On the border battlefield of the Land of Lightning, Sunagakure and Kumogakure were locked in a fierce slaughter.
A vast array of puppet legions continuously unleashed specialized wind-current Rasengans, becoming absolute harbingers of destruction on the battlefield.
Released row after row in relentless succession, and synchronized with the aerial dominance of the mechanical puppet dragons dominating the skies, Kumogakure's forces were routed like a collapsing mountain.
Even with the reinforcement of the massive White Zetsu army, when confronting the puppet Hunters who could flawlessly absorb immense quantities of chakra with a single hand, the White Zetsu instead transformed into prime nourishment for a segment of the Hunters.
A paradigm of warfare that sat multiple eras ahead of the current times resulted in absolute, unilateral crushing dominance on the battlefield.
The Fourth Raikage attempted to personally intervene numerous times; however, when facing Nagase Bizen, his strategic advantages were completely neutralized.
Yamaji Kumtake's sand manipulation and Nagase Bizen's blade-craft constructed the absolute peak of high-end combat power for Sunagakure's faction on the Kumogakure battlefield.
With Nagase Bizen executing successive phases of tactical containment against him, the Raikage was utterly incapable of utilizing his specialized strengths. Consequently, Kumogakure's frontline had entered a state of complete, defensive contraction.
Hozuki Kaizuki was acutely aware that even if he and Ace combined their forces, their chances of victory against Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Obito, the hidden Black Zetsu, and the massive White Zetsu army were slim to none.
However, at this very millisecond, Sunagakure was orchestrating a grand offensive within the Land of Lightning. Therefore, someone was required to pin down the chaotic variable that was Uchiha Madara.
Presently, Nagase Bizen was personally supervising the operations, leading a massive detachment of puppet legions that had already completely surrounded the Hidden Cloud Village, currently launching a definitive total offensive.
Over these years, Kumogakure and Sunagakure had clashed countless times at sea, suffering unquantifiable casualties.
Particularly along the sector of the Land of Fangs, vast quantities of Sunagakure's advanced weaponry had been deployed into practical warfare, beating Kumogakure into a steady, demoralized retreat.
The arrival of the White Zetsu divisions temporarily halted their decaying momentum. However, once the primary figures responsible for the Kumogakure theater—Nagase Bizen and Yamaji Kumtake of the Naval Department—deployed additional specialized puppet regiments into the fray, Kumogakure was forced into a fighting retreat, withdrawing all the way to the gates of the Hidden Cloud Village itself.
A lone Fourth Raikage was entirely incapable of impeding Sunagakure's advancing footsteps. One of Nagase Bizen and the others' primary objectives was precisely to force out the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, Killer Bee.
On the other hand, the elite Jonin of Kumogakure, Hagoromo Masato, was currently slacking off on the battlefield, failing to display any astonishing strength. In fact, it could even be said that his chakra reserves had shrunken drastically, appearing remarkably mediocre.
The reality was that considering Uchiha Madara had already been resurrected, Hozuki Kaizuki and Fire Fist Ace had formed a specialized subjugation unit to launch an absolute assault against the legendary Uchiha Madara!
Because Hozuki Kaizuki's own baseline strength was insufficient to pose a legitimate threat to Uchiha Madara, Hagoromo Masato had temporarily fused his own consciousness with Kaizuki's, forging a brand-new entity of Hozuki Kaizuki to conduct the battle.
Under such circumstances, the Hagoromo Masato remaining on the primary battlefield was merely an existence akin to a Shadow Clone, naturally devoid of any fierce fighting spirit.
This was a highly specialized operational methodology developed in the later stages of Shiraishi's Heavenly Curse of the Five Phantom Arts, a means that allowed the consciousness of two split entities to recombine to drastically elevate overall combat capacity.
Thus, the moment Hozuki Kaizuki's Sage Seal of the Ancient Crane intercepted Madara's opening salvo of offensive pressure, and while Ace simultaneously unleashed his colossal fireball, a Six Paths Staff was gripped firmly in Kaizuki's hand, transforming into a violent storm of golden electricity that lunged straight toward Uchiha Madara.
"A fire of this caliber is fundamentally not worth looking at..."
With a casual, light breath, the intense flames blanketing the immediate perimeter were forcefully blown apart into absolute nothingness.
Uchiha Madara instantaneously clamped his hand around the Six Paths Staff held by Hozuki Kaizuki: "A ninja tool of this tier... do you genuinely possess the capacity to wield it?"
An overwhelming weight of pressure crashed down upon Hozuki Kaizuki; yet, gritting his teeth, his physical vessel erupted with a powerful, brilliant aura of emerald light.
The wind gently blew across the landscape. Shiraishi gazed toward the individual standing opposite him—clad in a black, form-fitting combat uniform blanketed by crimson, segmented plating armor, with red iron bracers reinforcing both of his wrists—Senju Hashirama. A profound, academic look of exploration saturated Shiraishi's gaze.
"Senju Hashirama, the God of Shinobi..."
Upon the genuine primary battlefield of the Fourth Shinobi World War, the Fifth Kazekage of Sunagakure Village, Shiraishi Aoki, finally made his formal entrance, officially confronting the First Hokage.
"Haha, greetings! The absolute strongest shinobi of this current era."
What is up with this bizarre sensation of resurrecting ancestral tablets whenever a village can't win a fight?
Senju Hashirama—the leader of the Senju clan, one of the founding fathers of Konoha Village, the First Hokage of the Hidden Leaf Village within the Land of Fire, the elder brother of the Second Hokage Senju Tobirama, and the direct reincarnation of Asura, the second son of the Sage of Six Paths, Otsutsuki Hagoromo.
He excelled in the utilization of the Wood Style, possessed the unique capacity to manipulate Tailed Beasts, and, relying on his own peerless individual strength, he had pacified the chaotic era of conflict.
During the Five Kage Summit, he had adhered to Tobirama's counsel to equitably distribute the Tailed Beasts among the Five Great Nations, and had ultimately defeated Uchiha Madara during their definitive confrontation at the Valley of the End.
He was the single, solitary shinobi whom Uchiha Madara held in absolute reverence across his entire life, revered alongside Madara as a legendary icon of the shinobi world.
Every single individual who had ever laid eyes upon Hashirama heralded him as a mythical figure akin to the Sage of Six Paths himself, crowned by the shinobi continent as the God of Shinobi.
Confronted by an adversary of this caliber standing squarely on the opposing side, Shiraishi revealed a genuinely joyful smile at this precise second.
"It has been a very, very long time since I encountered an opponent who warrants my absolute, full exertion."
Shiraishi smoothly unclasped every single negative-weight iron plate reinforcing his body. In a fraction of a second, the heavy weights slammed into the ground, generating a colossal, earth-shaking boom.
At this sudden demonstration, even Kikyo and the actively engaged Unohana Retsu cast their gazes aside, locking onto the immensely heavy training apparatuses cratering the earth.
"Could it be... he has continuously maintained a negative-weight training apparatus of that magnitude?"
"Ever since the previous Shinobi World War concluded, he hasn't unclasped them for a single moment."
Shiraishi rotated his physical form. Even without entering Sage Mode, the torrential density of the raw aura radiating from his entire body caused Senju Hashirama to let out another hearty, boisterous laugh: "Magnificent! I genuinely never anticipated that outside of myself and Madara, the shinobi world would give birth to a powerhouse of your tier."
"Though receiving a compliment of this nature directly from your mouth is an exceedingly rare honor, next comes the time for absolute combat!"
The instant his words fell, the distinctive marks of the Dragon Seal violently surfaced around Shiraishi's eyes.
Simultaneously, the brilliant illumination of the Tenseigan housed within his mirror shield was unleashed in tandem, circling Shiraishi's form and projecting a dazzling, silver aura of sacred light.
This was...
The Dragon-Seal Chakra Mode!
Converting the luminous energy parameters of the Tenseigan into his own native dragonic power, the entire continent began to violently vibrate in an instant, forcing the shinobi of both factions to rapidly retreat backward.
Observing Shiraishi's current state from a distance, a deep look of gravity surfaced within Namikaze Minato's gaze. Perhaps he had never expected that during the years following his own passing, the strength of the Fifth Kazekage would elevate to such a horrific degree.
"Excellent! In that case, I shall also get serious!"
Senju Hashirama clapped his palms together firmly. In a fraction of a second, a cataclysmic surge of chakra energy that was not a single fraction inferior to Shiraishi's violently erupted and flooded the landscape.
Sage Mode?
Merely entering a standard Sage Mode allows his core chakra reserves to sit completely neck-and-neck with my Dragon-Seal Chakra Mode backed by the power of the Tenseigan?
Senju Hashirama is a genuine, absolute monster...
Clad in his raiment of pure light, Shiraishi took a single step forward. Under the illumination of countless convergent beams of light, he assumed a highly unique offensive stance.
Senju Hashirama reacted with absolute, steady composure. With a violent shift of his torso, his physical form blurred in a sharp transition, a single hand extending to directly catch Shiraishi's fist, which carried the raw, concentrated power of light.
Right at that exact millisecond, innumerable thick wooden branches erupted from behind Senju Hashirama, their vascular veins protruding with exaggerated density as they lunged toward Shiraishi like a pack of ferocious dragons.
The moment Shiraishi unleashed his light energy to violently pulverize the wooden constructs, Hashirama's physical vessel abruptly vanished from existence.
Utilizing a terrifying flash of hypersonic velocity, he manifested directly in front of Shiraishi, slamming forward with absolute, unadorned physical momentum!
This level of speed... who in the world claimed that the First Hokage's physical speed was lacking?
Shiraishi rapidly deployed Teleportation to smoothly evade the kinetic impact.
A space-time ninjutsu?
Senju Hashirama's physical reaction thresholds vastly outstripped those of ordinary men. Turning his frame on an absolute dime, he unleashed a fiercely explosive punch.
The localized space-time around his fist violently distorted, instantly pyramiding the immediate ground with colossal craters, leaving the air thick with flying debris, scorched earth, and frozen crystallization marks.
A brief, fraction-of-a-second phase of exploratory engagement had already allowed Shiraishi to intimately feel just how thorny the legendary figure before his eyes truly was.
"That specific execution of space-time ninjutsu just now..."
Standing on the distant edges of the battlefield, Namikaze Minato appeared slightly bewildered as he observed Shiraishi utilizing Teleportation.
As a fellow master who possessed absolute expertise within the framework of space-time ninjutsu, he could see that although the absolute efficiency of Shiraishi switching his spatial coordinates just now was slightly low, he seemingly didn't utilize any specific coordinates structurally identical to the Flying Thunder God formula.
Consequently, he was capable of seamlessly transitioning his positioning completely free of hand seals or markers?
Could this be a seal-less, formula-less variation of the Flying Thunder God?
How could an absurdity like that be possible!
Furthermore, the First Hokage was actually relying strictly on his raw physical sensory feedback to combat it? Are both of these individuals absolute monsters?
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