The White Snake Sage was hiding in an underground cave about a hundred kilometers away from the core battlefield.
The cave had been dug out by it personally.
Yes, dug.
Not by manipulating the earth. To make up the final ten points, the White Snake Sage could be said to have poured all of its effort and essence into its own heart and handed it over to Uchiha Madara.
In its current state, it was as weak as an ordinary venomous snake.
Fortunately, Uchiha Itachi was still guarding it, using his body after death to add another brick to his own path of atonement.
Every time it saw the heaviness in Itachi's eyes, the White Snake Sage felt, 'Serves him right.'
"You're not afraid of fools being stupid; you're afraid of fools having too many ideas."
The White Snake Sage's thinking was very simple.
Every step it took was for the sake of fulfilling its final obsession before death, "Kill Ryosuke."
As the White Snake Sage was about to take control of the Edo Tensei puppets, it thought about Itachi's life experience and still asked, "I'm about to go kill people. You don't have any objections, right?"
"If you do, say it now. We still have other tactics. Don't let me get halfway through killing and then you suddenly pull something on me."
"I'm old. I can't handle that kind of scare."
Uchiha Itachi gently shook his head.
Everything was a necessary sacrifice on the road to peace.
Seeing him shake his head, the White Snake Sage felt reassured and began controlling the Edo Tensei elites.
Kyoto.
"Summoning Technique."
Hundreds of coffins were summoned directly into Kyoto City.
But before the coffins could even be opened, waves of artillery fire rained down from above.
The coffins were blasted into powder. The Edo Tensei ninja were killed on the spot, and only dozens of seconds later did they begin reforming their bodies in various places, slipping into Kyoto's streets and alleys to evade the bombardment.
"Targets have entered the urban area. Repeat, targets have entered the urban area."
"Received."
Amber hoisted a massive greatsword and stood at the hatch of a sky warship. Violent winds howled around him, but his single eye was locked tightly onto the tangled streets below.
He put on his helmet. His deep, powerful voice was transmitted to every comrade.
"Extermination Army..."
"Deploy!"
A thousand members of the Extermination Army, clad in jet-black armor, nearly three meters tall, and wielding gigantic weapons, dropped straight down from the sky.
After the previous decisive battle in Kyoto against the Akatsuki and the daimyo coalition, all kinds of shelters had been built throughout the city. The residents had long since fled into the shelters.
The urban area was empty, leaving only the Edo Tensei ninja and the Extermination Army slaughtering each other within it.
At any moment, the sound of old, historic buildings collapsing could be heard. Flames and dust spread everywhere.
BOOM!
Another clash. The ground collapsed in one spot, revealing hundreds of people hiding in an underground shelter.
Mothers shielded their children, husbands held their wives, all looking in fear at Kakuzu standing outside the opening. The corner of his mouth curled into a smile.
"So many people. Killing them should be enough to make Ryosuke sad, right… hmm?"
Kakuzu narrowed his eyes.
On the shoulders of these civilians, there was a small slug perched on each of them?
With his experience, he recognized it at a glance, it was a slug from Shikkotsu Forest.
But… why put them on civilians?
In the brief moment of distraction, streaks of icy arrows flew in, blasting Kakuzu away and pinning him to the ground. He looked toward the direction of the attack and saw Mayuri gliding across the ice like she was skiing, moving at high speed.
She didn't spare Kakuzu a second glance.
Her job was patrol, preventing Edo Tensei ninja from attacking civilians. As for Kakuzu…
Someone else would handle him.
A flash of blade light passed by. Kakuzu's head, frozen solid and unable to move, was sent flying high into the air. A few steps away, Miyamoto Musashi slowly sheathed his sword.
"Wooo!"
Musashi didn't give Kakuzu time to recover. He blew the whistle hanging around his neck.
A gust of wind swept down as Konan, in her Paper Dance form, descended from the sky. Sheets of sealing talisman paper fell, wrapping tightly around Kakuzu.
Others might have been fine, but when Kakuzu saw it was Konan, his eyes turned red.
"Konan, f*ck you! Pay me back..."
The sealing was completed.
Yakushi Kabuto and the White Snake Sage's grave-digging activities couldn't escape Hermit Purple's detection. Although no one expected them to gather so many corpses or control them simultaneously, Ryosuke had long been prepared with corresponding sealing methods.
It was indeed a shame that Kyoto's ancient buildings were being destroyed, but buildings could always be rebuilt as long as people were still alive.
With fire support from the sky warships above, an Extermination Army five times larger, and technological suppression, the sealing operations proceeded in an orderly manner.
In the rear, the White Snake Sage frowned slightly.
"We can't waste time in Kyoto."
One could see waves of summoning smoke rise as the Edo Tensei army inside Kyoto vanished one after another.
A few minutes later, they were summoned again, this time by pieces that had been deployed in advance within Konoha.
The process was the same, but the difference was that Konoha's civilians hadn't had time to fully evacuate.
Just as the White Snake Sage was preparing to launch a massacre, it saw them again, the small slugs clinging to civilians' shoulders.
"Has the Slug Sage gone crazy?"
"Does it think it can protect everyone in the ninja world all by itself?"
"And besides, can its healing speed really be faster than my killing speed?"
Reality proved that the White Snake Sage wasn't wrong, destruction was always faster than repair.
The problem was that Konoha's ninja weren't useless either. And less than a minute after the Edo Tensei army charged into the village, members of the Extermination Army appeared once again.
The White Snake Sage stared at the scene in shock, then suddenly realized,
"Nationwide ninja world teleportation gates!"
The reason Obito had acted early in a half-finished state was precisely because of these gates, which were originally scheduled to go into global operation today.
With these things in place, it meant the Edo Tensei army simply couldn't carry out a surprise attack.
No matter which city they attacked, endless reinforcements would pour out from the teleportation gates.
"Sorry… for causing you trouble," Nagato said quietly.
On the opposite side, Konan, Amber, and the others were surrounding and attacking Nagato.
Hearing this, Konan gently shook her head.
"It's okay. We'll become the people's shield. We won't let you keep committing mistakes even after death."
The people.
Ever since returning from Ryosuke's side, Konan had been constantly repeating this word. In the past, Nagato hadn't shown it, but deep down he had felt somewhat annoyed by it.
But at this moment, he saw a sense of belonging in Konan.
"Konan, you've finally found a home that belongs to you."
"That's really good."
———
[A Sky Earship Cruising in Low Earth Orbit]
Number Eighteen suddenly opened her eyes.
"Number One has returned to the ninja world."
Jiraiya, sitting cross-legged, opened his eyes. "Where?"
His job was to monitor White Snake Sage No. 1's every move through resonance between similar beings, with Eighteen's assistance, and at the same time protect the Hidan and Orochimaru data discs from being taken by the enemy.
"The core battlefield."
Eighteen bit down on a cigar and glanced back at Jiraiya.
"I'm going to go kill it. Are you coming?"
Jiraiya thought for a moment. The Hidan and Orochimaru data discs… honestly speaking, given the current state of the battlefield, they didn't matter much anymore.
With that thought, he nodded heavily.
"Let's go."