The massive pillar of fla collapsed slowly, and for a heartbeat the entire world went white.
A blinding light burst outward, followed by flas that rippled in every direction. The roar shook the air itself. Those waiting outside the ruined factory felt their nerves twist.
A sudden pulse—thick and heavy like sothing physical—swept across the air. The shockwave rolled over them. The radiant glow washed above their heads, and then a storm-force wind slamd into the group.
Even Kisa staggered, nearly losing his footing under the pressure.
Silence followed. All eyes stared forward.
The abandoned factory had been reduced to nothing—flattened, burned, lted into an expanse of bubbling lava.
"L-Lord Shigure… are you… are you okay!?"
Haku blurted out, stunned. Beside him, Ringo tensed, clearly wanting to rush forward.
But the sudden expansion of a ROOM-like space stopped her. Ao—eyes sharp—grabbed Ringo's arm.
"Don't rush. Look! Isn't that Lord Shigure's space-type ninjutsu? If he can still cast it, he's definitely alive!"
His words made sense, but Ringo's worry didn't fade.
Then Kisa's expression changed.
"Sothing's wrong."
Everyone turned to him. Kisa wasn't staring at the Fourth Raikage, nor at the Kumogakure shinobi nearby.
He was looking past them.
The area where the mbers of the organization had been standing…
was now completely empty.
No chakra.
No presence.
As if they had been erased.
"Where did the organization's people go?" Kisa muttered.
Ay frowned. "Did they… flee?"
"No." Kisa shook his head grimly. "That's impossible."
If they wanted to run, why leave Nagato to fight Shigure alone?
Why use Impure World Reincarnation to summon the First Hokage as a delay tactic?
This wasn't escape.
It was a stall.
But for what?
The strange feeling only grew.
The blast site was a molten crater. The ground glowed red, the heat so intense it warped the air. The soil itself had lted into magma.
Shigure stepped across the flas, approaching steadily.
Nagato's chakra was gone.
Completely gone.
And the traces of the other mbers—those who should have been nearby—were also missing. Not even the faintest signature remained.
What… happened?
Then the sky darkened.
Shigure's head snapped up.
His pupils shrank.
[Great Sage: Warning. Warning. The host is being enveloped by an extrely powerful sealing technique. Evacuate imdiately.]
Before Shigure could react, the darkness lifted.
But in its place—a massive barrier rose into existence, visible even to the naked eye.
Shigure's face hardened.
So that was it.
Nagato hadn't been fighting him directly.
He had been buying ti.
All of this was to activate this massive sealing jutsu.
A sealing technique powerful enough that even the Great Sage was struggling—
[Great Sage: Beginning analytical calculus.]
[…]
[…]
[…]
Nothing.
Not even an estimated tifra.
Shigure's heart sank slightly. The more the Great Sage hesitated, the more terrifying this barrier must be.
Then—
[Great Sage: Estimated ti required—thirty minutes.]
Thirty minutes.
For a single barrier.
Too long. Far too long.
He exhaled slowly. And then—
Footsteps.
Figures began stepping out through the smoke and fla, silhouettes erging one by one.
A voice ca from the front:
"Water Release — Great Waterfall Technique!"
BOOOOM!!
A torrent of water swept across the molten ground, crashing against the flas and filling the air with violent hissing steam.
A thick white mist surged outward, flooding the entire barrier in an instant.
Visibility vanished. Even Shigure's heightened senses struggled to pierce through the fog.
He narrowed his eyes, focusing on the chakra signatures ahead.
The first silhouette to step out was unmistakable—
Senju Hashirama.
Still standing there, still acting as the primary obstacle.
Of course he would be.
His purpose here was obvious:
to prevent Shigure from breaking the barrier too easily.
But more figures began erging behind him—one by one.
"Kakuzu."
"Kimimaro."
"…Hanzo of the Salamander."
All powerful shinobi, all revived through Impure World Reincarnation, now positioned between him and freedom.
Then Shigure's gaze stopped on the last figure.
"This is…?"
A man he did not recognize.
No mories surfaced, no battles, no stories—not even a faint resemblance to any recorded shinobi.
The face was unfamiliar, softened by age, but the robes—
Shigure's eyes sharpened instantly.
That crest.
That pattern.
The Uzumaki Clan.
A sealing master from the Uzumaki…
Of course.
A sealing technique of this scale—one that even the Great Sage required ti to decode—there was no other clan capable of constructing sothing like this.
Before Shigure could speak, Hashirama turned toward the newcor, his expression lifting in surprise.
"I didn't expect you of all people to be dragged out as well!"
But the old Uzumaki man didn't smile. His expression was stern, troubled.
"What is happening? Hokage-sama… I should be dead. Yet I stand here again—and these shinobi…"
He looked around at Kimimaro, Kakuzu, and Hanzo.
"These faces are not from my era at all."
"How long… how long has it been since I died?"
Hashirama exhaled softly. "I'm not sure of the exact number of years. But I can tell you this—"
He pointed at Shigure.
"The young man in front of us is the Sixth Mizukage of Kirigakure."
"Sixth…?"
The Uzumaki elder froze.
Even assuming short reigns, for the title to reach the sixth generation ant—
"…over a century," he whispered.
"Perhaps several."
The weight of ti seed to settle onto his shoulders.
"To think I would walk again after so long…"
Hashirama shook his head. "Not resurrection. This is a forbidden technique—Impure World Reincarnation. Soone used it to summon your soul back as a weapon."
"A technique like that truly exists…?" the old man muttered in disbelief.
Shigure finally stepped forward, eyes locked onto the elder.
"Who is he?"
Hashirama answered without hesitation.
"This man is the patriarch of the Uzumaki Clan—Uzumaki Ashina."
Shigure's pupils tightened.
Uzumaki Ashina.
The legendary ancestor once known as the Origin of Sealing Techniques—the man whose knowledge shaped every sealing thod used in the shinobi world.
To think that soone had the audacity—and the skill—to revive him…
Shigure finally understood.
No wonder the barrier was so impossibly strong.
No wonder the Great Sage estimated half an hour.
This was not just a sealing technique.
This was the work of the Sealing Ancestor himself.
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