Amid thunderous cheers, the war of giants began.
On one side stood the Thundercloud Giant—larger by a full size class, imbued with the vast natural energy of sky and sea. On the other side, more than fifty rock giants, each slightly smaller, yet legion in number.
Most shinobi didn't have the perception to judge correctly. Yorin's Thundercloud Giant looked stronger, sure—but Ōnoki's stone titans were so numerous that many assumed the Tsuchikage actually held the upper hand.
Because of that, the cheers from the allied four villages dipped a little, while the roars from the Iwa side swelled so loudly they nearly drowned out the sound from their far more numerous enemies.
This was Golem Technique—the Secret Technique developed by the Second Tsuchikage, kept as one of Iwa's trump cards. In principle, every generation of Tsuchikage and his personal guard could use it.
But someone who could, like Ōnoki now, grit his teeth and field dozens of rock giants at once? That was unheard of.
On that point alone, calling Ōnoki the strongest Tsuchikage ever wasn't an exaggeration. No wonder the Iwa shinobi were so ecstatic.
With such a powerful Tsuchikage, how could they possibly lose, even surrounded by four other villages?
"Accept your fate—be buried beneath endless earth! No matter how your waters crash and claw, the soil will not be moved!"
Ōnoki roared and ordered his stone giants to charge, aiming to mob Yorin and smash him to paste.
But in the very next heartbeat, something breathtaking happened.
From the Thundercloud Giant's body, countless tendrils of water extended and lashed out across the battlefield toward the stone titans.
Water Style: Water Whip!
A terrifying technique often used by Kirigakure's Anbu, Water Whip had already shown its power when Genji used it against Yorin. Combined with Lightning Release and the Titan's colossal frame, it unleashed absurd force.
The enormous water whips crashed down with overwhelming might, and in an instant, the leading rock giants were shattered into rubble.
Iwa shinobi watched, stunned, as those invincible-looking stone colossi exploded into cascades of boulders—and their cheers cut off mid-syllable, like someone had grabbed them by the throat.
Yes, if this were just ordinary water from nature, it would never break such solid rock.
But water filled with dense, rampaging natural energy was a different story entirely. And the water Yorin wielded carried not only that, but also razor-sharp lightning attribute natural energy—like a thousand giant Raikiri coiled within every blow.
Against such over-spec'd attacks, Ōnoki's rock puppets stood no chance. Within moments, the stone army was being butchered.
Watching this, many people— not just Iwa shinobi, but ninja from the other villages too—found the same thought rising in their minds:
If Ōnoki was the mighty earth… then Uchiha Yorin was the heaven that covered it.
No matter how thick the ground, it always has an edge; the sky that blankets it does not.
The allied forces broke into deafening cheers, while the Iwa ranks fell silent.
And it only got worse.
The Thundercloud Giant plunged into the stone army like a tiger into a flock of sheep, turning the rock giants into a one-sided slaughter-fest.
In speed, striking power, and defense, the Thundercloud Giant so outclassed the rock giants that they didn't even belong to the same category anymore.
With lightning added to its form, the already-fluid body became astonishingly nimble—fast enough to rival a lower-ranked shinobi in agility. Its raw offensive power was already a known horror: it simply mowed things down.
As for defense, there was almost nothing to discuss. Its "body" was flowing water, and its true core was the man inside; even when the stone giants managed to land blows on the Thundercloud Giant, all they were hitting was water. Punching into a tidal wave is pointless; hitting this was no different.
In the span of a few breaths, what had looked like a formidable stone golem corps—each one strong enough to wreck a thousand-man unit—was smashed apart wholesale by Yorin's Thundercloud Giant. Iwagakure's seemingly unbeatable, army-crushing technique had been broken through by sheer brute force.
"Terrifying… that's beyond terrifying. How do you even beat something this perfect? Is there any way to counter this, or is it just utterly unbreakable?"
Many shinobi—not just from Iwa—watched this scene and wracked their brains for an answer.
Even the so-called "Professor of Ninjutsu," the Third Hokage, could only reach one discouraging conclusion:
There was no "clean" counter.
To destroy that Thundercloud Giant, you would have to break it with pure force—use a technique even more overwhelming than Yorin's.
And did anyone really have that kind of technique? Did Ōnoki?
The answer was yes.
At least, Ōnoki believed the answer was yes.
Although his Golem Technique had been reduced to rubble, Ōnoki didn't panic in the slightest.
Buoyed by Super Light–Heavy Rock, he could roam the sky freely; with that extreme mobility, he was convinced of his own safety.
And as for the technique that would finally defeat the enemy—he had prepared that as well.
Dust Release: the invincible kekkei tōta—beyond a mere kekkei genkai, combining wind, fire, and earth into a three-nature annihilation art.
In the original timeline, Ōnoki nearly killed a fully powered Uchiha Sasuke at the Five Kage Summit with Dust Release alone, its destructive potential displayed for all to see.
Back then he had only used Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique. That alone had almost erased the "invincible" Sasuke.
This time, with Uchiha Yorin as his life's ultimate enemy—someone he saw as Hashirama reborn—Ōnoki went further. What he unleashed now was the true trump card:
Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique.
Normally, he didn't have the chakra to fire this upgraded form. But this Ōnoki had already steeled himself to die with Yorin.
So he cast it anyway.
The familiar deadly cube—that pure-white annihilation field—shot toward the Thundercloud Giant.
At the same time, the old Tsuchikage's body shriveled, his face aging twenty years in seconds. But his eyes blazed with a brilliant, manic light; his spirit was at its peak.
"Uchiha Yorin!!"
He roared.
"Die with me!!"
In a single unthinkable instant, the apparently invincible Thundercloud Giant shattered.
The vast mass of water and lightning-infused natural energy was disassembled into atoms and dispersed into the air.
"Hell yeah!!"
"As expected of Ōnoki-sama!!"
"He's taken that Uchiha down—Ōnoki-sama is unmatched!!"
The Iwa side erupted with wild celebration, convinced they had just witnessed victory.
On the other side, the four-village alliance went ashen.
"What the hell—?!"
"Did Yorin-sama… actually die?!"
"No way…!"
"Dust Release is terrifying…"
Hearing those cries, Ōnoki closed his eyes with deep satisfaction. He felt utterly exhausted, like he could drop dead at any moment—his life force heavily drained.
In the original story, he would go on to linger into retirement and still be kicking around in Boruto's era. In this timeline, though, it was hard to say how much longer he'd last.
His body began to plummet like a wounded bird, and he let his eyelids drift shut.
"Even so… if I've brought down Uchiha Yorin… that's enough… no… that feeling, that sense just now was… Uchiha Yorin!!"
His eyes flew open. He snapped his gaze upward—
—and saw Uchiha Yorin, looking down at him with a cold, almost pitying expression.
It was Body Flicker: Lightning Release Body Flicker. At the last instant, Yorin had used the fastest form of movement available to dodge out of the Dust Release's kill zone.
No matter how lethal Dust Release was, if it didn't hit, it didn't matter.
"I'm done," Ōnoki thought as he fell.
He knew he'd lost—utterly. His village, its future, his life, even his granddaughter… everything had been ceded to that man who seemed equal parts god and demon: Uchiha Yorin.
"It's all over."
His final moments of consciousness were filled with the roar of the coalition's cheers, the Iwa shinobi's shocked cries, and his granddaughter Kurotsuchi's anguished scream.
~~~
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