Chapter 173: Clash of the Gods: Rinnegan Versus the Fourth Hokage
Black Zetsu's analysis was spot on. As that terrifying chakra cannonball shrieked toward the earth, Stelle's instincts flared. She grabbed the nearest Sky Ninja by the collar, violently wrenched his flight apparatus into a nosedive, and plummeted toward the ground.
Just before the massive payload could obliterate the surface, she launched herself off the terrified ninja. Her leg whipped upward in a flawless arc, slamming into the dense chakra sphere. The sheer kinetic force of her kick reversed the cannonball's trajectory, sending it hurtling back into the night sky where it detonated.
A shockwave of apocalyptic proportions ripped through the clouds. Down below, the onlookers clutched their heads, their eardrums ringing violently as the concussive blast churned the blood in their chests.
"A firing rate of once every five minutes?" Stelle scoffed, dusting off her hands as she fell. "At that sluggish pace, this piece of junk wouldn't even qualify as cannon fodder in the Fourth Great Ninja War."
She slammed her palm against the earth. A colossal pillar of rock erupted from the ground beneath her feet, thrusting her high into the air.
Nearby, an Anbu operative rapidly wove a sequence of hand seals, his brush flying across a scroll to summon several ink-drawn Ninja Hawks. Stelle didn't hesitate. She stepped lightly onto the back of the nearest hawk, her figure blurring into a streak of violet light as she vaulted toward the floating fortress.
Her senses had already locked onto the cold, slithering presence of Black Zetsu. A complex sealing formula was already forming in her hand, ready to breach the stronghold.
Then, a cold, mechanical voice echoed directly beside her ear.
"Bansho Ten'in!"
An absolute, inescapable gravitational force seized her entire being. The air itself seemed to hook into her clothes and skin, violently dragging her toward the source of the voice. The sudden, jarring shift in physics left Stelle momentarily suspended in a state of sheer weightlessness as she was yanked backward through the sky.
Before she could stabilize her chakra, the voice spoke again, devoid of all emotion.
"Shinra Tensei!"
An apocalyptic wall of repulsive force erupted from the darkness. It was a solid shockwave of pure kinetic energy that slammed into Stelle's chest like a falling meteor. She was blasted out of the sky, plummeting toward the earth like a kite with its strings severed.
The Anbu desperately commanded their ink hawks to dive and catch her, but the lingering shockwave of the Almighty Push was too devastating. The moment the birds entered her descent path, they were shredded into droplets of black ink. Stelle crashed heavily into the earth, carving a massive crater into the stone.
"Hokage-sama!" The terrified screams of the villagers echoed through the underground shelters. A few brave shinobi immediately sprinted toward the epicenter of the crash.
High above, standing at the very apex of the earth pillar Stelle had just created, was a figure draped in a pitch-black cloak. A pale half-mask obscured his features, leaving only his eyes visible. In the gloom of the night, one of those eyes pulsed with an eerie, concentric purple glow.
"What kind of eyes are those?" a Jonin whispered, his voice trembling.
"Is that some undiscovered Kekkei Genkai?"
Down on the chaotic streets, young Minato Namikaze was busy directing the panicked crowd toward the evacuation tunnels. Trailing right behind the blonde boy was an artificial human body housing the consciousness of the Nine-Tails. Kurama was casually munching on a bag of snacks, completely unbothered by the explosions, muttering complaints between bites.
"Who's the blind idiot trying to crash into your master this late at night?" Kurama grumbled, tossing a cracker into his mouth. "They really have a death wish. With cheap parlor tricks like that, your master is going to tear them limb from limb."
But when the massive floating fortress had first appeared, spewing out giant chakra blasts that reeked of Tailed Beast energy, Kurama had narrowed his eyes.
"Holy crap," the fox muttered, his chewing slowing down. "What the hell is wrong with Chomei? The Seven-Tails actually let itself get captured and strapped into a giant battery? That bug is so pathetic I'm genuinely embarrassed to admit we're related."
Minato gently steadied a little girl who had tripped on the rubble, then turned his bright blue eyes toward his companion. "Kurama, are you saying there's a Tailed Beast trapped inside that fortress? Is Master going to be alright?"
"Relax, kid. I'm the strongest of the Tailed Beasts, and even I can't put a scratch on your monster of a master. A mere Seven-Tails is nothing but a bug waiting to be squashed."
Kurama casually reached down and scooped up a wailing, snot-nosed toddler who had lost his parents. Without missing a beat, the fox used Minato's sleeve to wipe the kid's face clean before unceremoniously dumping the child onto his own back.
"Your master is going to rip that fortress out of the sky and drag the Seven-Tails back here to boost Konoha's military power. And let me make this clear right now: I am taking that bug as my personal subordinate, and I am absolutely confiscating its wages... Holy crap!"
The casual banter died in Kurama's throat. High above, Stelle's body was blasted out of the sky. But it was not the fall that made the Nine-Tails freeze.
It was the distinct, terrifying signature of the ocular jutsu. Every single hair on Kurama's artificial body stood on end.
"Damn it!" Kurama roared, dropping his snacks. "How is that the Rinnegan?! Where the hell did a Rinnegan come from?!"
"Master!" Minato cried out, his small face pale with worry.
"Minato, grab the main group and get to the underground shelter! Do not wander off!" Kurama barked, his lazy demeanor entirely vanished. "The intruder has the eyes of the Sage. I have to go back her up right now!"
Ignoring all protocol, Kurama shoved the crying toddler off his back and straight into little Minato's arms. "Watch this artificial body for me! Don't let it get a scratch!"
With a sharp pulse of chakra, Kurama's primary consciousness instantly evacuated the vessel.
The sudden dead weight of an adult man slumped forward, completely crushing young Minato and the toddler into the dirt.
Kurama had no time to worry about the boy's struggles. His consciousness snapped back into his true, colossal body sealed elsewhere in the village.
The massive orange fox burst into motion. He popped open a giant, comical rain shield over his head and began sprinting toward the battlefield. Despite his corpulent, rounded physique, looking less like a demon fox and more like a gigantic, fluffy orange chakra ball, his movements were terrifyingly agile.
However, the village streets were not designed for a giant beast. To avoid crushing the buildings, the mighty Nine-Tails was forced to suck in his gut, tiptoeing and hopping awkwardly through the narrow alleys like a giant, furry ballerina.
In the distance, the dust cleared. Stelle slowly pushed herself up from the center of the crater. Her clothes were torn, and a thin trail of blood trickled down her chin, but her eyes were burning with an unhinged, predatory excitement.
"It has been a very, very long time since anyone could force me to the ground," Stelle laughed, wiping the blood from her mouth. "You are strong. You have actually earned the right to see me try."
High above, the cloaked man slowly levitated down from the sky, his purple eye cold and indifferent.
"Arrogant," his voice echoed, hollow and mechanical. "No mortal is permitted to be presumptuous in the presence of a god."
The ensuing clash between the wielder of the Flame Release Kekkei Genkai and the first Rinnegan user to appear in the modern ninja world was nothing short of cataclysmic. The sheer density of their colliding chakras created a pressure zone that prevented anyone else from even stepping near the battlefield.
Through the darkness of the night, the Konoha reinforcements could only watch in awe as a blur of violet fire and pitch-black shadows violently shifted across the sky. The concussive booms of their high-speed taijutsu and the blinding flashes of their ninjutsu turned the area into a dead zone.
Stelle clapped her hands together. A colossal tsunami of violet Flame Release erupted from her lungs, transforming the very atmosphere into a vast, inescapable sea of fire. The scorching purple flames burned so hot they seemed to warp the fabric of reality, hungrily surging forward to engulf the cloaked intruder.
The masked man did not even flinch. He stood perfectly still, waiting until the inferno was mere inches from his face.
"Shinra Tensei."
A dome of absolute repulsive force expanded from his center. The apocalyptic sea of purple fire was instantly shattered, violently deflected in all directions until it dissipated into harmless sparks.
The very second the flames cleared, his hand shot out, aiming directly at Stelle's chest.
"Bansho Ten'in!"
That inescapable, fundamental rule of gravity locked onto her once more. Stelle dug her heels into the shattered earth, her chakra flaring as she resisted the pull for a fraction of a second, but the suction was absolute. She was dragged violently through the air toward his outstretched hand.
But Stelle was smiling.
As she flew toward him, her left hand was hidden behind her back, her palm facing upward, fingers slightly curled.
The moment the cloaked man pulled her into striking distance, she whipped her arm forward. A massive, hyper-compressed sphere of violent violet fire, the Flame Release: Flame Bomb, materialized in her palm. The sheer heat radiating from the orb melted the stone beneath them as she slammed it directly into his chest.
The detonation was deafening. The masked man was blasted backward, his boots carving deep trenches into the earth as he skidded away. But as the smoke cleared, he was standing tall, his right hand extended forward.
The Preta Path was active. The terrifying, scorching energy of Stelle's Flame Bomb was being rapidly siphoned into his palm, dissolving into nothingness.
"Did the Fourth Hokage's jutsu hit?" the leader of the Yamanaka clan asked, peering anxiously from behind a shattered wall.
A few yards away, Uchiha Kiyokazu stood with his eyes closed, sharing the vision of his summoned crow circling high above the battlefield. He shook his head, his expression grim.
"It was a direct hit," Kiyokazu replied, his voice tight. "But that masked man possesses some kind of anomalous ability. He absorbed the Fourth Hokage's Flame Bomb entirely. He is completely unharmed."
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