Hearing those declarations, Naruto gritted his teeth, his expression falling perfectly calm despite the absolute rage simmering beneath the surface. He replied with cold detachment:
"You guys have driven me so completely insane that I can't even think of a proper rebuttal."
"So, let me tell you one thing about myself instead."
Right at that moment, Kanon, who had just entered Sage Mode, sensed it. She shifted her gaze toward the horizon, where a brilliant golden light erupted from the distant forest.
Just as Madara and Obito's joint offensive was about to crush them, a colossal golden chakra arm manifested, flawlessly intercepting both of their attacks.
"I am not trash! And I will never become trash in the future!"
"I... am going to stop you!"
"And I will absolutely never let anyone kill my comrades!"
Naruto screamed fiercely at the trio.
Kakashi's face contorted in surprise before a wave of reinvigoration washed over him. After all, those were the exact words he had once taught Naruto, a creed known by every member of Team 7.
"Trying to reignite Kakashi's battle spirit? Naruto, you are far too naive!"
Behind Kanon, her crimson Susanoo surged to life, hurling Yasaka Magatama straight at Naruto. The exploding red magatama beads instantly blasted Naruto dozens of meters away.
But the strike succeeded in snapping Kakashi out of his stupor. With a newly hardened gaze, he stared directly at Obito as his former friend charged toward him.
Madara prepared to join the fray as well, his own Susanoo raising its blade as it lunged toward Naruto.
Kakashi's Lightning Blade tore cleanly through Obito's oncoming shuriken. On the other side of the clearing, Might Guy gathered every ounce of his remaining strength to unleash a Daytime Tiger, successfully blasting Madara backward. A massive shockwave of steam detonated, completely blanketing the entire region.
"Obito, the resolve you once possessed still lives on right beside me," Kakashi declared. "The only thing I can do now is protect the current Naruto."
"With just your pathetic strength?" Obito sneered.
Suddenly, a figure flickered from behind Obito like a flash of lightning. Kanon instantly teleported right in front of Kakashi, but her hand was already pressed hard against Naruto's abdomen.
"You can't protect a single thing."
The moment Kanon's voice fell, a Rasengan detonated directly against Naruto's stomach. The impact sent him skidding hundreds of meters away, carving a deep trench into the earth.
As expected, both Kakashi and Guy were completely drained of their strength. Having pushed themselves to the absolute brink throughout this battle, they were now running on empty.
"Why does everyone from Konoha love pushing themselves past their limits?!" the Eight-Tails bellowed.
With a mighty roar, the Eight-Tails finally dragged itself back up, reaching out to catch Might Guy as he fell from its head.
Seeing the Eight-Tails recover, Naruto slowly clawed his way out of the crater and called out happily, "Bee-otchan!"
"Be careful, Naruto! The enemy's Wood Release binding is exactly like the First Hokage's!"
"It possesses the power to completely suppress a Tailed Beast!"
"Just like Captain Yamato's..." Naruto noted grimly, fixing his gaze on the distant Madara.
Kanon stood beside Obito, rolling her eyes at him. "As an Uchiha, is this really the extent of your abilities?"
Obito shook his head slightly, ignoring her jab as he pointed his kunai at Kakashi. "Using the Sharingan to master the Lightning Blade... it seems you've grown quite adept at wielding my left eye."
"You've even awakened the Mangekyō. But do you honestly believe you can escape my pocket dimension and return here a second time?" Wood Release chakra began to manifest across Obito's left hand as he prepared to strike, charging directly toward Naruto.
Naruto lunged forward to meet him, only to be instantly ensnared by Obito's Wood Release.
"Get into the trash bin, Kakashi."
Just as Obito activated his Kamui to siphon Kakashi away, Naruto delivered a fierce headbutt that sent Obito flying back.
However, Kanon materialized right beside them, delivering a brutal kick that sent the kneeling Kakashi skidding across the dirt.
Kakashi let out a sharp cry of pain, prompting Naruto to scream furiously at her, "Hey! Kanon! That's Kakashi-sensei!"
"He is nothing more than a past teacher!" Kanon executed a mid-air flip, delivering a devastating kick that sent the ensnared Naruto flying backward as well.
As he was sent airborne, Naruto managed to manifest a shadow clone to rush to Kakashi's side.
In that exact instant, Obito and Kanon crossed paths in a seamless switch. Obito lunged toward Kakashi, while Kanon pressed the offensive against Naruto. Her Kusanagi Sword twirled into a blur of steel, clashing violently against Naruto's kunai.
"Does Team 7 and all of our memories mean absolutely nothing to you?! Are you really going to throw away that bond, Kanon?!"
"I'm not throwing it away, but things like that lost their meaning a long time ago." Kanon's Susanoo struck out, clashing heavily against Naruto's Nine-Tails chakra arm and blasting him dozens of meters back.
"Then what about Sasuke?! He's your biological brother!"
"My brother? He's nothing but a fool. Family bonds, precious memories... they are nothing more than shackles."
"Remember this, Naruto: in this world, even your own blood relatives will hesitate for a single second to draw their blades against you and the people beside you!"
"What is there to cherish in a place so deeply warped?!"
"The only things you can ever truly rely on are power and yourself!"
"To achieve my goals, I have absolutely no use for such naive concepts!"
Kanon took a fierce step forward, her form blurring into a streak of crimson light as she drove a blood-red Rasengan directly into Naruto's torso.
"You say you don't need them?! Kanon! Stop joking around!" Naruto gripped Kanon's wrist with desperate strength, his expression twisting into one of absolute agony.
Looking at her chillingly detached face, the shadow of her former kind and gentle self overlapped in his mind, leaving him drowning in a wave of profound regret and sorrow.
"This is the end of the line for you, Naruto!"
Kanon poured a massive surge of chakra into her attack, causing the Rasengan pressed against Naruto's abdomen to instantly swell into a Massive Rasengan. Gritting his teeth as blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, Naruto forced himself to endure the full brunt of the impact.
Yet, when he tried to tighten his grip, his hands passed cleanly through her arm. In his current state, he could no longer grasp her true body.
"Kanon... I will never lose!"
"Neither will I!" Kanon delivered a parting kick that sent Naruto rolling away. Flipping gracefully through the air, she stuck a low landing and brought her palms together.
At the center of her hands, the brilliant light of Particle Style flared to life, unleashing a devastating beam of white light directly toward Naruto.
Naruto rapidly molded his chakra to manifest a Tailed Beast Bomb to counter the beam, but this was Kanon's true body. With her Sage Mode instantly flaring to its peak, the Dust Release beam cleanly pierced through his Tailed Beast Bomb in an instant.
Seeing the white conical beam tearing toward him, Naruto desperately threw himself into a roll, barely managing to evade the lethal strike.
Behind him, an entire swath of the forest was utterly obliterated, reduced to nothingness on an atomic level.
At this display, both Madara and Obito knit their brows. This was a definitive killing blow; Kanon was showing absolutely no intention of holding back against Naruto.
"I won't let you have your way, Kanon!" Naruto pushed himself back up, driving a massive chakra claw straight toward her.
Yet his strike passed harmlessly through her phased form once more. Kanon looked at him, the corner of her lips twitching upward into a slight smirk. "You really are as stubborn as always."
"This is my ninja way! You know that better than anyone else, Kanon!!!"
"Then I'll just have to crush your ninja way along with you!" Kanon stepped forward, her body phasing into the atmosphere as countless cherry blossom petals began to stream from her right eye.
"Apocalypse: Flower Burial!"
"Naruto, you absolutely cannot let those cherry blossoms touch you!" Kurama bellowed in panic.
"I know!"
Dozens of pink, glowing petals swept toward Naruto like beams of light.
The speed was so blinding that Naruto found himself completely unable to dodge, forcing him to manifest his Tailed Beast chakra cloak to shield himself.
In that instant, Naruto finally understood why Kurama had issued such a frantic warning. The moment the petals brushed against his chakra, the space surrounding them violently contorted, though the brief resistance bought him just enough time to scramble out of harm's way.
Simultaneously, Kanon vanished into her Flower Realm, while Naruto rapidly retreated back to the Eight-Tails' side. There was no time to lose; the Gedo Statue was on the verge of completing its resurrection into the Ten-Tails.
On the other side of the clearing, Naruto's shadow clone, Kakashi, and the Nine-Tails successfully worked together to deduce and counter Obito's Kamui.
Right at that critical juncture, cracks began to splinter across the surface of the Uchiha Flame Battle Formation. Capitalizing on the opening, both Naruto's full Tailed Beast form and the Eight-Tails began to mold massive Tailed Beast Bombs, aiming to shatter the barrier completely.
The Eight-Tails roared to the Nine-Tails, "We need to blast that thing to pieces before it completely revives!"
"Gather every ounce of your power!"
Just as their combined Tailed Beast Bombs finished charging and locked onto their target, a rose-shaped vortex materialized in their path. Kanon stepped calmly out of her Flower Realm.
Staring at the approaching Tailed Beast Bomb, which loomed even larger than the Gedo Statue itself, Kanon simply bit her thumb and slammed her palm onto the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
BOOM!
A massive cloud of white smoke erupted, revealing Manda, whose colossal form easily matched the size of the Nine-Tails.
"Kanon-sama!"
"Manda, extend your body and carry me directly into the trajectory of that Tailed Beast Bomb."
Manda stared at the colossal sphere of destruction hurtling toward them, his eyes widening in sheer terror. Yet, understanding that this was an absolute order from Kanon, the great serpent steeled its resolve, coiling its massive body upward, prepared to throw its life away to shield her.
However, Kanon merely let out a cold smirk. Her hands flew through a sequence of seals, drawing a kunai marked with the Flower seal.
During the brief instant she had spent inside the Flower Realm, she had already placed a corresponding kunai marked with the Sound seal onto the Hokage Rock back in the mid-reconstruction Leaf Village.
While the Nine-Tails and Eight-Tails had been focused on charging their attack, Kanon had already established a secondary coordinate for her spatial gateway.
Staring down the cataclysmic sphere, she sneered. She had decided to unleash a brand-new technique she had never deployed in battle until now: the Flying Raijin: Guiding Thunder!
"I'm ready! Bee-otchan, Hachibi!" Naruto roared.
"Right!"
"Fire! The final strike!"
The terrifying Tailed Beast Bomb tore through the air, hurtling directly toward the Uchiha Flame Battle Formation. The violent tempests and crushing chakra pressure generated by its advance seemed poised to swallow everything in its path, approaching with unstoppable momentum.
Yet Kanon simply stared down the cataclysmic sphere with complete detachment.
Even Madara and Obito watched the incoming blast with varying degrees of alarm.
"This is bad!" Obito barked.
Madara was already rushing toward the Uchiha Flame Battle Formation, his teeth gritted as he realized he wouldn't make it in time.
But in that exact instant, both Madara and Obito witnessed a lone figure leap directly into the path of the Tailed Beast Bomb—it was Kanon, standing atop Manda's head.
Her crimson overcoat and glossy black hair whipped violently in the fierce gales generated by the approaching blast. As the pupils of Naruto and the others shrunk to the size of needles, she stood defiantly before the sphere of total destruction.
"Kanon! Get out of there!!!" Naruto screamed in absolute horror.
But it was already too late. The Tailed Beast Bomb had arrived right in front of her face.
Faced with the apocalyptic force, even Manda closed his eyes in terror. Yet Kanon simply raised both hands, tightly gripping her marked kunai. Her refined features remained entirely devoid of fear, as though the world-ending blast before her was completely trivial.
Sure enough, the spatial barrier of the Flying Raijin: Guiding Thunder manifested directly in front of her, completely swallowing the massive Tailed Beast Bomb whole.
The sight left everyone on the battlefield utterly dumbfounded, while Madara and Obito silently let out a collective sigh of relief.
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NOTE: This fic has been completely translated. If you want to read the whole story head over to my p-atre-on: p-atre-on.c-om/Overgod [Just remove the hyphen to access normally]