Chapter 86: The King's Contempt
Aizen Sōsuke, a being who had once transcended the very pinnacle of what a Shinigami could be, stood unmoved. The oppressive, deathly aura of the summoned Shinigami, which had frozen the blood of both the Third Hokage and Orochimaru, washed over him and parted like a wave against an unbreakable cliff.
He did not need to move, to speak, or to release his power. His mere presence, the invisible weight of his kingly spirit, was a force of nature that completely overwhelmed the death god's own malevolent energy.
Aizen's gaze, calm and analytical, met the hollow, soulless eyes of the Shinigami. And in that gaze, the spectral entity saw something that should not exist in its realm of absolute finality: a superior. A flicker of something alien—pure, instinctual fear—passed through the Shinigami's form. The soul-deep suppression was so absolute that the same Shinigami that could terrify the Nine-Tailed Fox was now the one feeling panic.
"Huh? What is happening?!" the Third Hokage grunted, his face a mask of confusion and strain. It wasn't just the Shinigami's strange hesitation that baffled him. A deeper, more primal dread was creeping up his spine, a chilling sensation that made his soul feel brittle.
He was certain this feeling wasn't coming from the death god behind him. The source was somewhere behind Orochimaru!
There, it felt as if a slumbering dragon watched from on high, mildly interested in the scuffling of a few slightly more interesting ants.
Orochimaru's experience was even more intense. A cold sweat broke out on his pale skin. He stood frozen, his expression slack with a shock he hadn't felt in decades. A monumental threat to his very existence screamed from every instinct, yet when he whirled around, he saw nothing but empty space.
He did not know that Aizen stood just a few feet away, staring at him with a bottomless, contemptuous elegance—the look of a god observing a particularly crude and foolish mortal. A realization, vague and terrifying, dawned on both Orochimaru and the Third Hokage: this strange, oppressive atmosphere had been present since the beginning of the Chunin Exam finals. Since the moment Aizen had faced Gaara.
"This feeling! It's unbearable… I can't drag this out any longer! I must end it now!" Orochimaru snarled, his voice cracking with a panic he couldn't control. The situation he had been so confident in had become unstable, poisoned by an unseen variable that was shredding his nerves.
"Darkness Genjutsu!" he commanded.
Under his control, the First Hokage's hands formed seals, casting a high-level illusion. Instantly, a shroud of absolute blackness fell over the Four Violet Flames Formation. It was a darkness that devoured all light, a void where not even the sharpest eyes could perceive a single photon. Even the three Hokage were rendered blind.
This deadly darkness, a sensory nightmare, wrapped around the Third Hokage's heart, feeding on the primal fear of the unknown. But the experienced Professor would not just wait to die. His two shadow clones moved to flank his real body, forming a defensive triangle.
Swish!
In the endless dark, the only sounds were the faint rustles of moving figures.
Though blind, the Third Hokage relied on his decades of battle experience to sense the movements around him. Yet, his aged body could no longer keep pace with his mind's reactions.
Shink!
A blade of light flickered. A sharp shuriken silently sliced through the Third's robes, opening a deep gash on his arm. Blood welled, stark and vivid.
Shink! Shink!
Several more silent attacks came. Blades and kunai found their marks, leaving the old Hokage's body crisscrossed with bleeding wounds. He was being toyed with by the ghost-like forms of his predecessors in the dark.
"The Hokage is a pillar that stands to protect everyone in Konoha! I will not fall… not until I have passed on the Will of Fire!" the Third Hokage gasped, his eyes blazing with defiant fire. His resolve hardened. He would use the Dead Demon Consuming Seal. It was the only way to save Konoha in its death throes, even if it cost him everything.
"Don't spout such naive nonsense! You are just a temporary leader of an organization called Konoha!" Orochimaru hissed, his voice raw with fury. "Even a stone statue, left to stand through the ages, becomes magnificent with the passage of time! You are just a fading relic!"
Thud!
Another dazzling slash. The Third Hokage coughed up a mouthful of blood, his situation beyond desperate.
"What's the matter, sensei? Do you want to be killed by the very Hokage you revered? Show me that ninjutsu! Stop holding back!" Orochimaru screamed, his eyes now filled with nothing but pure, unhinged madness.
"Now!"
The Shinigami, which had been still for so long, finally moved. Its pale, spectral arm rose, clutching a string of prayer beads. Mysterious, glowing runes spread across its arm, and a power that promised absolute despair flowed out.
"Guh…!"
At the same time, the Third Hokage's body went rigid. He felt an invisible, icy hand reach into his very being, beginning to pull his soul from its mortal shell.
"This is it, Enma!" the Third Hokage yelled, his eyes sharp.
Through trial and error in the darkness, his two shadow clones had finally managed to grab the reanimated bodies of the First and Second Hokage. They held on tightly, and the invisible hand of the death god seized their souls instead.
Boom.
As the souls of the former Hokage were captured, the Darkness Genjutsu shattered. Light returned to the watchtower.
"Seal!"
The Third Hokage formed the final seal, forcing the souls of the two Hokage into the Shinigami's stomach. The Adamantine Staff, still wielded by his real body, was driven through both his own and Orochimaru's bodies, pinning them together.
"No! This feeling is…!" Orochimaru's face twisted in horror and utter despair. He felt the same icy, unstoppable hand clawing at his own soul, trying to rip it from its moorings.
Just as he gathered his will to fight back, a searing, unimaginable pain exploded from his back. It was a heart-rending agony, so intense that even his modified White Snake body could not endure it.
SHING!
A single, unremarkable flash of a sword blade. It was not a grand technique, but a cut of perfect, effortless precision. A terrible wound split open across Orochimaru's back, causing his chakra to plummet and his body to go limp with shock.
"I truly didn't expect that a combined force of so many would be less effective than me alone," a calm, disdainful voice stated. "This boring battle is time to end."
With immense effort, Orochimaru turned his head. He saw a sight his mind could barely process.
A figure stood holding a long, elegant sword, ignoring him as if he were already part of the scenery. The look in the man's eyes—a bottomless, utter contempt—was burned into Orochimaru's soul.
"You… you are… Aizen Sōsuke!"