The clash of the three titans shattered every idea anyone had about "human limits." Even Hashirama, Madara, and Raizen themselves hadn't imagined this.
A full-bodied Susanoo.
The Sage-flesh of the Senju and its living forest.
A rampaging Three Tails tearing the plain apart.
Three overwhelming forces collided in a way that didn't feel like shinobi warfare anymore. It felt like the earth was trying to cough up a new mythology.
The Konoha squads and every surviving fighter from the great clans kept falling back, step after terrified step, staring at the distant battlefield. Horror and disbelief danced across their faces. None of this looked like power mortals should wield.
At this point, the three of them were fighting at a level people would someday whisper about as "godlike."
"Hashirama… your strength really is insane," Raizen muttered, breath fraying, lungs burning.
Cracks spiderwebbed across his full-body Susanoo. The giant Wooden Golem ahead of him lost another limb, collapsing into splinters.
Then a deep, ringing boom tore the air.
The Wooden Golem fell apart completely.
Raizen's Susanoo shattered in the same breath, fragments dissolving into fading chakra.
"Wooden Golem… destroyed."
Another roar signaled the death of Hashirama's last Wood Dragon, still tangled in Raizen's ice and detonating clay traps, strangled by his clones and unable to threaten the true body.
"As expected of Senju Hashirama… the so-called God of Shinobi," Raizen said quietly.
Hashirama stood there, brutally wounded, yet still dangerous, still recovering even without medical ninjutsu. Seeing him made Raizen's stomach twist. Fighting a man whose body refused to die felt like punching a tidal wave.
"Hah… Raizen, you're ridiculous," Hashirama said, panting hard.
He rammed his massive chakra-blade into the dirt for support.
His eyes flicked toward one of Raizen's clones still battling him nearby.
Hashirama had only fought the clone. And that alone had nearly broken him.
Byakugan visibility.
Burst-speed from the Eight Inner Gates.
Ice Release.
Exploding clay.
Even the god of the forest had been pushed into a corner.
In a cloud of white smoke, the clone's torn body finally disappeared.
"A clone is a clone," Raizen sighed. "If my copy can push you this far, the real fight isn't over."
He took a long breath and stepped forward.
A sudden roar shook the plain.
The Three Tails collapsed with a strangled cry, its form dissolving into chakra smoke.
"Hah… hahahaha!"
Madara stood in the wreckage, chest heaving, laughing like a man who refused to be the first to fall.
Then he turned and saw Hashirama and Raizen standing there, bloodied but upright.
The laughter died instantly.
"Damn it…" Madara hissed, realizing the devastation behind them.
Their battlefield looked worse than his.
And they'd finished faster.
"So Madara's finished too," Raizen murmured, watching the last of the Three Tails vanish.
"Raizen," Madara called sharply, adjusting his posture as if the exhaustion didn't exist. "Got anything left? Want to finish it together?"
"Madara, you really don't learn," Raizen said, almost amused. "You beat a clone. If that's enough to puff your chest out, you might as well go home."
Madara's eyebrow twitched so hard it nearly flew off his face.
"Tch… still the same mouth as ever."
But he didn't deny it. His gaze hardened.
"This next part… is our true battle. Don't die."
Raizen rolled his neck. Large-scale jutsu were almost off the table now. At this point, every shinobi fell back on the same thing: raw body, raw nerve, raw survival instinct.
"Eight Inner Gates…
Seventh Gate—OPEN!"
A roar tore through him.
His muscles bulged.
Chakra ignited up his spine like a column of blood-red flame.
His pupils slit like a beast's.
"Stay sharp, Hashirama!"
The ground exploded under Raizen's feet.
Hashirama's eyes barely widened before he was launched sideways, ribs caving under the hit. Blood sprayed from his lips.
"So fast… I can't keep up!"
Pain throbbed in his chest, stars popping across his vision.
But the Sage body worked at once, desperately knitting the wound back together.
"Wood Style… Laughing Buddha Jutsu!"
Five colossal wooden palms erupted around Raizen.
He blurred.
The palms shattered before they even finished forming.
"Don't forget me!"
Madara roared, Susanoo flaring to full power.
The giant twin blades carved a trench so deep the earth groaned.
"Wood Style… Tree-Binding Eternal Burial!"
A massive wave of vines surged from Hashirama's jutsu and swallowed the field.
Raizen smashed and tore through them, but even Seventh Gate speed couldn't clear them fast enough.
"Dust Release.
Original World Stripping Technique!"
White light screamed from Raizen's hands, carving everything away.
The vines vanished like ash.
"RAIZEN!"
Hashirama's voice hammered the air.
He charged like a berserk tiger, sword raised.
Raizen felt him through Byakugan long before the strike.
He dodged, pivoted, and drove a punch into Hashirama's ribs—
"You're not escaping!"
Hashirama seized Raizen's fist with both hands and slammed his forehead into Raizen's skull.
CRACK.
Both of them staggered back.
Raizen's vision blurred. Blood streaked down his face.
"It's now!"
Madara's roar hit like a war drum.
Susanoo's massive sword arced down from the sky toward Raizen, shining like a falling star.
And everything froze in that heartbeat.