Chapter 357: Madara vs Natsuro Part II

Faced with Madara's Rinnegan, Natsuro was still pondering his next move.

The flames on Madara's body had now dissipated, revealing large, charred holes burned into multiple parts of his torso, holes that were already beginning to regenerate.

His original red armor had also been incinerated, exposing a face embedded in his chest, the face of the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju. Thanks to Orochimaru's techniques, it now appeared on Madara's reanimated Edo Tensei body.

This sight once again shocked the elderly Ōnoki. The other ninjas, unfamiliar with Hashirama's appearance, were simply confused as to why Madara had a face on his chest.

"Sixth Hokage, during your relentless assault just now, you carefully avoided attacking certain spots on my body. I figured those were where you placed your Flying Thunder God seals, and you didn't want to destroy those locations with your own power, lest the seals be erased. Am I right?" Madara laughed maniacally.

Though he was currently in a ragged state, worse even than when he fought Hashirama, Madara showed no signs of displeasure. In fact, he looked exhilarated.

This was the kind of opponent he had longed to face after his resurrection.

If he had returned to life only to find himself unmatched by anyone in the world, something would've felt missing. But Natsuro's appearance filled that void perfectly.

So yes, this was fantastic.

Natsuro didn't respond. Instead, he shot forward toward Madara, hoping to seal him while he was still weakened.

"Delusional!" Madara growled as he formed hand seals, his eyes flashing with fury.

"Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!"

Massive tree trunks, each thicker than a grown man, erupted from beneath Madara's feet and rapidly spread outward.

Natsuro stopped in front of the wild growth of towering trees.

He couldn't help but sigh inwardly...

This Wood Style was nothing like Yamato's...

"Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves!"

He gently exhaled, and the breath instantly turned into hundreds of invisible blades that slashed toward the expanding forest.

When the first blade struck a tree, it effortlessly sliced through it. However…

Natsuro frowned slightly. The life force in these trees was far too intense, making them incredibly resilient. Although they couldn't fully withstand the cutting power of his Wind Release, their sheer volume and size meant the attack couldn't slice through enough of them at once.

By the time all the vacuum blades dissipated, a small portion of the trees still remained. From this surviving forest, several flower buds began to bloom.

"Hmm trouble," Natsuro muttered, recognizing the jutsu... the Advent of a World of Flowering Trees. Those buds contained enormous quantities of poisonous pollen.

Natsuro himself wasn't concerned about the toxins, but the area was filled with ordinary allied shinobi.

They wouldn't survive the poisonous cloud.

His expression turned grim. The buds had to be destroyed, and he couldn't simply blow the pollen around with Wind Release.

"Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!"

Having used it once before, Natsuro now performed the jutsu with greater ease. Though he had memorized nearly all of Konoha's jutsu in the past, he rarely used most of them.

But during this Fourth Great Ninja War, he had finally begun putting some of those memorized jutsu into action, even if many still had no practical use.

As the massive flames engulfed the spreading trees, the buds began to open, releasing clouds of pollen.

Even though the pollen could be burned, the combustion might not be complete so he had no intention of leaving any toxins behind.

"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"

It was a long-forgotten low-level jutsu, but the perfect one for the job. A huge gust of wind swept into the burning forest, instantly fueling the flames like gasoline on a bonfire.

The result? A blazing inferno that completely consumed the trees in seconds.

Within the raging fire, the pollen had no chance of survival. Explosions continued to erupt, dust explosions caused by the pollen igniting, but none of them could escape the all-consuming blaze. Instead, they were swallowed by it.

"Your attention was too focused on those poisonous flower buds."

Just then, Madara's voice suddenly echoed in Natsuro's ear. Looking again, Natsuro saw Madara's body fully restored and surrounded by his Perfect Susanoo.

It had massive wings, twin swords, and stood over a hundred meters tall, like a majestic war god of destruction.

One of its swords had already been drawn and was now swinging down at Natsuro.

Natsuro wasn't surprised. His attention had never fully left Madara, he had only diverted a bit of focus to eliminate the pollen for the sake of the allied shinobi.

However, he hadn't expected Madara to go straight into his Perfect Form Susanoo. In the original story, Madara had gradually upgraded Susanoo while fighting the Five Kage, not jumped straight to the final form.

Then again, it made sense. After being beaten so badly before, Madara was no longer underestimating him. Using the perfect form right away was the smart choice.

But as that enormous blade came swinging down, Natsuro realized he had no good way to block it. What was he supposed to do against a sword dozens of meters long?

So, he instantly teleported elsewhere. Madara's sword came to a halt midair, but…

Though the blade stopped, the force it generated did not. The shockwave tore through the earth, carving a canyon-sized gash into the ground.

This was raw, pure power, magnified by the sheer size of the weapon. Even the so-called "strongest shield" of the Third Raikage would be split in half by such a strike. No doubt about it.

"Tch. Flying Thunder God again? Tobirama really created such an annoying technique," Madara muttered with rare irritation. But he knew that this was no longer Tobirama's version, the modifications made since then had turned it into something much more convenient and powerful.

"Madara, did you know? There's only one Uchiha left now," Natsuro said suddenly.

"Hmm? What's that got to do with me?" Madara replied, a little surprised that Natsuro would bring this up, but otherwise emotionally unmoved.

From the moment he became a rogue ninja and his clan abandoned him, Madara had ceased to consider himself part of the Uchiha. In his mind, he alone embodied the Uchiha name, the rest of the clan in Konoha were nothing more than traitors.

So what if all the traitors had died?

Madara just felt a bit of a pity, now there was one less place to harvest high-quality Sharingan.

"Heh, of course it has nothing to do with you. I just wanted to say, in my opinion, he's far more outstanding than you," Natsuro said with a sudden smile, staring up at Madara, who stood atop the colossal Susanoo.

"Hmph. Nonsense," Madara replied coldly. But he didn't immediately strike. Natsuro showed no signs of injury, and with that pesky Flying Thunder God, there wasn't much he could do just yet. So since a decisive outcome would take time, he decided to hear what Natsuro had to say.

"Madara Uchiha… You awakened your Mangekyō Sharingan by killing the person you 'loved,' didn't you?" Natsuro asked.

"Naturally. The Uchiha clan must go through that step to awaken their eyes." Madara didn't show the slightest hint of guilt, to him, it wasn't wrong at all.

"Then what if I told you... that the Uchiha I speak of awakened his Mangekyō Sharingan without following your path?" Natsuro said with a smile, seeing the sudden widening of Madara's eyes.

"Impossible!" Madara denied outright. It wasn't as though he hadn't searched for alternatives himself, but every method had failed. In the end, the only path to awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan was through killing someone dear.

To Madara, there was no other way.

"I have no reason to lie to you," Natsuro replied calmly, "...It's exactly because your method of awakening the eyes has been treated as truth by the entire Uchiha clan, that they've remained forever shackled by the limits of the Sharingan."

He looked at Madara. Even if the Uchiha clan had settled in another village instead of Konoha, as long as people knew that they had to kill someone they love to gain power, they could never truly trust them.

After all, who would trust a clan that had to murder the ones they love to grow stronger?What if one day they decided the village itself was what they 'loved', and wiped it out?

"So what?" Madara suddenly countered.

"Heh... You really are cold-blooded," Natsuro said with a shake of his head.

He couldn't help but think the Uchiha were terribly unlucky to have such an ancestor.

"But convincing you through the Uchiha's fate was never my goal," he added, shrugging casually.

"Then what is your goal?" Madara asked, now a little puzzled. He was mildly intrigued by the other Uchiha Natsuro had mentioned, the one who took a different path, but that was it. It hadn't shaken his convictions.

If reaching absolute power required abandoning his clan, even turning all of humanity into sacrificial offerings, so be it.

Madara had never wavered in his desire to grow stronger. Not in the past, not now, and certainly not in the future.

"With that Uchiha's consent, I once used his body," Natsuro said suddenly.

"Hm?" Madara frowned. Natsuro words made less and less sense. He had no idea how Natsuro could have "used" an Uchiha body, but what did that have to do with this fight?

Was he stalling for time?

But why? Madara glanced at the Allied Shinobi Forces, Orochimaru's Edo Tensei army had already blocked them off completely. There was no chance they'd interfere.

Natsuro, too, was well aware of the situation. In fact, he couldn't help but complain inwardly,

He never expected Orochimaru to have even more undead soldiers than Kabuto had in the original timeline...

They still hadn't run out.

But no, he wasn't trying to stall. He just suddenly felt like having a little chat with Madara.

Seeing Madara's confusion, he finally spoke up again.

"I used his body... because I wanted to experience Susanoo for myself." As he said this, a smile slowly spread across his face.

In that instant, Madara's pupils contracted.

A possibility flashed through his mind, but... how?

He wasn't even Uchiha. How could he...?

"In my eyes, the Sharingan is merely a brilliant creation of Yin Release. It allows the Uchiha to easily access all sorts of abilities others struggle to control, but that doesn't mean others can't use them." Natsuro smiled as he looked at Madara.

"After all, the essence of Yin Release... is the ability to create form from the formless. Every ability of the Sharingan can be seen as a product of Yin Release. It's just that, for most people, it's incredibly difficult to manifest such powers without the Sharingan."

He paused, then added with a wider smile as he began forming hand seals:

"But I might not be most people. When it comes to spirit and Yin Release, I have some... experience~"

The next moment, under Madara's disbelieving gaze, flames began erupting around Natsuro. The glow grew fiercer and fiercer.

In the eyes of everyone watching, the blaze took the shape of a phoenix, letting out a piercing cry as it rose higher into the sky. Before long, it grew even taller than Madara's own Susanoo, and finally came to a stop.

The phoenix's fiery eyes locked onto Madara's Susanoo. With a single flap of its wings, an endless inferno surged forward to engulf Madara's colossal warrior.

"A parlor trick!" Madara shouted, swinging both of Susanoo's swords downward. The twin blades cleaved the ocean of fire apart, but the phoenix had already vanished.

What stood in its place was a giant figure clad in flame-patterned armor, with burning wings and a strange long sword at its side.

Its massive body was even larger than Madara's Perfect Susanoo. Its every limb seemed wreathed in eternal flames.

Without a doubt, this was Susanoo.

"He actually did it?!" Madara was stunned. Though he himself could manifest Susanoo without the Sharingan, he was still an Uchiha... But Natsuro was not.

And yet he had pulled it off.

Natsuro now stood atop the head of his godlike, flame-wreathed Susanoo.

His expression relaxed, almost joking.

"My old man always said, fight magic with magic. So, when you're up against a Gundam... you bring your own Gundam."

Looking down at Madara, he smiled and declared...

"This is my Susanoo!"

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