Chapter 355: Meteors Across The Sky, and Meeting of Madara and Natsuro

After the overwhelming flames collided with the roaring water torrents, a massive cloud of steam instantly enveloped everyone.

Under such conditions, Madara Uchiha, with his Mangekyō Sharingan, held an absolute advantage in visibility.

Without hesitation, Madara charged back into the Allied Forces, accompanied by several flaming fireballs, like a wolf tearing through a flock of sheep in the darkness.

As he predicted, in this low-visibility environment, most ninja couldn't even detect his approach in time. Combined with his superior speed, many couldn't even muster basic defenses.

However, Madara soon sensed something was off. The impact of his strikes didn't feel like hitting flesh, it felt more like striking packed sand designed to absorb force.

Looking closer, he realized it really was sand, sand that consistently appeared just in time to block his attacks.

"Sand? A Sand ninja?" Madara deduced. Soon after, Gaara and Ōnoki pinpointed his location. While wide-area ninjutsu was too dangerous in a crowd, they weren't completely helpless.

Suddenly, the ground beneath Madara rose rapidly, lifting him into the air, it was Ōnoki's doing.

At the same time, a storm of sand surged toward him.

"Not bad," Madara commented, before leaping off the rising rock platform to evade.

But as he descended, he noticed a white beam speeding toward him, a beam that even he could sense was dangerous.

"Dust Release? That brat from Iwa with the Particle Jutsu?" Madara was surprised. That guy hadn't died of old age yet?

Still, Madara didn't take the Dust Release too seriously.

Just as the Dust Release was about to hit, Madara's eyes changed, eyes so powerful they stunned the entire battlefield.

"We got him!" Ōnoki exclaimed in excitement.Gaara beside him finally relaxed.

But quickly, they noticed something was wrong.

The Dust Release didn't explode on impact, it looked like it had been... absorbed?

Then they saw Madara standing there, completely unscathed, and bearing a pair of eyes that made them freeze in shock.

"Rinnegan?! How is that possible?!" Ōnoki's eyes widened. Could it be that the Rinnegan evolved from the Sharingan?

"Heh… as I thought, the Rinnegan is an evolution beyond the Mangekyō Sharingan," Orochimaru said, arriving at Madara's side.

He wasn't all that surprised. With his obsession for ocular powers, he had long suspected this connection, but until now, he'd had no way to prove it.

"I awakened these eyes just before my death," Madara explained, then turned to Orochimaru. "You're called Orochimaru, right? What exactly did you do to this body?"

Madara was genuinely shocked, not just his taijutsu, but even his ninjutsu felt more powerful than when he was alive.

And more shockingly, he had managed to reawaken the Rinnegan through an Edo Tensei body? That was something an ordinary vessel should never be capable of.

Though he could tell the Rinnegan's abilities were limited, it only had basic functions, and couldn't use the special powers or the Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique.

Still, this alone was enough to impress him. Orochimaru had not lied, this body could indeed surpass his peak form.

"Heh, didn't I say? This is a special body designed to let you unleash power beyond your prime," Orochimaru replied with a smirk.

"You know the secret of my body?!" Madara frowned deeply. "Without a Sharingan, you shouldn't be able to read the Uchiha Stone Tablet. How did you figure it out?"

"Lord Madara, you may not understand experimentation," Orochimaru said, smiling. "When every other possibility is eliminated, the remaining one, no matter how improbable, becomes the truth. I wasn't sure until now… but this proves I was right."

"So… can you show me the power of those eyes? The power that once belonged to the Sage of Six Paths?" Orochimaru asked feverishly.

"You have such hunger for power?" Madara eyed him with faint approval. While he was too timid to approach Madara in person, using Edo Tensei instead, that intense desire for power was something Madara respected.

And Orochimaru had remained deferential the whole time. Madara nodded slightly.

"Very well. Let me show you a piece of the divine power once held by the Sage of Six Paths, and now mine!"

As he spoke, Madara formed a single unmarked hand seal. Blue flames flared around him, quickly shaping into a Susanoo with four arms and two faces.

"Is that…" Orochimaru's eyes gleamed with fascination as he saw the Susanoo's four hands each form a separate seal.

Tengai Shinsei! (Shattered Heaven)

In the next instant, the sky dimmed as if the heavens themselves were trembling. From above, a colossal meteor descended, so massive it blotted out the entire sky.

Everyone on the battlefield was stunned.

Their weapons unknowingly slipped from their hands. Some even began to laugh in despair.

"Damn it… is this for real?! What the hell is that?!"

"The difference in power is just too overwhelming…"

"Is this… the power of a god?"

"Are we fighting a god…?"

"There's no way to escape something like that… not from a jutsu like this…"

Amid these panicked cries, Ōnoki gritted his teeth, hearing the despair in his comrades' voices.He roared:

"It's too early to give up! Don't throw in the towel before you've even tried! We fight with everything we've got!" With that, Ōnoki flew toward the falling meteor.

"Lord Tsuchikage!"

"Dad…!" Kurotsuchi shouted, eyes wide. Then he too followed Ōnoki into the sky.

Both of them placed their hands on the meteor's surface.

Earth Release: Ultralight-Weight Rock Technique!

Even with that technique, both men's faces twisted in pain, this was a weight no human should be able to resist.

But then…

"RAAAH!!" Gaara bellowed, drawing upon every last ounce of chakra.

His sand surged upward like a giant tree, rapidly climbing the sky. Its branches wrapped around the meteor, trying to slow its descent, to hold the heavens back.

"We're so close—hold on, Kurotsuchi!" Ōnoki shouted, eyes blazing.

"I've got this, Dad!!" Kurotsuchi screamed back, pushing himself beyond his limits.

Meanwhile, Orochimaru watched in awe, not at their effort, but at Madara's ability to summon a meteor. He was impressed, but not horrified.

After all, he had already witnessed the destructive power of Natsuro's Exploding Truth-Seeking Orb.In comparison, this technique didn't seem more powerful.

However…

"Lord Madara, you might have great chemistry with the Second Hokage," Orochimaru mused.

"Tobirama? Why do you say that?" Madara frowned. He didn't hold a high opinion of Tobirama.

"Well, under this power, even you would be struck by the meteor, no?" Orochimaru explained. "It's similar to Tobirama's original purpose for developing Edo Tensei, as a type of suicidal attack."

"Hmph." Madara scoffed, saying nothing more. He glanced up at the airborne Ōnoki and Kurotsuchi and sneered.

Did mere insects truly believe they could defy the power of a god?

But at the last moment, seeing Ōnoki, Kurotsuchi, and Gaara's sand pillar all holding the meteor back, Madara's expression shifted slightly.

"That damned Ōnoki brat… looks like you've grown a bit," he muttered, watching and listening to the cheers rising from below...

"We did it!"

"The meteor is stopped!"

"Thank goodness!"

At that moment, even Gaara visibly let out a sigh of relief.

But Madara suddenly smirked playfully, "If the first one took this much effort… then how will you deal with the second, Ōnoki?"

As he spoke, a second, even larger meteor descended from the sky, slamming straight into the first one!

"Wha—?!" Ōnoki realized something was wrong too late.

The second meteor struck the first, and in an instant, the sand pillar supporting it shattered like matchsticks.

Ōnoki and Kurotsuchi were completely overwhelmed and plummeted from the sky. The meteor they had just managed to hold back now fell freely once more.

Hope, followed by despair...

That emotional whiplash was delightful. Madara grinned.

Just as everyone's eyes widened in terror and the meteor was about to strike the earth…

Suddenly, both meteors vanished without a trace.

Above them, only a patch of clear blue sky remained where the rocks had just been. It was as if they had all just awoken from a nightmare.

"…What just happened?" Someone gulped hard.

They didn't know what had happened, but it felt like they had just brushed past death itself.

At that moment, Konoha's shinobi were the first to spot the figure floating in the sky.

Excited cries burst forth...

"It's the Hokage! The Hokage is here!", Everyone turned their gaze skyward.

There, a lone figure stood in midair, his ceremonial Hokage robes fluttering in the wind.He was standing exactly where the meteor had been.

There was no need to guess, only one person could have intervened in that moment of certain doom.

All at once, everyone recalled the massive explosion the Sixth Hokage had caused before.

Its overwhelming power was still etched in their memories.

Now, they all felt the same thing, they might actually be saved.

If it was the Sixth Hokage… he might be able to stop even the legendary Madara Uchiha.

A deafening cheer erupted from the Allied Forces.

"Hokage-sama!"

"Commander!"

Ōnoki and Gaara, upon seeing Natsuro's arrival, also breathed sighs of relief.

If anyone could deal with that monster… it might be him.

At the same time, both men shared the same thought.

"Huh?"

As both meteors vanished, Madara let out a soft noise of surprise.

His gaze quickly locked onto the figure in the sky.

It was him...

This man had stopped his Tengai Shinsei, most likely by using space-time ninjutsu to teleport both meteors away!

Space-time ninjutsu... Madara suddenly remembered what Orochimaru had said earlier about the Sixth Hokage.

One detail had stood out, he possessed space-time techniques.

So it was him.

Now, Madara stood atop a towering rock pillar, while Natsuro floated midair.

The two men stared each other down.

In just a single glance, both could sense the overwhelming strength in the other.

"You've finally arrived—Sixth Hokage, Natsuro Shindōkawa!" Orochimaru laughed as he saw him appear.

Natsuro stared at Madara, eyes filled with caution, then he turned to Orochimaru and sighed... "I was just off handling some matters… and in the meantime, you nearly caused a catastrophe."

"Tsk tsk… Isn't this your fault, Natsuro-kun? That attack of yours destroyed the Second Tsuchikage's Edo Tensei body, so I had no choice but to summon someone else," Orochimaru replied with a smirk.

"So you picked this battlefield… to stop me from using that jutsu again?" Natsuro glanced at the cheering shinobi below and immediately understood Orochimaru's plan.

"Of course. That power of yours counters Edo Tensei far too well. Best to avoid it altogether," Orochimaru replied smoothly.

"Hahaha… How amusing. Truly amusing!" Madara suddenly burst into laughter, covering his face with one hand...

"To think… that in this era, a shinobi not inferior to Hashirama could be born!"

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Currently on Chapter 410 - A Fellow Transmigrator