The battlefield was no longer just earth and sky—it was a kaleidoscope of colliding realities. The storm above twisted into violent spirals, pulling stars into the clouds. Islands floated midair, defying gravity as the laws of physics bent under the Shadow Warlord's influence.
He stood at the center of the chaos, cloaked in living darkness that moved like smoke and oil. His eyes glowed crimson, fixed on the alliance before him—not with fear, but with amusement.
"This is your resistance?" he asked, voice rumbling like the crash of distant thunder. "A patchwork of broken heroes and dying ideals?"
Naruto stepped forward, chakra flaring to full beast-mode, orange and gold mixing in a radiant inferno. "You want to tear everything apart? Then you'll have to go through all of us."
Goku cracked his neck, rising slowly into the air, his aura glowing silver—Ultra Instinct, full power. "Let's see if you're strong enough to back up all that talk."
The Shadow Warlord raised a single hand—and the sky shattered.
Like glass, pieces of the atmosphere splintered and rained down in slow motion. The land beneath the warriors trembled, and black spires erupted around them like jagged teeth. Then, without warning, the Warlord vanished.
BOOM!
He reappeared behind Goku, fist slamming him out of the sky. Goku hit the ground hard, skidding through rock and fire.
"Fast," Goku muttered, wiping blood from his lip, "but not faster than me."
He vanished too.
The battle began in earnest.
Luffy lunged forward in Gear Fifth, cartoonish limbs whipping through the air with bizarre, physics-defying momentum. The Warlord's shadows met him in a tangle of tendrils, slamming against rubber with a clash that echoed across dimensions.
Zoro and Vegeta flanked from either side—one with blades drawn, the other raining blasts of ki. The ground exploded under their assault. But the Warlord spun effortlessly, weaving through their strikes, laughing as shadows hardened into a blade that clashed with Zoro's steel.
Meanwhile, Gojo expanded his Domain: Infinite Void, catching one of the Warlord's phantoms in a cocoon of eternal knowledge. But something changed.
The domain cracked.
"Impossible…" Gojo whispered, staggering. "He's… disrupting the Limitless itself."
Off to the side, Yuji and Megumi were locked in a fight of their own. From fissures in the ground, shadow beasts emerged—manifestations of broken souls bound to the Warlord's will. Yuji launched forward, fists glowing with cursed energy, while Megumi summoned a new shikigami: a beast made of mirrored crystal and black fire.
But amidst the chaos, something shifted in the air. A pulse. A hum.
Gojo turned, face suddenly cold. "Wait…"
Saitama hadn't moved.
He stood on a floating chunk of earth, arms crossed, staring directly at one of the Crimson Pact emissaries—the one cloaked in flame. Her eyes were locked on the Warlord… but her smile was wrong.
Way too calm.
"You're enjoying this," Saitama said quietly. "You knew this would happen."
She tilted her head. "Of course I did. The Warlord isn't our enemy."
Naruto froze mid-strike. "What?"
The emissary flared her cloak. Fire wrapped around her like armour.
"The Warlord is our balance. The old worlds—yours—kept us in chains. This war? This chaos? It's our freedom."
Luffy's eyes widened. "You betrayed the pact."
The fire emissary laughed. "The Crimson Pact was never about unity. It was about survival. And you've just tipped the scale too far."
From behind her, the other two emissaries stepped forward… but only one looked conflicted.
The spectral emissary held his ground, eyes narrowed. "This isn't what we agreed to. We were meant to stop the destruction, not accelerate it."
The spear-wielding emissary lowered his weapon, voice low. "We've gone too far already."
The fire emissary snarled. "Then burn with them."
She turned and fired a column of flame directly at Luffy.
Saitama appeared between them in an instant, catching the blast in his hand. Steam hissed off his palm, but his face stayed unreadable.
"You know," he said, "I was hoping to save this punch."
He vanished.
In one instant, he was in front of her. In the next—
CRACK.
She went flying across the sky, crashing through three floating islands before disappearing in a pillar of fire and smoke.
Naruto turned back to the Warlord. "We have to finish this now—before they fracture everything!"
But the damage was done. The pact was broken. The magic binding it shattered in midair with a burst of red light. The trust they'd just forged had splintered.
The Shadow Warlord's smile widened.
"Good," he said. "Now… let the real war begin."
A massive pulse of shadow erupted from his chest, warping the battlefield. Time fractured. For a heartbeat, every warrior saw visions of their own destruction—possible futures woven into the present.
Goku was alone on a dead Earth. Naruto saw Konoha reduced to ash. Luffy stood on the deck of a sunken Sunny. Gojo knelt before an empty classroom.
Only Saitama didn't flinch.
And then it was gone.
Everyone stood, shaken but standing.
Zoro raised his swords again. "We're not breaking."
Gojo adjusted his blindfold. "He thinks fear will scatter us. He doesn't understand—we've already lost too much to run now."
Goku floated back up, silver aura reigniting. "We keep going."
Naruto's voice rose through the dust. "This war isn't about survival anymore. It's about redemption. And we're not letting it end in darkness."
The battlefield settled. A moment of silence before the next storm.
But cracks had begun to show.
And now… the war would only get harder.