---Third POV---
The sound of a heavy object hitting the ground echoed from behind a small dirt mound on the outskirts of the Iwa stronghold.
Minato released the fūinjutsu in the final second before the attack landed, urgently teleporting himself, Jiraiya, and Obito to the previously designated evacuation point.
"Sensei, Ryouma is in danger, I'm going to rescue him!"
Obito had just scrambled to his feet, and his eyes immediately shifted into Mangekyō Sharingan form, ready to rush back into battle.
"Calm down," Minato ordered, while quickly tending to Jiraiya's wounds. "You take Jiraiya-sensei back to Konoha for treatment."
"But, what about Ryouma? And Shukaku! It got knocked away, and we don't even know where it landed!"
"I'll go back to save them," Minato said firmly. "Obito, your chakra is nearly depleted, I can sense it."
Hearing Minato's words, Obito finally paid attention to his own physical state. What he saw was alarming, now that the adrenaline rush had worn off, a wave of weakness surged from his limbs toward his heart and brain. After a string of battles and repeated use of the Mangekyō Sharingan's eye techniques, he was nearly burned out. He pulled a Military Rations Pill from the ninja tool pouch on his back and swallowed it. Only then did some color return to his face.
If it had been anyone other than Minato giving him this advice, he would've pushed them aside and rushed back alone to save Ryouma. But since it was his teacher...
"Alright, I'll return to Konoha, recover some chakra, and come right back."
"Mm. Leave it to me."
Minato's confident voice brought Obito some measure of peace. Using the residual chakra squeezed out by the pill, Obito activated Kamui. A swirling ripple in space swallowed both Obito and Jiraiya.
After watching them vanish, Minato formed a hand seal and focused on sensing Ryouma's chakra inside the Iwa stronghold.
Ryouma had ended up trapped because he helped him rescue Jiraiya. Minato absolutely would not allow him to die here, not even if their opponent was the legendary Madara himself.
If it came down to it, he was prepared to use the Dead Demon Consuming Seal to save Ryouma.
---
Inside Konoha Hospital, a ripple of swirling space appeared. Obito, carrying the severely wounded Jiraiya on his back, suddenly materialized in the lobby, yelling at the top of his lungs:
"Somebody help, it's an emergency!"
His voice was so desperate it sounded like he was the one injured.
"Obito?"
Rin happened to be on duty for the first-floor patients that day. Hearing the familiar voice, she rushed over, only to be shocked at the sight of the heavily wounded Jiraiya. She immediately ran to check on him and gave a quick preliminary assessment.
"He's okay, for now. Just severe blood loss. No immediate threat to his life."
Relieved, Rin directed Obito to carry Jiraiya into a surgical room while calling over a few medical ninja assistants to help with treatment. Seeing Jiraiya's pale face slowly regain some color, clearly out of the danger zone, she wiped the sweat from her forehead and handed over the rest of the care duties to her assistants. As she stepped out of the operating room, she saw Obito stuffing several bags of nutrient supplements into his mouth, desperately gulping them down.
"Hey! Those are for the patients!"
"Sorry! I really need to replenish my energy right now, Ryouma is still waiting for me!"
"Oh? What is he waiting for you to do?"
It was strictly forbidden to pry into the missions of fellow ninja. Just like earlier in the lobby, Rin hadn't asked a single question about why Jiraiya was so seriously injured. But it was different when it came to Ryouma. She couldn't help but be curious about what Obito meant by "Ryouma is still waiting for me."
Obito inwardly cursed, he'd accidentally let it slip. If Rin found out that Ryouma was trapped, she would definitely insist on going with him to help rescue him. That would be far too dangerous. He knew this was the last thing Ryouma would want, so he could only try to brush it off.
"It's nothing. Just in the literal sense, he is waiting for me. So please, let me rest here and recover my chakra. I'm begging you."
It had taken considerable mental effort for Obito to come up with that excuse, but it worked, Rin didn't seem to suspect anything.
"Alright then. I'm going to find Tsunade-sensei. She'll definitely want to know about Jiraiya-sama's condition. Just sit here and rest for a while."
Rin still felt suspicious, but the heroic image Ryouma had left in her heart over the years kept her from imagining that something might have gone wrong with him.
Watching her walk away, Obito let out a long sigh of relief. "Sorry, Rin… I'll definitely bring him back for you."
---
Inside the Iwa stronghold, two spurts of blood sprayed into the air.
Splurt... splurt...
Madara, feeling that the two black rods earlier weren't secure enough, pulled out two more and thrust them into Ryouma's body. At the same time, he had his Limbo shadow confiscate all the ninja tools from Ryouma.
"With this, you're out of options, aren't you?"
"Not so sure about that."
Ryouma's situation was indeed grim, but it hadn't yet reached the point of total defeat.
Madara dismissed it as bravado. With black rods all over him disrupting his chakra, and that strange rebound technique now unusable, he couldn't imagine any possible way Ryouma could turn the tables.
"I had assumed I'd lost the chance to absorb the One-Tail's chakra, but you actually fell into a trap like this. Just like Hashirama, you possess great power but chain yourself down with so-called bonds."
With that, he widened his eyes. The power of the Rinnegan surged, and at the foot of a small hill, the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path opened its massive mouth. A chain shot out from it and pierced directly into Ryouma's chest.
The impact hit his chest hard, he grunted, coughing up a large amount of blood.
"Cough cough... I suggest you don't get any ideas about Shukaku's chakra."
Madara didn't quite understand the meaning of Ryouma's words at this point, but he still held respect for this younger ninja who was qualified to be his opponent.
"You know what my goal is, don't you? If you agree to cooperate with me, I'll let you keep a portion of the One-Tail's chakra."
This was his genuine offer. He may have seemed invincible now, but in truth, he was barely holding it together. If he hadn't gone to the Land of Water beforehand to capture the Three-Tails and seal it inside the Gedo Statue, then absorbed a huge amount of life force from the statue to restore his own body, he wouldn't even be able to fully use the power of a single Rikugan.
Even so, he knew he wouldn't survive much longer after this battle. Afterward, he would have to rely on Black Zetsu to carry on the Eye of the Moon Plan. But honestly, he didn't have much faith in Black Zetsu's ability, especially when it came to just possessing Nagato. However, if Ryouma were willing to join him, the plan would be flawless.
Ryouma didn't expect that even now, Madara was still clinging to such notions.
"Wow… I really didn't think you had such a naive side to you."
"So that's a no, then," Madara replied, expression unchanged. "What a pity. I actually wanted to show you the world of the Infinite Tsukuyomi."
"Unfortunately, you're the one who's right. The so-called Infinite Tsukuyomi was nothing more than a lie Black Zetsu wove for you. His true plan was to revive Kaguya. From beginning to end, the only one lost in the dream… was you alone." Ryouma never cared about plot development or the butterfly effect. Even though he had no evidence to prove his words now, that didn't stop him from spitting some verbal jabs.
"Kaguya?" Madara repeated the name. "You seem to know a lot of classified information. If you weren't such a threat to the Eye of the Moon Plan, I might have actually considered sparing your life."
Someone like Madara would never let go of his obsession until he hit a dead end.
"Enough idle talk."
He formed hand seals and controlled the chains to tighten, slowly extracting the chakra of the One-Tail from Ryouma's body.
"Detachment of the Primitive World!"
A cone of chakra glowing with milky white light shot straight at Madara from the sky, disintegrating all the dust and smoke along its path into atoms. But such an attack naturally had no effect on him. With a casual gesture, he deployed the barrier of Blocking Technique Absorption Seal, absorbing the entire attack.
Floating in mid-air, Ōnoki saw his Dust Release blocked and swallowed hard. He forced out the name that had once haunted his nightmares.
"Uchiha… Madara…"
"Oh? You still recognize me?" Madara gave Ōnoki a bored glance. "That brat who used to trail behind that useless Mu, looks like you haven't grown much after all."
Clang... clang...
The iron chains from the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path continued to tighten.
Ōnoki furrowed his brows, forming a cube between his palms with a hand seal.
"I don't know how you survived the First Hokage, but you better let go of Ryouma. Otherwise, the next attack will target your summoning beast!"
"Oh, how interesting." Hearing Ōnoki's threat, Madara finally showed a flicker of interest. "You actually want to save a ninja who was your enemy just a few minutes ago."
Ōnoki didn't respond to Madara's taunt. Yes, he had been an enemy of Konoha during the war, but Madara had used the entire Iwa just to kill Ryouma. That alone made it obvious there was a bigger issue at play.
If Madara wanted to kill Ryouma, then Ōnoki had to protect him. Compared to the rivalry between nations, Madara was clearly a much bigger threat to the entire shinobi world.
But even in the face of Ōnoki's Dust Release warning, Madara showed no intention of stopping. The chains continued tightening and completely extracted the One-Tail's chakra from Ryouma.
"Damn it!" Ōnoki cursed, hurling an attack directly at the Gedo Statue.
A massive white cube engulfed the entire statue, but instead of disintegrating everything inside as usual, it twisted and flowed toward a corner.
Black Zetsu slowly lowered his hand, smirking mockingly at Ōnoki. Under his protection, the chain carrying the enormous chakra of the One-Tail returned smoothly to the original body of the Ten-Tails.
Click... click...
One of the Gedo Statue's eyes opened once again.
Madara looked somewhat puzzled at Ryouma, who seemed unexpectedly… unharmed.
"A jinchūriki is supposed to die immediately after the tailed beast is extracted, right? Could it be… you have the blood of the Uzumaki clan? Never mind."
He shook his head, brushing the thought aside. With a flick of his right hand, a black receiver rod appeared in his grip, which he slowly drove into Ryouma's heart.
Sensing that Ryouma's heart had stopped beating, Madara commanded his Limbo shadow to release the arm it had been restraining and let his body fall limply to the ground.
"Hahahahaha!"
He suddenly burst into laughter for no apparent reason.
"There are still two tailed beasts left to deal with," Black Zetsu reminded him quickly, seeing that Madara was already celebrating midway.
"You've been getting a little presumptuous lately. Know your place. Understood?" Madara looked down arrogantly at his manifestation of will.
Black Zetsu had no idea what had triggered Madara's irritation, but he quickly lowered his head and backed down.
"Of course."
After putting his will incarnation back in place, Madara leapt onto the head of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
"Now, it's time to put collars on you beasts."
Ōnoki retreated to where the Iwa forces were gathered. He rapidly formed hand seals and issued a loud command, "Use your Tailed Beast Balls! Coordinate with my attack against that giant summoning beast!"
Eyes locked on Madara standing atop the summoning beast, he hoped to launch a surprise Dust Release attack while the enemy duo was busy absorbing the Tailed Beast Balls.
Han immediately followed the order without hesitation, gathering chakra in his mouth to form a Tailed Beast Bomb. Rōshi hesitated for a moment but ultimately obeyed the order as well, going into full tailed beast form to generate his own bomb.
The yin-yang chakra fused at high speed, and the surging shockwave swept across the battlefield.
Madara sneered and then suddenly opened his eyes wide.
Boom! Boom!
Two deafening explosions rang out as the air was violently compressed and burst apart. Both tailed beasts preparing their Tailed Beast Balls were suddenly struck by an invisible force. They were blasted backward, smashing through several bunkers and kicking up clouds of dust and rubble.
Clang... clang...
Two chains shot out from the mouth of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, snaking through the air and wrapping tightly around the necks of the two tailed beasts, then rapidly began to tighten.
Ōnoki, seeing the jinchūriki go down, had no choice but to hold onto his prepared Dust Release, manipulating it into an energy blade and swinging it at the chains. The white beam cut across the ground, atomizing everything in its path, including the two chakra chains.
"Did it work…?"
He panted heavily, looking toward the battlefield where the Dust Release had just passed.
"Of course not."
Madara formed hand seals again. The chains, which had just been severed, suddenly began to tremble violently, regrowing and rejoining into a complete form, instantly dragging the two tailed beasts to the mouth of the Gedo Statue.
Then, with a sudden surge of violent suction, both tailed beasts were completely devoured in an instant, leaving behind only the corpses of Rōshi and Han, the two jinchūriki, discarded to the side.