Mifune stood on the high platform of Iron Castle, gazing at the snowfield gradually returning to calm. His hand gripping his sword trembled slightly, and a wavering rarely seen in the heart of a samurai appeared on his weathered face. He murmured, "The power of the ninjas… has actually reached this level. What can a samurai's sword still protect?"

After a moment, he gripped the hilt of his sword and took a deep breath: "But no matter how powerful the ninjas are, the way of the samurai must not be broken. Since the five great nations are willing to join forces to protect this land, the Land of Iron should also do its part."

The Five Shadows Summit was restarted in a temporary stone house erected next to the collapsed meeting place.

The charcoal fire burned brightly, but the silence inside was colder than the wind and snow outside. The five figures took their seats one by one, each with a complex expression. The earth-shattering battle on the snowfield had shattered most of their mutual probing and calculations, replacing them with a stark consensus: the Akatsuki's power far surpassed the ability of any single village to cope alone.

The silence lasted a long time. Finally, Onoki spoke slowly, his voice less sharp and more somber than before: "I have always been reluctant to acknowledge Konoha's strength. But what I have witnessed today forces me to admit—if the ninja world needs a leader to fight against Akatsuki, perhaps no one is more suitable than the Fifth Hokage."

After he finished speaking, he looked at Tsunade with a calm gaze, as if he were making a decision after careful consideration: "I propose that Her Excellency Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage of Konoha, serve as the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Shinobi Forces."

Mei Terumi spoke almost immediately after, her tone light yet undeniable: "Kigakure seconds. Lady Tsunade's strength and courage were fully displayed in that battle just now. Our Land of Water is willing to submit to the Hokage's command."

Gaara paused for a moment, then slowly nodded: "Sunagakure seconds. The One-Tailed matter still requires the joint efforts of the Allied Forces." Raikage A gritted his teeth, his eyes still burning with rage, but after glancing at the ravine cleaved by Susanoo and the forest covered by Wood Release, he finally uttered a single word in a low voice: "Agreed."

Mifune stood solemnly to the side and also spoke earnestly: "Although the Land of Iron is not a land of ninjas, we are willing to send samurai to participate in the allied forces and fight against the scourge of Akatsuki."

Tsunade surveyed the crowd and slowly rose to her feet. Instead of immediately accepting the order, she uttered a message that sent a chill down everyone's spine: "Since you have all elected me as commander-in-chief, I must speak the truth. The Akatsuki's foundation extends far beyond the reanimated beings you see. According to our intelligence, they possess 100,000 White Zetsu—a massive biological weapon army."

"One hundred thousand?" Onoki's voice suddenly rose.

"Moreover, each White Zetsu possesses Chunin-level combat strength." Tsunade's voice was deep and powerful. "What's even more troublesome is that they have the ability to transform and infiltrate, perfectly mimicking anyone's appearance, making them undetectable even to regular sensory ninjas. In other words, anyone around you, anytime and anywhere, could be an Akatsuki spy."

A deathly silence fell over the room, so profound that even breathing seemed too loud. The figures exchanged glances, each seeing a heavy expression in the others' eyes.

"Therefore, I must remind everyone that the formation of the Allied Forces is not a game of saving face." Tsunade's gaze was sharp as a knife, sweeping over everyone present, and she said, word by word, "The Allied Forces must have sufficient sincerity and commitment—intelligence sharing, troop coordination, logistical cooperation, and unified command authority. If you all join the alliance with your own selfish motives, you might as well disband now and go back to wait for your deaths."

She paused briefly, her voice growing clearer amidst the crackling of the charcoal fire: "Konoha can lead the charge, but Konoha has no obligation to bail out a group of insincere allies. If you cannot do the above, Konoha is ready to withdraw at any time."

These were blunt words. But no one refuted them.

After a moment of silence, Gaara spoke first: "Sunagakure will cooperate fully." Mei Terumi, Onoki, and Raikage A followed suit, each offering their support without reservation or pretense.

The Allied Shinobi Forces were officially established at this moment.

above the moon.

The desolate, greyish-white land stretched to the horizon, with distant, circular craters and towering rock formations casting long shadows in the silent sunlight. There was no wind, no movement of air; only an ancient, unchanging stillness enveloped this sealed-away land. Against the backdrop of the sky, the enormous, azure planet hung silently, like a jewel floating in the darkness.

Two slender figures landed slowly behind Yao. One was Hinata Hyuga, her white eyes filled with a hint of nervousness, yet she still followed closely. The other was a girl who looked almost identical to Hinata, except her white eyes were even more translucent, and her chakra aura possessed an unusual quality not found in ordinary ninjas. Hinata from another world. The two stood side by side on either side of Yao, like a pair of dazzling twin stars.

Yao's gaze drifted into the depths of this gray-white land. There, the outline of a colossal building vaguely emerged, ancient and majestic, like the remains of a lost civilization. He sensed an extremely ancient and pure chakra surging in that area, like a colossal beast that had slumbered for thousands of years slowly awakening.

"As expected," Yao murmured, "This moon holds things far more ancient than we imagined."

Meanwhile, deep within that ancient building, a pair of pure, almost ruthless, pale blue eyes slowly opened. Otsutsuki Shuten sat upright in the darkness, his white pupils shifting slightly, his gaze piercing through layers of rock walls, landing precisely on the abrupt visitor in the distance. A slow, sly smile curved his lips as he murmured to himself, "The failure of this world has been confirmed. The mission of the Moon Clan will finally begin in this era."

His voice echoed in the empty hall: "The newcomer is hostile. Yet he is also a piece worth entering the game."

The Ninja World, Obito's base.

The wind howled through the broken rock face, a mournful wail. Obito stumbled into the deep underground lair, the blood from his severed arm already congealed, his mask covered in spiderweb-like cracks. He stood in the darkness for a long time, his breathing heavy and broken, like a wolf cornered.

Finally, he reached out and ripped off the tattered spiral mask from his face, slamming it to the ground. The mask shattered into several pieces with a crisp crack. The face beneath the mask was exposed in the dim light—half of his face was pierced by a deep scar running from his forehead to his jaw, while the other half was twisted and haggard, with sunken eyes that revealed an almost insane ferocity.

"Konoha... Uchiha... Nohara Rin..." He spat out those words through clenched teeth, his voice hoarse and low like that of an enraged beast, "I will wipe you all out. This corrupt ninja world should never have existed in the first place!"

He slammed his fist against the rock wall with all his might. His fist was torn open, blood dripping from between his fingers, but he seemed oblivious. He gasped for breath in the darkness, and after a long while, he slowly calmed down, turning to the silent, black figure in the corner: "Black Absolute."

"I'm here." Black Zetsu's voice rang out from the shadows, as calm as an abyss as ever.

"Go and collect the body parts of those powerful ninjas who have died." Obito's voice was as deep as sand. "The ninjas of all generations, the Kage who died, and those legendary strongmen—at all costs, retrieve their flesh and remains. I will use the Impure World Reincarnation to summon an army of the dead that can crush the Five Great Nations."

Black Zetsu was silent for a moment, then slowly disappeared into the ground: "As you wish."

Meanwhile, the Allied Shinobi Forces have been fully mobilized.

Konoha's ninjas converged on the assembly point from all directions, working day and night. Training, reorganization, and resource allocation were coordinated with the transmission of coded signals, making the entire village function like a fully wound-up war machine. Kumogakure, Iwagakure, Sunagakure, and Kirigakure also operated in sync under the commands of their respective Kage, with rations, explosive tags, medicine, and various strategic materials being continuously sent to the designated assembly point.

However, beneath the surface of unity among the allied forces, their own hidden agendas never disappeared.

Onoki sat atop the tower in Iwagakure, gazing at the clouds in the northwest, his cloudy old eyes filled with deep calculation. If the Allied Forces could truly confront Akatsuki head-on, the best outcome would be Akatsuki's collapse, the five great ninja villages returning to their respective homes, and Iwagakure remaining the same Iwagakure, without any issue of being suppressed by Konoha. He murmured softly, "The Allied Forces... as long as Iwagakure remains undefeated in the end, whether to fight or how to fight isn't urgent."

Gaara stood atop a sand dune outside Sunagakure, the wind ruffling his red hair, the sand flowing silently beneath his feet. He gazed at the horizon, his expression silent. With the One-Tailed Beast stolen, Sunagakure's military strength had been halved. His sole objective in this war was to reclaim the One-Tailed Beast and revitalize Sunagakure. As for the power games among the allied forces, he cared nothing for them.

Mei Terumi, in the Daimyo's mansion in Kirigakure, casually flipped through a scroll of intelligence from Konoha, a cryptic smile playing on her lips. Looking at the familiar name on the scroll, she murmured, "After this war, the relationship between Konoha and Kirigakure will probably never be broken again. That Yo-kun… owes me a huge favor."

Raikage A wasn't sitting in his office scheming. He stood in the training ground of Kumogakure, smashing the wooden stakes in front of him to pieces with a single punch. He didn't need to calculate, nor did he care to. He only knew that Killer Bee was dead, and the Akatsuki had to pay the price. The ground of the training ground cracked under his rage, and the surrounding ninjas stood at a distance, not daring to approach.

The moon, like a giant silver-gray disk floating in eternal darkness, is shrouded in an extremely thin layer of dust. The barren craters cast long, deep shadows in the silent sunlight, so quiet that it seems as if no sound has ever been born there.

Yao stood on a gray-white plain, his robes fluttering slightly in the thin air. To his left and right stood the two Hinatas, their white eyes reflecting the ancient and solemn outline of this alien land. Several hundred feet in front of them, a colossal statue composed of rock and strange architecture slowly rose.

The stone statue, with a human body and an animal tail, was constructed entirely of a gray rock that appeared to have been carved directly from the mountain, its immense size resembling a moving mountain. Every joint emitted a dull, grinding sound, and the shadow cast by its outstretched arms was large enough to cover an army of a thousand. At the top of the statue stood Ōtsutsuki Toneri, clad in a plain white robe, his silver hair fluttering slightly in the thin air. His pale blue eyes looked down upon the visitors, his expression indifferent and arrogant, like a god looking down upon ants.

"The guardians of this moon have waited many years, and finally, a visitor worthy of their personal verification has arrived." Toneri's voice drifted down, calm and distant. "Your eyes possess extraordinary power. The Tenseigan, Rinnegan, and Sharingan—three supreme ocular powers fused within a single socket—something unprecedented in the entire history of the Otsutsuki clan. How did you achieve this?"

"If you want to know the answer, you might as well use your power to test it." Yao's voice was as calm as the air above the moon, without the slightest fluctuation.

The servant was silent for a moment, then nodded slightly: "As you wish."

The giant arm of the stone statue swung down suddenly, generating enough wind pressure to overturn the earth. Yao stood still, only slightly raising his right eye—those eyes suddenly transformed from ordinary blackness, with golden and purple light swirling deep within the pupils, like two miniature stars awakening simultaneously.

The moment the weight of the stone statue crashed down in front of Yao, an invisible barrier spread out from his pupils, like ripples on the surface of water, steadily supporting the heavy blow that was enough to crush all rocks. The shockwave exploded in all directions, raising layers of dust waves on the ground within a radius of dozens of feet, but Yao and the two Hinatas behind him remained completely still.

"Is this all you have?" Yao raised his eyes. "Then be serious."

Shiren's pupils contracted slightly, and he suddenly let out a low shout, urging the stone statue to approach again. The giant arm rained down like a storm, each strike capable of leveling an entire mountain. Yao merely tilted his head slightly, turned sideways, and took a step, strolling leisurely between the impact points. He made no hand seals, drew his sword, or even showed any sign of using ninjutsu or taijutsu. Relying solely on the observational power of his eyes and his spatial awareness, he anticipated all the attack trajectories.

A hand gently rested on the giant elephant's fist. Yao's toes touched the crook of the statue's arm, and he leaped up like a feather, landing steadily on the statue's shoulder, standing opposite Shiren. The oppressive feeling at that close distance made Shiren's heart skip a beat—he finally understood what an insurmountable gap meant. His white pupils could see the flow of chakra, but the chakra within the man before him was as deep as the ocean falling into an abyss, its bottom unseen. And the power contained in those eyes seemed never to have been truly released.

"You are no match for me now. You haven't fully awakened the Tenseigan, so you can't arouse my interest at all."

Yao's voice didn't carry much sarcasm; it was more like stating a calm fact.

"If you insist on standing here guarding that ruin, then let me see at what price you can continue to persist."

Sheren let out a low, cold laugh: "You think you've already won?"

……

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