The surface of the glacial lake didn't just break; it detonated.
SPLOOOSH-THUD.
A geyser of boiling water and steam erupted, and with it came the swarm. It looked like a biological missile strike. A hundred Shadow Clones shot out of the churning depths like spawning salmon leaping up a waterfall, their trajectories chaotic and violent.
They didn't land; they fired themselves like bullets.
Wham-wham-wham-wham.
Naruto after Naruto slammed into Dotō. They were crude, suicidal kinetic weapons, throwing punches that shattered on impact against the black chakra armor. Dotō swatted them away with his massive gauntlets—CRACK-CRUNCH—shattering ribs and dispelling them into clouds of white smoke. But for every one he destroyed, three more clawed at his face, his joints, his eyes.
"Is this the only trick you know?!" Dotō roared, his voice distorted by the static of his suit's speakers as he ripped a clone in half.
"HARDLY!"
The real voice cut through the steam like a jagged blade.
The smoke cleared in the backfield. The real Naruto stood thirty meters away, flanked by two clones who were struggling to contain the volatile energy forming in his palm.
It wasn't the blue, stable rotation of the standard Rasengan. It was heavy. It was dense. It was a swirling, angry sphere of Vermillion chakra that hummed with a low-frequency vibration I could feel in the fillings of my teeth. His eyes were no longer human; the pupils were vertical slits, burning with a feral, radioactive heat.
"Finish it, Naruto!" Kakashi-sensei yelled, his voice cracking with rare, desperate volume.
"Do it, Naruto!" Neji commanded, seeing the opening in the chakra network.
I cupped my hands around my mouth, ignoring the stinging ozone in the air. "I BELIEVE IN YOU, NARUTO!"
Dotō saw the threat. The cyan lights on his armor flared to a blinding white. The cooling vents hissed—SSSS-POP—as he diverted every ounce of power from his life-support and legs into his right gauntlet.
Vrrr-REEEE.
The amplification engine on his arm screamed, building a charge that would incinerate anything in its path.
Naruto sprinted.
He didn't run with ninja stealth; he ran with the heavy, thudding gait of a beast. The two clones ran with him, their hands keeping the unstable Vermillion Rasengan from detonating prematurely. The heat radiating from it was warping the air, melting the snow into slush instantly beneath their feet.
Dotō planted his feet. He raised the glowing gauntlet, aiming directly at the onrushing boy.
"DIE!" Dotō bellowed.
He triggered the firing mechanism.
CLACK.
But the discharge didn't happen.
A blur of torn silk and desperation slammed into Dotō's back.
It was Koyuki.
She didn't use a jutsu. She didn't use a weapon. She jammed her bare hands into the exposed service panel on the back of Dotō's armor—the plating loosened by Kakashi and Sasuke's lightning assault. Her fingers wrapped around the thick, pulsing power cables.
ZZZ-ZAP.
Blue sparks arced wildly as she completed the circuit with her own body. She screamed, her back arching as high-voltage chakra coursed through her, but she didn't let go. She yanked back with every ounce of strength she had.
"NO!" Dotō shrieked, stumbling backward as his targeting solution collapsed.
The gauntlet misfired. A blast of unguided thermal energy exploded harmlessly into the ice to his left, vaporizing a ten-foot crater.
The recoil left him wide open.
Naruto was there.
The clones vanished. Naruto leaped, the Vermillion Rasengan grinding against the air like a physical solid.
"RAAAAGHH!"
He slammed the sphere into Dotō's chest plate.
GRIND-SCREEECH.
It wasn't a clean hit; it was an industrial accident. The red chakra didn't just push; it chewed. It tore through the black metal, stripped the blue tubing, and bored into the flesh beneath.
Koyuki released the cables and threw herself sideways just as the shockwave hit.
The kinetic force launched Dotō backward. He flew like a skipped stone, trailing smoke and blood, until he slammed into one of the massive geometric ice pillars jutting from the glacier.
THWACK-SQUELCH.
He didn't bounce off. A jagged spike of ice, honed by the wind, caught him dead center. It pierced the shattered breastplate and exited through his back.
Dotō Kazahana hung there, suspended three feet off the ground. He twitched once, his hand reaching out for a crown that wasn't there. Then, he went limp.
Thick, dark blood began to coat the pristine white ice, steaming in the cold air.
The industrial hum of the armor died with a descending whirrr-clunk.
Silence reclaimed the Land of Snow