The moment these people were brought back to life, panic and lingering fear immediately showed on their faces—as if the trauma they just experienced still lingered in their bones, leaving them shaken.
Among them, the Third Raikage reacted the most intensely.
Lightning crackled all over his body, his Lightning Release Armor activating instinctively as he charged forward without thinking.
Fortunately, he managed to stop himself just in time. Otherwise, the Allied Forces would have suffered a brutal wave of indiscriminate attacks right off the bat.
But their reactions were understandable.
After all, their deaths had been far too sudden.
Right after being dragged into the alternate dimension by Hikaru, they were greeted head-on by a Tailed Beast Ball from the Ten-Tails. That overwhelming despair and terror still haunted their minds like a shadow that refused to fade.
So, it was no surprise that returning to the real world had left them disoriented and on edge.
At first, the Allied Shinobi Forces were ecstatic to see their Kage return. But that joy was soon overshadowed by the oppressive presence of Hikaru, still hovering above them in the sky.
They all knew too well—even with the Kage back in the picture, none of them stood a chance against Hikaru.
Worse still, from the sound of it, the Kage had actually been revived by him.
That kind of scornful confidence—the audacity to treat life and death as playthings—sent a chill through the ranks. Some shinobi even began to feel a strange sense of reverence toward Hikaru.
Hikaru stood midair, looking down on the masses below.
His gaze swept across the shinobi forces and the resurrected Kage alike. Everyone who met his eyes instinctively looked away, unable to hold his gaze.
Ōnoki and the others finally snapped out of it. Their faces were pale, eyes filled with deep fear.
And then—
A desperate scream shattered the suffocating silence.
"The moon! The moon is falling!"
All eyes turned to the sky.
There, the moon—once hanging still in the heavens—was now tilting and beginning to sink.
What had once been a serene, luminous full moon was now more like a colossal meteor plummeting toward the earth, carrying apocalyptic force.
The wind in the night sky suddenly howled with intensity, kicking up clouds of dust.
Dark clouds overhead were torn apart by a terrifying force, revealing the falling moon in full.
The moonlight, once soft and gentle, now blazed with searing brilliance—as if it sought to illuminate the entire world one final time.
Under that catastrophic aura, the shinobi below seemed impossibly small… and powerless.
They could do nothing but stare up at the falling moon, frozen in place, hearts filled with a despair they couldn't fight.
They all understood—if that moon really hit the ground, nothing would survive. The sheer force would sweep across the world, erasing all life.
And yet, at this critical moment…
Hikaru smiled.
'Mercy and intimidation—I've shown enough mercy. Now it's time to make an example.'
With a single thought, the Susanoo in the sky moved.
Its armored form gleamed under the moonlight, radiant and divine, like a war god descending upon the world.
It raised its massive blade and charged toward the falling moon—undaunted and magnificent.
At that moment, Hikaru became the center of all attention.
Bathed in moonlight, his silhouette seemed larger than life—like a guardian deity of this world.
"Shua!"
A sharp blade cry split the heavens. Then—a blinding slash of light erupted, cutting across the sky.
The slash looked as if it contained all the power and brilliance of the world, striking the moon with cataclysmic force.
The impact boomed like thunder, deafening all who heard it. The explosion of light was too bright to even look at.
The winds howled even more violently, carrying clouds of dust and roiling energy, as if the very world were about to be devoured.
Everyone on the ground felt an overwhelming shockwave tear down from the sky, forcing them to stagger backward instinctively.
They looked up, eyes wide in disbelief and awe.
The moon… had been split in half by a single slash from Hikaru.
But that wasn't the end of it.
What truly stunned them was what happened next.
In the blink of an eye, the Susanoo followed up, cleaving the broken moon again and again until it shattered into countless fragments.
Each shard glowed with scorching heat and radiated dangerous energy.
Then, without warning, Black Flames appeared from thin air—devouring the fragments one by one, burning them into nothingness.
The moon, once so imposing, was now erased entirely by Hikaru's hand, as if it had never existed.
As the last pieces of the moon burned away in the Black Flames, the night sky gradually returned to its former calm.
But this fleeting peace didn't comfort anyone on the ground. If anything, it made the terror in their hearts even worse.
They now understood—Hikaru's power was beyond comprehension.
And then—disaster struck again.
A massive, radiant purple beam shot out from a distant direction, screaming toward Hikaru, who stood protected within the Susanoo.
The chakra it contained far exceeded even the Chakra Cannon that the Hidden Cloud Village prided itself on.
Everyone held their breath as the devastating attack closed in.
Then—impact.
But instead of breaking through, the beam was deflected off the Susanoo, which didn't suffer a single scratch.
At the exact moment of contact, a sharp "clink" echoed through the air. It was jarringly crisp—oddly comedic in the tense atmosphere.
But no one laughed.
Because the deflected purple beam didn't dissipate—it twisted in the air like an enraged dragon, roaring and thrashing—
Until it struck another distant region and erupted.
The explosion that followed shook the world. It was so loud it threatened to shatter eardrums.
The blast made the ground quake. It felt like the end of the world.
A mushroom cloud slowly rose into the night sky, so massive, so terrifyingly shaped, that it left the Allied Forces stunned and hollow with fear.
They had already experienced more than enough despair today…
But this moment still left them petrified—helpless and overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, in the Pure Land, the Sage of Six Paths watched the war unfold.
He knew—this was one of the most crucial moments in shinobi history. A turning point for the future of the world.
His lifelong wish had always been for the shinobi world to know peace. And now… it finally seemed possible.
Though it wasn't quite the kind of "mutual understanding" he'd once envisioned.
Still, when he saw Hikaru slice through the moon and the Susanoo tank the cannon blast, he scratched his head.
'Good thing Mother wasn't this strong… Otherwise, we would've never stood a chance.'