power several times over.
But the cost was staggering. Even for Senju Hashirama, it was a tremendous burden.
Madara floated down to the ground, casually wiping the blood from his lips and tearing away the tattered remnants of his upper garments.
Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara's eyes met across the distance. Both saw the blazing fighting spirit reflected in the other's gaze.
Battle fury surged through Senju Hashirama. But as his eyes passed over the depression in Madara's chest, his pupils contracted slightly.
[
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