"Roar!"
Son Gokū's two palms turned into crimson magma and slammed fiercely onto the ground.
"Lava Release: Great Scorching River Eruption!"
The ground bulged, and a scorching volcano erupted straight toward Ryosuke, spewing Lava Release magma.
On the other side, the Five-Tails, Kokuō, exerted strength with its four hooves and leapt high into the air, charging toward Ryosuke with the five huge horns on its head.
"Horn Break!"
The power of this strike was not inferior to a Tailed Beast Bomb at all; in fact, because it was not an energy-type attack but pure "taijutsu," in terms of physical destructive power, it was even stronger.
The flowing magma and the horn attack, Ryosuke didn't even look at them much. He simply raised his hand and gently pressed down.
Buzz!
Gravity changed.
As if the entire world was pressing on their shoulders, Son Gokū, Isobu, and Matatabi, three Tailed Beasts, were immediately crushed to the ground.
The Five-Tails, Kokuō, was even more miserable. It was the closest to Ryosuke, so it bore the strongest gravitational force. Its entire body was flung backward and slammed into the magma, burning it so badly that it howled in pain.
"Th-This… what kind of power is this?"
Son Gokū stared blankly at the magma and volcano it had summoned, and yet, at this moment, Ryosuke forcibly stripped away its control over them.
This was absolute, superior suppression.
As a Tailed Beast proficient in Lava Release and Earth Release, not even that old geezer in Iwagakure could achieve this level.
The only one who could… Son Gokū thought of that ancient serpent that had lived for a thousand years.
Ryosuke's power, compared to the White Snake Sage who specialized in Sage Arts, was even more fierce, violent, and unreasonable.
This was the effect of Dragon Pellet + Ripple + New Moon Gravity Manipulation.
Other ninjutsu might still work, but when it came to Earth-Release-related ninjutsu, they were already ineffective against Ryosuke.
The four Tailed Beasts looked at each other, and in the end, lowered their heads.
"We surrender."
In the past, Ryosuke would have casually treated the four in front of him as EXP packs.
Four Tailed Beasts meant four thousand soul fragments.
But now, things were different.
After the war, he would have plenty of time to collect soul fragments. Compared to four thousand soul fragments, the research value of these four Tailed Beasts was clearly much higher.
Ryosuke nodded, accepting their surrender.
———
With this, the war's outcome was decided.
Without the Akatsuki organization restraining him, Ryosuke could appear on any battlefield. With his destructive power and speed, he could crush the one-million-strong army invading the Land of Water within a single day.
The daimyo-ninjas dropped their weapons, slumped to the ground, powerless like young girls cornered by thugs against a wall.
Everything before their eyes felt absurd.
They had hidden their identities, trained painstakingly, waiting for that one moment to amaze the world, like the Tailed Beast Bomb that blossomed across the sky just moments ago.
It exploded with a bang, but didn't amount to sh*t.
No, compared to that Tailed Beast Bomb just now, they didn't even manage to make a sound.
On the Kyoto battlefield, the only two still focused on fighting were, Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke.
Itachi's eyes were vacant. Facing Sasuke's blade slashing toward him, he was fighting purely on instinct.
Uchiha Itachi truly no longer knew what he should do.
He supported Pain's Tailed Beast Weapon Plan, believing it to be an action that would change the world's structure.
So, Uchiha Itachi did not hesitate to set Konoha Village on fire, did not hesitate to assassinate the Third Hokage, all to help Pain.
But Pain lost.
Uchiha Itachi lost the final reason he used to shoulder his sins.
He had thought about whether he should just die in Sasuke's hands and allow Sasuke to become the hero who killed a traitor and the Akatsuki, so that he could return to Konoha.
But Itachi immediately realized a problem, would Sasuke even need to kill him to return to Konoha?
Ryosuke and Tsunade were allies who could entrust their backs to each other without worry.
Even without that identity, now that the war was lost and no ninja village could resist Ryosuke's pace anymore, with Ryosuke and Sasuke's relationship, to put it bluntly, if one order were issued to remove Tsunade and let Sasuke sit as Hokage, probably no one would dare object.
At this point, Uchiha Itachi realized a tragic truth, he was alive, yet meaningless.
He died, and was still meaningless.
Burdened with sin, slaughtering his own clan, tormented day and night by guilt, Uchiha Itachi had become a complete, utterly meaningless failure.
"Where… should I go?"
Lost in thought, Uchiha Itachi instinctively controlled Susanoo to push Sasuke back.
Suddenly, a scorching pillar of light descended straight from above the clouds, crashing onto Uchiha Itachi's Susanoo, tearing open Susanoo's armor and burning a large hole.
He looked up toward the sky.
A sky battleship floated above the city, and from each cannon barrel came terrifying chakra fluctuations.
A figure dropped from the battleship. Before the person even landed, a blade turned into a long whip fell along a golden-spiraling trajectory.
Rei.
Sasuke and Rei had cooperated for many years. The tacit understanding between them had long surpassed language and eye contact.
The moment Rei moved, Sasuke immediately lifted his left hand.
"Ninjutsu Nullification."
After awakening the Mangekyō, Sasuke's Ninjutsu Nullification had two activation forms.
The first was standard release, with an extremely large range, nearly all ninjutsu within his field of vision would vanish instantly.
The restriction was that after activation, it required a long cooldown.
The second was wrapping the nullification power around his blade.
Although the range was reduced, the advantage was long duration, allowing suppression of a single target at close range.
Now, with a large-area Ninjutsu Nullification activated, Susanoo vanished like bubbles. Itachi drew a kunai. His taijutsu was not weak either, and he was about to block the falling whip-blade.
Clang!
Sasuke's sword landed a moment earlier, hooking Itachi's kunai.
Rei's whip-blade almost grazed Sasuke's cheek, piercing out from behind his ear, accurately thrusting toward Uchiha Itachi's only remaining right eye.
The world believed Rei was just a "lucky girl" who followed Ryosuke early on, a mascot who liked to hand out oranges.
But she truly trained hard. Whether in Ripple, Golden Spiral, or ninjutsu, she put in tremendous effort.
"Brother Ryosuke and Sasuke helped me kill the murderer who killed my mother, so now…"
The fierce wind swept aside the long hair covering Rei's forehead, revealing a pair of sharp eyes.
"It's my turn to help Sasuke take revenge!"
The whip-blade swung with a golden spiral trajectory. At this moment, it actually resembled the threads Ryosuke had unleashed during the Trial Mission.
Facing the stabbing whip-blade, Uchiha Itachi's hair stood on end. The Ninjutsu Nullification duration ended. At his feet, Susanoo was starting to re-form.
But Rei would kill him first.
Sss!
The whip-blade fell.
But it did not stab Uchiha Itachi.
The whip-blade was bitten into a large, shark-toothed mouth.
Kisame pushed Uchiha Itachi aside. His sharp teeth clamped down fiercely, trying to bite through Rei's whip-blade.
He underestimated the craftsmanship of Blade Grandpa. One by one, blade segments the length of fingers pierced into Kisame's gums, causing blood to burst out.
On the other side, Sasuke's sword also pierced into Kisame's chest.
"Go… quickly go, Mr. Itachi… before Ryosuke comes back, go…"
Uchiha Itachi stared blankly at Kisame.
He didn't understand.
He and Kisame were indeed teammates, but only that.
Their relationship was not to the extent of protecting each other with their lives.
Kisame showed a faint smile.
"We… are both unlucky fools who threw away our emotions, picked up the butcher's knife, and for this or that reason, hunted our own comrades."
"Reaching today is my limit. After Pain failed, I can no longer see a path ahead."
"But Mr. Itachi, you are stronger than me. You can definitely go farther. I want to ask you to see for me… how far people like us can actually go."
He nodded at Itachi, and then, "Water Release: Big Exploding Water Colliding Wave!"
A torrent of water sprayed from Kisame's mouth. Being severely wounded, it didn't have much power, but it was enough to create confusion.
Uchiha Itachi, Sasuke, and Rei were pushed apart by the water.
Itachi took one last look at Kisame, bit down on his lip hard, and said, "I will remember you. Thank you."
With that, he turned into crows and escaped.
Sasuke swung his blade and killed Kisame. Under the power of "Lingering Regret, One Slash Severs Dust," Kisame's past and karma all vanished with his death.
Rei flicked her wrist, and the whip once again turned into a blade and returned to its sheath.
She looked at Kisame's corpse, tilted her head slightly, and asked, "Who was this again?"
"A nobody."