Chapter 87: MOVE!
"Consequences, is it?"
Hiruzen looked at the two figures before him, eyes cold, voice colder.
He took one last drag of his pipe. Let out a curl of pale smoke. Then he reached up, stripped off his Hokage robes in one motion, and stood in black combat gear underneath.
"Then as the Third Hokage, I'll settle every last one of them right here, right now."
Orochimaru ran his tongue along his lips, something unreadable flickering in his eyes as he watched the old man.
"How nostalgic... I haven't seen you like this in a long time."
Hiruzen's gaze settled on both of them, heavy and still.
No matter what — neither of them leaves this rooftop.
But—
He took a quiet look at the Four Violet Flames Formation surrounding them.
If the barrier breaks, Konoha's forces can converge and pin these two. But the combat radius would expand. The dignitaries in the stands are already under genjutsu — helpless. Livestock waiting for the blade.
And the Formation keeps Rasa contained too.
The calculus resolved. Hiruzen stopped hesitating.
He pulled two shuriken from his pouch and launched himself forward — an old body moving with speed that had no business belonging to it.
The shuriken flew.
Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique!
One became two. Two became four. Four became eight. In a heartbeat, a downpour of spinning steel was screaming toward both targets.
"How entertaining."
Orochimaru watched the storm of blades falling toward him, bit his thumb, and ran through seals.
"Summoning Technique — Impure World Reincarnation!"
Two coffins rose from the rooftop floor. They positioned themselves between Orochimaru, Rasa, and the incoming shuriken. The blades buried themselves into the wood with a sound like hail on a tin roof.
"This is—"
"Orochimaru! You dare defile the souls of the dead?!"
Hiruzen's voice cracked with fury. He'd read about this technique — in the scroll of sealing, listed under forbidden jutsu, never meant to be used. Seeing it standing in front of him was something else entirely.
"Come and meet some old friends, Sensei."
Orochimaru's expression didn't shift. He watched Hiruzen with the calm interest of someone observing a curiosity.
Thud.
The coffin lids hit the rooftop. Two figures stepped out — figures Hiruzen knew with the whole of his body, the whole of his memory.
"You've gotten old, monkey."
Black hair falling like a curtain, crimson armor, a broad and powerful frame — the first figure looked at Hiruzen and spoke.
"So it was this technique that called us back."
Silver hair, red eyes, blue armor, a face cut from granite — the second turned and regarded Orochimaru with quiet assessment.
"An impressive young man."
"First Hokage... Second Hokage..."
Hiruzen looked at them. His teachers. Standing before him as if no time had passed. The corners of his eyes grew wet.
He had never imagined — not once — that he would see them again while he still lived.
"It seems we're going to cause you trouble, monkey."
"Seal us."
The Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, looked at his student. He had already read the shape of what was coming.
Teacher against student. A wound that couldn't be clean.
Beside them, Rasa watched Orochimaru sidelong, expression unreadable. No one could have said what was moving behind his eyes.
"Heh heh. That's enough sentiment for one reunion."
Orochimaru smiled his crooked smile, produced two cursed-seal kunai, and moved to drive them into the two Hokages—
"HEAVENLY CANOPY IRON BALL!"
"MOVE!"
A girl's voice, screaming from somewhere above.
Every head on that rooftop turned.
Except for the two reincarnated Hokages — everyone else's face went white.
A deafening shriek of displaced air. A colossal object, spinning at impossible speed, bearing down on them like a meteor.
Sakura—
That little— is she trying to kill me too?!
Even Hiruzen was not too dignified to internally swear. He dropped flat and dissolved into the roof itself, sinking into the structure like water into sand.
Then, faintly, through the roar:
"Shuriken Giantification Technique!"
The already enormous iron sphere expanded.
Its shadow swallowed the sky. The Four Violet Flames Formation disappeared inside it.
And now everyone could see exactly what it was.
An iron ball. Massive. Covered in spikes.
The Sound Four, maintaining the barrier, looked up at the thing and went pale.
At that mass. At that speed—
Even the Four Violet Flames—
No time to think. They poured every drop of chakra they had into the barrier.
Orochimaru took one look and followed Hiruzen straight into the roof, sinking through the structure.
Rasa dissolved into gold dust, punched a hole in the rooftop, and dove through it.
Not just the people inside the barrier — even Ōnoki on the platform below went wide-eyed as the enormous object screamed overhead.
Across from him, Tsunade — who had been sitting with her eyes closed, faking serenity because she could not look at blood — cracked one eye open to investigate the noise.
Every hair on her body stood up.
She and Ōnoki, without exchanging a single word, both dove off the platform in opposite directions.
The Hokage's battlefield was directly above them and neither of them were interested in being collateral damage.
BOOM.
The iron ball hit the Four Violet Flames Formation head-on.
The purple barrier twisted. Buckled. Screamed.
The Sound Four vomited blood in unison, faces going from white to grey.
And it wasn't over.
Two iron balls. Connected by a chain. Inertia didn't care about barriers or battle formations.
The second ball swung around and hit the opposite face of the barrier.
CRACK.
Fissures spiderwebbed across the surface of the Four Violet Flames Formation—
—and then it shattered.
Sakon never had time to react. The ball's remaining momentum carried it straight through him. He was gone between one instant and the next — reduced to something the battlefield would have to be swept rather than buried.
Jirōbō had half a second more. He used it poorly. He joined Sakon immediately after.
Neither of them managed to make a sound.
A column of dust and debris rose into the sky. The iron ball buried itself in the arena wall, and everything went still.
Fragments of shadow pulled themselves together. Two figures reformed — two Hokages, standing in the wreckage, looking at the hole in the wall.
Before they could take in the scene, a flash of pink leaped from somewhere out of the dust—
—landed, grabbed a tuft of white hair, and came bounding toward them dragging the attached person behind her.
(End of Chapter)