Just as Naruto and Sasuke finally broke free and were about to move to support each other, a sharp scream tore through the air.
Naruto, still in Sage Mode, felt it instantly—Sarada's chakra signature had been snatched away.
"Someone's taken Sarada…!"
"Leave this to me, Naruto. You go after her!"
Sasuke had caught his daughter's movement even in the chaos. Without hesitation, he sent Naruto—the one who'd just shaken off his restraints—to chase her down.
But both of them had clearly underestimated the cloaked man.
His potential was far beyond what they'd assumed.
To Sasuke's astonishment, the cloaked figure pressed his hands together, stilled his breathing, and in the next heartbeat—entered Sage Mode.
"Sage Art: Wood Release — True Several Thousand Hands (Top Buddha Stance)!"
"You're not going anywhere," the cloaked man said coolly.
On the ground behind him, a colossal wooden Buddha erupted from the sea of trees, towering a hundred meters high. From that height, above the clouds, the cloaked man stood on the Buddha's crown, looking down at the tiny figures below as if he were looking at insects.
"Sa—suke!!" Naruto shouted.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. The skeletal frame of Susanoo ignited around him in purple chakra, quickly thickening with muscle, then armor.
In just a few breaths, Susanoo rose to match the Buddha's height—Complete Body Susanoo.
Clad in heavy armor and a tengu mask, Sasuke stood atop his towering avatar. The enemy was no First Hokage, but even this cheap imitation of Hashirama's jutsu carried terrifying weight. Hashirama's original "True Several Thousand Hands" could grab the Nine-Tails with a single palm—this one was only a fraction of that, but still more than enough to crush a Kage.
The two giants stood eye to eye, dwarfing the endless forest beneath them.
Sasuke's Susanoo was clearly within the cloaked man's calculations. The moment he saw it, he didn't falter—he attacked.
The Buddha's countless arms flexed and clenched into fists. The rain of blows that followed came down like a meteor shower, every punch heavy enough to shatter a mountain, pounding Susanoo in a merciless barrage.
The world shook.
The sea of trees below was torn open by impact and shockwaves, leaving a vast crater of churned earth and shattered roots. Sasuke's Susanoo took the blows head-on, each strike forcing it back, step by grinding step.
The ground split in two gouged trenches beneath Susanoo's heels. Chakra around its body flickered, dimming under the relentless assault—but Sasuke held on.
When the rain of fists slowed for a breath, Susanoo moved.
Lightning crackled along its blade—Chidori infused into Susanoo's sword. Thunder crawled along the edge, boosting its cutting power several levels higher, and even the imposing giant seemed fiercer for it.
Sasuke swung.
With each slash, several arms snapped and flew away. Chakra-laced wood exploded into splinters and dust. One swing, two, three—the forest of fists quickly thinned as the Buddha's arms were hewn off, and Sasuke steadily drove Susanoo closer to the cloaked figure atop the statue.
The man did not panic. He stayed seated on the Buddha's head, calmly drawing in more sage chakra.
Sasuke knew he couldn't let that continue. He raised Susanoo's bow, drew back a shimmering arrow, and loosed it toward the Buddha's crown.
Heaven-splitting force tore through the air—Heavenly Magatama Bow.
The arrow punched cleanly through one of the Buddha's arms, still carrying enormous kinetic force as it drilled straight for the top of its head. The cloaked man, sensing the danger even in Sage Mode, was forced to break off his concentration.
"Wood Release — Ranking Technique!"
Two of the Buddha's arms lifted and pressed together, raising a massive, demon-faced shield in front of the cloaked man.
It was Hashirama's famous absolute defense. The same technique the First Hokage had once used to block a blade from Madara's Susanoo. Deploying it here just to interfere with Sasuke's attack was like using a warship to swat a fly.
But its appearance made one thing clear.
He wasn't just playing around. From the first "Top Buddha" to his current performance, his intention was obvious—he was aiming to use the true "Several Thousand Hands" to annihilate both Naruto and Sasuke.
After all, Hashirama's glory was carved into history. In this man's mind, even if Naruto and Sasuke fought together, he still believed he had a real chance.
On Naruto's side, as soon as he retreated out of the thickest forest, he saw the cloaked man gathering power again. A chill shot down his spine.
Sasuke's voice cut through the rumbling sky.
"Do what you're supposed to do!"
Naruto understood. Without hesitating further, he focused on the chakra he'd locked onto earlier and sprinted toward Sarada's position with Sage Mode's perception wide open.
What he sensed made his face harden.
The ones who had taken Sarada were unbelievably fast. In the few minutes he'd been pinned down, her chakra had already moved almost out of range.
They had nearly crossed half the Land of Fire.
Naruto clicked his tongue. The situation was worse than he'd thought.
He couldn't drag Boruto into this chase. Rescuing Sarada was urgent, and Boruto would only slow him down at that speed.
Unexpectedly, Boruto didn't complain at all. He just smiled, hopped up onto a rock, and sat there peacefully, looking entirely too content for someone being left in the middle of a battlefield.
"I'll wait for you here," he said casually.
Naruto gave him a quick nod. With that, he fully unleashed the Nine-Tails' power.
An immense, orange-gold fox form rose and sprinted into the sky, racing toward Sarada's fading chakra signature.
Naruto's silhouette vanished into the distance. Overhead, the clouds were thick and heavy, the sky dark and oppressive—yet Naruto's charge ripped a rift through the heavy clouds, letting sunlight pour back down on the scarred land.
With a soft pop, the shadow clones he'd left behind dissipated one after another.
Back in the forest of giants, Sasuke's repeated attempts to break through the cloaked man's layered defenses had all failed. His expression tightened.
He reached one armored hand skyward. Above, the heavens darkened as purple-edged lightning surged, filling the sky with a rolling storm. Bulging clouds twisted, transforming the sky into a swamp of thunder.
"Susanoo — Lightning Release: Kirin Descends!"
The lightning Sasuke summoned while in Complete Susanoo was magnitudes beyond what he'd once used as a lone shinobi. The range was broader, the power dozens of times greater.
Bolts merged into a single titanic mass of lightning—a colossal Kirin taking shape in the clouds, its size rivaling that of a tailed beast.
Even before landing, stray arcs fell like luminous rain, filling the air with sizzling light. The entire sky glittered as if stars had scattered from the clouds.
Atop the Buddha's head, the cloaked man slowly rose to his feet. The majestic scene seemed to excite him instead of intimidating him.
He unleashed the sage power he'd been hoarding, and the Buddha beneath him swelled again—expanding, tier after tier, until its size rivaled Susanoo's.
"Uchiha Sasuke," he laughed, voice booming like thunder, "this is the ultimate technique I prepared for the two of you. Unfortunately, it looks like you're the only one left to enjoy it!"
His laughter rolled across the sky, mixing with the roar of thunder. The world itself seemed to tremble, the air heavy with an almost divine pressure.
"Sage Art: Wood Release — True Several Thousand Hands!!"
At this level of attack, Sasuke, in his current state, had absolutely no way to face it head-on. That was why he'd gambled everything on Kirin—he needed to at least cripple the man before the full technique went off.
The Kirin descended.
Lightning's brilliance turned the sky blinding white, burning away all shadow. For a moment, even the outlines of the Buddha and Susanoo vanished in the glare. Then the titanic thunder beast crashed down toward the Buddha's crown.
Thunder roared like the end of the world.
The blow landed—but the forest of hands was already moving.
The True Several Thousand Hands spread out behind the Buddha like a mountain range of palms. Just one of those hands seemed like Guanyin descending; a thousand together were nothing less than a divine calamity.
The arms swarmed the falling Kirin, punching into it from every angle. Lightning shattered under the wild barrage, fragments of electricity wrapping around the countless arms instead of tearing them apart.
The damaged Kirin dissolved into arcs that were swallowed by the storm of fists. The added charge only made the strikes more brutal.
Under that endless rain of blows, Susanoo took the full impact.
There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide—just a massive, unavoidable, high-intensity strike that blanketed everything. The arrow drawn on Heavenly Magatama Bow vanished in the flurry as if it had never existed, drowned in a sea of fists.
The earth buckled.
The ground split open, collapsing into craters as the shockwaves ripped it apart. Susanoo stood like a tiny ship in the middle of an apocalyptic storm. For a while, through sheer will, it held—, but there was a limit even to that.
With one final barrage, the purple giant fractured. Susanoo shattered apart, and Sasuke plummeted.
Up above, the cloaked man exhaled slowly, feeling triumph rise in his chest—
Then the clouds above him split open.
Sunlight poured down through the smoke and dust. In the shafts of light, floating motes and shattered debris created a hazy Tyndall glow. The brightness seemed to condense into a single, blazing edge—
A golden blade, stretching endlessly from the heavens.
In that instant, the world fell silent.
Boruto's presence was nowhere to be sensed. To anyone watching, this attack didn't look like ninjutsu—it looked like judgment from the sky itself.
"Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion!!"
The golden sword descended.
Time seemed to stop. The storms of wood and chakra froze. The True Several Thousand Hands, the colossal Buddha, the victorious cloaked man—all of it hung motionless beneath the falling light.
Then the blade cut through.
The giant Buddha split like tofu, cleaved cleanly in a single stroke. The cloaked man was erased in the same instant—no scream, no resistance, just gone.
With the Buddha's destruction, the ongoing jutsu collapsed. The multi-armed colossus crumbled, and the surviving Wood Release structures went still, losing their source.
On the ground, Sasuke lay sprawled in the rubble, armor shattered, cloak torn. He stared at the ruined horizon with shock still in his eyes.
He had just witnessed a miracle.
But he couldn't sense the one who'd made it happen anywhere nearby.
Footsteps crunched quickly through the settling dust.
"Uncle Sasuke! Are you okay? That last attack was insane!"
Boruto ran up, face full of concern, and pulled Sasuke to his feet. The smoke-choked air made it hard to breathe; the oxygen here was dangerously thin. Without hesitation, Boruto slung Sasuke's arm over his shoulder and helped him stagger away from the collapsed battlefield.
After they reached a safer, clearer spot, Boruto pressed his hands together and channeled chakra into his palms.
"Healing Palm Technique."
Sasuke watched in silence as Boruto's movements flowed smoothly, precise and practiced. Gentle green light spread over his injuries, easing the pain.
Compared to Naruto, he couldn't help but think—
This kid was calmer.
More composed.
And far more prepared than anyone his age had any right to be.
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A/N: Advanced Chapters Have Been Uploaded On My Patreon
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