Chapter 173 – Silver Tide

Sasori was still shaken. The situation had unraveled too quickly, too violently.

The three titans—wolf, frog and snake—had momentarily faltered under the overwhelming aura exuding from the Gedo Mazo. That moment of hesitation had been all they needed. Deidara's clay bird took flight, carrying him, Sasori, and the barely alive body of Utakata into the sky.

From the air, Sasori looked back.

The battlefield where the infamous Silver Lady had stood was now a distorted smear on the coast—like a crater that bled silence.

And then he felt it.

A surge of killing intent so strong, it rippled outward like a shockwave through the fabric of the world.

His gaze fixed on her—the Silver Lady—just as he remembered her from long ago.

And then, from afar, an island nearly 650 yards across simply vanished.

Gone.

A silver line had drawn a connection between the woman and the void where the island had once stood.

The explosion that followed cracked the sky.

The air warped. A sound so violent that it left Deidara deaf in one ear for several minutes. Sasori turned to see him grinning maniacally as the blast lifted a tsunami in every direction.

"That... was art," Deidara muttered. "Do you think she's single?"

Sasori said nothing.

Sometimes, he really wished he were deaf too.

Deidara focused what little chakra he had left into the clay bird just to keep it airborne. Below them, the wave surged—an endless wall of water swallowing the coast.

Still glowing.

Still terrifying.

<<<< o >>>>

The battle against the two sages had been more complex than I anticipated. Between them, Kaorumi and Nurehime compensated for each other's weaknesses with near-perfect synchronicity. Kaorumi's staff attacks, when redirected toward Nurehime, triggered a technique that doubled my weight—turning each step into a struggle, each movement a burden. I had no choice but to rely on attacks through illusions. Fortunately, the limit of my Silver Stage was higher than the typical three projections. But it still wasn't enough.

Kaorumi absorbed strikes with sheer endurance, grounded in a will of stone. Nurehime, by contrast, flowed like water—my most powerful blows glancing through her as if the damage dissolved into the current. I tried inching closer to the island, sensing something terrible there, but Kaorumi blocked my path at every turn. And while Nurehime didn't resist me directly, she capitalized on every moment I made contact with her partner. On the few occasions that I was able to cast a Genjutsu in battle, it wasn't enough to give me a true edge; my opponents' collaboration was too precise.

When they attempted to trick me with false terms of surrender, I saw through it. Not with my eyes—but through the betrayal in their souls. Still, their ploy bought me time. I needed to restore the energy I'd spent locating the island, traveling here, and fending off their attacks. I activated the seal that Kenshiro and Reika Uzumaki had taught me, drawing natural energy stored within Yumegakure itself.

The response was gentle. The Silver World answered. Power flooded into me—more than before.

My retaliation was brutal. I struck at Kaorumi with intent, only to realize it was a setup. Nurehime had read my position too well. Her water-formed technique cut everything in its path—terrain, illusion, air. I couldn't escape with a basic boost. I had to apply the teachings of flowing water: Mirage Breath – Flow of Water. I aligned my bones and spiritual core with the movement of the sea itself, contorting just enough to survive.

Then I saw her—Nurehime, the real one, among her clones. I struck, and the blow hurled her away from the water, into land—weakening her.

It was then I sensed it.

The threads of death wrapped the island. Kuro. The other titans. And then came the Shinigami's presence. The explosion followed.

The Gedo Mazō revealed itself.

I had failed.

I hated myself in that moment. Hated the sages. Maybe even hated fate for letting them arrive when they did.

The emotion became a weight—real and suffocating—under the Silver Stage's amplifying effect. I forced it down.

I could've let Mitsue's summoning pull me home. Let Kuro vanish with me. But I didn't know what tricks the Sage Lands still had prepared. What if they could trace me back?

I needed a distraction.

...

Hinata could barely breathe.

The world felt distant—as if wrapped in gauze and light. Her feet no longer touched the earth; or perhaps the earth simply recoiled from her. Threads still danced around her fingers, but now they pulsed wildly, untamed. They responded not to will, but to instinct.

She hadn't meant to destroy it.

The attack—her railgun—had been a diversion. A way to sever the fight and flee. She had done it before in training, controlled, precise. But this time… her body was not hers. The Silver Stage amplified everything. Her breath. Her sorrow. Her fear.

And when she fired—

An island died.

She hadn't known. Couldn't have known. But ignorance didn't ease the weight in her chest. It didn't undo the crater, or the vanishing of something the world had once known.

She felt it then—the recoil. Not in her muscles, but in her soul.

The sea screamed.

She turned, and in the distance, felt it: a village. Fragile. Mortal.

The wave was already coming.

She ran.

She didn't think. She didn't hesitate. Each step was a razor. Her lungs burned. Her vision blurred. But she ran.

The Mirage Breath: Hundred Steps as One tore through her legs, her joints, her spirit. But still she moved. So much so that she was forced to evolve her technique to thousand steps as one. But it was simply not designed to run continuously much less alongside her boost technique.

She could fix this.

She had to fix this.

Before the sea swallowed what remained.

To the disbelieving eyes of the fishermen of Toba, who had already accepted death, she arrived.

Her legs were bleeding—flesh torn and ruined by the overuse of techniques meant for short bursts, not desperate salvation. And yet she stood, her silver form flickering under the darkened sky.

Before her loomed a wall of water—unrelenting, primal. The sea's wrath made manifest. The consequence of her own actions.

Once more, Hinata called upon her spiritual threads. Her vitality was the price for giving them weight. But she was not alone.

Yumegakure, still tethered to her through the seals of the Uzumaki masters, responded. It understood her intention. It accepted it.

The threads burst to life—swirling in frantic spirals above the sea's surface, cutting the incoming wave with radiant light.

To the eyes of the villagers: first came the wave. Then the light.

And then… the Silver Lady—wounded, broken, running faster than humanly possible—raised her hand and unleashed a flurry of gleaming threads that split the ocean's fury.

The wave dissipated, scattered by force and miracle.

And then… she fell.

Into the sea.

Consumed by the very waters she had calmed.