Natsuki didn't linger.
After delivering the news of Rasa's death, he left Pakura to her work. She had a village to manage and a war narrative to construct.
In the Land of Birds, events unfolded exactly as anticipated.
Kakko rallied the Stone's forces and drove hard toward the Sand's main camp. But his troops lacked the speed to capitalize on the moment. Otokaze — the Sand's new field commander — had received the intelligence and executed Pakura's contingency without hesitation: contracted battle lines, hardened defenses, dug in deep.
After a grinding engagement that lasted most of the day, the Stone pulled back. The window had closed.
By the following morning, news of Rasa's death had swept the shinobi world.
The two villages most affected reacted predictably.
Ōnoki made a spectacle of it — lavishing public praise on Kakko, Katsutaro, and every shinobi involved in the operation. The killing of a Kage-level combatant and former Kazekage candidate was the Stone's single greatest achievement since the war began.
Pakura played her part flawlessly. In front of Chiyo, Ebizō, Karura, and the Sand's senior leadership, she delivered a performance of righteous fury — swearing to hunt down Kakko and avenge Rasa's death. She backed the words with action, deploying an additional thousand shinobi to the Land of Birds under Baki's command.
Baki had been the core of Rasa's faction. But with Rasa gone, the faction was already fragmenting. It was only a matter of time before it dissolved entirely.
Somewhere in the Land of Earth. An underground cavern.
White Zetsu surfaced before Uchiha Madara's Shadow Clone and delivered the latest intelligence digest. Rasa's death topped the briefing.
"Lord Madara — there's more." Excitement crept into Zetsu's voice. "We finally identified the source of Konoha's intelligence advantage."
"What is it?"
Madara had been in the Land of Earth long enough to understand why the Stone had been fighting blind. Konoha's information dominance had been the decisive factor in every major engagement — most painfully when Gari's Explosion Corps had been intercepted en route to the Rain's main camp. That interception had also wasted the visual chakra Madara had spent controlling Corps members.
"Snakes." White Zetsu grinned. "We spotted them moving in and out of Konoha's main camp. Ryūchi Cave summons — embedded across the entire theater as a surveillance network."
"I see."
The picture clarified instantly. Not Anbu. Not conventional sensor-types. Natsuki had weaponized his summoning contract, turning the Ryūchi Cave's serpents into a continent-spanning intelligence apparatus.
"Clever boy." Madara paused. "But now that we know, countering it isn't difficult."
"Kill them all?"
"That would alert Natsuki immediately. The better approach is to supplement Iwagakure's intelligence from our end."
He would compromise a handful of Stone Anbu operatives — feed them information gathered by White Zetsu's own network. In raw coverage, the Ryūchi Cave's serpents were formidable, but they couldn't match the White Zetsu collective's ability to move undetected through any terrain.
"This time," Madara said, his tone hardening, "Yahiko dies."
Half a month later.
Amegakure's main camp, Land of Earth.
The Rain's forces had been fighting alongside Konoha for months now. Amegakure's contribution was far from negligible — Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan in particular had become pillars of the allied offensive. Their strength, combined with the intelligence Natsuki shared, allowed them to match Stone forces in nearly every engagement.
Night had fallen. The camp was quiet.
Most shinobi slept — a full day of combat had drained them to the bone. Only the patrol details remained active: two squads on visible rotation, a third concealed as a hidden sentry.
The patrols were mid-circuit when the ground erupted.
No warning. No chakra fluctuation. Dozens of Iwagakure shinobi burst from the earth in perfect synchronization — pre-positioned, already armed, blades driving into flesh before the sentries could draw breath.
Screams started — and stopped. Three barriers deployed simultaneously, sealing the sound inside a tight perimeter. Not a whisper escaped.
Taiseki materialized beneath a tree.
He stood in plain sight, but no one saw him. Ninja Art: Camouflage Concealment Technique — his signature ability, blending his body seamlessly into the environment until he was functionally invisible. In the original timeline, he'd used this same technique to abduct Nohara Rin.
He surveyed the camp. Confirmed positions. Then signaled.
A second wave of infiltrators slipped into the camp through various entry points — underground, through gaps in the perimeter, some using stealth techniques so refined they passed within meters of sleeping shinobi without detection.
This raid had been meticulously prepared. Iwagakure had deployed a concentrated force of specialists — sensor-types and infiltration experts working in tandem. The sensor capability was essential for evading Konoha and Amegakure's own detection networks. The infiltration relied on Earth Release tunneling to bypass surface-level security — including the Ryūchi Cave's serpents.
Two Anbu operatives had stumbled onto the snake network by accident. Once the Stone understood what they were dealing with, they'd designed the approach specifically to circumvent it.
The execution was flawless. They were inside the camp.
Two objectives. Destroy the Amegakure main camp. Kill Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan.
Taiseki confirmed all units were in position.
He gave the signal.
Explosive tags flew in every direction.
The camp detonated.
Fireballs erupted skyward. Tents disintegrated. Shrapnel scythed through the darkness. Amegakure shinobi — still in their bedrolls — died without waking.
"Bastards!"
Yahiko burst from the wreckage of a collapsed tent. He hit the ground, oriented himself in an instant, and locked onto Taiseki's position — or where Taiseki had been, moments before activating his concealment.
Earth Release: Tearing Earth Turning Palm!
Taiseki slammed his hand to the ground. The earth split beneath Yahiko's feet — the surface fracturing, tilting, pulling him downward as rubble cascaded in from the edges.
Shinra Tensei!
Nagato appeared. A wave of repulsive force deflected the falling debris before it could bury Yahiko.
Moonwalk!
Yahiko kicked off the collapsing ground and launched into the air, clearing the trap.
The night sky blazed white.
Konan raised the Sorcery Clima-Tact overhead and brought it down in a sharp arc.
Rain hammered the camp — torrential, instant, drenching everything. The fires from the explosive tags hissed, sputtered, and died under the deluge.
Even as she doused the flames, Konan didn't lose her head. She reached into her pouch, found the Eyeball Clone Natsuki had given her, and crushed it.
He was the only one who could reach them in time.
Nagato was already airborne.
Banshō Ten'in.
An Iwagakure shinobi hunting Rain survivors was ripped off the ground — pulled skyward by invisible force, tumbling through the air.
Asura Attack.
A beam of concentrated energy fired from Nagato's palm. It struck the Stone ninja mid-flight and obliterated him instantly.
On the ground, Yahiko frowned.
Taiseki had vanished. The Camouflage Concealment Technique made him effectively undetectable by sight — blended into the burning, rain-soaked chaos of the camp like a ghost.
Yahiko pivoted toward the nearest cluster of Stone infiltrators.
He'd taken three steps when the air behind him screamed.
"Of course."
He spun. A dense wall of stone pillars was already lunging toward him — spear-tipped, converging from multiple angles.
Blood Demon Art: Spreading Lotus!
Blood surged from his body and crystallized into ice-laced vines that caught the stone pillars mid-thrust, wrapping and locking them in place.
In the next instant, Taiseki appeared — standing atop one of the frozen pillars, already mid-strike, right fist cocked and coated in hardened stone.
Earth Release: Earth Spear!
The punch tore through the air with crushing force.
Yahiko drew Blood Drinker and caught the fist on the flat of the blade.
The impact drove him backward — boots carving furrows in the mud — but he held.
Tempest Kick!
The moment Yahiko's feet found purchase, he lashed out.
Taiseki diverted his stone-armored fist downward to intercept. The vacuum blade struck the rock casing and shattered it.
Then —
An explosion. Close. Massive.
Both fighters snapped their heads toward the blast — and their expressions split.
Yahiko's: relief.
Taiseki's: dread.
Because Natsuki had arrived.
His opening move was characteristically blunt: a cascade of projected swords detonating across the Stone's infiltration force in a series of violent chain explosions. Bodies flew. Fire bloomed.
"Looks like your raid just failed," Yahiko said coldly.
Taiseki didn't answer.
A crimson flicker passed through his eyes.
Yahiko caught it — the subtle wrongness — and started to react.
Too late.
Taiseki tore open his jacket. Beneath it, his torso was wrapped in explosive tags. Layer upon layer, covering every inch of skin from collarbone to waist.
Before Yahiko could move, every tag detonated simultaneously.
The blast consumed Taiseki — and Yahiko with him.
"YAHIKO!"
Nagato's scream split the night. He whipped toward the explosion, eyes wild, the Rinnegan blazing with something beyond chakra.
Konan went white.
Natsuki registered the detonation and understood instantly.
Taiseki — a renowned jōnin, a veteran with decades of combat experience — had no reason to employ a suicide attack. The act was irrational. Desperate. Controlled.
Someone had rewritten his decision-making. And in the shinobi world, the shortlist of methods capable of compelling a jōnin to die willingly was very short.
Sharingan. Mangekyō Sharingan.
Observation Haki.
The technique couldn't detect White Zetsu — but it could find Uchiha Madara.
Natsuki located him in an instant. Distant. Watching.
He vanished from the camp without hesitation.
Before disappearing, he left four words for Konan and Nagato:
Yahiko is not dead.
The logic was absolute. As long as Natsuki — the Progenitor of Demons — survived, no demon he'd turned could die.
"He's done for! All those tags — there's no way he survived!"
White Zetsu was practically dancing.
The entire night raid, from first breach to final explosion, had been engineered toward a single outcome: Yahiko's death. The suicide bombing was the insurance — a controlled asset delivering a guaranteed kill.
"We leave. Now."
Madara's expression shifted — sharp, urgent.
Too late.
Natsuki appeared before them.
The grin froze on White Zetsu's face. "Oh no."
"Go," Madara ordered.
White Zetsu dove for the ground — and hit solid resistance. Nothing yielded. The earth refused him.
"What — what's happening?!"
"Space-time ninjutsu."
Madara scanned their surroundings.
They stood in a wasteland. Flat, barren, stretching to every horizon — and planted with swords. Thousands of them, stabbed into the earth in every direction, as far as the eye could see.
"This is why you can't burrow," Madara said calmly. "We're no longer in the real world."
"What is this technique called?" His tone was conversational. Analytical.
"Unlimited Blade Works."
"So it can also pull targets into the dimension." Madara filed that away.
He'd seen the technique deployed offensively — swords summoned from an alternate space and detonated en masse. He'd assumed that was the extent of it. The ability to forcibly relocate targets into the dimension raised the threat assessment considerably.
"Lord Madara — what do we do?" White Zetsu's composure had evaporated. "I don't want to die here!"
Individually, White Zetsu's death meant nothing to the collective. But as an individual, self-preservation was still reflexive.
"Uchiha Madara?" Natsuki addressed him directly.
"That's right!" White Zetsu seized the name like a lifeline. "Lord Madara — the Uchiha Madara, equal of Senju Hashirama himself—"
"Quiet."
Madara studied Natsuki. Something was wrong. The boy showed no surprise. No alarm. No adrenaline spike at confronting a legend returned from the dead.
"You expected this. You're not even slightly shocked."
"I was born fearless." Natsuki paused. "Besides — after all these decades, do you really still have your original strength?"
"The arrogance of youth." Displeasure crossed Madara's face. "You have no concept of what you're facing."
"Then educate me."
Natsuki raised his hand.
Madara's left eye flared crimson. Three tomoe surfaced — a transplanted standard Sharingan, not even his original. His Mangekyō had evolved into the Rinnegan long ago, and those eyes now belonged to Nagato.
An invisible spiritual pressure struck Natsuki.
Nothing happened.
"You... how?"
Genuine confusion. The genjutsu hadn't taken.
"I know a few things about ocular techniques." Natsuki smiled.
The reality was simple arithmetic. A single three-tomoe Sharingan attempting to dominate a mind shielded by two Mangekyō was like throwing a pebble at a fortress wall.
Madara's expression darkened. He'd intended to demonstrate the gap in their levels. Instead, he'd demonstrated nothing.
"Then let me show you what Uchiha Madara truly means."
He stood.
Or rather — Susanoo stood.
The dimension trembled. The ground cracked outward from his feet. A towering spectral giant rose around Madara's body — armored in blue, wings spreading from its back, twin swords gripped in massive fists. The pressure it radiated was suffocating, absolute. A war god given form.
A three-tomoe Shadow Clone can manifest Susanoo?
Natsuki's surprise was genuine — but brief. In the original timeline, Madara had famously fielded twenty-five Shadow Clones, each one projecting its own Susanoo. The precedent existed.
But he caught the details that mattered. The Susanoo was smaller than it should have been. And Madara's body was already turning translucent at the edges — chakra depleting, the clone reaching its operational limit.
One attack. That was all he had left.
As if to confirm it, Susanoo moved.
Both swords rose — enormous, blotting out the sky of the Reality Marble — and came down in a crossed slash that tore the air apart. The blades carved twin gouges across the wasteland, the dimensional fabric itself groaning under the strain, warping as though it might tear open.
Natsuki gripped Minazuki.
He swung once.
Sword of Promised Victory.
A beam of golden light split the heavens.
It pierced through both of Susanoo's descending swords. Pierced through the spectral armor. Pierced through Uchiha Madara.
The Shadow Clone burst into smoke.
White Zetsu, caught in the beam's path, ceased to exist.
[Congratulations — Yoshikage Kira Template Ability 3: Bites the Dust has been unlocked.]
Natsuki raised an eyebrow.
Killing White Zetsu had triggered the condition — a creature that had existed for over a thousand years. The unlock confirmed what he'd suspected.
The only regret was that the Sword of Promised Victory left nothing behind. White Zetsu's body had been vaporized completely — no sample to bring back for study.
But it didn't matter. If Madara learned Yahiko had survived, he'd try again. There would be other White Zetsu to catch.
And if not — once Kushina mastered Kagura's Mind's Eye and the Nine-Tails' Malice Sensing, they could hunt the Zetsu network proactively.
Deep underground. The real cavern.
Uchiha Madara's eyes snapped open.
He clutched his chest, breathing hard. When a Shadow Clone dispersed, its memories returned to the original — and the sensory data came with them.
He'd felt that sword strike. Seen it bearing down on him through his clone's eyes. The golden light. The annihilating force.
"What happened?" Black Zetsu materialized from the wall.
"My clone encountered Natsuki."
"He found it?" Surprise. "How?"
"Unknown. Perhaps proximity."
"And the clone?"
"Chakra depleted. It dispersed on its own."
A lie — but a small one. Admitting the clone had been overpowered served no strategic purpose.
"Does Natsuki have teachers beyond Orochimaru and Tsunade?" Madara asked.
"None that we know of. Why?"
"That final technique — it appeared to be his own creation." Madara was quiet for a moment. "I didn't expect the current generation to produce someone of this caliber."
First Unlimited Blade Works. Now a sword technique of that magnitude. And Madara remembered clearly: this attack had never appeared in any of White Zetsu's surveillance reports. It was new.
"What sword technique?"
"The one that destroyed my clone."
"It overpowered Susanoo?" A rare note of unease in Black Zetsu's voice.
"It did." Madara admitted it without deflection. "The technique's output scales with the user's chakra reserves. Which means Natsuki's chakra approaches Tailed Beast levels."
That was the true anomaly. No special bloodline. No kekkei genkai. No jinchūriki status. Yet chakra reserves that rivaled a bijū.
How?
"I regret not seeing it myself," Black Zetsu said.
"It doesn't matter." Madara closed his eyes. "Whatever Natsuki's capabilities, the operation succeeded. Yahiko should be dead."
"Should be?"
"Almost certainly. But send a White Zetsu to confirm."
Madara settled into stillness, conserving what remained of his deteriorating body.
Black Zetsu nodded and sank into the earth.
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