The smoke above Konoha finally thinned as ten figures stepped through the ruined southern gate. Ryusei walked first, hands in his pockets, the ground still faintly rippling under each step from the remnants of his sage aura.
Behind him came Orochimaru's silver-haired vessel, Ashina's steady stride, Nagato moving with new balance, Tsunade cracking her neck, Kiyomi's Susanoo fading off her shoulders, Kanae's eyes still sharp from accumulated Byakugan strain, Renjiro brushing blood from his sword, Pakura trailing heat, and Fugaku closing the rear with quiet authority.
Ten survivors. Ten victors.
For the first time since the war began, the entire battlefield seemed to breathe.
Villagers looked up with numb disbelief.
Flames in the distance died on their own, Katsuyu's moisture still saturating the air.
The shockwaves had faded. No more elder summons. No more monstrous silhouettes.
No more collapsing futures.
Ashina murmured something to Tsunade about sealing the remaining battlefield pockets.
Orochimaru gave Nagato a brief look, silently confirming their assignments.
Fugaku scanned the Hokage Monument with narrowed eyes, already calculating the power vacuum waiting to be filled.
Ryusei barely slowed.
He exchanged a few short words with them, issued quick orders, reminded them what mattered for the next hour, then stepped past the village boundary again.
Because victory wasn't complete.
The world's fate was still unresolved.
One more threat remained, and it could be even worse than anything they had fought today.
Madara Uchiha. The real one. Not the Edo version. Not the puppet.
A man with abilities and clarity far beyond what the original series ever showed.
He was only days away from becoming the Ten-Tails jinchuriki if no one stopped him.
And Ryusei understood exactly how that process worked.
Once the remaining tailed beasts were sealed inside the Gedo Mazo, the statue would reach completion.
Then Madara could summon the Ten Tails, merge with it, and ascend.
In the original timeline, the sealing took many days because the Akatsuki members lacked the chakra to speed it up.
But if Madara was doing the extraction himself?
It would be faster. Far faster.
And that didn't even account for any improvements he might have created during these months of heightened clarity.
Ryusei stepped into the clearing outside Konoha's walls, the air shifting around him as his fragment clones spread through the sensory network he left behind.
He didn't look back.
"Time is against me," he thought.
The micro-signals from his fragments reached him immediately.
Konoha was secure. The entire group was already settling into their roles.
Fugaku would stabilize the Uchiha.
Ashina would seal the last corpses.
Tsunade would tend to the wounded.
Orochimaru and Nagato would deal with the remaining hostiles and start the initial 'cleansing' of anything potentially still dangerous.
Ryusei had no luxury to help.
Madara was the final obstacle.
He had only days before the Ten-Tails returned.
And only Ryusei truly understood the scale of danger that implied.
The forest blurred under his feet as he headed straight toward the Hyuga energy vessel.
He felt it clearly ahead of him, a dense knot of refined Hamura-lineage chakra, perfectly preserved and waiting.
Another pulse traveled through his fragment network.
Information from the moon.
The giant Tenseigan was fully under his control now.
Every inhabitant had been erased during his earlier operations, leaving no interference.
The construct accepted him completely, thanks to his access to Akira's memories and the ability to reproduce his bloodline essence.
He could use it from space, just like Akira had.
But not for the Crimson Rite.
It was too large, too complex, too unstable for what he needed in the next hours.
The Hyuga vessel on Earth, however, was ideal.
He kept moving.
A faint ripple passed through his body as Hagoromo's remaining fragments continued dissolving inside him.
At Ryusei's current efficiency, they would be fully integrated by the end of the day.
Each piece added to his spiritual foundation, pushing him upward.
His chakra was already climbing back toward full capacity.
A few hours more, and he would be fully restored.
His vitality made that pace possible.
"Mid Otsutsuki level soon," he thought. "But will that be enough against a Ten-Tails jinchuriki Madara?"
He still wasn't sure.
Stopping Madara before the transformation was obviously the better move.
He planned to do exactly that.
But even if he arrived too late, he needed an immediate edge.
Something he could forge within hours.
He had a handful of options.
The giant Tenseigan on the moon.
Too complex. Too slow. Too large to be used for a Crimson Rite catalyst.
Or the Hyuga energy vessel.
A perfect yin-yang sacrifice.
Even better, Akira's preserved body was still waiting.
A complete physical container, prepared for this scenario.
The Chinoike Yin-Yang rites always worked best with a human catalyst, and Ryusei could now perform them almost instantly.
And if he fused the Hyuga vessel's power into Akira's body, then used that body as the ritual's anchor, the Crimson Rite would jump far beyond its previous version.
It would bypass the issue of targeting pure energy or technology by giving the ritual exactly what it wanted in a more refined human form, with only slight adjustments.
It would give him the surge he needed to confront Madara at his absolute peak.
Ryusei landed beside a lonely stone marker where one of his fragments waited.
The ground around it pulsed with preserved Hyuga chakra.
He exhaled once.
"Then this is the plan," he thought. "Fuse the vessel into Akira. Perform the Rite. Stop Madara before the Ten Tails breathes."
He placed his hand on the stone. His chakra sank into the earth, reaching the vessel, the seal, and the future he intended to carve.
He moved faster.
There was no hesitation.
The last threat to his throne was already preparing.
Ryusei didn't sprint to confront Madara right now.
Even an incomplete Gedo Mazo could still be weaponized, and Madara excelled at turning any advantage into a lethal one.
More importantly, Ryusei would gain far more in the next day or two than Madara would while rushing the Ten Tails extraction.
Time favored him.
Charging in now would be reckless.
...
Night settled over the forests outside Konoha, and Ryusei did not stop.
Hours passed in silence as his chakra surged back to full strength.
The last traces of fatigue vanished, replaced by a steady rise of raw power.
Inside his body, the remnants of Hagoromo's and Ashura's lingering fragments finally dissolved completely, merging into his own essence without resistance.
Each absorbed piece pushed him a little higher, sharpening every layer of his chakra and cementing him even deeper into the realm of true godhood.
He felt it immediately.
A fuller clarity.
A cleaner flow.
Even a denser spiritual core.
"Good," he murmured quietly.
Meanwhile, across the clearing, dozens of his clones worked nonstop.
Massive amounts of fuinjutsu were burned through as they refined, sealed, compressed, and integrated the Hyuga energy vessel into Akira's preserved body.
The process was brutal, intricate, and required constant adjustments, but the clones executed it perfectly.
By dawn, the vessel was gone.
Its power was no longer free or unstable.
It was sealed into Akira, locked into the container exactly as the ritual demanded.
Only one step remained.
Ryusei approached the body, placed his palm on its chest, and exhaled.
The Yin-Yang Chinoike Crimson Rite was triggered instantly.
The markings spread, faint lines crawling up Akira's skin, then sinking into the ground, then rising again to circle around Ryusei.
The ritual wanted a path. He gave it one. The energy coiled and twisted, pulled between catalyst and target.
He let it run.
Another day passed.
The forest stayed quiet except for the low hum of the rite, the endless cycling of yin and yang, and the steady tearing and rebuilding of spiritual layers.
Ryusei remained still through the entire process, eyes half-closed as the ritual anchored itself deeper and deeper into him.
But halfway through that second day, something shifted.
A faint tremor ran through the earth, so subtle a normal shinobi would mistake it for distant thunder. The air pressure dipped. For a moment, the natural energy around the world tightened like a held breath.
Ryusei felt it immediately.
The proto-Ten Tails inside the Gedo Mazo had surged.
Seven beasts sealed. Then eight. Only one remained.
"Madara is moving faster than expected," he thought, the ritual continuing to eat through Akira's body beneath him. "Almost complete."
The disturbance faded almost as fast as it came, leaving only a thin residue of spiritual static across the world.
Animals would feel unease. Summons would twitch.
Sages would know something heavy had just shifted in the global balance.
Ryusei stayed motionless, letting the ritual continue.
He had expected this.
And he had calculated for it.
By the time the second sunset hit the trees, the process was finished.
The energy faded.
The final seal clicked shut.
Akira's body collapsed into drifting ash.
Ryusei opened his eyes, feeling the new surge settle inside him like another sun pressing against his ribs.
"Perfect," he whispered.
And behind that rising power, he could feel it clearly.
Somewhere far from Konoha, the Gedo Mazo pulsed again.
The ninth chakra was already being torn from its host.