Chiba finally unleashed the advanced stage of the Ice Fruit for the first time - something he'd always known existed in theory, yet had never truly needed to force into being.
In that instant, the battlefield seemed to inhale.
Hyōketsu Kūkan ("Frozen Space")!
The masked man had just activated his space-time technique, the familiar distortion already beginning to swallow him whole - when the world abruptly turned rigid, as if space itself had been cast into solid ice. The warp didn't merely slow. It stopped. No twisting, no slipping away, no vanishing into that unreachable dimension.
And because his Kamui was already mid-process - his body half-consumed, half-transitioning - the sudden freeze caught him at the worst possible point. The distortion snapped back against itself like a trap closing mid-spring, and his form buckled grotesquely, flesh and bone dragged into a brutal, impossible shape.
For the span of a heartbeat, Chiba's ability to freeze space was enough to kill almost any shinobi alive.
Only…
It didn't last long enough.
Not yet.
A blink - 0.8 seconds - and the frozen space released its grip. The masked man was violently expelled as if spat out by the world itself.
BOOM - !
He hit the ground with a wet, heavy impact, his body a mangled ruin. Blood soaked the earth beneath him, and the sight was so savage it made the air feel colder.
And yet… he was still alive.
The sensation was like jamming a steel rod into the wheels of a train at full speed - an abrupt stop that would tear the entire machine apart from the inside out. That was what had happened to him. His torso looked as though it had been twisted into a wrung cloth; bones shattered, skin split, muscle torn, and even his internal organs clearly ravaged.
Anyone else would've died so completely there'd be nothing left to argue about.
But he wasn't "anyone else."
He was the masked man.
The man who called himself Uchiha Madara - the inheritor of Madara's will and abilities, a survivor built from stolen strength. White Zetsu's power had been fused into him. Hashirama's cells pulsed within him, bolstering his vitality, chakra, and raw physical force… and even granting him the foundation for Wood Release.
Half a White Zetsu body, reinforced by awakened Hashirama cells - enough to keep him breathing through a wound that should have ended everything.
He pushed himself up, trembling, and his mask - now cracked and broken in several places - revealed a single, blood-red Sharingan burning beneath it.
Despite the torn flesh and the ruin of his body, he stood.
Not because it didn't hurt.
But because the kind of man who wore that mask couldn't afford to collapse in front of an enemy.
His gaze locked onto Chiba, the fury in it so intense it seemed to hiss through the air.
"You again!!!"
Chiba's smile was small, controlled - almost amused, but not careless. There was a calmness to him that didn't come from arrogance alone, but from certainty. From knowing where this road led… and choosing to walk it anyway.
"That line should be mine," Chiba said evenly. "We meet again, Masked Man."
The masked man's voice cracked with rage. "Why is it always you?!"
His hatred spilled out like blood from an open wound. "Last time, you interfered on the night of the Uchiha massacre - now you're here again, blocking our plans! What do you want?!"
Since the night of the Kyuubi' rampage - since being outplayed and grievously wounded by the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato - this was the first time he'd been battered this badly again.
And this time, it wasn't even comparable.
Right now, he could feel his life pouring out of him, fast and unstoppable, as though death stood just one step away, waiting for him to falter.
Chiba's tone didn't change. "That question applies to you just as much."
"I'm the Mizukage of Kirigakure. I also control Konohagakure's Hokage position, and Takigakure is our ally. You targeted our tailed beasts and our jinchūriki. What I'm doing is nothing more than a counterattack."
The masked man let out a harsh laugh that sounded like broken glass. "Good. Good. What a 'Mizukage' indeed!"
His visible eye narrowed, hatred sharpening into something colder - something that wanted not only to kill, but to deny.
"Do you think you're the ruler of the entire shinobi world now?"
"Do you think you're Senju Hashirama - or the Sage of Six Paths?!"
Chiba rubbed the bridge of his nose as if the accusation were mildly inconvenient. "I'm neither of them."
Then he looked up, and the weight behind his words made the air feel heavier than any killing intent.
"And in my eyes… surpassing both of them is only a matter of time."
For the first time since the battle began, the masked man's composure visibly cracked.
"Y-You… what did you say?"
Hashirama was one thing - but the Sage of Six Paths? The mythical founder of the shinobi world, the living legend spoken of like a god?
And yet Chiba's expression remained steady, unshaken - because unlike everyone else, he wasn't worshipping a story. He wasn't trapped by the fear that came with myths. He understood the truth behind the legend, and once you understood something, awe became optional.
Chiba's smile returned - thin, knowing.
"Enough acting," he said. "I know what you're doing."
The masked man stiffened.
"You're trying to keep me talking to split my focus," Chiba continued, voice calm but precise, as if he were reading from a page the other man didn't realize existed. "One reason is to recover. With half a White Zetsu body and Hashirama cells, even an injury that would outright kill others can be repaired over time."
Chiba's eyes didn't leave him.
"And the other reason is to restore your chakra and that ocular power - so you can use your space-time ninjutsu again and escape me. Right?"
The masked man's breath hitched.
His first instinct was denial - his second was fear.
Because Chiba had just spoken the two secrets he guarded most deeply, the two pillars of everything he was.
The truth of how he survived after being crushed - saved by Madara, remade with White Zetsu flesh and Hashirama cells.
And the core of his power: Kamui.
To have them exposed so cleanly, so casually, felt less like being analyzed and more like being disassembled.
Panic flashed through him, sharp and immediate.
His body moved before his mind could form a better plan.
Escape.
In an instant -
WOOOM - !
His right eye flared, the Mangekyō Sharingan erupting with crimson power. The air warped again, space bending as though a vortex had opened in the void, hungry to swallow him whole.
But Chiba didn't move like someone surprised.
He moved like someone who had already seen this outcome - who had already decided the ending wasn't happening.
Because Chiba understood Kamui.
It was a terrifying technique - one of the most broken abilities in the shinobi world, potent enough to matter even against monsters at the very top of the food chain.
But it wasn't flawless.
Even Konan had figured out its weakness: when the masked man used Kamui to absorb himself, the process was slowest - and during that brief window, he remained tangible.
A perfect moment to strike.
That was why Konan had laced her countless paper weapons with explosive tags and managed to blow off one of his arms.
And there was another limitation too -
Kamui couldn't be maintained indefinitely.
It had a time limit… roughly five minutes at most.
That weakness was exactly why Konan had once exploited him with an ocean of explosive tags - so many that even his "invincibility" was forced to the brink. She had, in truth, killed him.
If he hadn't used Izanagi to claw his way back to life.
Chiba knew all of it.
So the moment he sensed the masked man's intent to activate Kamui again, Chiba lifted his arm - slowly, deliberately, like a judge raising the gavel.
The masked man's heart lurched.
The memory of that mangled, blood-slick instant flashed across his nerves, and his body betrayed him - he hesitated. For the first time in this exchange, fear overpowered instinct. No one understood Kamui's flaws better than the one who lived and died by it. When he absorbed himself, he had to remain tangible - and the speed was drastically slower than when he targeted anything else.
He remembered the logic of it all too well. In the original fights, even facing overwhelming enemies, Kamui had still been intercepted at its most vulnerable moment. When he and Hatake Kakashi had confronted Six Paths Uchiha Madara, Kamui's efficiency had only improved because the two of them triggered it together, doubling the pressure and forcing the transfer through.
But here - now - he couldn't do that.
And if he forced it anyway… the conclusion was obvious.
He would be crushed again by Chiba's frozen space.
So the masked man steadied himself, swallowing down that instinctive panic, and cut off Kamui before it could fully bloom. He stood there, heaving for breath, blood dripping from his body in thick, relentless streams - each inhale a reminder that he was still alive… and each exhale a warning that he might not be for long.
Chiba's smile didn't widen, but it sharpened with quiet satisfaction. "At least you're not stupid," he said. "You know that if you use it again, you'll die."
The masked man's voice turned to ice. "You think if I don't use that technique, I don't have other ways?!"
His killing intent surged, trying to reclaim the dominance he'd lost. "Don't underestimate me!"
"I am Uchiha Madara!"
In the next breath, he switched tactics - fast, ruthless, desperate enough to burn the world if it meant forcing Chiba back.
"Katon: Bakufū Ranbu ("Blasting Gale Dance")!!!"
The air detonated.
BOOOOM - !
RUMBLE - RUMBLE - !
A torrent of violent flame roared outward, but it wasn't fire alone. Woven through it was a savage wind - born from warped space itself, twisted by Kamui's ocular power and forced into a storm. Flame and gale fused into a single catastrophe, a spiraling inferno that surged forward like a colossal fire-dragon, corkscrewing through the ruins as it lunged for Chiba.
It was the kind of technique that had once flattened entire lines of shinobi in the Fourth Great Ninja War - its presence alone enough to make veterans feel small. Even if it had been countered before, that didn't make it any less terrifying here.
Jiraiya and Hatake Kakashi both tensed, alarm flashing across their faces.
This wasn't just heat and wind - there was a subtle distortion in it too, a pressure that hinted at space bending under the attack's momentum. Blocking it head-on felt like trying to stop a landslide with your hands.
But Chiba simply watched it come.
To him, it wasn't a crisis.
It was proof.
Proof that the masked man had already been pushed into the corner where pride became noise and survival became the only truth left.
Chiba lifted his arm again, and the air around him dropped into a biting, absolute cold.
The same power.
The same fruit.
Only now, the freezing force was leagues heavier than before - compressed, refined, and carried with a quiet authority that made the world feel like it had no choice but to obey.
In an instant -
HYŌKETSU KŪKAN ("Frozen Space")!
BOOOOM - !
The raging gale halted mid-roar. The inferno died as if smothered by an unseen hand. The space-warping pressure within the technique - so difficult to defend against - froze and stalled like a blade locked in ice.
Everything stopped.
And then… everything vanished.
The masked man's eye widened, shock ripping through him so violently it looked almost painful. He had thrown out a killing move born from desperation, and Chiba had erased it like it was nothing more than smoke.
For the first time, the battlefield felt truly uneven - not in skill, but in laws. As if one man was still fighting with ninjutsu… while the other had begun rewriting reality itself.
The room couldn't endure it anymore.
The clash between Chiba and the masked man had already pulverized the structure; what remained finally gave way, collapsing into a field of debris. Everyone lunged back, retreating into the open as the ruins exploded outward.
And then, from the outside - another presence appeared.
Uchiha Itachi stepped into view.
Kakashi and Jiraiya immediately frowned.
"Uchiha Itachi?!" Kakashi's voice hardened. "So you really are alive… and you really did join Akatsuki."
Itachi took in the scene in a single glance, and the danger was obvious. Especially the masked man - his body shredded, blood-soaked, barely holding shape. For a brief moment, something tightened in Itachi's chest.
Then he forced it down.
His expression smoothed into calm - not the calm of peace, but the calm of someone who'd already burned through everything that once made him human.
"Jiraiya-sama," Itachi said quietly. "Kakashi-san… I didn't expect we'd meet again."
But his eyes shifted - immediately, inevitably - to Chiba.
This was the man who had thrown him into hell. The man who had crushed every hope he once clung to, every path he'd tried to walk for the sake of others. Itachi should have hated him with the purity of a blade.
Yet his gaze didn't tremble.
It was emptier than hatred - like a corpse that still remembered how to speak.
Chiba spared him a glance, casual and cruel in the way only the truly superior could afford to be. "Uchiha Itachi," he said, "I didn't think Akatsuki would bother taking in trash like you."
His eyes flicked toward Itachi's face. "Oh? So you replaced your eyes - Sharingan again."
Chiba's tone remained smooth, almost conversational. "A gift from the Masked Man, I assume."
Then the knife turned.
"But even with the Sharingan, your strength has already fallen apart. What value do you even have left? What reason do you have to keep breathing?"
Silence stretched.
Itachi didn't answer immediately. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, almost weary - not defensive, not angry, merely truthful in the most bitter way.
"You're right," Itachi said. "I should have been dead a long time ago."
"Madara saved me… kept me alive. But I don't believe there's meaning in it either."
The masked man's voice snapped like a whip. "Itachi! I didn't save you so you could spit out useless words!"
"Move - now!"
Itachi exhaled softly, like someone accepting a punishment he no longer cared to resist. "Yes… Madara-sama."
His chakra surged.
"Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu ("Phoenix Sage Fire Technique")!!!"
A storm of fireballs shot forward - each one carrying hidden shuriken within the flames, masked by heat and flicker as they screamed toward Jiraiya, Kakashi, and Team Seven.
But attacks of that level wouldn't touch men like Jiraiya and Kakashi.
Kakashi slammed his palms to the ground.
"Doton: Doryūheki ("Earth-Style: Earth Wall")!!!"
A thick wall erupted upward, carved with a raised dog-head crest - solid, heavy, and immediate. Fire and shuriken struck it in rapid bursts, scattering sparks and embers across the rubble, but none made it through.
Kakashi didn't look back as he spoke, his voice firm with the certainty of a veteran who already knew where he belonged in this chaos.
"Jiraiya-sama. Protect Naruto."
"This man… is mine."
Jiraiya gave a brief nod, eyes sharp.
Kakashi sprang upward, landing atop the earth wall and facing Itachi across the broken battlefield.
"You betrayed Konoha," Kakashi said, voice edged with disappointment that had long since hardened into resolve. "And now you're helping Akatsuki capture the tailed beasts?"
He stared at Itachi as if trying to find the person he once knew in the hollowed shell in front of him.
"You were a genius. I never thought you'd fall this far."
Once, back in Konoha, Itachi had joined the ANBU and risen to become a squad leader. And Kakashi - then an ANBU captain - had been his superior.
But time had taken that world and crushed it into dust.
Itachi's gaze lowered slightly. "Kakashi-san… I'm already dead inside. Nothing you say can reach me."
Kakashi's eye narrowed. He didn't argue. He didn't plead. He simply accepted what was in front of him - because that was what it meant to be a shinobi.
"Then as your former captain," Kakashi said, "I'll be the one to end this."
Lightning chakra erupted around him, wild and piercing.
"Raikiri ("Lightning Cutter")!!!"
Kakashi leapt down like a falling blade, the concentrated lightning in his hand screaming as it tore through the air - aimed straight for Itachi's chest.
Itachi's eyes flared, the Sharingan spinning as he prepared to meet him head-on.
And at the same time -
Chiba and the masked man clashed again.
But calling it a battle was almost generous.
It was a one-sided beating.
The masked man, already mangled and bleeding, finally snarled through the pain and revealed the trump card he'd been forced to hold back - something born from stolen cells and unnatural power.
"Mokuton Hijutsu: Jigoku no Ran ("Wood Release Secret Technique: Hell's Turmoil")!!!"