However, before the battle could finally erupt, a faint pulse of space-time chakra shimmered from Danzo's pouch.
A Flying Raijin–marked kunai glowed faintly, then, with a flash of light, several figures emerged from the seal.
Enma, Hisamichi, and Shinsuke, in that formation, circling around Hiruzen Sarutobi.
They had already finished dealing with the Daimyō's situation, securing him in a safe location and teleporting reinforcements to guard the palace.
Now free from those duties, they had joined Danzo exactly as planned.
They gave Danzo brief nods, wordlessly falling into position.
They already knew about each other's side of the mission.
Danzo's eyes glinted with satisfaction. "You're late," he said quietly.
"We handled the palace," Hiruzen replied evenly, his staff materializing in his hand from the monkey beside him.
He glanced across the field and immediately saw who stood there.
Danzo spoke first, his tone clipped and efficient. "They've brought help. The red-haired one—Ashina Uzumaki. The original. Revived somehow."
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed in disbelief, his grip on his staff tightening slightly. "Impossible."
"Believe it," Danzo replied. "That boy's behind it. His doing, his planning, his fault."
However, his expression further hardened the moment his eyes met Tsunade's inadvertently.
Tsunade's chakra flared violently, her fury reigniting tenfold.
"You!" she roared, pointing straight at him. "So it's true—you knew! You knew about Nawaki!"
Hiruzen's face twisted into a mask of moral superiority, his tone as heavy and self-righteous as ever. "I don't understand what you are talking about. But, you've lost your way already, Tsunade," he said sternly.
"You stand with traitors who desecrate the village, who perform unsanctioned experiments on their comrades, and who conspire with outsiders against the Leaf. You bring shame to your grandfather's name."
Ryusei let out a quiet laugh under his breath, amused. "So that's the smear you're going with?" he said, his tone dry and mocking. "Experiments, traitors, outsiders… You really are running out of creativity."
Hiruzen's eyes flicked toward him, sharp and cold. "You," he said, voice dripping with disdain. "You're the one corrupting her judgment."
Ryusei smiled faintly, unfazed. "No," he replied calmly. "I just opened her eyes. You're the one who spent a lifetime making sure she kept them closed."
The tension between the two sides thickened instantly, chakra saturating the air.
Danzo gave a slight nod to Hiruzen, who returned it.
They were aligned now, whatever differences they had buried beneath necessity.
Tsunade's fists tightened again, her breath trembling, but Ryusei's calming chakra pulsed once more, keeping her from moving first.
The silence that followed was the last one before the storm.
However, just then, Ryusei remembered something, and he leaned slightly and whispered something to the small Katsuyu perched on his shoulder.
The slug's antennae twitched once before its body dissolved into chakra mist.
A heartbeat later, Ryusei resummoned it again, and this time, the slug's body expanded, glowing faintly with stored energy.
The air pulsed, space rippled, and from the summoning circle that appeared beside them, Pakura stepped out.
Her eyes opened immediately, sharp and alert, her movements fluid despite the residual chakra distortion.
She looked revitalized, her body glowing faintly from the recent recharge in Shikkotsu Forest.
Kazuo, however, hadn't made the trip; Ryusei already knew his condition had been too unstable.
The man's chakra reserves were nearly gone, and, hence, his body was damaged, and he needed slow healing, not fast battles.
Ryusei hadn't risked pulling him in.
Pakura's fiery gaze swept across the field, instantly locking onto the opposing side, Danzo, Hiruzen, and their Edo Tensei army.
Her expression hardened, but her composure never wavered.
Ryusei met her eyes, slightly lowering his head.
"I didn't expect you'd actually come," he said quietly. "This wasn't part of our agreement. I wouldn't have summoned you into this unless you agreed to it yourself."
Pakura gave a small, dry smile, her voice calm but edged with meaning."If something happened to you, who would fulfill that promise in your place?"
For a second, Ryusei blinked, then smiled faintly. "I see. So it's about accountability now."
"Call it self-interest," she said lightly, her gaze flicking toward Tsunade and then the others around him. "You still owe me, remember? You can repay it later—after this is over."
Ryusei nodded once. "Deal."
She adjusted her gloves, a faint shimmer of scorching chakra already forming along her hands. "Good. Then let's get this over with."
A faint grin tugged at Ryusei's mouth.
Around them, the air grew denser as everyone prepared for what was inevitable.
Danzo and Hiruzen exchanged one last nod.
Tsunade's fists glowed faintly with chakra light, her anger burning like fire beneath her calm.
Ashina stood tall beside her, the ground trembling faintly under his chakra.
Kiyomi and Kanae's eyes activated simultaneously, Sharingan and Byakugan cutting through the scene.
Ryusei's voice stopped, and he started telling them telepathically what to do from this moment forward and coordinating them.
He also warned them firmly not to give the enemy any chance to mark them.
"They're using Flying Raijin seals," he said. "Don't let them get close enough to place one on you. I saw it firsthand—Hiruzen and his team just arrived through that formation. They can use it now."
Still, Ryusei reasoned silently that only a true master of the technique, like Minato, could apply those seals instantly and permanently by touch.
Even so, he wasn't willing to risk finding out who among them could what, how, and to what extent.
The battle finally erupted.
Ryusei and Tsunade exchanged a brief glance, just enough for both to understand.
In perfect sync, they slammed their palms to the ground and unleashed their joint summoning jutsu.
A massive, largest possible in one go, Katsuyu materialized out of both of their chakra, its colossal body shaking the battlefield.
It then immediately fragmented partially on command, scattering smaller slug fragments across the area.
Each was already filled with their chakra, acting as living batteries for the team and potential anchors for Ryusei's teleportation network.
The main body of the giant slug began releasing waves of corrosive acid, keeping the battlefield under its control while the smaller fragments slithered through the terrain unnoticed.
On the opposing side, Danzo immediately responded, summoning his Baku.
The monstrous creature roared to life, its wind suction tearing through the ground as it lunged at Katsuyu.
The two beasts clashed violently temporarily, shockwaves of chakra rippling through the area.
Almost instantly, Sakumo Hatake and Danzo disappeared from sight.
In the skies above, Ashina and Mito's golden chakra chains erupted, coiling and striking like serpents.
The air itself vibrated under their force as they collided, each chain pulsing with centuries of sealing mastery.
Ashina's power, however, was clearly superior, his chains slowly overpowering Mito's despite her control.
Then, the air split apart with a thunderous hum.
Izuna Uchiha's Edo body released a surge of chakra so dense it made the air vibrate.
His Susanoo erupted into its highest, Armored Stage, towering and majestic, now fully formed and glowing with a deep magenta hue.
In its hands appeared the same two legendary weapons Ryusei had identified earlier, the spectral Totsuka Blade and Yata Mirror.
The sword moved first at this time.
A single slash carved through the air toward them, reality bending around its edge.
Ryusei shouted immediately, his tone sharp. "That sword—avoid it at all costs! It seals anything it pierces—living or chakra alike. One touch, and you're done!"
No one questioned him. The team scattered instantly.
Even Katsuyu's massive body split apart again, her segments scattering to evade the blow.
The cut ripped through the ground, erasing matter as it passed.
The remaining bulk of Katsuyu turned to face the Baku, spewing a massive stream of acid that corroded the ground and forced the beast backward.
The two titans crashed again, acid against vacuum, shaking the battlefield.
Meanwhile, Hiruzen, now still wearing his full battle armor, leapt into the air using the extended staff in his hand as the leverage.
Enma extended, his length snapping out like lightning as Hiruzen weaved seals midair.
Fire, wind, and earth combined in layered bursts, raining down destruction from above.
Ryusei's body shifted into motion at once as he was eyeing Hiruzen then.
He opened all Five Gates, the Yin Seal, and the advanced automatic Creation Rebirth already, at the same time, his chakra flaring like a furnace as he circulated the boiling essence of the Five Tails through his body.
His muscles bulged and steamed, the earth cracking under his feet.
Gravity distorted slightly as his weight manipulation technique engaged, his steps now light but deliberate.
He was about to leap toward Hiruzen quickly when his senses screamed—a sudden killing intent from behind.
Without hesitation, Ryusei spun, his arm snapping back in a counterpunch just as something blurred from the ground.
His fist connected—barely.
The impact sent a shockwave through the air, striking the attacker square in the chest through that snappy boiling pressure.
For a moment, Ryusei thought he'd landed a solid hit, but then, instead of blood, there was only the tearing sound of weird paper.
Sakumo's Edo body split slightly from the force before instantly knitting itself back together, the damage evaporating into swirling tags.
By the time he moved again, Sakumo had already slipped back underground, vanishing completely, leaving only faint traces of lightning and wind-charged sword light in his wake.
Ryusei's eyes tracked movement, but only caught faint streaks of light, then, remote sword flashes, infused with lightning and wind release, slicing through the dust.
He raised both arms in time, the new weight-reinforced chakra coating for his Flowing Willow hardening technique deflecting the hits, though the sheer force fractured his forearms a bit, before they quickly perfectly healed again.
As the dust settled, Ryusei's gaze sharpened.
"Sakumo Hatake…"
Even he could barely sense him.
The man's speed and stealth were unreal.
Compared to Renjiro, it was still like comparing a candle to the sun.
Sakumo's presence flickered in and out like a phantom, his aura suppression flawless and even better than Ryusei's, his strikes surgically precise.
He also further used Earth Release to phase seamlessly in and out of the ground, Wind Release to amplify his speed and precision when on the surface, and Lightning to enhance his already surreal reflexes and blade control.
His movements were smooth, impossible to predict.
Ryusei noticed the chakra rhythm in Sakumo's body.
"He's even using the first three Gates…" he thought grimly.
During life, Sakumo's strength had been compared to the Sannin at their peak, and now, even if his physical body was slightly weakened slightly by Edo Tensei, his infinite chakra made him even deadlier.
He could launch more sword flashes without restraint, attack from any angle, and recover instantly from damage.
Meanwhile, Ryusei also knew that Danzo had vanished deliberately, likely cloaked by the Dustless Bewildering Cover.
He was out there, somewhere, most likely waiting for the right moment to strike him first directly, typical of him.
So, Ryusei kept a fragment of his chakra sense sweeping constantly around him, refusing to let his guard drop for a millisecond.
On the other side of the field, Ashina unleashed a storm of sealing chains, splitting them mid-air, half entangling Hiruzen's previous elemental barrage, the other half still countering Mito's attacks directly.
The battlefield shook under the clash of ancient Uzumaki power.
Tsunade, seeing Izuna's Susanoo advancing, darted in from the flank at some point.
Her fists glowed the greenish chakra of her newly mastered Inner Gates technique, for the first time, each strike detonating the air as she hammered against the ethereal armor.
She moved faster than most could follow, each impact cracking the Susanoo's plating, but the fissures always reformed seconds later, because she could never perfectly follow through to the inside due to the fear of that blade launching toward her from the other direction of the large chakra avatar.
Her expression then darkened as she dodged another burst of that blinding light spirit weapon, Ryusei's earlier warning replaying in her head.
One mistake meant instant erasure.
Still, she pressed forward, dangerously close to it, trusting her speed for now, and buying space for Renjiro, Kanae, and Kiyomi, who stood behind her.
They had no chance against something like this head-on.
Tsunade knew it, so she'd rather take the risk herself than let them fall to that cursed blade.