The three-front assault on the Tsuchikage was a spectacle of coordinated chaos. Hiruzen Sarutobi, a pillar of focused fury, was the anchor. His hands moved in a blinding kata, weaving seals that bent reality to his will. "Katon: Gōryūka no Jutsu!"
A colossal fire dragon, its scales shimmering with incandescent heat, roared skyward. But before it could climb far, Hiruzen's hands shifted. "Fūton: Daitoppa!"
A hurricane-force gale wrapped around the dragon, not dispersing it, but compressing it, sharpening it into a spiralling drill of flame and wind that screamed towards Onoki with apocalyptic intent.
From the other flank, Hiroshi provided the veil and the dagger. His mist, the Kirigakure no Jutsu, was no mere blanket of fog. It rose like a living, sentient tide, thick and cloying, clinging to Onoki's position and dulling his senses. But within that mist, hidden in the swirling vapour, were countless needles of water, flash-frozen into razor-sharp senbon by his Ice Release. They fell in a silent, deadly rain, against the rocky debris, Onoki used for cover, seeking any gap in his defence.
"PING-PING-PINGING"
And from below, Saitetsu, his face a mask of pain and betrayal, commanded the earth itself to rebel. The black iron sand erupted in towering, monolithic walls that then lashed out like colossal whips, their tips sharpened to points.
Onoki, trapped in the centre of this trinity of annihilation, grimaced, his aged face pinched with strain. There was no room for a clean retaliation, no opening for a decisive Dust Release. He was forced into a desperate, constant dance.
He swerved around the fire-wind drill, erected a hasty stone barrier that was instantly shredded by the iron sand whips, and vaporised entire swathes of the mist with short, focused bursts of his Particle Style. "FZZZ-ZAP!"
A beam of light lanced out, carving a massive, perfectly smooth canyon into the plateau where Hiruzen had stood a moment before. The ground trembled violently, a precursor to a greater cataclysm. With a grunt of effort, Onoki formed a larger cube and let it fall. It didn't aim at a person, but at the land itself. The world turned white, and an entire ridge line to the north vanished in a silent flash, leaving behind a glassy, smoking scar.
From the periphery of this madness, the Third Raikage watched, lightning sparking and dancing across his skin like angry serpents. His expression curdled into something darker: utter disgust.
"Idiots," he snarled, the word a low rumble of thunder in his chest. "They can't even see the trap they've walked into."
His patience, never his strong suit, evaporated. There was a sound like a thunderclap being born—"CRACK!"—and he was gone, a blur of blue-white light that left afterimages on one's retina.
"Kazekage!" he roared, the sound vibrating through Saitetsu's very bones. "You're dancing to Hiruzen's tune! He's turning us against each other!"
The words, so blunt and certain, struck a nerve. For a single, critical instant, Saitetsu's unwavering focus on Onoki faltered.
It was all the opening the Tsuchikage needed. A thin, precise Dust Release beam, no wider than a finger, lanced down.
"FZZT!"
It grazed the Kazekage's shoulder, vaporising a section of his already damaged sand armour and searing the flesh beneath. Saitetsu cried out, more in rage than pain, and whirled his gaze downward towards the Raikage.
"Don't lecture me about trust, Raikage!" he growled back.
"He was the first to betray it!" His eyes flicked upwards towards Onoki, the accusation burning hotter than any fire release.
This defiance was the final straw. The Raikage's chakra surged, a visible eruption of power. He vanished again and slammed down like a meteorite mere feet from Hiruzen.
The impact was tectonic. The ground exploded outward, a ring of force and lightning that hurled debris in every direction. Hiruzen had already crossed his arms, meeting the Raikage's subsequent straight punch with the staff held crossways.
"KRA-BOOOOOM!"
The sound was not of metal on flesh, but of a mountain breaking. A shockwave of pure force radiated outwards, cracking the stone beneath their feet into a spiderweb of fractures. Hiruzen's feet skidded backwards, grinding a trench in the earth, but he held, his jaw clenched, his eyes locked with the Raikage's blazing orbs.
"This ends now!" the Raikage bellowed, but at the entire collapse of control, the unravelling of his sure path to victory.
Hiruzen and Hiroshi exchanged a glance over the Raikage's shoulder—a flicker of eyes that conveyed an entire conversation. The alliance was broken. The plan had worked. Now, they had to survive the pieces. As one, they re-engaged, turning the battle into a brutal dance of two against one.
High above, the other duel reached its climax. Saitetsu, propelled by a platform of swirling sand, met Onoki in the air. Their aerial war was a stark contrast to the brawl below—a battle of precision and colossal constructs.
Onoki hurled house-sized chunks of the vaporised plateau upwards. Saitetsu's sand formed a massive form that swatted the projectiles aside or took the hits, its form constantly eroding and reforming.
The sky flashed white with every Dust cube that collided with the sand.
"FZZZ-BOOM!" A limb of sand was erased.
"FZZZ-BOOM!'
A chunk of its torso vanished. Saitetsu bled from a dozen gashes where the strain of controlling the sand manifested physically, but his eyes, burning with betrayed pride, refused to yield.
"You've grown cautious, Onoki!" Saitetsu taunted, his voice strained as he reformed a sand spear and hurled it. "Afraid of dying above your own shadow?"
Onoki, panting, a trail of blood now leaking from a cut on his forehead, snarled back. "And you've grown soft, Kazekage! Still playing the honorable hero while your men die for your pride in the dunes below!"
Their insults, carried on the roaring wind, were as much their weapons as their jutsu.
Below, the dance between Hiruzen, Hiroshi, and the Raikage was a masterpiece of tactical synergy against overwhelming power. Hiruzen's movements were a lecture in elemental theory. As the Raikage discharged a wave of lightning, Hiruzen channelled his own Raiton through Enma, not to clash, but to ground and redirect the energy harmlessly into the earth. When the Raikage charged, Earth Walls rose not to stop him, but to crumble into clinging mud, swallowing his feet and slowing his impossible speed. Then, a combination: "Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu!" followed by "Fūton: Renkūdan!"
A volley of fireballs became a vortex of explosive, swirling heat that forced the Raikage to shield his eyes.
Hiroshi was the perfect complement, a master of opportunism. He flooded the area the Raikage was forced into with mist that instantly condensed into a forest of ice spikes. He mirrored Hiruzen's timing, so the moment the Raikage broke through one element, he was met by another. For a glorious, fleeting moment, they had him cornered, his legendary armour flickering under the sustained, multifaceted assault.
But the Third Raikage was willpower incarnate. With a roar that shook the very air, he pushed back, his chakra flaring anew. Each strike of his fists carried the weight of thunder itself, shattering ice and stone alike.
"So this is what unity among Kage looks like," Hiruzen remarked, his voice cold and steady even as he barely dodged a Hell Spear that gouged a trench where his head had been.
"Don't mock me, Hiruzen!" the Raikage roared in response, and in his fury, he pivoted and drove his fist into a small hillock beside them.
"BOOOOM!" The hill evaporated into dust and rubble.
The breaking point came from the sky. With a final, shuddering impact, Saitetsu's sand golem was completely erased by a point-blank Dust Release cube. The Kazekage himself was thrown from the sky, crashing down into the centre of the battlefield, his sand armour cracking apart, revealing the bloody, burned flesh beneath.
Onoki descended more slowly, panting heavily, one hand pressed to a bleeding wound on his side, his face pale with strain and chakra depletion.
The Raikage stood between them all, his chest heaving, his lightning sparking violently but erratically. The scene was a ruinous tableau: mist, shimmering sand, and lightning churned together in a storm of destruction.
"You've all lost sight of what you came here for," he growled, his eyes full of contempt, darting between Onoki and Saitetsu.
Onoki's reply was bitter, "We came to end Konoha's tyranny—and look who's protecting its Hokage now."
It was then that Hiruzen Sarutobi decided the lecture was over.
He stepped forward, a calm settling over him that was more terrifying than any rage. He planted Enma firmly on the ground.
"Expand."
The staff grew, not just in length, but in girth, becoming a towering pillar of adamantine wood, thrumming with power. Hiruzen's chakra surged, not in a wild explosion, but in a controlled, immense wave.
"This dance," he said, his voice cutting through the stunned silence, "is beneath us."
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