The moment Wood Release met Fire Release, the battlefield lit up like a funeral pyre. A shockwave ripped through the smoke, and before anyone could blink, two shadows vanished from their starting points.
A metallic crack rang out.
Hashirama's long blade met Madara's war fan mid-swing, sparks scattering across the torn earth.
"Your strength never changes, Hashirama!" Madara snarled, three tomoe spinning like red shuriken in his eyes.
Hashirama exhaled sharply, excitement flickering behind the worry for his younger brother. "Right back at you!"
The ground split under the pressure of their clash. Hashirama burst forward, eyes narrowing as veins bulged along his arms. With a roar, he drove all his strength downward.
Madara caught it too late. The blow launched him across the field, armor screeching as he crashed into the rubble.
And yet he laughed.
"Good… good! Only you can make war feel alive!"
Hashirama didn't answer. He rushed in again, blade swinging so fast the air screamed around it.
But Madara's Mangekyō twisted, reshaping his posture mid-fall with an impossible angle. He slipped past the strike by inches, countering with a wide sweep of his fan.
Steel met lacquered iron again.
The battlefield became a blur of afterimages, metal shrieks, and shredded stone.
"Hashirama!"
Madara's roar tore through the haze as he brought his fan down with crushing force.
"Madara!"
Hashirama's blade rose to meet him.
The collision cracked the ground into a spiderweb of fractures. Rock fragments exploded outward like kunai fired from a trap.
Both men leapt back at the same moment.
Madara's hands flashed through seals so fast they blurred.
"Fire Release: Majestic Destroyer Flame!"
A tidal wave of fire roared from his mouth, amplified by Mangekyō chakra until it looked like a volcanic eruption tearing the sky in half.
Hashirama slammed his palms into the dirt. "Good! Come on!"
A forest-green surge of chakra erupted around him, forming a massive wooden bulwark. The flames struck, split, and swept past both sides, carving burning trenches across the battlefield.
Madara sneered. "Hiding again? Pathetic."
His Mangekyō spun harder, sending needles of pain through his eye, but he ignored it. The flames erupted again, hotter, fiercer, overwhelming the wooden barrier and blowing it apart in a shower of burning shards.
Hashirama's expression hardened.
No hesitation. No fear. Only resolve.
"Wood Release: Advent of a World of Trees!"
The earth convulsed.
Giant trees tore upward, leaves unfurling like wings, trunks twisting to form a living maze that swallowed fire whole.
"Madara!"
Vines thicker than spears shot toward him. Madara's eyes darkened. He drew his greatsword in a single vicious arc, carving through the nearest roots.
But they grew back instantly, sealing the wound and lunging again.
"Tch… persistent as ever."
He swung again and again, bursting through wave after wave of regenerating wood. The forest refused to stay dead.
Irritation finally cracked across his face.
"Enough!"
His left Mangekyō twisted. Chakra howled around him.
"Fire Release: Long Flame Chorus!"
A dozen fire dragons burst out, spiraling upward, their heat blistering the earth. Trees vaporized into drifting black ash, unable to regenerate under the storm of flame.
Hashirama slammed his hands down again.
"Wood Release: Advent of a World of Trees!"
The forest surged back—denser, thicker, the earth trembling under the weight of so much chakra. Trees erupted from every direction, closing in on Madara like jaws.
Madara's patience snapped.
"Hateful…!"
His chakra darkened, colder, dripping with malice.
Both Mangekyō rotated so fast they blurred.
A blue skeletal frame exploded from his body, thickening into armor plates and a demonic face.
Susanoo rose.
"Hashirama!" Madara roared. "Witness my Susanoo!"
The giant swung its arm.
Entire sections of the forest shattered like fragile glass.
Vines snapped. Trunks splintered.
Susanoo bulldozed straight through the living maze and charged toward Hashirama.
Its enormous foot came down, shaking the earth like thunder as it aimed to crush the man standing before it.
And the battlefield held its breath.