Sasuke froze. The words hung in the air, thick and suffocating.
Naruto killed Orochimaru.
His Sharingan instinctively flared to life, desperately scanning the faces of his former teammates and the two older Jonin. He searched for a crack in their facade, a smirk, a sign of a genjutsu. But there was nothing. Kakashi looked bored. Yamato looked entirely serious. Even Sakura—who usually wore her emotions on her sleeve—looked at Naruto not with disbelief, but with a lingering, traumatized awe.
Sasuke's mind violently rejected the information. It was impossible. This was Naruto—the dope, the dead-last, the loudmouth loser who couldn't even throw a shuriken straight. Sasuke had trained relentlessly under Orochimaru for three years, pushing his body to its absolute limits, and even he hadn't been able to land a definitive, lethal blow against the Sannin in their spars.
How could Naruto do it?
But the absolute, unwavering confidence radiating from the blonde shinobi told a different story. Something was terrifyingly off, and Sasuke's survival instincts kicked in. He wasn't going to take any chances.
Sasuke thrust his hand high into the sky, his chakra flaring with violent intensity.
High above the canyon, the atmosphere shifted. The dark, heavy storm clouds that had been gathering—fueled by the residual thermal updrafts from the explosive Fire Style jutsu he used to announce his arrival—began to swirl. Lightning arced through the black sky, responding to his call.
"I don't know if you are lying, or if you are telling the truth!" Sasuke yelled, his voice echoing with desperate arrogance as he brought his hand down. "But if you truly beat Orochimaru... try surviving this!"
A blinding flash of light consumed the canyon. A colossal, roaring dragon made of pure, atmospheric lightning detached from the storm clouds, hurtling downward to obliterate Team Kakashi in a single, unavoidable strike.
Naruto didn't flinch. He didn't even drop his relaxed posture.
Raising his right hand, Naruto formed a single, effortless hand seal, extending his index and middle fingers upward. His chakra flared—not the corrosive red of the Nine-Tails, but the pure, razor-sharp blue of his own unyielding spirit.
"Wind Style: Wind Domain!"
A massive, hemispherical barrier of hyper-pressurized, green-tinted wind erupted from Naruto's position, expanding instantly to cover the entire canyon floor. It formed a perfect vacuum of slicing currents.
BOOM!
The lightning dragon slammed into the dome. But instead of a catastrophic explosion, there was only a massive, muffled dampening noise. Lightning holds a fundamental, elemental weakness to Wind. The sheer density and rotational velocity of Naruto's Wind Domain caught the atmospheric electricity, shredded its structural integrity, and grounded it harmlessly into the earth in a fraction of a second.
The ultimate jutsu vanished like a blown-out candle.
"Kakashi! Yamato! Sai! Now!" Naruto commanded, dropping the barrier.
The squad moved with terrifying synchronization.
Yamato slammed his palms onto the earth. "Wood Style: Wood Bindings!" Dozens of thick, sinewy wooden roots erupted from the canyon walls, surging upward to entangle Sasuke's footing.
Sai Unrolling his scroll mid-air, his ink brush blurred. "Super Beast Scroll!" Three massive ink lions leapt from the parchment, roaring silently as they bounded up the cliffside. Sai didn't stop, rapidly scribbling ink eagles to secure the skies and ink mice to track any subterranean escape.
The Copy Ninja launched himself high into the air. "Water Style: High-Pressure Water Beam!" He spat a massive, horizontal torrent of water. He didn't aim to pierce; he swept the beam in a wide, flanking arc to cut off Sasuke's horizontal retreat and force him to move exactly where they wanted him.
Sasuke gritted his teeth, his Sharingan tracking the overwhelming assault. He backflipped, narrowly dodging Yamato's roots, and twisted mid-air to evade Kakashi's sweeping water beam.
But as he landed, he realized he had fallen directly into a blind spot.
With the crackle of displaced air, Naruto used Shunshin (Body Flicker), materializing instantaneously directly in front of Sasuke.
Sasuke's eyes widened in sheer panic. He barely had time to register the glowing, dense chakra violently coating Naruto's right fist.
CRACK!
Naruto drove his fist squarely into Sasuke's face. The sheer kinetic force lifted the Uchiha off his feet and sent him plummeting down the canyon wall like a shooting star. Sasuke crashed violently into the canyon floor, burying himself deep into the earth. The impact carved out a perfect, circular crater, leaving Sasuke crumpled at the bottom in the classic, humiliating posture of total defeat.
The dust settled, revealing a scene of absolute, inescapable dominance.
Every single escape route was choked off.
Naruto stood at the edge of the crater, his hand raised. A blinding, perfectly formed Rasengan spun terrifyingly in his palm, the screeching chakra ready to grind Sasuke into dust if he twitched. Kakashi landed on the opposite side, his Sharingan blazing and a lethal Raikiri chirping violently in his hand. Sai's giant ink lions stood guard, their massive paws trapping Sasuke in the center.
Sasuke's brain had practically shut down from the blunt-force trauma to his skull. He lay in the crater, coughing violently, thick splatters of blood staining his open collar. His vision swam. He couldn't move. He couldn't think.
Naruto gave a sharp nod.
Yamato's Wood Style roots surged forward, violently wrapping around Sasuke's torso, legs, and neck. They clamped down around his arms, binding him completely to the bone, immobilizing him entirely.
Walking calmly down into the crater, Naruto reached into his pouch. He pulled out the same heavily inscribed paper tag Kakashi had used earlier. Without a word of mockery or triumph, Naruto slapped the Chakra Suppression Seal squarely onto Sasuke's forehead.
The Uchiha's struggling ceased instantly as his chakra network was violently locked down. His eyes rolled back, and his head slumped forward.
Naruto pulled a blank capture scroll from his flak jacket, unrolling it with a sharp flick of his wrist. With a puff of white smoke, the unconscious, paralyzed Prince of the Uchiha was sealed away. The mission was complete.