The moment the last evacuation signal went out, the battlefield snapped.
Formations locked in.
Chakra flared.
Intent sharpened.
Jiraiya didn't waste a breath.
"Summoning Jutsu."
The ground detonated in three massive bursts of smoke.
Gamabunta slammed down first, pipe already in his mouth, crushing debris under one sandal.
Gamaken followed, towering and solemn, shield and polearm materializing with him.
Gamahiro landed last, wide and heavy, eyes narrowed, already scanning for targets.
They didn't ask questions.
They had been warned.
The Great Toad Sage had briefed them personally.
Konoha, instability, an approaching calamity.
Not prophecy. Preparation.
So when Jiraiya pointed, they moved without hesitation.
"Surround them," Jiraiya ordered. "No gaps."
The toads spread out immediately, massive bodies forming a living perimeter, cutting off escape routes, pinning the battlefield into a killing ground.
Jiraiya stepped forward.
Guy stepped with him, blue steam roaring higher, grin gone now, replaced with absolute focus.
Behind them, Kakashi raised a hand.
"Hold the line," he commanded, voice carrying cleanly.
"No independent charges. Support fire only. Follow my calls."
No one argued.
With Hiruzen dead, Jiraiya engaged, and Guy burning his life away at the front, Kakashi was the highest remaining authority on the field.
Copy Ninja. War veteran.
The man who had survived things that should have killed him.
ANBU and regulars fell in around him instinctively.
Orochimaru watched it all with open delight.
"My, my," he said softly. "They're serious."
He leaned slightly toward Kabuto and the Sound Four.
"Be ready to reposition," Orochimaru continued. "If this turns unpleasant, we adapt."
Kabuto pushed his glasses up, smiling faintly. "Understood."
But his eyes kept drifting.
To the four masked figures.
He could feel it now, clearly.
"So that's why," Kabuto thought. "You respect them."
The Sound Four reacted more bluntly.
Jirōbō swallowed. "Boss… those girls…"
Kidōmaru clicked his tongue. "I don't like the way they're standing. Too calm."
Tayuya sneered, forcing confidence into her voice. "Hah. Let 'em try."
Sakon didn't say anything.
His curse mark pulsed uneasily.
Then Reika moved.
Her Yin Seal was already released, its chakra unfolding without hesitation as she stepped forward.
Golden chains exploded outward again, this time snapping up and around the massive toads, adamantine links biting into flesh and stone alike, freezing mist spreading wherever they touched.
"I'll handle the summons," Reika said calmly. "Chains first. Ice second."
Frost crept along the links instantly, perfect for sealing joints, locking muscle, targeting movement with surgical precision.
Saya's chakra surged beside her, blood-red and eager.
Akane's Sharingan spun faster, heat building behind restraint.
Emi adjusted her stance, light on her feet, eyes already tracking Jiraiya and Guy's movements.
They nodded once.
No words needed.
Their focus snapped forward.
On the Toad Sage.
On the Green Beast.
And as the battlefield finally collapsed into full war, Orochimaru laughed softly to himself, thrilled.
"This," he murmured, "is much better."
They split cleanly the moment the lines met.
No hesitation. No wasted motion.
Emi and Akane broke toward Jiraiya.
Saya slid sideways with a laugh, scythe low, blood already lifting from the ground, while Orochimaru flowed with her, serpents spilling forward to box Guy in from multiple angles.
The Leaf shinobi surged with Jiraiya and Guy in a rolling wave.
They could better support Jiriaya since he could fight long range as well.
Barrages layered and timed, support squads firing through openings Jiraiya deliberately created, his Sage Mode letting him read trajectories before they formed. "Keep pressure," Jiraiya barked. "Don't bunch up."
He moved at mid-range, hands flashing through seals.
A Rasengan formed instantly, hurled forward by a shadow clone, and then another, the spiraling chakra detonating among snakes and barriers alike.
He followed with toad oil blasted from his mouth, ignited mid-air by allied fire techniques, turning whole sections of the ground into roaring infernos.
Akane stepped through it.
Her chakra spiked, violent and proud.
Behind the porcelain mask, the Mangekyō burned.
An armored Susanoo tore itself into existence around her, complete from the moment it manifested.
Not partial. Not skeletal.
Enforced and whole.
It rose like a small mountain of matte black chakra, towering over the battlefield, vast enough that its shadow swallowed entire sections of the arena. Its surface was solid and unbroken, absorbing light rather than reflecting it.
In its hands formed twin colossal hammers, their massive heads veined with thin white cracks where fire and lightning chakra coursed and pulsed, each impact warping the air as if the world itself flinched.
"Mangekyō Sharingan…!" Jiraiya hissed.
Kakashi felt it like a punch to the gut.
ANBU froze for half a heartbeat.
"But… weren't the Uchiha extinct?"
These kinds of words again spread in stunned disbelief among the Konoha shinobi, including Jiraiya and Kakashi, as they watched the monstrosity tear through what remained of the stadium.
The majestic Susanoo crushed stone and steel alike, its towering form looming beyond the arena itself, already collapsing entire sections of Konoha in moving aftershocks as well, a living reminder that the clan everyone believed erased was very much not gone.
Even Orochimaru flicked his eyes over, intrigued by how far she had progressed in such a short amount of time and calculating how she compared to Itachi in various areas.
Akane brought one hammer down right away.
The shockwave flattened an entire firing line, jōnin thrown like dolls despite barriers snapping into place at the last second.
She didn't roar. Didn't posture. She advanced.
Emi's smaller frame moved with her, far lighter, almost playful.
Her evolved Byakugan burned behind the mask as she struck, palms thrusting forward.
Vacuum Palms erupted, no longer the narrow cutting blasts that most Hyūga were limited to, but massive translucent fists that slammed into entire formations, carrying layered chakra through them, enhanced and driven primarily by the evolved Byakugan's unique pressure particles that crushed and tore through everything in their path.
For reasons Emi herself barely understood, Kimimaro had taken a particular interest in refining that technique, reshaping it piece by piece until it became something else entirely, and in the end, he was the one who named it:
Eighty Gods Vacuum Fists.
And in her case, it was never a single force at work, but layered destruction, multiple interchanging effects striking at once instead of one clean barrage.
Wind compressed into a crushing force.
Lightning threaded along the edges, slicing and stunning on contact.
Yang parasitic overgrowth pulses bloomed inside targets, erupting into tumorous masses that warped flesh and chakra alike.
Yin pulses rippled through the impact zone, scrambling coordination and perception before the pain even registered.
And when pressure turned back on her, a Rotation bloomed, dozens of meters wide, not defensive so much as predatory, grinding through terrain, jutsu, and bodies alike until nothing clean remained.
"Those aren't Hyūga techniques…" someone screamed.
Jiraiya felt it too. "They are," he muttered grimly. "Just… finished."
He leapt back, barely avoiding a hammer swing that split the ground where he'd stood, then slammed both palms together.
Another Sage Art: Massive Rasengan, even denser this time, Sage chakra packed tight, hurled straight at Akane's Susanoo.
It detonated, cracking the black armor but not breaking it completely, just buying them some more time.
On the other side of the battlefield, Guy was already bleeding.
Not slowing. Not yet.
Saya danced around him with two Gates of her own forced open, pushing her physical speed beyond even her current blood-driven overclock. Her Yang Seal also flared in tandem, feeding her control and letting her shape wider, denser blood constructs on the fly, parrying Guy again and again, denying him any clean hit, because even her Yin–Yang ritual-enhanced pseudo-immortal body wouldn't survive a direct blow.
Her movements cut past normal limits, scythe flashing in tight, eager arcs as she laughed under her breath.
Blood lifted at her command, threading through the air into nets, tendrils, and spear-lines that snapped shut the instant Guy overextended, shielding her just enough while other blood techniques layered in from every angle, persistent, invasive, and hungry to slow him down even a fraction.
Every time he tried to clip her more, even grazing, blood splashed and crawled, trying to bind, trying to slow.
Genjutsu rippled from her Ketsuryūgan, subtle, invasive.
It failed. Seventh Gate burned it away instantly.
"Tch," she clicked her tongue, eyes narrowing. "You're noisy."
Fine then. Her blood gradually sank into Guy's wounds instead, mixing, invading, her control pressing harder and harder, testing how far she could interfere with his circulation without stopping it outright.
Orochimaru also struck whenever Guy committed.
Snakes snapped from blind angles. Blades flashed. Elemental jutsu layered to force dodges, force inefficiency, and force time to pass.
Guy smashed through it all, laughing through blood, every heartbeat burning brighter, every second dragging him closer to the edge. Against two of them, there was no path that ended with him on top, not like this.
Unless.
The thought crept in despite him, cold and clear.
The final Gate. Death itself.
Jiraiya saw the shift immediately, felt it in the air, and his chest tightened.
"Guy!" he shouted. "Don't do it unless I specify it—!"
Jiraiya shouted it, but he already knew the truth.
Soon, Guy wouldn't have a choice.
At this pace, it was only a matter of time before his body gave out.
And the battlefield was collapsing faster by the second.
The mountain-like black Susanoo was grinding through Konoha's forces, formations breaking and vanishing beneath those colossal hammers.
Every swing erased squads. Every step redrew the map.
Worse, the Uzumaki girl was easily winning her own war.
Her chains and sealing were already binding the giant toads, ice spreading over the adamantine links with ruthless efficiency, freezing joints, locking muscle, suppressing chakra.
Jiraiya couldn't even tell how she possessed Ice Release on top of it all, and that ignorance unsettled him more than the technique itself.
Gamabunta roared in fury, struggling against the restraints.
Gamaken braced, muscles screaming as he held his ground.
Gamahiro bled, frost creeping across his wounds.
They wouldn't last much longer, Jiraiya knew right away.
If he didn't recall them soon, they wouldn't be recalled at all.
She was close to finishing them. And once she did, once she turned back to the main field, the pressure on everyone here would spike beyond recovery.
In front of all of them, Jiraiya couldn't afford a single lapse.
At any moment, one of those black hammers, blazing with alternating fire and lightning, could end him outright.
Or one of the translucent chakra fists from the other girl could catch him mid-motion and crush him where he stood.
The Hyūga girl was, perhaps, even the worst of it.
She had completely discarded the clan's old limitations.
No fragile close-range exchanges.
No narrow Gentle Fist strikes.
She tore through Konoha's lines like wet paper, disorienting, paralyzing, and warping bodies from the inside out with grotesque Yang Release mutations.
Just now—
As Jiraiya committed to his Sage Art: Wild Lion's Mane, chakra-infused hair surging to bind and break the balance of the black Susanoo and its hammers, in the distance, that Hyuga slipped in dangerously close.
Her strikes were almost invisible this time, compressed, refined, aimed directly into his network.
Sage Mode screamed a warning.
Jiraiya twisted away at the last instant, aborting the technique, flaring Sage Art: Goemon to force space, recalling his hair before it was crushed.
He countered with hardened hair needles, firing them point-blank.
She vanished into a Rotation, the attack shredded before it reached her.
Jiraiya landed hard, breath heavy.
This was bad. Worse than bad.
He could feel it now. He had to use the new Sage Arts.
The ones he'd learned in the last few months.
The ones Gamamaru had insisted on, without explanation.
And then his senses caught something else.
Movement. Structured. Familiar.
Reinforcements, in a sense.
Jiraiya's mouth twisted.
"Took you long enough," he muttered.
Root.
Danzō.
The realization left a bitter taste.
They hadn't shown themselves when the stadium fell.
Not when half the village burned.
Not when civilians and shinobi were dying by the thousands.
But there was no time to dwell on it.
Whatever their motives, they were here now.
And at this point, Konoha would need every blade it could still lift.