The burning sphere of celestial rock unleashed an unimaginable wave of absolute destruction.
The supreme sealing capability of Chibaku Tensei, synthesized perfectly with the terrifying concussive impact of Konan's six hundred billion explosive tags, systematically tore apart everything within the surrounding miles.
Situated at the absolute center of the exploding satellite, Shiraishi faced the final and most potent hidden art of the Akatsuki organization with an exceptionally solemn expression.
The magnetic fields generated by his Magnet Release were continuously shattered by the sheer gravitational crushing force of the Chibaku Tensei, making it practically impossible to structure a cohesive defensive matrix.
Furthermore, the compression of space-time within the core of the technique was entirely too dense, rendering his dimensional rifts unable to lock onto external coordinates, while his gravity manipulation was completely suppressed by the overriding gravitational sovereignty of the Rinnegan.
So this is the strike of a god born from the leader of Akatsuki risking everything?
"Nagato, you..."
At this moment, fresh blood streamed from all five of Nagato's facial orifices, and his entire physical frame was webbed with ruptured capillaries.
Jiraiya desperately moved forward to intervene, only to be violently deflected away by a powerful, localized repelling wave that erupted from Nagato's perimeter.
"Jiraiya-sensei, from this point forward, the battle belongs strictly to the unresolved conflict between the Hidden Rain and the Hidden Sand. Please... leave this place."
Staring at Nagato's horrific state, Jiraiya's mouth filled with a bitter, unyielding despair. He clawed his way forward to assist, only to realize with absolute certainty that he was entirely powerless to alter this trajectory.
Had Shimura Danzo been present on this field, he would have fiercely cursed Jiraiya for his absolute, idealistic stupidity.
Had the Foundation overseen this operation, they would have long since capitalized on the mutual exhaustion of both titans to forcibly harvest Nagato's Rinnegan and secure absolute sovereignty over the Outer Path Statue.
Konan's internal condition was equally catastrophic. Channeling her entire being to continuously ignite and direct the infinite sea of explosive tags had drastically overdrawn her chakra reserves, leaving her exceptionally weak as she drifted back down to land upon the silver sand.
Uchiha Kaede capitalized on the opening, rapidly charging forward to execute a cleanup strike, only to be forced back by a secondary defense network of explosive tags hidden beneath the terrain.
When a woman capable of stockpiling an astronomical volume of explosive tags completely loses her mind, she can comfortably paralyze even the most formidable adversaries for several critical minutes.
The multi-hundred-billion-tier tactical reserve had been entirely condensed into the core of the Chibaku Tensei, but the defensive screens deployed strictly to hold back Uchiha Kaede and the rest of Shiraishi's vanguard still numbered in the tens of billions.
This geometric volume of military munitions far eclipsed the total collective stockpiles of multiple Great Shinobi Villages combined.
Konan had utilized every available diplomatic, financial, and underworld channel across the years to aggregate this absurd volume of tags, preserving them strictly for a singular purpose: to act as the absolute, definitive shield for Nagato.
Gazing up at the constantly detonating satellite in the clouds, the power of the Sharingan Orb within Uchiha Kaede's frame flared to its absolute zenith. Yet, under the ceaseless, overlapping shockwaves of the explosions, even he was forced to shift into a defensive maneuver.
Konan's cognitive focus was locked entirely onto Uchiha Kaede. Armed with the Mangekyo Sharingan and an arsenal of devastating ocular techniques, he stood as the solitary variable on the field capable of actively disrupting the structural matrix of Nagato's sealing sphere.
Wait... something is wrong...
The brat who wields Dust Release is missing!
While Shiraishi's fate remained entirely unverified beneath the relentless, multi-billion-tier bombardment within the Chibaku Tensei, and while Kaede and Konan remained locked in a high-stakes tactical stalemate, Deidara—who commanded the absolute lethality of Dust Release—had completely vanished from the sensory grid.
Suddenly, without a shred of warning, the Sword of Heavenly Path materialized out of thin air, its razor-sharp edge driving straight through the center of Nagato's chest!
A brilliant arc of crimson blood sprayed across the sand. Standing directly behind Nagato's blind spot was Deidara, his face concealed behind a polished silver mask.
Heavenly Curse of the Five Phantoms: Consciousness Projection!
Shiraishi, trapped deep within the shifting core of the Chibaku Tensei, had utilized the unique structural resonance of the silver mask to instantaneously project his primary consciousness directly into Deidara's physical frame.
This was the exact methodology Shiraishi had deployed across the years to orchestrate operations through his diverse split-clones, and it functioned flawlessly now.
The moment the longblade forcefully impaled Nagato's torso, Shiraishi operated through Deidara with merciless, surgical precision.
Capitalizing on the exact window where Nagato was pouring his remaining cognitive focus into sustaining the Chibaku Tensei, Deidara's hand transformed into a razor-sharp claw, brutally gouging a single Rinnegan cleanly out of Nagato's left orbital socket.
"Nagato!"
With a high-velocity Body Flicker, Konan materialized in the sector, her hands launching countless origami papers that transformed into a dense storm of paper shuriken.
Yet, Shiraishi, piloting Deidara's physical frame, simply extended a finger as the destructive properties of Dust Release coalesced into a blinding beam of light, piercing cleanly through Konan's torso.
A gaping, cauterized wound tore through her chest. Fresh blood dripped heavily onto the silver desert beneath her, painting a deeply tragic tableau.
Nagato's face contorted in sheer horror. Dropping heavily to one knee, he gasped violently for air, and high above, the structural integrity of the Planetary Devastation began to waver, its absolute sealing matrix showing visible signs of destabilization.
Shinra Tensei! (Almighty Push)
Wielding only his solitary remaining eye, Nagato furiously channeled his remaining chakra to unleash a desperate Almighty Push, blasting Deidara backward across the field.
Yet, the latter merely smiled beneath his mask as he smoothly embedded the harvested Rinnegan directly into his own eye socket.
"Even if you manage to secure a solitary Rinnegan, you remain entirely incapable of altering the trajectory of God's Paper Mars. The technique has already achieved absolute structural finality."
"Securing the Rinnegan was merely one of our primary objectives from the very beginning."
Piloting Deidara's frame with a solitary Rinnegan spinning to life, Shiraishi rapidly cycled his fingers into the Snake hand seal. Witnessing this precise sequence, Nagato's pale expression turned entirely vacant with shock.
Why does he command the exact hand seal sequence for that specific technique?
"Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique!" (Gedo: Rinne Tensei no Jutsu)
The primary motivation behind engineering this elaborate tactical sequence to secure the Rinnegan was to immediately initialize the Samsara of Heavenly Life.
Simultaneously, the activation of this absolute cosmic art functioned as a localized summoning beacon, forcefully drawing the Impure World Reincarnation form of Kikyo directly to the epicenter of the sector.
The Samsara of Heavenly Life stood as the single highest echelon of resurrection arts known to existence—a forbidden technique of the Six Paths that could strictly be operated by an entity wielding the true ocular sovereignty of the Rinnegan.
By continuously maintaining the Snake seal for several seconds, the divine light of heavenly creation diffused outward to saturate the immediate perimeter of the deceased target, systematically granting them absolute resurrection.
This technique required zero living sacrifices to anchor the soul, unlike the Impure World Reincarnation; upon restoration, the target was returned to life with a true physical body of flesh, bone, blood, and fully realized conscious sovereignty, identical to their prime living state.
Beneath the radiant, cascading glare of the Heavenly Life energy, Kikyo's ash-bound, reanimated vessel steadily dissolved into microscopic particles.
From the absolute core of the battlefield, a pristine, fully restored physical form of the Great Shrine Maiden emerged, her frame wrapped in a holy, purifying radiance that pushed back the dark miasma of the field.
Shiraishi had fulfilled his ancient covenant; he had successfully returned Kikyo to the realm of the living.
The previous deployment of the Photon Geyser had claimed an immense number of lives. Although Kikyo understood with absolute clarity that on a field of total war, one could not afford the luxury of misplaced mercy, a thread of innate sorrow still lingered within her soul.
Consequently, during her final engagement, she had chosen to systematically seal Sasori of the Red Sand rather than subject his spiritual core to total purification.
However, the absolute price demanded to manifest the Samsara of Heavenly Life was the literal life force of the casting medium.
Therefore, the exact microsecond Deidara finalized the casting sequence, the ocular potency of the single Rinnegan was systematically transferred directly into Shiraishi's primary body, while Deidara's physical form began to undergo a distinct process of spatial dissolution.
Since the initial inception of the Heavenly Curse Five Elements Art, this marked the absolute first time Shiraishi had intentionally permitted one of his primary autonomous split-clones to perish in active combat.
He had calculated this specific window to execute the resurrection because the destructive payload of God's Paper Mars had significantly outpaced his initial projections; furthermore, pulling Deidara's localized energy back into his primary core had always been a fundamental pillar of his macro-strategy.
Unlike the biological termination experienced by ordinary mortals, Deidara functioned as a direct split-clone of Shiraishi's primary neural architecture.
His localized consciousness simply snapped back into Shiraishi's main brain. The exact moment his spiritual anchor severed from the physical vessel, the body dissolved into pristine motes of light, fading into the wind.
The returning consciousness instantaneously fused with Shiraishi's main body deep within the core of the God's Paper Mars sphere.
What is this overwhelming sensation of absolute dread and terror...
Standing at a distance, Jiraiya stared with immense difficulty at the burning, exploding satellite hanging in the sky. He was horrified to discover that the chakra signature belonging to Shiraishi within the core was compounding at a mathematically impossible rate, growing exponentially more dominant.
How is this possible!
The termination of his proxy clone actually caused his primary body to become monumentally stronger?
Deep within the inner theater of Shiraishi's mental domain, Deidara's localized awareness settled smoothly alongside Shiraishi's primary consciousness.
"Deidara's biological framework was ultimately too restrictive, limiting your ability to channel your true, uninhibited capacity across the years. Now that your essence has returned to the primary matrix, we can manifest an entirely different tier of absolute power."
In this exact instant, Shiraishi unleashed a secondary Photon Geyser, seamlessly synthesizing its raw particle output with the molecular-deconstruction properties of Deidara's Dust Release.
A sky-spanning grid of absolute, blinding light beams erupted violently from within the center of the exploding satellite, radiating outward with an infinite, devouring intensity that threatened to systematically swallow the horizon entire.
With a cataclysmic, deafening roar, the colossal sphere of Chibaku Tensei was instantaneously blown to absolute splinters!
Nagato stood amidst the ruined foundations of the earth. Gazing at the shattered, bleeding remnants of his homeland, a solitary tear slipped silently from his remaining eye.
The distant memories of the day Jiraiya-sensei had first encountered the three of them, the simple days of survival and training they had shared, and the foundational ideology Yahiko had embraced when structuring the original Akatsuki organization to protect this exact nation—every single memory rushed through Nagato's mind in a poignant, beautiful sequence.
Grief, fury, and an unyielding sorrow filled his chest, weaving a magnificent, tragic elegy for a dying dream.
I am sorry, Yahiko... I could not protect this country after all...
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