At the sight of this, Sarutobi Hiruzen let out a furious roar. The old man's face contorted with anger. In one motion, he summoned a gigantic shuriken and, pouring all his strength into the throw, hurled it at Uchiha Yue. Following the steel whirlwind, a barrage of techniques, striking with brute force, rained down upon the enemy.
"Is that all?"
Uchiha Yue froze, idly eyeing the shinobi who were desperately and futilely trying to penetrate his defenses. Their most powerful blows, at best, left shallow cracks in Susanoo's colossal frame or pierced individual plates of his chakra armor.
And that was all. They couldn't reach his true body.
"Enough. How boring..." Uchiha Yue shook his head contemptuously, and his sinister laughter echoed across the battlefield. "Boring!" Die, everyone!
At that very moment, myriad adamantine chains erupted from his body, piercing the shinobi through and through. Few managed to dodge—most fell victim to this merciless attack.
Yue's gaze fell upon Sarutobi Hiruzen, who was still stubbornly continuing the fight. Yue casually raised his hand and yanked out the giant shuriken embedded deep in his Susanoo's forearm. "Well, they didn't call him the God of Shinobi for nothing," he thought with a hint of respect. "He managed to penetrate my defense after all."
However, that was his last success.
Yue spun sharply toward the Hokage. His speed increased exponentially, kicking up swirls of dust. He was at Sarutobi's side before he could blink and delivered a crushing blow. The old man's figure shattered into pieces—a shadow clone.
At that very moment, the Uchiha was surrounded by five exact copies of the Hokage.
"Gotcha, monster!" the real Sarutobi proclaimed, rapidly performing hand seals.
Five Elements: Great Array of Projectiles Technique!
During the battle, he had deciphered the enemy's secret. This creature wasn't invulnerable—it absorbed ninjutsu energy, but its capabilities weren't limitless. Therefore... he needed to unleash upon it an amount of power it couldn't absorb in a single instant.
The five elemental streams—fire, water, lightning, earth, and wind—merged and struck Uchiha Yue.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion shook the earth. The colossal figure disappeared in clouds of thick, acrid smoke.
Victory?
Sarutobi Hiruzen stared fixedly at the epicenter. The next second, he sensed mortal danger and recoiled in horror. A gigantic, mangled hand erupted from the clouds of smoke and closed in the void where he had just stood.
When the smoke cleared, a battered but still enormous figure appeared before their eyes.
"It worked!" Hatake Kakashi, standing nearby, gasped, but then stopped himself. The damage was only superficial. Hokage-sama's attack had destroyed only the outer shell of Susanoo, and it was already rapidly regenerating before his eyes.
A true monster.
"What kind of creature is this?" Kakashi muttered in confusion. He still couldn't comprehend the scale of the disaster. He only knew that this monster had appeared in the village and was now sowing nothing but chaos and death around it.
Not a single attack had harmed him. During the entire battle, it seemed he had not only not weakened, but had grown even stronger.
"How terrible..." he whispered to himself. "We... we can win?"
"Kakashi, my eternal rival! Of course we will! That's the power of youth!"
"Might Guy appeared next to him, flashing a snow-white smile.
"Forward!"
He closed his eyes, and a powerful green aura enveloped his body.
Eight Gates! Open!
In an instant, Guy's aura surged upward—furious, unstoppable, crushing, unleashing the power of one of the greatest taijutsu masters.
"Yes..." Kakashi nodded with renewed hope, looking at his friend. "We will win!"
This is Konoha!
A few moments later...
— Cough!.. There it is... the power... of youth!..
Might Guy, like a shot-down meteor, was thrown back by a single blow from Uchiha Yue and, having smashed through several buildings, crashed into the Hokage Rock.
Kakashi, lying exhausted among the ruins, looked up at the smoke-clouded sky.
Will we win? What arrogance... We are doomed.
—Hokage-sama, we have lost!—the ANBU guards cried out in despair, shielding Sarutobi.—"Get the citizens out! We will cover you!"
Konoha had suffered a crushing defeat. They could not cope with this colossus. Any attacks merely scratched its chakra armor, causing no harm to the creature.
No victory... We will never defeat it.
"No, we haven't lost yet!" Sarutobi shook his head, looking at his loyal guards. They were so much like himself in his youth... and his teacher, who had died defending them.
"No, Hokage-sama! We've lost! Even you can't defeat him! Go away! You must survive! Our duty is to protect your lives at the cost of our own! You are Konoha's hope!" they declared firmly in one voice.
For a moment, Sarutobi thought he could hear the Second Hokage's voice again, the one who had once called them hope and ordered them to survive.
Yes. They are hope. For the sake of the village. For the sake of the Will of Fire... he, Sarutobi Hiruzen, must live.
The weight of this decision fell upon his shoulders. He lowered his head, and a heavy sigh escaped his chest.
"Retreat!" he roared, creating shadow clones to organize the evacuation. "Evacuate the villagers immediately! Everyone leave Konoha!"
"Are you planning to run, Sarutobi Hiruzen?" a mocking voice called from above. "I promised you that today is your time to die."
Uchiha Yue ignored the guards rushing at him and released new chains from his body, which instantly created an impenetrable cage around them. Short, broken screams echoed behind Sarutobi. Turning, he saw that all his bodyguards were dead.
The old man tried to sever the links, but they reformed instantly, greedily absorbing the chakra from his blade. He didn't dare touch them, remembering the fate of the Monkey King Enma. An attempt to burrow underground using Earth Release also failed—the chains entangled everything, even the deepest layers of the soil. He was trapped.
Sarutobi Hiruzen slowly looked up at the gigantic, indestructible giant.
"Can we come to an agreement?"