Faced with a strike that resembled a natural disaster or a divine punishment, Saiki's expression remained flat.
The light of the Auspicious Cloud above him exploded.
The rain it produced became a solid, shimmering barrier of energy, anchoring him to reality.
He gripped his blade with both hands, funneling every drop of his Sage Chakra into the steel!
The blade didn't just glow; it became a miniature, blinding white sun.
It radiated an aura where purity and absolute destruction were one and the same!
The air around the blade screamed as the atmosphere buckled.
Facing the sword that could cleave mountains and drain oceans, Saiki performed his most simple and insane move.
He raised his blade and struck upward, directly against the descending god-steel!
A line of white light, condensed to the limit of physics and transcending the concepts of speed and space, rose to meet the blue giant.
There was no sound.
There was no explosion.
Time seemed to freeze at the point of impact.
Under Madara's unblinking, widening stare, the moment the white line touched the blue blade—
Tch...
The sound was tiny, almost a whisper, like a hot wire passing through frozen lard.
Then, to Madara's terminal shock, his Perfect Susanoo's blade—an instrument that rivaled the Tailed Beasts—was severed.
It was cut along an absolutely straight, mirror-smooth line starting from the tip.
And it wasn't just the sword!
The white line ignored the difference in mass and scale.
It traveled through the sword, through the arm, through the torso... carving upward with unstoppable momentum!
The Perfect Susanoo's Crow-Tengu armor, supposed to be the ultimate defense, was a joke in the face of that line!
"IM... POSS... IBLE!!!" Madara's soul let out a silent roar of disbelief.
The white line passed effortlessly through the head of the Susanoo, right through the diamond crystal protecting Madara himself!
A heartbeat later—
BOOM-RUMBLE...!!!
The colossal blue War God was sliced perfectly in half along that smooth white track!
It looked as if a god of a higher dimension had personally dissected a toy!
The two halves tumbled away from each other, collapsing into a rain of blue chakra motes.
It was like a meteor shower of sapphire light, turning the ruined valley into a dreamlike landscape of death.
Saiki slowly lowered his sword. He stood in the center of the ruins, breathing slightly harder.
Using that much Sage Chakra to delete a Perfect Susanoo wasn't a free action.
He looked up at a jagged rock a few yards away, where a dark-faced Madara Uchiha had landed.
Madara's red armor was cracked in several places, and his breathing was ragged.
He stared at Saiki, the rage and shock in his eyes settling into a freezing, unprecedented solemnity.
"To... even cleave the Perfect Susanoo..." Madara's voice was raspy, carrying a tremor he didn't realize was there.
He had spent his life dominating the world, yet he had never encountered a power this alien and overwhelming.
It defied everything he knew about Ninjutsu and Bloodline Limits.
Saiki steadied his breath. "Do you wish to continue, Madara Uchiha?"
Madara slowly stood up. A more dangerous, deeper aura began to seep from his presence.
The ripples in his Rinnegan seemed to expand and contract like a living lung.
"Brat... I admit it. In my long life, you are the most... unexpected opponent I have ever faced."
His defeats didn't make him run; they awakened the "Ghost of the Uchiha's" primal savagery and pride.
He looked at the panting Saiki, his eyes shimmering with a cold, divine light.
"To push me this far... you should be proud. But the game ends now."
"I will show you the true horror of the Rinnegan combined with the power of the Tailed Beasts!"
He slammed his palms together. A deluge of chakra erupted, but this time, it was wreathed in the crimson, oily malice of the Nine-Tails!
"Susanoo!"
The blue Perfect Susanoo manifested again, but this time, the hollow armor was filled with the burning, viscous red chakra of Kurama.
The energy erupted from the giant's eyes and mouth like an inferno.
This was the Majestic Attire: Susanoo, but on a different level.
Filling the construct with Tailed Beast chakra made it look far more berserk and destructive than the pure blue version.
The two mountain-sized tachis were now wrapped in roaring, boiling red energy, radiating an ominous light.
"TAKE THIS! This strike ends the era!" Madara roared from the giant's brow.
The Majestic Susanoo crossed its blades. A terrifying volume of chakra converged at the intersection.
A massive Tailed Beast Bomb, wreathed in black lightning and crimson energy, condensed instantly on the blades!
"Secret Art: Tailed Beast Bomb—Dual Blade Slash!"
The armored giant let out a silent roar, swinging the blades wreathed in apocalyptic energy directly at Saiki!
The strike fused the absolute weight of the Susanoo with the annihilation of the Tailed Beast Bomb.
Space itself began to ripple and tear as it struggled to contain the output.
Facing a strike that intended to erase the entire map from existence, Saiki simply frowned.
A flash of... disappointment? crossed his eyes.
"Flashy and useless," he whispered.
This kind of massive, outward projection of power was great for deleting armies or stationary targets.
But against an opponent of his caliber, with god-tier speed and perception, the trajectory was too obvious and the power too diffused.
He didn't even move.
The Auspicious Cloud above him shimmered, the rain becoming a shell of solid, translucent glass.
Simultaneously, he raised his sword again. He condensed his Sage Chakra into a microscopic point at the tip.
He made a casual flick of the wrist toward the approaching apocalypse.
A single pinprick of white light erupted from his sword.
It was like the first spark of creation. It collided silently with the massive Tailed Beast Bomb blades.
Like a needle popping a balloon, the hyper-condensed energy of the Bomb and the swords met their match.
BOOM—POP!
The mountain of chakra disintegrated into a chaotic, directionless storm.
The resulting wind snapped trees for miles, but Saiki's clothes only fluttered slightly.
"WHAT?!" Madara's pupils contracted again. This was beyond his comprehension.
"If your bag of tricks is empty, then I am finished. The Ghost of the Uchiha is a letdown."
Saiki's voice was full of boredom.
"ARROGANT!" The insult broke Madara's remaining composure.
He stopped caring about his reserves and unleashed everything. His Rinnegan glowed with a blinding purple light.
"THEN TASTE THE POWER OF A GOD!"
"Super Shinra Tensei!"
With Madara as the center, an indescribable repelling force—far beyond anything Pain would ever manifest—erupted.
This wasn't a targeted hit. This was an omni-directional, total annihilation wave.
The earth was peeled away like a dry biscuit, tossed into the air and pulverized.
Everything within a radius of several miles—mountains, forests, rivers—was leveled in a heartbeat.
A perfectly flat, bottomless circular basin was carved into the Land of Grass.
This was truly the power to rewrite the world.
Yet, in the center of the void, Saiki remained standing.
The glass-like rain from his cloud held firm against the repelling force.
He was a reef in a storm, unshakeable.
Only the ground beneath his feet had sunk a few inches with the rest of the terrain.
"More range, but the power is even more diluted," Saiki critiqued, shaking his head.
"IT IS NOT OVER!" Madara was manic.
He pushed his ocular power to the limit, his Rinnegan staring up at the heavens.
"Let's see you block this! Tengai Shinsei!"
The sky suddenly went dark.
Two meteors of impossible scale tore through the clouds.
Trailing tails of fire and screaming through the atmosphere, they looked like the spears of a vengeful god.
They descended one after the other toward Saiki's position.
Each one was larger than the mountains that had stood there minutes ago.
It was a vision of the end of the world.
Far on the horizon, Konoha and Stone ninja alike saw the sky falling.
"Hey... what is that?"
"Meteors?! Two of them?!"
"You've got to be kidding me!"
Ninja collapsed to their knees. Facing the wrath of the heavens, they couldn't even process the idea of resistance.
Rin Nohara clutched her mouth, tears streaming down her face as she prayed for the boy in the center of the impact zone.
Looking at the falling world, Saiki finally sighed.
"Boring games."
He stopped defending.
His entire body erupted in pure white Sage flames!
He became a pillar of white light shooting into the sky, meeting the first meteor head-on!
He swung his blade once. A line of white light passed through the rock like a toothpick through a meatball.
HUMMM—
An invisible pulse expanded from the point of contact, vibrating through the entire mass.
A heartbeat later, under the stunned gaze of thousands, the gargantuan meteor shattered into dust.
The second meteor followed instantly.
Saiki performed an elegant mid-air spin. He repeated the motion.
The second world-ending rock met the same fate.
It exploded into a rain of harmless pebbles while still thousands of feet above the ground.
If those rocks had hit, they would have wiped out the Konoha front lines.
Saiki realized that Madara had been trying to drain his reserves by forcing him to protect the camp.
Madara didn't have pride anymore. After the Valley of the End, he was a man who used any tool to win.
Saiki hovered in the air, his white flames slowly cooling.
He looked down at the face below—a face full of absolute shock, disbelief, and a flicker of confusion.
"Are you finished playing?" Saiki's voice was a calm bell. "Then it's my turn."
Before the last syllable left his lips, he vanished from the sky.
In the next microsecond, he appeared directly in front of Madara Uchiha.
Madara didn't even have time to blink.
He only saw a fist, wreathed in pure white fire, moving with a speed that transcended time and space.
The punch landed on his chest.
There was no loud bang.
There was no shockwave.
Madara's eyes went wide. He felt a power of the highest order—a power of the Supreme Law—invade his body and his soul.
Starting from the point of impact, his body and his red armor began to turn to sand.
He disintegrated into fine dust, his form scattering to the wind like a wind-blown sculpture.
The legendary Ninja of the Underworld, Madara Uchiha, was "erased."
Saiki slowly lowered his hand, hovering in the void. He frowned.
"The Shapeshifting Technique... I knew it wouldn't be that simple."
He felt it clearly. He hadn't destroyed the real Madara, but a high-level surrogate carrying a massive volume of chakra.
Maintaining a clone capable of fighting at that level must have cost the old man dearly.
Meanwhile, in a distant underground cavern.
Before the Gedo Mazo, Nagato—previously full of vitality—suddenly turned as emaciated as a skeleton.
He coughed up a massive spray of blood, his body convulsing in a violent seizure.
His aura plummeted as he fell into a deep, death-like coma.
The first summoning of the Mazo had been fueled by Kurama; this session with Saiki had drained him beyond his limits.
Deep in the cave, the real Madara, tethered to the statue, let out a pained groan.
The tubes in the back of his head pulsed violently. The life force being pumped into him became erratic.
His own condition had deteriorated significantly.
If Saiki were there, he would have scoffed. Still not dead? You're tough as nails.
The primary battery for this session had been the Nine-Tails sealed within the Mazo.
Currently, Kurama's massive chakra reserves had been sucked nearly dry.
The fox lay shriveled and weak within the sealing space, barely conscious. It had been nearly "drained to death" to fuel the fight.
In the center of the giant basin, Saiki descended slowly.
The high-intensity combat, especially the final surge of Sage energy to shatter the meteors and delete the clone, had taken a toll.
His face was pale, and his breathing was shallow.
He didn't hesitate. He bit his thumb and slammed his palms onto the dirt.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
With a POOF, a sizeable slug appeared.
This was the contract Tsunade had forced him to sign the night before he left.
Katsuyu, the Sage of Shikkotsu Forest, sensed the Sage energy rolling off Saiki.
It was purer and more ancient than any she had felt before. She bowed her head.
"Lord Saiki, are you wounded?" her soft voice asked with concern.
"I'm fine. Just overdrawn. Perform a Reverse Summon. Send me to Shikkotsu Forest. I need the natural energy there to recharge."
"Understood!"
A massive cloud of white smoke swallowed Saiki and the slug.
A heartbeat later, the basin was empty.
Saiki was gone.
He left behind a world that had been permanently scarred—a landscape that looked like the ruins of a war between gods.
In the distance, the ninja who had watched the battle remained paralyzed by shock and awe.
The blue giants, the invisible hands that flattened the earth, the falling stars...
Was this truly the power of a human?
The white-clad youth who fought like a god and vanished like a ghost... who was he?
Among the crowd, only Rin Nohara didn't care about the destruction.
She stared blankly at the spot where Saiki had disappeared, her hands clasped to her chest, her heart full of terrified prayers.
The truth of this battle would remain a secret, known only to Tsunade and a handful of others.
The basin became another "Forbidden Zone," a place of legends and mysteries for generations to come.