The Truth-Seeking Orb screamed toward him, slicing the air like a black star.
Raizen didn't think — he reacted.
"Shield of Amaterasu!"
Susanoo's arm twisted, reshaping into a broad black shield wrapped in Amaterasu's hungry flame.
The Orb slammed into it.
BOOM.
The shield lasted less than a heartbeat before cracking apart.
Then Susanoo's entire left arm detonated into red shards.
Raizen hissed.
"Flame Control—move!"
The broken shield liquefied, surging into a massive jet-black dragon made from pure Amaterasu fire.
It roared silently and snapped toward the Ōtsutsuki's face.
For the first time, the alien's expression shifted.
A flicker of surprise.
He swung his staff.
Repulsion exploded outward.
But Raizen was already on him.
"Die already!"
Sixteen tomoe flared inside his Rinnegan.
Susanoo regenerated its arm mid-swing, both hands gripping the Totsuka Sword.
He swung down with everything he had.
At the same moment, the Amaterasu dragon crashed into the Ōtsutsuki, wrapping around him like a serpent of living shadow.
"—gh!"
The alien's scream cut through the blizzard.
Amaterasu flames burned hotter than any natural fire — even godflesh hissed under them.
He absorbed the flames a second later through Hungry Ghost Path, but he'd already lost the tempo.
Raizen brought the sword down.
"CUT!"
BOOOOOOOM—
The Ōtsutsuki was smashed out of the sky, crashing into the snow in a crater large enough to bury a house.
Raizen didn't wait.
Hands came together.
"Dust Release: Primary Particle Cannon!"
A blinding white cube of annihilation shot downward.
The Ōtsutsuki's eyes widened.
He had enough arrogance for ten gods, but even he knew Dust Release could erase him completely.
He slammed his staff to the ground.
"Space–Time Technique: Earth Mirror."
He vanished.
Raizen didn't get a victory moment.
Because something else moved—fast.
Wrong.
Deadly.
A Truth-Seeking Orb appeared from behind, screaming straight for Raizen's actual body perched atop Susanoo's forehead.
A direct kill-shot.
Raizen's heart plunged.
"Kamui—!"
Space warped.
The Orb vanished into another dimension entirely.
This time it didn't return.
The Ōtsutsuki reappeared above the battlefield, eyes widening.
"My… Truth-Seeking Orb? I can't feel it…!"
Raizen gave him a cold grin.
"Yeah. Turns out if I drop your toys in a different dimension, they don't come home."
Truth-Seeking Orbs were made of chakra.
No chakra, no control.
One down.
Raizen swung Susanoo's sword again — a world-shattering strike.
The sky rippled as the crimson blade sliced forward.
The Ōtsutsuki's composure finally cracked.
He soared upward and raised his staff.
"You have angered me.
Now behold… God."
His chakra detonated.
The air screamed —
the ground split —
the snow evaporated.
"Super Shock!"
A wave of pure repulsion exploded from his body.
The world tore open.
Raizen's sword hit that wave the same instant.
KRAK—
The sky turned white.
Space fractured like broken glass.
The earth lifted, disintegrated, then scattered as dust.
Susanoo shattered around Raizen, piece by piece, pain crashing into his nerves.
His lungs seized.
His bones shook.
And death pressed in like a hand closing around his throat.
"Kamui!"
He didn't think.
He didn't breathe.
He just activated the jutsu—
—And vanished.
The world went silent.
When the blinding light faded, a crater dozens of meters deep scarred the Snow Polar Region.
Stone had been reduced to ash.
Snow to vapor.
And both combatants were gone.
Far away, Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara finally broke through the last ridge of the snowfields.
What they saw made them freeze.
A crater like a fallen moon.
Air still humming with killing chakra.
Hashirama's face went pale.
"This… this isn't human."
Madara clenched his fist, Sharingan trembling with hunger and dread.
They ran into the crater—
But found nothing.
No body.
No trace.
Not even a chakra signature.
Amamiya Raizen had vanished into thin air.
...
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