“Here we go!”
Ino saw the “Network Protected” message disappear from the monitor and leaned forward. She had been waiting on tenterhooks for the firewall to be unlocked.
Orochimaru reacted immediately and began typing at incredible speed.
The time displayed in one corner of the monitor was nine fifty-nine p.m.
“Hurry!” Ino said. “We’re out of time!”
“I’m done. These are the signs to undo the ultra particles’ seal.” Orochimaru zoomed in on the monitor.
Ino wove signs and kneaded her chakra toward her husband halfway across the world.
Sai!
Hey! Can you hear me?!
It was finally here.
Sai heard the familiar voice of his wife in the Land of Redaku. His ears were ringing loudly because of the lack of oxygen, but he could easily pick up his wife’s voice echoing directly inside of his head.
I’m going to tell you the signs to release the ultra particles. Horse, Dragon, Pig …
Obeying the voice that flowed through his mind, Sai mustered the last of his chakra.
The blade of the dagger Sasuke had pulled out crackled and flashed, imbued with powerful Chidori electricity. The focal point was turned squarely toward the ultra particles’ vessel. It would be an easy feat for Sasuke to break it.
“I told you to stop! Sasuke!” Naruto shouted desperately at the friend who wouldn’t meet his eyes.
If the opposite meant sacrificing Sasuke, then a lifetime of never being able to use chakra was a hundred times better
“Sasuke! Listen to me! We’re going back down! The mission’s over!”
Naruto struggled and kicked with everything he had, and Sasuke drove a serious knee into his solar plexus.
“Just be still, you bumbling fool.”
Sasuke pressed Naruto’s limp body to his knee and brandished his dagger. Crack! Chidori popped, illuminating the air with an intense light, making everything white. The falling tip of the dagger was about to smash the satellite.
Impossibly, in that moment, Naruto’s Byakugan saw a change inside of the satellite. The bamboo vessel split open and the metal sphere was full of scattering silver particles.
It opened!
Naruto had no time to communicate that with his mouth. He thrust his own arm out at the tip of the dagger Sasuke was swinging downward. Blood spattered, and the Chidori current passed through Naruto to pierce both himself and Sasuke, knocking off the cement holding the needles in place on their bodies.
Caught off guard, Sasuke hesitated for an instant.
Naruto yanked free the long sword affixed to Sasuke’s ankle and kicked the satellite away as hard as he could.
“The seal’s undone!” There was no way he was letting Sasuke bring it back with Ame-no-tejikara, so he threw the longsword far away as he shouted with all his might, “You go pick up Sakura and wait down below!”
Without arguing, Sasuke flung out his charred cloak and plummeted downward.
Naruto saw through the gap in the hair that hid Sasuke’s face that his expression had softened into something like relief. Then Naruto felt true anger, while also wanting to cry at the same time.
Why is he always thinking only of other people?
Only Sasuke could cause Naruto to feel so angry he could hardly speak and also cry inconsolably when he nearly died. Decades had passed since they first met, and that still hadn’t changed even now.
The oxygen supply tube had been yanked out, and he couldn’t breathe on his own anymore. Naruto pursed his lips and clung to the satellite.
“Get ready for me, Kurama!” he shouted, letting out all the air in his lungs, until at last he could no longer breathe.
The goggles tore off in the wind and blew away. But he didn’t need the Byakugan anymore. He’d already checked that this sphere was full of the silver particles that would wrench open his closed chakra channels.
He threw his head back and headbutted the satellite as hard as he could.
Clang!
The metal body ripped open, and silver particles flew out to envelop Naruto’s body. His heart pounded, and his consciousness began to fade.
The pieces of the satellite flew off in new trajectories, with most of them colliding with the Rasenro.
Zznk!
The impact of the satellite remnants passed through the Rasenro to Kakashi and the others at the base. Cracks formed in the earth and wood pillars, quickly spreading out.
“Not good!” Gaara threw up a layer of sand in the air to try and protect the village, but he had used too much of his chakra on the Rasenro. Smashed lumps, chunks of earth, and wood bark rained down.
The village of Konohagakure was quiet.
An ordinary weekday evening. Happy laughter spilled out of the izakaya and the Ichiraku stall, while people went about their usual business in brightly lit homes. They had no way of knowing that debris from the Rasenro was closing in on them.
An enormous clod of earth was on the verge of smashing into a house when something white flew in with a whoosh and smashed it to pieces. The object spun around as it changed direction like a boomerang and returned to the hand that had thrown it.
Neatly catching the white iron fan was Temari standing on a roof.
“That was a close one. Where’d that even fall from anyway?”
There might be some stuff falling from the sky, so protect the village—Temari wasn’t the only one who’d gotten this sketchy instruction from Shikamaru. Tenten, Lee, Kiba, Karui, and Kankuro, who had come running to the Land of Fire with Gaara, were all on standby on the roof.
But there wasn’t just one falling object.
Things were dropping down all over from the clouds thinly blanketing the night sky. Chunks of earth and pieces of wood—all of them meters across.
“Wha—”
The shinobi on the rooftop instantly scattered and went after the falling objects. But there were just too many of them. They’d never be able to get them all.
“Not great!” Tenten readied all the tools she had and glared at the sky.
In the next instant, gusts of wind came spinning out from inside the clouds and smashed at least a hundred falling objects simultaneously. The vacuum created by the movement of the wind swept up the shattered fragments, compressed them, and absorbed one fragment after another, not letting a single one fall to the village below.
Odama Rasengan—one of the Seventh Hokage’s special Wind Style techniques.
“What? Naruto’s here too? No need to worry then.” Kiba looked up at the sky, and the tension ran out of his shoulders.
A bright light dropped through a gap in the clouds, looking like a piece of the sun, and landed on top of Hokage Rock. His most powerful battle form, making use of Nine Tails’ chakra like it was his own—Naruto in Nine Tails’ chakra mode.
Standing on top of the stony face of the Fourth Hokage, Uzumaki Naruto quietly looked out over the village.