Chapter 240: The Elders Fall
Rasa stood rooted to the spot, his Kazekage robes torn and stained. Gold dust swirled uselessly around him. His body trembled uncontrollably, not from fear, but from a profound, soul-crushing despair.
It's over... It's all over...
"Kazekage-sama!"
An old, yet urgent roar cut through the roar of destruction, pulling Rasa back from the brink of mental collapse.
Ebizō, his face etched with grim determination, rushed to Rasa's side. He grabbed the Kazekage's arm, shaking him vigorously.
"Snap out of it! Rasa!"
"It's not time to give up yet! Not while we still draw breath!"
"We haven't lost! Not completely! There's still a chance!"
Granny Chiyo, Ebizō's elder sister, also dragged her weary, battered body over. Her puppet limbs were cracked, her cloak torn. But the last vestiges of a fierce, desperate madness burned in her cloudy, ancient eyes.
"Ebizō is right!" Her voice was sharp, cutting.
"We must stop him! Even if it's just to delay him for one more minute! One more second!"
"We must buy time! Buy time for Sunagakure's last embers—our children, our future—to escape!"
Rasa slowly, stiffly, looked up. His bloodshot eyes, devoid of hope, fixed on the two aged Advisors—the siblings who had served Sunagakure for longer than he had been alive.
"Stop him?" Rasa let out a mournful, tragic laugh, the sound grating and broken.
"With what can we stop him, Ebizō? Chiyo-baa? With our lives?"
His voice rose in despair. "Did you see it?! Did you see that... that thing?! What kind of monster is that?! What do we possibly have left to fight it with?!"
"Then we'll use our lives to fill the gap!" Ebizō roared back, his frail body radiating conviction.
"Besides," Granny Chiyo snapped, her voice sharp, "we still have Shukaku!"
Rasa jolted as if struck by lightning.
Right!
It wasn't over yet! Not completely!
Sunagakure still had one last, terrible trump card! The beast sealed within his own son!
"Maki..." Rasa clutched at this last, desperate straw, muttering to himself, hope flickering faintly in his dead eyes.
"Maki has already gone... He's gone to release Shukaku!"
"As long as Shukaku comes out... as long as the Ichibi's (One-Tail) power fully erupts... plus the three of us..."
"Perhaps... perhaps we really can stop Uchiha Akira! Just long enough!"
"Good!" Ebizō nodded heavily, the last of his fighting spirit erupting from his old, frail body. He turned to his sister.
"Sister! You go! Save the people! Gather whoever is left! Get them out through the escape tunnels!"
"The Kazekage and I... we will buy you time!" His voice was firm, resolute.
"Please!" Chiyo gave her younger brother a deep, knowing look. A look that spanned eighty years of shared battles, losses, and love. There was no time for sentiment. She no longer hesitated in the slightest.
She had to save more shinobi, more children, in the shortest possible time! That was her final duty.
She turned and sprinted away, disappearing into the dust and chaos.
Ebizō turned back to face the colossal Susanoo. He stood beside Rasa, two old warriors against a god.
"UCHIHA AKIRA!" Rasa roared skyward, unleashing every last drop of the remaining chakra in his body without reservation!
His Magnet Release Kekkei Genkai surged.
"Jiton: Sakin Taisō!" (Magnet Release: Gold Dust Imperial Funeral!)
[Inorin's Note: Jiton: Sakin Taisō is Rasa's signature, most powerful jutsu, allowing him to manipulate vast amounts of gold dust.]
This time, Rasa didn't condense a giant hand. He didn't have the chakra or the time.
Instead, he gathered endless gold dust—a shimmering, deadly tsunami—and furiously swept it towards the hundred-meter-tall, armored Susanoo! It was a desperate, all-out attack.
"Kugutsu no Jutsu: Hihigi — Sankō Sōjin!" (Puppet Technique: Secret Skill — Three Jewels Suction Crash!)
Ebizō, Sunagakure's other legendary elder, also made his move simultaneously!
He suddenly summoned three bizarrely shaped, ancient-looking puppets from a large scroll strapped to his back. These were not Chiyo's elegant creations; they were crude, powerful war machines.
The puppets opened their mechanical mouths in unison, and a terrifying triangular vortex of wind erupted, frantically pulling at Susanoo's massive body, attempting to confine it, to hold it in place for Rasa's attack!
The two Kage-level powerhouses, at this moment, unleashed their strongest, final, ultimate moves!
High above, standing within the diamond-like crystal on Susanoo's forehead, Uchiha Akira looked down at the futile, desperate struggles below.
He saw the glittering wave of gold dust. He felt the weak pull of the wind vortex.
A hint of a disdainful smile touched his face.
"Truly... noisy insects."
Akira's thought moved. His Rinnegan pulsed.
"Banshō Ten'in!" (Universal Pull!)
[Inorin's Note: Banshō Ten'in is one of the Six Paths Techniques granted by the Rinnegan, allowing the user to pull objects or people towards them with gravitational force.]
A terrifying, irresistible gravitational force descended instantly, focusing solely on the puppet master!
"What?!" Ebizō's face, already strained with effort, changed dramatically!
His body was completely out of control! He felt a massive, unseen force rip him from the ground, pulling him upwards, straight towards the blue giant looming in the sky, at a terrifying, inescapable speed!
"This is bad!"
In mid-air, tumbling helplessly, Ebizō desperately tried to struggle. He tried to manipulate his puppet strings, to anchor himself, to save himself.
But it was too late! The force was absolute!
What awaited Ebizō... was the giant Sword of Kusanagi, still held in Susanoo's primary right hand.
The broad, ethereal sword face turned, aimed at the flying, screaming Ebizō... and slammed down hard, like swatting a fly!
"NO!!! EBIZŌ-SAMA!!!" Rasa screamed from below, his eyes bloodshot with fury and horror!
BOOM!!!
An extremely dull, colossal, wet sound exploded high in the sky!
Ebizō... this elder of Sunagakure... Granny Chiyo's own younger brother...
...along with his three secret skill puppets, artifacts he regarded as his life...
...were brutally, instantly smashed into a bloody, mangled pulp in mid-air.
Blood, gore, and wooden fragments of the puppets mixed together, raining down gruesomely from the sky.
In the distance, amidst the ruined streets...
Hearing Rasa's desperate, grief-stricken roar...
Granny Chiyo, who was frantically rushing, barking orders, organizing the surviving shinobi for retreat... suddenly trembled.
She stiffly stopped in her tracks. A cold dread gripped her heart.
She abruptly turned her head, looking back towards the source of the scream.
Just in time...
...to see the moment her brother, Ebizō...
...was smashed to pieces against the indifferent blue blade.
Granny Chiyo's mind instantly went blank.
Her world dissolved into white noise.
My brother... Ebizō... is dead?
That brother... who had followed her loyally all his life... always slightly behind her... always cleaning up her messes... always supporting her...
Just like that...
Gone?
Erased?
"Ugh... ah..." Chiyo's throat made a raw, gurgling sound, as if she were being strangled. Her chest felt tight, empty.
But Akira clearly didn't give Granny Chiyo time to mourn. He felt no pity. He felt nothing.
His cold, calculating gaze had already fallen on Granny Chiyo's distant, frozen figure.
"You're next."
The hundred-meter-tall Susanoo raised its giant left palm.
Its five ethereal fingers spread. And within Susanoo's palm, a swirling orb of high-density, compressed chakra was rapidly condensing, visible even from a distance!
It grew larger, darker. Ominous.
Violent black electrical arcs wildly leaped and crackled across the orb's unstable surface.
This was a unique, devastating move Akira had designed specifically for his Perfect Susanoo, inspired by the destructive power of the Tailed Beast Ball (Bijūdama).
Its name was—
"Susanoo: Hōkaikyū!" (Susanoo: Collapse Orb!)
Its power... was easily on par with the Tailed Beast Ball!
"CHIYO-BAA! GET OUT OF THE WAY!!" Rasa's desperate, final roar finally startled Granny Chiyo awake from her grief-stricken daze!
Granny Chiyo trembled violently, suddenly regaining her senses. Survival instinct kicked in.
She looked up and saw the black orb radiating a world-destroying aura in Susanoo's palm, aimed directly at her section of the village.
Run!
Run fast!
This was the only thought in Granny Chiyo's mind!
She suddenly unleashed all her remaining chakra, her old body transforming into a blur, an afterimage, as she sprinted sideways, desperately trying to escape this inevitable death zone!
However... it was already too late.
Susanoo's massive arm swung down, slamming the black "Collapse Orb" fiercely into the ground, right where Chiyo had been standing!
BOOM—!!!
Granny Chiyo had just taken a single step when the wave of destructive black energy had already caught up to her back!
The next instant...
Black light, mixed with pure, annihilating energy, instantly engulfed her fleeing figure...
...as well as the large area behind her, including the remnants of Akira's earlier Deep Forest Emergence!
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—!!!
A small, perfect, black mushroom cloud slowly rose in the center of the devastated Village!
A terrifying shockwave, visible even in the dusty air, spread out in a rapidly expanding ring. It tore apart and blew away all surrounding buildings, trees, rocks, and unfortunate shinobi caught in its path!
Once the blinding light dissipated...
A colossal, bottomless crater, over a hundred meters in diameter, scarred the earth where Chiyo, and a significant portion of the village, had been!
Inside the crater, everything was scorched black. All the trees, rocks, sand, and buildings... had been completely vaporized by the terrifyingly high temperature and concussive force.
As for Granny Chiyo... not even a speck of ash remained.
Silence. A profound, ringing silence fell over the battlefield.
Rasa's gold dust storm had stopped at some point, the glittering particles falling uselessly back to the sand.
He stood rooted to the spot, alone amidst the carnage. Staring at the giant, smoking crater. His body trembled violently, uncontrollably.
Dead.
Ebizō was dead.
Now Chiyo... Chiyo was dead too.
Sunagakure's two highest Advisors. Highly respected elders. Kage-level powerhouses, symbols of Suna's history...
In less than a single minute... one was smashed to a pulp... and the other was blasted into utter oblivion, leaving no trace.
"Why..."
"Why... did this happen..."
Rasa's brain had completely ceased to function. He was broken.
Amidst this suffocating, absolute despair...
Suddenly...
"ROAR—!!!!"
A roar. A sound filled with endless brutality, madness, and the raw, unrestrained power of a natural disaster...
...suddenly came from the deepest part of Sunagakure! Shukaku was free.
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