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Beneath the fading mushroom cloud, the sky looked like a halo an ocean-blue ring of torn clouds encircling a pristine, still center.
From that clear eye, Neji descended.
Below, the Ten-Tails tilted its monstrous head back and roared.
Forests of wooden lances erupted upward, a storm of spears trying to punch through the heavens themselves.
Vmm—
An overwhelming will-pressure rolled across the battlefield pure intent that tested the spirit rather than the body.
The irresolute wavered and collapsed. Those with a path and purpose, anchored, braced like stone against the tide and held.
That was only the aftershock. The real force bent the world itself.
The wooden spears climbed and splintered. The higher they rose, the slower they moved, until fractures webbed their surfaces and the barrage shattered into dust.
Madara watched the figure in the sky, eyes narrowing with interest. A man whose presence alone could quell a battlefield someone worth acknowledging.
"Who is he?" he asked, not looking away.
Obito shook his head. "Unknown. Even Zetsu can't track him."
Madara's interest sharpened. A world without Hashirama or him… and yet it birthed a monster like this. Perhaps this era wouldn't disappoint after all.
BOOM.
The Ten-Tails sank its claws into the earth, the ground buckling meters lower under its weight.
It howled again, a new Tailed Beast Bomb forming in its jaws denser, darker, far beyond the last exchange.
Even Madara's expression flickered. So this is the beast reborn from all nine… impressive.
How will you answer, sky-walker?
High above, Neji felt that the weight of that swelling core had enough power to erase a country.
For a heartbeat, a stray thought skated by Pluton's fabled island-killer but he let it go. The answer wasn't history. It was now.
Lightning crawled across his skin. Air froze into a silent, forbidden ring.
He raised one arm. Chakra howled.
A spear of living storm took shape in his hand, light stacking upon light until the weapon stretched across the sky.
[Lv 60 Skill: Chakra War Spear]
It swelled again, a colossal javelin spanning horizons so huge that Neji's form vanished behind the radiance.
Below, the Ten-Tails hurled its bomb upward.
Two titans one blade, one star raced together so fast they seemed slow.
KRASH—
The shock front hit like the end of the world. Mesa columns imploded without a sound; stone sheared into gravel.
When the killing wind reached the survivors, a dome of crackling light snapped into place over their heads.
Tsunade, Jiraiya, Naruto every veteran's brow creased at once, eyes flicking to the man in tactical blacks hovering above.
Neji scowled at just the right moment, as if surprised himself.
Too close to what some of them knew. But the gap between them was a canyon; suspicion died the instant it sparked.
[Lv 60 Skill: Ultimate Chakra Aegis]
The barrier roared, and the battlefield changed.
Inside the Aegis, anything Neji marked as an enemy was scourged ceaselessly by storm-chakra; anything marked an ally would be shielded and mended.
Today, there were no allies inside—only the Ten-Tails… and Neji.
Madara's Perfect Susanoo skated back, boots carving twin river-long trenches before mounding into hills.
His follow-up blade, meant to sever mountains, hit the Aegis and fizzled to nothing. Madara lowered the sword, gaze cooling. The script had slipped from his hands perhaps it never belonged to him this time.
Within the howling dome, the Chakra War Spear pinned the Ten-Tails through, storm-chains lashing out to cinch every limb and knot of flesh.
Tree or beast lightning was the enemy of anything that lived. The giant convulsed helplessly.
Neji dropped like a hammer, planting his hand into the Ten-Tails' hide.
Madara's brow twitched; he drew and cut again only to watch the strike vanish on the barrier's skin. He clicked his tongue and folded his arms.
Neji spared Madara a single glance and looked away. Breaking the Ultimate Chakra Aegis wasn't something you did "right now."
He sank into focus.
In the dark behind his eyes, starlight gathered points of data, shards of power, fragments answering a long-set call.
At the same time, experience surged like floodwater into a reservoir.
61. 62. 63… 70.
Ten levels in a breath. The yield was beyond any bijū he'd reaped before beyond halves and wholes, beyond "almost enough."
But levels weren't the prize.
The prize was the final shard.
Starlight condensed. A shape began to form.
Neji held his breath and watched it come together.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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