The golden flash faded.
And with it… the two strongest figures in the camp were gone.
For a moment, no one spoke.The breeze rustled through the tents and distant war drums echoed faintly from the frontlines, but within the camp—it was silence.
A silence that felt like a void.
Eyes stared at the spot where Radahn and Minato once stood.Some clenched their fists.Others lowered their heads.A few even trembled.
"They're gone…" one chūnin whispered, the words barely escaping his lips.
"Both of them… against two Kage? And the Two-Tails?"Someone scoffed in disbelief."It's suicide."
Whispers turned into murmurs.Fear crept into the hearts of even the bravest shinobi.
Kakashi stood at the edge of the formation, his one visible eye distant, remembering the moment Minato disappeared. Rin stood beside him, arms crossed tightly over her chest, eyes glistening—not from tears, but from a storm of emotion.
Then she spoke—quiet but steady.
"He'll come back."
The murmuring stopped again.
"They'll both come back," Rin said louder, stepping forward, her red hair brushing across her face in the wind.
Kakashi finally nodded.He looked at the others."And Sensei—he's called the Yellow Flash for a reason."
A jōnin smirked at those words.
"Heh. You're right. If anyone can pull off a miracle… it's him."
The atmosphere shifted—not completely—but a spark lit within the hearts of many.Tension remained, but something warmer settled in beside it: hope.
A medic-nin set down her kit and stood tall.
"Let's be ready. If they come back hurt, we need to be prepared. If they don't…"She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.
An older shinobi, scarred from head to toe, looked out at the road where the two vanished.
"We'll hold this ground. For them. For the village."
And so, beneath the heavy clouds of war, a camp of shinobi steeled themselves—not in despair—but in determination.
Because now, more than ever…They believed.
----------------------------------------------------
The eastern skies boiled with fire and ash.
Konohagakure's frontline outpost, once fortified with trenches, watchposts, and brave defenders, now resembled the remains of a battlefield long lost. Smoke twisted into the sky, mixing with the metallic scent of blood and scorched flesh.
And at the heart of this devastation… stood monsters.
The Third Raikage, a towering titan of muscle and raw chakra, surged through Konoha's ranks like a one-man army. His body was cloaked in an armor of black lightning, crackling with each earth-shattering step.
"HOW DOES IT FEEL, KONOHA DOGS?!" he roared, driving his lightning-coated elbow straight through a jōnin's chest, pulverizing ribs and heart in an instant. Blood sprayed like mist as he spun, catching another shinobi by the throat and smashing his body into a stone wall, which crumbled under the force.
Konoha ninja tried to form seals—
Too slow.
The Third Raikage tore through defensive jutsu, lightning armor rendering him nearly untouchable. A group of four attempted to restrain him with shadow bindings and Earth Walls, but with a single flex, he broke free and plowed his arm through all four, the raw force snapping spines like twigs.
Up above, Ōnoki, the Third Tsuchikage, floated like a grim god of judgment, stone platform hovering above the chaos. He watched the carnage with cold, tired eyes, then extended two fingers.
"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique."
A prism-shaped blast expanded outward, and an entire Konoha defensive battalion vanished into molecular dust, armor, screams, and all. Nothing remained but a charred crater.
Ōnoki exhaled, lowering his hand.
"So ends another handful of leaves. Konoha's roots grow weak."
Below, terrified screams echoed as a searing blue fireball exploded, engulfing a supply convoy. The very earth shook as a beast charged forward—the Two-Tails, Matatabi, in full form.
Riding atop her tail was the perfect jinchūriki, Yugito Nii, her eyes glowing like molten sapphire.
"The battlefield is ours now!"
She released a barrage of compressed blue flames, each impact melting steel, cooking shinobi alive in their armor, their agonized shrieks rising above the thunderous explosions.
A squad of medics tried to flee, carrying the wounded—only to be caught in a second fireball that detonated mid-air, sending scorched limbs and burning scrolls raining from the sky.
A Konoha captain shouted desperately, voice cracked:
"Fall back! We need chakra support! Retreat to supply Line—"
Before he could finish, a giant boulder, launched from Iwagakure's siege squad, crashed into him, flattening him like an insect. A dozen others were buried alive beneath the rubble.
Panic overtook the lines.
A young chunin dropped his kunai and ran, but a Kumo ninja caught him mid-step and slit his throat, tossing his body into a ditch with a laugh.
"No mercy! Strip them of hope! This is their end!"
One by one, Konoha's defenses crumbled. Their barricades were burned, their traps disarmed, their chakra reserves dwindling.
Two Kage. A tailed beast. Hundreds of enemy elite shinobi.
The battlefield trembled.
Just when it seemed the worst had passed, a massive swirl of chakra began to condense before the Two-Tails.
Matatabi roared, her monstrous blue flames spiralling inward, forming a sphere of black and crimson energy at her maw — a dense, humming orb that shimmered with destructive power.
"Its a Tailed Beast Bomb!" one of the Konoha commanders shouted, voice cracking from fear.
"Everyone, retreat—MOVE!"
But there was no time.
Ōnoki hovered above, lips curled into a grim smile as he observed the swirling destruction.
"Let's see how your Will of Fire withstands this."
From the side, the Third Raikage cracked his knuckles, chakra surging around him like a storm.
"Burn with your ideals, Konoha. This is the price of defiance!"
Below, the last remnants of Konoha's forward defenses line stood frozen — some were seasoned shinobi, battered and bleeding.
But others... were just kids.
Newly promoted genin, barely older than twelve, their foreheads still gleaming with freshly minted Konoha protector plates. They huddled near fallen jonin, trying to hold back sobs, waiting for orders that would never come.
The bomb grew.
Fifty meters wide now. The chakra twisted and pulsed like a living heart of death. The very sky dimmed under its shadow.
And then—
FWOOOOOOOSH.
The Tailed Beast Bomb launched.
A comet of annihilation, searing through the sky, howling toward the scattered Konoha survivors with enough power to wipe out everything within a thousand meters. Its light bathed the battlefield in a crimson hue of finality.
Ōnoki smirked.
"This war ends here."
Yugito Nii closed her eyes.
The Third Raikage let out a deep, satisfied laugh.
"A fitting end for leaf scum!"
The Kumo and Iwa forces cheered, raising their arms as the shockwave approached. Their roars of triumph echoed—
But then.
A golden flash.
So blinding. So sudden. Like the wrath of heaven tearing through the battlefield.
It appeared just ten meters in front of the helpless Konoha squad.
And then—
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
A titanic explosion split the air. The earth ripped open. A mushroom cloud erupted, towering into the heavens with a sound like the sky itself being torn apart.
The shockwave hurled bodies, shattered boulders, and carved a crater into the land. Fire, dirt, and lightning mixed into a howling storm. But in that instant, a barrier of golden chakra shimmered where the flash had landed—flickering, struggling—but holding.
The battlefield fell silent.
The Kumo and Iwa shinobi stared in disbelief as the smoke slowly cleared.
The place where the Tailed Beast Bomb should have erased all life...
Something—someone—had stood in its path.
Ōnoki hovered midair, his old eyes narrowing as the haze slowly cleared. The triumphant grin on the Third Raikage's face froze, still carved on his lips. Yugito, the Two-Tails' jinchūriki, felt her heartbeat skip as her vision pierced through the smoke.
What they saw—shattered everything they knew.
There, standing amidst a crater that should have been a grave...
A golden glow pulsed.
And at its heart, with his hair fluttering and kunai still gleaming—
Stood Namikaze Minato.
The Yellow Flash of Konoha. The fastest shinobi alive. His eyes were calm, sharp as ever, but even he… was standing behind someone.
No—something.
A giant.
A titan in crimson armor, his tattered red cloak dancing in the wind, broad back towering before Minato. His right arm was extended, palm open—and in front of that palm, the air rippled unnaturally.
As if space itself had been pushed aside.
The ground behind him was scorched black, vaporized by the remaining blast that had failed to pass through his hand. The giant's hair flowed like wildfire, and though his face was calm… his very presence sent tremors through the hearts of every witness.
Then, realization crashed down like a landslide.
"He… stopped it?" a Kumo jonin stammered.
"That man—he stopped the Tailed Beast Bomb. With his bare hand?!"
Ōnoki's eyes widened. "Impossible… that's not even chakra shielding. That's raw—"
"No jutsu… no hand seals…" Yugito's voice trembled as Matatabi stilled behind her.
"Just... stopped it."
"He caught death-" someone whispered from the shadows.
Even the Raikage stepped forward now, brows furrowed, rage melting into confusion.
"What kind of monster is he...?"
The battlefield that had roared moments ago now lay under an uneasy hush.
A thousand eyes stared at the red giant.
And behind him, Minato stood straight, the wind brushing his blond hair. His gaze sharp as ever—but his ally... his weapon... was something not even the legends had prepared for.
Radahn turned his head slightly toward Minato, his voice low and calm.
"I assume these are your enemies?"
Minato nodded once.
The silence that had choked the battlefield began to crack—first with murmurs, then laughter.
Nerves tried to mask fear. Pride tried to cover awe.
And the enemy—led by two of the Five Great Kages and a perfect jinchūriki—began to mock.
"So this is what Konoha brought?" the Third Raikage bellowed with a scoff, dusting his massive arms.
"A pretty flash of yellow and a tall freak in armor?"
"Tch-" spat Ōnoki, still floating midair with narrowed eyes.
"It must've been a fluke. Some teleportation trick. They're bluffing!"
From behind their ranks, enemy shinobi began hurling jabs like stones:
"Golden Flash, huh?! Looks more like you're ready for your own funeral!""Don't blink or he might trip into his own grave!""Hey Minato! Why don't you go back to running letters, messenger boy?!"
The tailed beast behind Yugito let out a low growl, but she smirked.
"He didn't stop the bomb. It fizzled out. No way he caught it."
The enemy forces regained confidence, fangs bared.
They saw only one man in a crimson cloak and another in a flak jacket—against thousands, against Kages, against a Tailed Beast.
They saw arrogance as strength.
But Minato Namikaze did not flinch.
His eyes scanned the crowd calmly, not a single expression wasted. He took a slow breath, hand falling to his kunai pouch.
He did not even dignify the slurs with a glance.
This—this indifference enraged them more than any insult.
Ōnoki clenched his jaw. The Raikage slammed his fists together with a boom.
"Still so quiet, Namikaze?" he growled. "Your silence won't save you from your tomb."
But Minato, serene as a stone in the storm, turned slightly. He didn't even look at the enemy.
Instead, he spoke to the people behind him—his own shinobi, his allies who had been caught on the crumbling front lines.
His voice, calm and clear:
"Everyone… join together. I'll take you out of here."
Gasps rose behind him.
"B-But Lord Minato—" one wounded genin started.
"Don't worry about us." Minato's gaze sharpened like steel."We can handle it."
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