"Hatake-taichō, Maito-taichō—please! We can't penetrate it!" one Anbu captain said, voice tight. "The Hokage is still inside with Orochimaru!"
Kakashi's visible eye darted over the barrier, tracking its fluctuations.
His Sharingan spun, but even it couldn't deduct its mechanics quickly.
"This… won't break easily," he muttered. "We'd need a sealing corps, or a high-output sensory specialist, to even locate the weak points. Someone get—"
He cut himself off when he noticed Guy wasn't listening.
Guy's fists were clenched.
His jaw tight.
His eyes locked on the shimmering wall.
And on Hiruzen behind it.
The old man's battered, cornered expression, half desperation, half pride, hit Guy harder than the invasion itself.
He looked away for a second, chest tight.
Then he spoke.
"…Kakashi. I'm going in."
Kakashi's head snapped toward him. "Guy—wait. Don't tell me you're planning to use that—"
But Guy was already bracing his stance.
Already drawing in breath.
Already forcing open the inner gates, one after another.
First Gate, Second, Third, Fourth—his aura roared to life.
Fifth—heat shimmered around his skin.
Sixth—steam burst from his pores, spiraling upward like a living flame.
The shockwave alone staggered the Anbu.
"GUY—!" Kakashi snapped, arm raised as he shielded his face. "You'll kill yourself if you continue beyond—"
But Guy didn't hear him.
He only saw his Hokage, trapped and fighting alone.
He only saw Orochimaru's silhouette moving calmly, mockingly.
He only felt the weight of failing his village.
Guy lunged.
His fist slammed into the violet barrier, the flame of his punch colliding with purple fire.
The entire rooftop screamed under the impact.
The barrier trembled violently, light distorting—but it held.
Gasps erupted around the stadium.
"He cracked it!"
"No—that wasn't enough!"
Even Anbu stared in disbelief.
Guy staggered back a step, teeth gritted.
Sweat hissed off his skin from pure heat.
"…Not enough," he muttered.
And then Kakashi saw it—the shift in his chakra, the way the air warped.
"Guy—no—STOP—!"
But Guy was already pushing further.
The Seventh Gate burst open.
A tidal wave of blue blasted the rooftop, sending dust skidding across the arena floor, knocking several shinobi off their feet.
Spectators still conscious dove for cover.
Guy pulled his arms back.
The chakra around him condensed into the shape of a massive tiger.
"Hirudora."
The tiger roared.
Guy launched it straight into the barrier.
The sky thundered.
The shockwave rocked the entire stadium.
And under the eyes of every stunned shinobi present—Konoha, Suna, Oto—the Four Violet Flames Formation shattered like glass under a hurricane.
The barrier blew apart.
And the rooftop battle was suddenly exposed to the world.
The instant the barrier shattered, light streaked across the rooftop.
But no victory cry met them.
What rushed out instead was a spray of severed flesh—an almost surgical explosion of cut limbs, shredded cloth, and what remained of the Third Hokage's body collapsing in pieces across the tiles.
Orochimaru had moved the moment he sensed the barrier destabilizing.
A blur of steel and serpentine motion, elegant and merciless.
He had smiled at Hiruzen with a final, almost affectionate cruelty.
"One last lesson, sensei."
And then he carved him apart before anyone could take a single step inside.
By the time the barrier fully broke, the deed was done, thanks to his current speed.
The Sound Four were already behind him, arranged like a twisted honor guard, their grins stretched wide with feral pride as they admired the ruin scattered at their feet.
Silence gripped the arriving forces.
Kakashi froze mid-step, Sharingan widening, breath caught halfway in his throat.
Guy's aura flickered, the Seventh Gate's steam stuttering as disbelief replaced fury.
"…No…" he whispered, voice cracking. "We… we were too late."
Anbu staggered back, several outright retching at the sight.
Others trembled with rage, gripping kunai hard enough for their knuckles to whiten.
Orochimaru simply stretched, rolling his shoulders as if finishing a mild exercise.
Then he looked at Guy.
"Impressive," he said warmly, as though complimenting a promising academy student.
"I didn't expect Konoha to nurture another taijutsu monster… but I should have guessed."
His eyes gleamed.
"After all, I remember your father's final stand. A beautiful effort. Even the Seven Swordsmen had to acknowledge a man who could open the Eighth Gate."
Guy's expression twisted—shock, grief, and fury warring behind his eyes.
"But you," Orochimaru continued lightly, "are still only a more interesting kind of ant. Admirable, but irrelevant."
He turned next to Kakashi.
"Ah. We meet again."
His smile sharpened. "The last time I saw you, you were completely paralyzed while tending to that little curse seal of mine. I'm glad you recovered enough to watch this."
Kakashi said nothing.
He couldn't.
Everything about him—his breath, his posture, even his heartbeat—had stalled.
The legendary, illustrious Third Hokage lay in pieces behind Orochimaru.
Guy might still reach a man like him, as he just saw.
But Kakashi felt like he never could.
He'd learned that a month earlier.
He didn't need this gruesome spectacle to remind him.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, stood before them untouched.
And the invasion had only just begun.
He glanced out over the village.
Giant snakes were still rampaging between buildings.
Shinobi clashed across rooftops in scattered waves, steel flashing, jutsu detonating in bursts of color.
Evacuation teams were already secretly herding civilians into the emergency tunnels beneath the Hokage Monument.
A picture-perfect invasion.
Almost.
"The only thing missing…" Orochimaru murmured.
Kimimaro.
He had fully expected the silver-haired boy, alongside his team of little monsters, to appear the moment the operation began.
To emerge like a ghost at the height of chaos, exactly as he'd promised.
But the battlefield remained empty of that presence.
Orochimaru widened his sensory field, his pupils thinning to slits.
Nothing.
No trace of Kimimaro's chakra anywhere near the village.
Instead, he even sensed Sasuke sprinting through the forest after Gaara, the familiar Uchiha spark cutting through the trees like a blade.
Even the Nine-Tails brat, not too far off.
"Interesting…"
But he did not jump to the conclusion that Kimimaro had abandoned their arrangement.
No, that boy was far too purposeful for that.
Too hungry. If anything, it meant he had found something even more intriguing than this spectacle, some unexpected discovery worth pursuing before joining the main event.
Still, Orochimaru's expression shifted.
The smile thinned.
The eyes sharpened.
He became just a fraction more alert.
Because if Kimimaro had deviated from the plan, then something truly unusual had occurred.
And unusual things were worth taking seriously.
Yet at that moment, something else brushed against his senses.
Something that made the smile vanish entirely.
He felt Jiraiya.
Approaching the village at a speed far beyond what Orochimaru had calculated.
And worse, the chakra signature was already warped and enriched… as if he had entered Toad Sage Mode on the way here.
And not the clumsy, half-baked variant he normally fumbled through.
A clean, refined one.
This was also not in the plan.
Orochimaru's jaw tightened a fraction.
Jiraiya was still not stronger than him, not with his current vessel and enhancements, but he was absolutely a threat.
Especially if he arrived while Orochimaru was still dealing with a village full of enemies.
And especially when paired with the blue-sweating, bowl-cut taijutsu monster still standing in front of him.
That duo might become very troublesome.
If Kimimaro didn't appear soon, this invasion was about to gain complications he had no desire to juggle.