Chapter 301: Blasting the Moon
On the moon's surface.
The battle between the Armored Susanoo and the Muscle Susanoo had reached a fever pitch.
Madara Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki jointly wielded the Armored Susanoo, a perfect fusion of the Nine-Tails' chakra and the Rinnegan's ocular power. It was the strongest form, a combination of their powers. Even in his prime, Hashirama Senju, with his Wood Golem, couldn't match this Armored Susanoo.
Unfortunately, its opponent was the Muscle Susanoo.
Dan's Susanoo was unlike any other Susanoo in Uchiha history, resembling a fusion between Susanoo and his Stand "The World," truly embodying the power of a god.
That over one-hundred-meter tall Muscle Susanoo seemed like the perfect incarnation of the God of Muscles.
At a certain moment.
"Muda muda muda muda!"
As the Muscle Susanoo charged forward, countless fist shadows rained down like a storm, all landing on the Armored Susanoo, causing its tengu armour to crack and shatter inch by inch.
Step by step, the Armored Susanoo was forced to retreat, barely holding on.
"How is this possible?!"
Both Madara and Naruto were equally shocked.
How strong was Uchiha Dan? Even when combined, they couldn't do anything to him.
Both felt a wave of despair.
It wasn't going to work.
Madara's eyes darkened. He realised that he needed to be completely revived to fully utilise the power of the Rinnegan and defeat Dan. The current situation was merely a slow death, with no hope of victory in sight.
Realising this, Madara started to hatch a sinister plan.
Buzz.
Suddenly, his eyes burst with ocular power aimed at Naruto, attempting to use genjutsu to control him and activate the Rinne Rebirth technique.
"I knew you wouldn't play fair!"
The Nine-Tails had always been wary of Madara. As the strongest of the nine-tailed beasts, it had the ability to see through the malice in people's hearts.
Thus, the moment Madara harboured ill intentions, the Nine-Tails sensed it and immediately alerted Naruto.
Buzz.
Without hesitation, Naruto activated his Rinnegan and engaged in a fierce ocular clash with Madara.
With the two of them now fighting each other, the already unstable Armored Susanoo began to crumble.
At this moment, the Muscle Susanoo delivered another punch.
Boom!
With one punch, the Armored Susanoo was sent flying, splitting into two in mid-air and completely falling apart.
"Ugh!"
Naruto spat out a mouthful of blood, unable to maintain his fully transformed tail beast form. Upon landing, he reverted to his human shape.
Madara, too, was in a similar state.
Despite having infinite chakra as an Edo Tensei, the power of the Muscle Susanoo's punch penetrated the Armored Susanoo and struck Madara's real body.
As a result, his body was nearly torn apart, needing some time to recover.
"In the end, is this all you can muster?"
Dan shook his head, feeling unsatisfied. However, after this battle, he had a clearer understanding of his own strength.
It was time to end this.
Thud thud thud.
As large as a mountain, the giant Muscle Susanoo walked across the moon's surface, approaching Madara and Naruto step by step.
One stomp was all it would take to crush them like ants.
But then, an unexpected event occurred.
Shwack!
With a ground-shaking tremor, a massive yellow beam shot out from the ground, striking the Muscle Susanoo's chest and knocking it back several hundred meters.
Sizzle.
As the Muscle Susanoo regained its footing, a large hole appeared in its chest, emitting billowing white smoke, almost toppling it.
"Another strong opponent?"
Dan repaired the Muscle Susanoo with chakra while scanning for the enemy with his Rinnegan.
In the next second, with a brilliant flash of light.
Buzz buzz.
A giant yellow Tenseigan slowly rose from the ground, floating in mid-air.
Ōtsutsuki Clan's leader stood next to the Tenseigan, his long white hair fluttering in the wind as he channelled his power into the eye.
"You have killed my clansmen and destroyed the Ōtsutsuki castle. You deserve death. Now, let me send you on your way!"
The clan leader's cold gaze swept over Dan, Madara, and Naruto, delivering their death sentence.
What is that eye?
Both Madara and Naruto were shocked and intimidated by the clan leader's aura and immediately chose to retreat, avoiding the conflict.
However, Dan's eyes narrowed, and he let out a soft hum:
"An unexpected bonus."
With those words, he focused his gaze on the Ōtsutsuki clan leader.
In the next instant, Dan disappeared from the Muscle Susanoo's cockpit and reappeared in front of the clan leader.
His Rinnegan locked onto the leader's eyes.
Genjutsu activated.
"!"
The clan leader's body trembled all over, unable to utter a word before Dan used his ocular power to trap him in a genjutsu realm.
He was utterly defeated.
After all, this giant Tenseigan wasn't his own eye, and he couldn't control it properly.
In Dan's eyes, the clan leader forcibly used the Tenseigan like a three-year-old wielding a giant sword—unable to harm his enemy and easily disarmed.
Boom!
Attacked by Dan's genjutsu, the Ōtsutsuki clan leader fell from midair, crashing headfirst onto the moon's surface.
Dan then waved his hand, storing the giant Tenseigan into his exclusive dimensional space. He planned to take it out later when he had time to study it thoroughly.
Seeing Dan easily take care of the clan leader, Madara's pupils shrank, and he immediately considered retreating.
At that moment, he decided to break his previous bet with Dan and escape.
The thought of losing to Dan and having to follow his orders in the future made Madara deeply dissatisfied.
After all.
Madara had planned and schemed for so many years, from the time he deliberately lost to Hashirama Senju to fake his death to finally awakening the Rinnegan before his death. Was all his effort going to be a joke?
This intense dissatisfaction made Madara unwilling to accept defeat.
He knew that Dan's ability was teleportation. No matter how fast he ran, he wouldn't be able to escape.
But there was one place Dan's teleportation might not reach.
And that was underground.
Thinking of this, Madara unhesitatingly dived down, using Earth Release to sink into the ground.
Not far away, Naruto saw this and, after reacting, mimicked Madara, diving headfirst into the ground like a mole.
The moon was so vast that if both of them hid underground, even if Dan pursued, he could only chase one.
This meant that both Madara and Naruto had a 50% chance of escaping.
"That guy Madara, he really broke his word."
Dan muttered to himself, not at all surprised by Madara's escape.
He calmly returned to the cockpit of his muscular Susanoo, then controlled it to slowly ascend hundreds of meters into the air.
Since they both escaped underground, I'll just blow up the entire moon along with them.
That was Dan's simple thought.
In the air, the muscular Susanoo spread its arms wide toward the sun, its massive and burly body bathed in brilliant sunlight, like a god of muscles descending.
The next second, Dan mentally chanted those four words again.
Za Warudo!
Buzz.
As the power of time stops spread at superluminal speed, the entire moon's time froze in an instant, and everything within sight lost its colour.
Then, the muscular Susanoo slowly raised its right fist, aimed at the moon's surface, and slowly punched forward.
This punch harnessed all the strength of the muscular Susanoo and most of Dan's chakra, destined to be earth-shattering.
Although it moved as slowly as a snail, Dan had plenty of time to build up the momentum in the world of stopped time, making this punch unimaginably powerful.
Buzzing.
Even in the world of stopped time, the muscular Susanoo's punch caused the surrounding space to tremble violently, as if it might collapse at any moment.
One second, five seconds, ten seconds.
After a full ten seconds, the punch was finally complete.
Time resumed.
Boom!
An enormous chakra fist descended from the sky, landing solidly on the moon's surface.
From space, it looked like a meteor crashing into the moon, instantly creating an enormous crater and sending shockwaves across the moon's surface.
Then, from the impact point, cracks several kilometres wide and thousands of kilometres long spread out like a web, soon covering the entire moon's surface.
Finally, with a cracking sound.
Like a cracked walnut, the moon in space shattered with a thunderous crash.
Dan had punched the moon to pieces.
Ninja World, Konoha Village.
At 8 PM, the full moon hung high in the sky, the night clear and cloudless, casting its bright light over the earth, draping Konoha Village in a soft, beautiful veil.
However, despite the clear, starry night, the villagers of Konoha had no heart to enjoy the moon. Instead, they were enveloped in a heavy and sorrowful atmosphere.
Today, this Sunday, was supposed to be the final day of the Chunin Exams, and the entire village of Konoha was joyfully anticipating the grand event.
Just as the competition was about to conclude, two giant meteors suddenly appeared in the sky above Konoha.
Although the Sixth Hokage shattered the large meteor, the ensuing rain of smaller meteors still swept through Konoha, causing screams and wails to echo from every corner of the village, with countless villagers injured or killed.
Disaster relief efforts continued from daytime into the night, yet many villagers remained buried under the rubble, unable to be rescued.
Every minute, more people kept dying.
The casualty count from this catastrophe had already exceeded ten thousand and was still climbing.
Even worse.
Someone secretly spread the news that there were two attackers on Konoha, with the one summoning meteors being the reanimated Madara Uchiha, and the one launching Tailed Beast Bombs being the leader of the Akatsuki, Naruto Uzumaki.
The Sixth Hokage, Uchiha Dan, had perished alongside them to prevent them from destroying Konoha.
Despite Konoha's immediate announcement through the television station to debunk the rumours, the Sixth Hokage's prolonged absence led many to harbour doubts.
Could it be that the Sixth Hokage has truly died?
As more people began to think this way, the seemingly calm situation in Konoha started to see turbulent undercurrents.
The one spreading the rumours was none other than Orochimaru.
His intention was to incite chaos, especially at this critical juncture when the Four Kage and the previous Hokage were all in Konoha.
Knowing that Uchiha Dan had died, these people would undoubtedly be unable to restrain themselves and would cause a commotion.
At that time, Orochimaru could take advantage of the chaos to seize Sasuke's body.
The situation developed just as Orochimaru had predicted, teetering on the brink of losing control.
Hokage Tower, meeting room.
Konoha's high-ranking officials, the Four Kage, and the four previous Hokage were seated, each side probing the other with words.
"The Sixth Hokage's chakra has been missing for over eight hours now. I think we... need to prepare for the worst," Onoki said gravely, his expression serious.
As the one who first blocked the Tengai Shinsei, his prestige was now the highest not only among the Four Great Ninja Villages but also respected by Konoha's ninjas and villagers.
Therefore, only Onoki dared to speculate that Dan had fallen.
"The Tsuchikage is right."
Chiyo, the Kazekage, agreed and reminded everyone, "If Madara Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki did attack Konoha together, the enemy might not be dead. We must be prepared for their second attack or proactively strike back."
Hearing this, Kakashi frowned and said coldly:
"Lord Kazekage, Lord Tsuchikage, both of you have fought against the Sixth Hokage on the battlefield and know his strength well. Can you really believe these rumours?
I think we should remain calm and wait for the Sixth Hokage's triumphant return."
Just as he finished speaking.
Hiruzen Sarutobi suddenly stood up, looked around at everyone, and said in a deep voice:
"Regardless, at this time, we should stay united. I propose that we immediately establish a joint command center to deal with the threats from the Akatsuki and Madara Uchiha."
Well done, Monkey.
Tobirama's eyes flashed, and he appreciated Hiruzen Sarutobi's speech.
He and Hiruzen Sarutobi sincerely hoped that Madara Uchiha would be dead so Konoha would be without a leader and that they could restore order and regain control of the village.
Moreover, in today's meteor incident, they had saved Konoha villagers, "redeeming" themselves and no longer appearing as fugitives in the eyes of many villagers.
Establishing a joint command centre was a good way to seize power.
Only Hashirama still earnestly said:
"Yes, Uchiha Dan punched through the meteor. His strength is greater than mine at my peak.
I also think he couldn't have died so easily. He must be trapped somewhere by Madara and Naruto. We should find a way to support him."
Upon hearing this, Tobirama immediately shook his head and said coldly:
"Brother, given the current situation, it's absolutely not advisable to act rashly. As Monkey suggested, let's establish a joint command center first and then plan our next actions."
"Uh, oh." Hashirama nodded in half-understanding.
Upon hearing about establishing a joint command centre, the Four Kage also voiced their opinions one after another.
The meeting room became as lively as a marketplace, with intense arguments about the leadership of the command center.
Uchiha Fugaku watched all this with cold eyes.
After a long while.
"Have you all had enough, everyone?"
Fugaku suddenly spoke, his Sharingan eyes filled with sarcasm.
(End of the chapter)