The moment the leaf kissed the cracked earth, the plateau became a vortex of competing apocalypses. The air itself seemed to tear as the Third Raikage became a spear of living lightning, his body vanishing from one point and reappearing at Hiruzen's position with a sound like a thunderclap happening in a vacuum.
The ground where he'd launched himself was now a glassy crater. Simultaneously, a shifting, groaning wall of glistening black iron sand, Saitetsu's will given metallic form, erupted to the Raikage's left, cutting off any lateral escape.
High above, Onoki hovered, his gnarled hands already weaving the air into a shimmering, three-dimensional lattice of light—a nascent Dust Release technique, held back, probing, waiting to see how the old Hokage would flinch.
Hiruzen did not flinch. He remained motionless for a heartbeat longer than should have been possible, a statue of calm in the storm. Then, he moved. It was not the blinding speed of the Raikage, but the sublime, economical efficiency of the Shunshin.
He simply ceased to be in one place and was in another, two meters to the right. The Raikage's lightning-clad fist passed through the afterimage, the static charge causing the Hokage's lingering chakra to sizzle. In the same fluid motion, Hiruzen's staff, Enma, extended in his grasp, its adamantine length swinging not at the Raikage, but at the encroaching wall of Iron Sand.
The impact was not of wood on sand, but of two unbreakable forces meeting.
"CLANG!"
A resonant sound that shuddered through the plateau and sent visible waves of force rippling through the soil.
Inside Hiruzen's mind, the chaos was distilled into a cold, flowing stream of data.
'Raiton and Taijutsu reinforcement from the Raikage— a predictable opening gambit. Iron Sand infused with Magnet Release, seeking to control the battlefield's geometry. Onoki's Dust is condensing but not released—he is cautious, measuring my reactions, not committing to the attack.'
His philosophy, honed over a lifetime of war, guided his every synapse.
'A true shinobi does not rush for victory—he waits for the enemy to reveal their rhythm.'
With a subtle exhalation of chakra, two shadow clones poofed into existence. One flickered into the skeletal trees at the plateau's edge, while the other melted into the ground through an Earth Release technique, leaving no trace. His real body, conserving every joule of chakra, maintained a minimal, observant stance, his staff held ready, his eyes tracking the three titans arrayed against him.
Instinctively, the three opposing Kage began to coordinate, a deadly, unspoken dance born of shared experience. Onoki provided the eagle's-eye view, his voice a raspy telepathic thread.
"He's testing us. The clones are distractions."
"Then we'll crush the test," the Raikage growled, his lightning aura flaring as he reoriented, his eyes locking onto the real Hiruzen with predatory focus.
Saitetsu's Iron Sand, meanwhile, began to spread across the battlefield like a glistening, black oil slick, its whispering, grinding progress deliberately limiting the stable ground upon which Hiruzen could manoeuvre.
"Don't underestimate him," the Kazekage warned, his voice cold. "The monkey's fangs haven't dulled yet."
Hiruzen's response was a lesson in precision. His treetop clone unleashed a "Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu," a volley of intelligent fireballs that curved through the air, forcing the Raikage to break his charge and dodge laterally.
At the same moment, his underground clone manipulated the earth, causing a half-dome of solid rock to erupt directly in the path of Saitetsu's advancing sand. The combination was devastatingly effective.
The Raikage was herded, his linear aggression broken. The leading edge of the Iron Sand slammed into the earthen dome and was met with a wash of superheated flame from the fireballs, the intense heat causing the metallic grains to glow red and momentarily lose their magnetic cohesion.
Seizing the distraction, Onoki finally released his Dust Release, a sharp, geometric beam of light that lanced through the flaming smoke—but it only vaporised the treetop clone, which dispelled in a puff of white smoke.
The real Hiruzen, having never moved from his spot, simply spun Enma in a tight, elegant arc to deflect a follow-up lightning punch from the Raikage, the impact sending sparks cascading into the air. His economy of movement was an art form; every motion served a purpose, every expenditure of chakra was measured and essential.
Then, the mist came. It rolled in from the forest perimeter not as a weather phenomenon, but as a tangible extension of a will. Hiroshi, the Third Mizukage, had finally made a move.
The thick, chakra-laden fog blanketed the plateau in seconds, reducing visibility to mere feet and altering the very nature of the conflict. The Iron Sand, once a fluid extension of Saitetsu's will, now moved with a sluggish reluctance, its individual grains clumping together with the heavy moisture.
Onoki cursed, his Dust Release flickering uncertainly; without a clear visual lock, his ultimate technique was dangerously imprecise. The Raikage scowled, the constant, static fizz of his Lightning Armour intensifying as he willed it to burn away the clinging dampness, creating eerie, strobing flashes of blue light within the white gloom.
Without a single shared word, Hiruzen and Hiroshi fell into a complementary rhythm. Hiruzen became the anchor, a reactive, immovable object around which the battle now swirled, his defensive patterns timing-based and impossibly patient.
Hiroshi was the fluid, unpredictable force, his true body hidden within the mist, from which opportunistic strikes would lash out—a whip of pressurised water here, a volley of senbon formed from ice there.
The Raikage, adapting with terrifying instinct, began to move by sound and vibration, his enhanced senses trying to pinpoint Hiruzen's heartbeat through the chaos. Saitetsu responded by forming a wide, defensive dome of magnetic sand around himself and Onoki, blocking Hiroshi's aqueous projectiles with sharp thwacks and sizzles.
Frustrated, Onoki began summoning massive, weighted boulders from the surrounding mountains and dropping them into the mist, the concussive BOOMs of their impact fragmenting the battlefield and temporarily clearing patches of fog.
The combined chakra output of the five Kage was now warping the local environment. Ancient trees splintered and collapsed, their roots torn from the shuddering ground. The soil itself cracked and heaved, rising into uneven, treacherous platforms. The mist condensed into rivulets, then streams of water that snaked across the fractured stone. Wild lightning arcs, bled from the Raikage's aura, earthing themselves randomly, left blackened scars across the plateau. It was a localised natural disaster, a pocket of the world being unmade by the sheer density of power concentrated within it.
Amidst the storm, Hiruzen felt a cold dread.
'If this continues, the entire front will collapse… the collateral damage will be catastrophic.'
The burden of the Hokage weighed upon him even here, in the heart of his own greatest trial.
He made a decision. As the Raikage closed in for another assault, Hiruzen suddenly slammed the butt of Enma into the ground. A network of fuinjutsu jutsu-shiki, flared to life, spreading outwards in a complex pattern that covered the entire plateau.
"HUMMMM"
A sealing barrier snapped into place with a deep resonance. The air vibrated, growing thick and heavy. The effect was immediate and profound: large-scale, high-chakra-cost techniques became difficult, almost sluggish, to form. The barrier compressed the chakra field, forcing a shift in tempo.
Onoki's eyes widened marginally as he felt the constraint. "He's limiting large-scale attacks… smart bastard."
The Raikage, however, merely grinned, cracking his knuckles. This suited him just fine. Close-quarters combat was his domain. From within the mist, Hiroshi's dry voice muttered,
"You really are a control freak, Sarutobi."
The battle intensified, but it remained a lethal dance of probing attacks, not yet an all-out fight to the death. Hiruzen met the Raikage's devastating punch with Enma, not blocking it head-on, but redirecting its immense kinetic force down the length of the staff and into the sealed ground, which fractured under the transferred energy.
Onoki fired a concentrated, needle-thin beam of Dust Release that sliced a canyon into the plateau, but Hiruzen's remaining earth clone rose to intercept it, sacrificing itself to protect the original. Hiroshi launched a lance of pressurised water that collided with a wave of molten Iron Sand Saitetsu sent his way, the meeting resulting in a burst of scalding steam that further obscured the field.
For a moment, it was pure, chaotic symphony—lightning flashes illuminating the mist, geometric light slicing through steam, and the grinding shriek of metal against water. It was the visible manifestation of five natural forces warring for dominance.
Then, a sudden, tense standstill. The battlefield settled, the immediate flurry of attacks ceasing as everyone took a breath, analysing, recalculating. Hiruzen, standing at the centre of the barrier, was slightly winded, a fine sheen of sweat on his brow, but utterly unharmed. His expression was calm, unreadable, a deep well of patience.
The Raikage cracked his neck, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Not bad for an old man."
Hiruzen's response was quiet, steady, and carried an immense, chilling weight. "And you've only seen the surface."