In the span of just a few breaths, the light-blue comet tearing through the sky came crashing down.
It wasn't a meteorite.
It was a person.
Wrapped in a light-blue chakra cloak, Hyuga Naraku descended like a divine spear from the heavens—his body clad in Tenseigan Chakra Mode.
A thunderous shockwave erupted the moment he landed, creating an airstorm that shook the battlefield.
Even the battle-hardened Fourth Raikage stood frozen in place for a moment, unable to react.
Naraku's eyes didn't linger on him. He turned instead to Uchiha Shisui, standing wounded in the chaos.
With a single, fluid motion, Naraku extended his arm—calm and deliberate.
A stream of gentle Tenseigan chakra flowed out, wrapping Shisui in warmth and light.
"Naraku-senpai…?" Shisui blinked in shock.
The pain in his eyes—sharp and searing from overusing his Mangekyō Sharingan—was suddenly gone.
Not only that… his vision, which had started to dim, was clear again.
In fact, he could feel it—Susanoo was ready again.
He could fight.
"Mm." Naraku gave a subtle nod, his gaze still calm but resolute.
From afar, he had sensed the unstable third-stage Susanoo that Shisui had forced into being.
Though it held power enough to suppress both the Fourth Raikage and Eight-Tails, it burned out too fast to last.
"You handle the Cloud Shinobi forces," Naraku said evenly. "Leave them—" his eyes flicked to the Raikage and Killer Bee, "—to me."
Though the Uchiha were outnumbered almost ten-to-one, the battlefield was far from hopeless.
Part of it was due to aerial superiority.
Many of the Uchiha elite had leapt from summoned giant eagles, raining down large-scale Fire Style and Lightning Style ninjutsu.
Those who had landed were masters of genjutsu, taijutsu, and the sword—facing Cloud's elite head-on.
In close combat, many careless Cloud Shinobi fell under the influence of the Sharingan's illusions in mere moments, only to be finished by kunai from above.
In the skies and on the ground, the Uchiha coordinated with ruthless efficiency.
And more importantly—
Uchiha Fugaku had cornered Two-Tails, while Shisui had engaged Eight-Tails.
Two titanic clashes. Two massive tailed beasts suppressed.
Cloud's front lines were being choked under their own disarray.
"Got it!"
Shisui didn't hesitate.
Green chakra bloomed around him as his Susanoo reformed—its second stage materializing in full armor.
He surged forward into the Cloud army—arrows whistling, chakra cannons blazing.
"Damn it! B! Stop him!" the Raikage shouted, frustrated as Shisui cleaved through their forces once more.
But before he could move—
"Your opponent… is me."
Naraku's voice was quiet.
But there was something terrifyingly calm about it as he addressed the enormous beast before him.
"Who the hell are you? Konoha shinobi?" the Raikage growled.
This wasn't part of the plan.
By his estimate, Konoha's reinforcements shouldn't have arrived this quickly. His elite vanguard was supposed to push far into Fire Country unopposed.
Instead, first a Uchiha strike force arrived out of nowhere—and now this man descended like a wrathful god.
"Hmph. Isn't your village the one yelling for Konoha to surrender me, claiming I'm a 'murderer'?"
Naraku's smirk was razor-sharp.
"So you're Hyuga Naraku, then?"
Recognition finally flickered in the Raikage's eyes.
The name matched the reports. A Hyuga branch house ninja who had wiped out their Byakugan abduction team, singlehandedly causing a diplomatic crisis.
According to their spies, Sarutobi Hiruzen had initially agreed to hand him over, but something changed.
There were even whispers that the Hokage had tried to assassinate him and failed.
And now here he stood—calm, terrifying, and unbothered.
"Arrogant brat!"
The Raikage exploded forward, his body cloaked in Lightning Release Chakra Mode, a blinding streak of motion.
He slashed down with a hand coated in raw electricity.
"Tch."
Naraku didn't move.
He vanished.
And then—Boom!
A shockwave burst out as the Raikage was launched backward, smashing through trees like a cannonball.
His landing gouged a path through the earth before he tumbled to a stop.
"How…!?"
His body trembled slightly as he stood.
He hadn't even seen Naraku's strike.
The same speed that once contended with Namikaze Minato—the same man who had once outpaced both Raikage and Killer Bee at the same time—now overwhelmed him again in another.
"B! We're doing this together!"
The Raikage shouted in alarm.
Killer Bee responded, stepping out of the full-tailed form and into his Version 1 cloak, red chakra bubbling violently.
In Bee's eyes, Naraku was still a human-sized target. Easier to handle in this form.
"Let's see if you can keep this up when it's the two of us," the Raikage snarled.
"Even Shisui's Susanoo couldn't hold out. Once we finish you—Eight-Tails will deal with him again."
"Then," he declared, "all of you die here today."
Naraku said nothing.
Instead, he simply lifted his hand toward the Two-Tails still engaging Fugaku in the distance.
A sudden wave of pure force erupted—Almighty Push.
Boom!!!
Like a god casting aside a pebble, the massive Two-Tails was hurled through the forest as though it weighed nothing.
It crashed into the earth, shaking the entire battlefield.
The Raikage's expression turned to horror.
And then—Naraku turned back, voice calm and steady:
"So tell me, Raikage… if there were two Susanoo now, instead of one…
…how long do you think your men would last?"