The singing forest stood as an impossible testament in the heart of the ruin. The silence that followed Rias's offer was fragile, strained by the harmonic hum of Sonic-Wood and the soft cries of the wounded being soothed by glowing pollen. The Deva Path hovered, a statue of conflicted wrath.
It was the Asura Path that broke the stalemate.
Perhaps it was programmed for aggression when negotiations failed. Perhaps some fragment of Nagato's rage bypassed the Deva Path's frozen calculus and flowed into the mechanical monster. With a shriek of hydraulics and igniting chakra, it burst forward from the segmented space prison Indra had created. The Spatial Law barrier didn't break; Indra simply allowed a single aperture to open, as if testing a hypothesis.
The Asura Path crossed the hundred meters in a blur, its multiple weaponized arms transforming—a spinning buzzsaw, a plasma-cutter torch, a pile-driver fist—all aimed at Rias's exposed back as she faced the Deva Path.
A collective gasp rippled from the Konoha shinobi watching from the surviving edges.
Shikamaru Nara: (From a command post half-buried in rubble) Behind her!
But Rias didn't turn. She didn't form a hand seal. She didn't even tense.
The buzzsaw arm hit first, aiming to cleave her shoulder. It connected.
And sprouted flowers.
Where the whirling, chakra-enhanced metal met her skin, the air itself seemed to grow. Vibrant, living wood erupted not from Rias, but from the point of impact. It was instantaneous. Thick, coiling branches of deep amber hardwood, threaded with veins of glowing green, wrapped around the spinning saw teeth. They didn't shatter; they absorbed the momentum, the screech of metal dying into the sound of groaning, growing timber. The wood raced up the arm, engulfing it, then surged over the Asura Path's torso with the speed of a striking serpent.
Within two seconds, the mechanical Path was encased in a beautiful, intricate cocoon of living wood, its limbs pinned, its weapons neutralized. A single, peaceful-looking white blossom opened lazily on the cage directly over where its face would be.
The entire sequence was silent save for the final creak of settling wood.
Then, the shockwave of realization hit.
From the ruins, a voice, young and strained, yelled out: "WOOD RELEASE?!"
It was like dropping a stone in a still pond. The murmur spread, becoming a roar of disbelief.
Ino Yamanaka: (Staring, her mind reeling from trying to process the sensory data) That's… that's impossible! Only the First Hokage…
Chōji Akimichi: (Helping lift a beam, his jaw slack) Like… like Lord Hashirama?
Kakashi Hatake: (His single visible eye wide, the Sharingan spinning uselessly, unable to parse the non-chakra-based growth) No hand signs. No visible chakra mold transformation. It manifested from the kinetic energy of the attack itself. This defies every principle of ninjutsu…
On the broken wall, Tsunade Senju's mind was a typhoon. The sight of that warm, vibrant wood sent a shock through her lineage, through her very bones. Memories of scrolls, of faded portraits, of stories from a granduncle she'd never met, flooded her.
Tsunade: (The whisper was torn from her, drowned in the growing clamor) Wood Release… But… she has no Senju blood. No Hashirama cells. Danzo's files… Orochimaru's research… you can't… you can't just have it…
Jiraiya: (His Sage Mode senses were screaming, telling him the truth his mind refused to accept) It's not the same, Tsunade. Look closer. Hashirama's wood was powerful, monumental, like a force of nature. This… this is different. It's alive in a way wood shouldn't be. It's singing. It's… it's happy to be there. It's not a technique. It's a conversation.
He was right. The wood that encased the Asura Path wasn't the grey, crushing timber of the First Hokage's deep forest emergence. It was vibrant, almost artistic, pulsing with a gentle, golden light and that faint, healing harmonic. It wasn't stolen DNA,强行 (forcibly) activated. It was a manifestation of something purer—a philosophical legacy willingly awakened.
The Deva Path's Rinnegan stared at the wooden cocoon. The other Paths, still held at bay by Indra's spatial segmentation, grew agitated.
PAIN: (The voice was flat, but a current of something new—confusion?—ran beneath) An aberration. A stolen power.
Rias: (Finally turned from the Deva Path to glance at the trapped Asura Path. She touched a sprouting leaf on the cocoon near her, and it chimed softly.) Stolen? No. It was given. It was earned. It's the legacy of Ashura Ōtsutsuki—not his cells, but his will. The will to protect, to nurture, to create bonds and systems that give life. You carry his brother's eyes, Nagato, and all you see is how to break. I carry his heart, and I see how to build.
The revelation hung in the air, incomprehensible to most, but a devastating key for those like Jiraiya who knew the myths.
The Animal Path snarled, its chakra flaring. The multi-headed dog, still trapped against a spatial pane, began to multiply violently, its bodies slamming against the invisible wall. The Preta Path started greedily sucking at the chakra in the air, trying to drain Indra's维持 (sustaining) technique. The Human and Naraka Paths began to move in sync, looking for a weak point.
The Deva Path raised both hands. "Enough analysis. If you will not yield, you will be erased alongside this village. All Paths: eliminate them."
The segmented spatial arena set by Indra shimmered. He sighed, a small, almost disappointed sound.
Indra: "A refusal to learn is the truest form of weakness. Very well. Rias?"
Rias: (A fierce, competitive smile touched her lips, her eyes never leaving the Deva Path.) "Let's show them the palette."
What followed was not a battle. It was a demonstration.
As the Animal Path's summons finally shattered through the spatial pane with overwhelming numbers, a tide of snarling canines surged forward. Rias didn't retreat. She took a single, deep breath, and exhaled a word.
Rias: "Silence."
Sonic Release: Domain of the Still Tongue.
The air in front of her solidified into visible, concentric rings of compressed sound. The charging dogs hit the first ring and disintegrated. Not into gore, but into motes of silent, gray dust. The sound waves weren't loud; they were so perfectly focused they vibrated matter apart at the molecular level. The second and third rings expanded, passing through the remaining summons and reducing them to nothingness before washing over the Animal Path itself. The Path convulsed, its chakra pathways visibly shimmering out of sync, and it collapsed, twitching, unable to form a single chakra construct.
The Preta Path saw its chance and lunged, its mouth gaping, ready to devour the chakra of the sonic technique.
Indra flickered. Not with the Body Flicker technique, but by deleting the space between himself and the Preta Path. One moment he was near Rias, the next he was standing directly in front of the charging Path. He didn't strike. He simply pointed a finger at its forehead.
Indra: "Gravity Lens: Micro-Black Hole."
A pinprick of darkness, smaller than a pea, appeared at his fingertip. The Preta Path's absorption field hit it and was instantly, violently sucked in. The Path shuddered, its body distorting, stretching towards the tiny point. It tried to pull away, but the gravitational pull was immense. With a wet, silent implosion, the Preta Path was compressed into that singular point of darkness, which then winked out of existence. Indra had not used a fireball or a lightning bolt. He had used a fundamental law of physics as a weapon.
Konoha's shinobi stared, their understanding of combat crumbling.
Kiba Inuzuka: "What… what did he do?!"
Shino Aburame: "He manipulated spatial density to create a localized gravitational anomaly exceeding planetary core pressures. He did not use chakra to attack. He used chakra to rewrite a local law of reality."
The Human and Naraka Paths moved together, one aiming for a soul-stealing touch, the other to summon the King of Hell for restoration.
Rias met them. She clapped her hands together, then pulled them apart. Between her palms, swirling vortexes of crimson and obsidian energy formed.
Rias: "You seek to take life and restore pain. I'll show you a different kind of cycle."
From her left hand erupted a torrent of Boil Release: Typhoon of Corrosive Mist. A billowing cloud of superheated, acidic vapor engulfed the Human Path. Its flesh didn't melt; it unraveled, dissolving into a steaming, harmless slurry that evaporated before it hit the ground.
From her right hand she unleashed Lava Release: Obsidian Guillotine. A blade of instantly-cooled, razor-sharp volcanic glass, ten meters long, formed in the air and shot towards the Naraka Path. The Path brought up its arm to block. The obsidian blade sliced through it, through the torso, and embedded itself in the ground behind it, the two halves of the Path sliding apart before crumbling into brittle, black shards.
She had used two completely different, advanced Kekkei Genkai, back-to-back, without a single hand sign or any visible strain.
Sakura Haruno: (Watching from a triage station, her medical mind short-circuiting) Boil Release… that's a Kiri bloodline! Lava… that's Iwa and Kiri combined! How can she… her chakra system should… it's impossible!
Tsunade: (Her medical knowledge, the pinnacle of Konoha's, offered no answer.) It's not her chakra system. It's… it's like she's persuading the very elements to act on her behalf. She's not transforming her chakra into lava; she's asking the concept of heat and earth to manifest as lava for her.
The Deva Path, seeing its other bodies dismantled with casual, brutal efficiency, finally moved with serious intent. It raised its hands, not for a wide-area Shinra Tensei, but for a focused one.
PAIN: "Banbutsu Sōzō." (Almighty Push - Planetary Devastation Focus)
A sphere of absolute repulsion, dense and dark, formed between its palms, aimed to obliterate both Indra and Rias in a single, concentrated point.
Indra didn't try to lock the space this time. He looked at Rias and gave a slight nod.
Indra: "Your turn for the dramatic counter."
Rias grinned. She planted her feet, and instead of defending, she attacked the incoming sphere of nothingness. She thrust both hands forward, palms out.
From her left palm erupted a blizzard. Not a wave of cold, but a storm of crystalline perfection. Ice Release: Glacial Fortress Genesis. The ice didn't form a wall; it formed a sprawling, intricate palace of interlocking diamond-hard facets, growing into the path of the repulsive sphere. The Almighty Push hit the ever-expanding, geometrically perfect ice fortress. It shattered vast sections, but the ice kept growing, fractaling, redirecting the force, splitting it into a million harmless vectors. The sphere of annihilation pushed, but it was like trying to blow out a candle by blowing up a mountain—the force was dissipated by sheer, beautiful, complex volume.
As the last of the ice dust settled, the Deva Path, for the first time, showed clear frustration. It gathered chakra again, the Rinnegan blazing.
But Indra was done with the preamble.
Indra: "My turn."
He didn't attack the Deva Path. He looked up at the sky, at the thin clouds. He raised a hand.
Indra: "Storm Release: Heavenly Tribulation Array."
This was not the Laser Circus of Darui. This was something primal. The clouds above Konoha coalesced, darkening in seconds. From them descended not rain, but solidified lightning. Dozens of pillars of crackling, white-purple plasma, each as thick as a tree trunk, struck the ground in a perfect ring around the Deva Path. They didn't explode. They stood, humming with catastrophic power, forming a cage of living lightning. Then, between these pillars, sheets of Crystal Release: Prismatic Refraction Field snapped into existence, not as walls, but as countless floating, spinning geometric crystals that bent and magnified the lightning's light and energy into a dizzying, blinding maze of lethal rays.
The Deva Path was trapped in a storm-made labyrinth of light and thunder, a display of raw elemental power that was both breathtaking and terrifying.
From the ruins, the gasps turned to cries of fear. This was beyond shinobi. This was like watching forces of nature argue.
Kakashi: (His voice hoarse) Storm Release… a mix of Water and Lightning, incredibly rare. Crystal Release… that's a lost kekkei genkai from the Land of Earth. He's wielding them simultaneously. He's not just using Kekkei Genkai… he's conducting the elemental choir.
The Deva Path, isolated in the lightning-crystal maze, was not idle. It used a targeted Shinra Tensei to shatter a crystal and deflect a lightning pillar, but two more grew instantly to take their place. It was being overwhelmed not by strength, but by sheer, creative, relentless variety.
Then, the Deva Path did something unexpected. It stopped trying to break the cage. It closed its eyes. A different kind of link thrummed through the air. In the distance, near the edge of the village, the ground cracked open. The Naraka Path, supposedly destroyed, began to reassemble from spare parts summoned from the earth. The King of Hell's face appeared behind it.
It was going to restart the cycle, to resurrect the other Paths.
Rias's expression turned cold. "No. No more cycles."
She looked at Indra. "They need to see. They need to understand what they're truly dealing with."
Indra's gaze was solemn. He gave a single, slow nod. "Unleash the Appetite."
Together, they took a step back from their elemental displays. The lightning cage and ice fortress dissolved. They stood side-by-side in the cleared space before the monument.
And they changed.
It wasn't a transformation of chakra. It was a transformation of presence. The air around them grew heavy, rich, and thick with a palpable, alien energy that made chakra feel thin and tasteless in comparison. From Rias's back, two vast, spectral wings unfurled—one wing was a chaotic, shimmering tapestry of sound waves made visible, the other was a skeletal, blackened frame that seemed to erase the light around it. Above her, the phantom forms of two colossal entities flickered: a shrieking, bat-like Banshee made of sonic force, and a silent, draconic Apocalypse Beast woven from strands of nothingness. Her Gourmet Devils.
From Indra's shadow, three even more terrifying conceptual forms manifested. To his left, the elegant, draconic silhouette of Palkia, its wings folded from the fabric of space itself. To his right, the heavy, armored form of Dialga, gears of time turning in its torso. And coiled around him, half-seen, the distorted, antimatter ghost of Giratina. The air crackled with the raw authority of Space, Time, and Distortion.
The combined pressure of their unleashed Gourmet Devils was not hostile. It was consuming. It felt like the world itself was becoming less real around them, like they were standing in a higher dimension, looking down on a painting.
The fear in Konoha was no longer for the enemy. It was primal, instinctive. Children hiding in the singing forest buried their faces in the wood, which itself trembled. Veteran ANBU felt their knees weaken. This was not power that could be fought. This was power that could decide whether reality was allowed to continue.
Tsunade: (The words were a breath of horror) What… in the name of all that's holy… are they?
Jiraiya: (His sage senses were recoiling, showing him visions of vast worlds and hungers beyond comprehension) They're not just shinobi anymore, Tsunade. They're something else. Sovereigns… of a much, much larger realm.
The Deva Path, its connection to the resurrecting Naraka Path severed by the sheer weight of this new presence, stared. The Rinnegan, the eyes of a supposed god, for the first time showed something like doubt. It was facing not stronger opponents, but beings who operated on a completely different ontological level.
Rias's voice, when she spoke, was layered with the harmonic echo of the Banshee and the hollow finality of the Apocalypse.
Rias: "You spoke of teaching the world pain, Nagato. We have tasted the appetite of a world that would eat this one for a snack. We have trained under kings for whom your rinnegan would be a curious bauble. Your power is a loud shout in a small room. Ours is the silence of the void between stars, and the song of creation that fills it."
Indra's voice was the grinding of continental plates and the whisper of eroding time.
Indra: "The choice remains. Cease. Or be unmade not by a rival power, but by the acknowledgment that your narrative is too small, too bitter, and too frail to exist in the universe we are building."
They stood before him, no longer just a jinchuriki's girlfriend and a prodigy inventor. They were Sovereigns returned, and they had just shown Konoha, and the god of pain, a glimpse of the storm that brewed not in the clouds, but in the very laws of existence. The Wood Release was just the first leaf of a terrifying, beautiful, and utterly alien tree.
End of Chapter – 104.