The center of the main arena's roof had turned into an island, cut off from the rest of the world by a wall of purple flame.
The Four Violet Flames Formation.
Supreme-level Fūinjutsu. The Sound Four—Orochimaru's elite guard—stood at the corners of the roof, maintaining the construct. They were protected by an additional barrier layer from the inside, unreachable by attacks.
Outside, on the roof tiles, ANBU crowded. They were powerless.
"Commander!" shouted a masked fighter with a Bird mask. "We can't break through! Any technique dissipates; any contact burns flesh to the bone!"
Inside the purple cube, hell was unfolding.
The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, was fighting not just an enemy. He was fighting history.
Two coffins were open. Legends stepped out from them.
The First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, and the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju.
Their eyes were black, sclera gray, and their skin covered in cracks like old porcelain. Edo Tensei (Impure World Reincarnation).
"Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence!"
Hashirama formed the seals. The roof exploded with roots, turning into a deadly forest.
"Water Style: Water Wall!" Tobirama spat a jet under pressure capable of cutting steel.
Hiruzen, old and weary, darted between attacks, using his Adamantine Staff. He was holding on, but gradually losing ground.
Orochimaru stood aside, arms crossed over his chest, enjoying the spectacle.
It was a stalemate. The ANBU couldn't enter. The Hokage couldn't leave.
THUD!
A figure landed on the roof, right in the center of the ANBU group. The tiles cracked underfoot.
The masked fighters flinched, ready to attack, but stopped.
"Uzumaki?" the ANBU Captain was surprised. "What are you doing here, Genin? Leave immediately! This is a death zone!"
Naruto slowly straightened up. He didn't look at the ANBU. His gaze was riveted to the purple wall.
Through the translucent veil of the barrier, he saw the figures of the First and Second Hokage. But his Qi Sensory painted a different picture than the eyes of ordinary people.
He didn't see resurrected heroes. He saw empty, rotting puppets, forcibly stuffed with alien, suffering spiritual energy. Their souls were bound to dead flesh by crude, unnatural ties that violated all laws of Heaven and Earth.
Abomination, a cold thought flashed through his mind. This is not resurrection. This is a defilement of the cycle of reincarnation.
He didn't care about the grandeur of these names. To him, they were merely an insult to the very essence of life he cultivated.
"I am here to break this barrier," he replied, gathering his thoughts.
"Don't talk nonsense!" the Captain barked. "We've tried everything! The fire burns everything it touches!"
Inside the barrier, Orochimaru suddenly froze. His snake eyes slid over the bustling ANBU beyond the barrier and stopped on the approaching figure.
"Anko..." his lips twisted into a smirk. "You came after all. Such loyalty."
He formed a hand seal.
"Kai (Activate)."
At that moment, Anko Mitarashi staggered onto the roof.
The invisible barrier of Qi on her neck, which Naruto had placed almost a month ago, finally burst under the pressure of the alien will. The Cursed Seal flared like a supernova, burning through the remnants of the defense.
She looked terrible. Her face was gray, covered in cold sweat. She was holding on by sheer willpower alone, her knees buckling.
"Orochi... maru..." she rasped, falling to her knees. "He's... there..."
Pain twisted her in a spasm. She would have screamed, but her lungs failed her.
Naruto was beside her instantly.
He didn't ask questions. He saw Anko's aura through the prism of his Qi Sensory. The Seal on her neck now looked like a black octopus that had launched tentacles through the remnants of the Qi shell into her chakra system, pulling at everything it could reach. It was a direct channel of connection to the Sannin's will inside the barrier.
"Easy," Naruto said.
He dropped to one knee and placed his palm on her shoulder, right next to the pulsating mark.
"Don't fight it. You're only feeding it with your struggle."
Naruto closed his eyes.
Qi Control: Pulse.
He poured a stream of dense, structured Qi into her. His energy, like liquid concrete, flooded the channels around the Seal, creating an isolating sarcophagus.
Orochimaru's chakra clashed with Naruto's Qi. And the Qi won.
The mark stopped glowing. The black tentacles retracted.
Anko gasped convulsively, greedily gulping air. The pain receded, leaving only a dull throb. She looked up at Naruto. In her gaze was not just surprise—there was complete disorientation.
"Damn Orochimaru..." she whispered. "I have to kill him... while he's here..."
"In this state, you won't be able to do anything," the blonde replied coldly, removing his hand. "Sit here. And don't use chakra."
He stood up and walked right up to the barrier. The heat from the purple fire could be felt even from a meter away.
Naruto activated his Sensory to the maximum.
To the naked eye, the barrier was a solid wall. To Naruto, it was a schematic.
He saw the energy flows. They ran from the four corners, intertwined in the center, and returned. A closed circuit.
The sources are those four, he realized, looking at the Sound shinobi. The barrier feeds on their chakra. They maintain the balance. If I simply hit the wall, the energy will distribute, and my strike will dissipate. I need to overload one node.
He chose his target.
The northern corner. The girl with the flute. Tayuya.
Her aura trembled more than the others. She was exhausted from maintaining the barrier and, presumably, previous skirmishes. She was the weak link.
"ANBU!" Naruto commanded without turning around. "Get ready. The wall is about to destabilize. Join the battle immediately after."
"Kid, you don't understand..." the Captain began.
"I said: get ready!"
Naruto summoned a clone and extended his right hand.
Rasengan. Hybrid form. I need piercing power.
A vortex spun in his palm. Blue chakra, densified by a grain of Qi. The sphere became dense, humming, heavy. The air around it distorted.
But this wasn't enough. If he struck with a bare hand, the barrier would burn his flesh faster than the Rasengan could penetrate the defense. He needed a gauntlet.
Fox, he called mentally. Lend me your hide. Just for the arm.
"Break, crush, jailer," the Kyūbi responded, sensing the proximity of the annoying Snake.
Red chakra surged from Naruto's stomach but didn't envelop his entire body. Thanks to a month of hellish control training with Jiraiya and the support of his Qi, the Uzumaki managed to channel it only into his right arm.
The skin of his arm vanished beneath a layer of dense, bubbling red energy. Claws appeared.
Now he had a demon's arm holding a sphere of destruction.
Naruto drew his arm back. The Qi in his body grouped, reinforcing bones and joints. But he understood the physics—the recoil from hitting a barrier of this density would simply throw him off the roof.
He directed a flow of White Energy into his soles, literally fusing them with the roof tiles. He became one with the building, a monolith that could not be moved.
"RASENGAN!"
He struck the wall.
EXPLOSION OF LIGHT.
The collision of energies birthed a sound like grinding metal.
The purple flame of the barrier latched onto Naruto's arm, trying to incinerate it. But it met the resistance of the Fox's Cloak. Tailed Beast Chakra was denser and more aggressive than any other. It hissed, fought, but protected the flesh.
Naruto roared, driving the sphere into the wall.
The Rasengan spun at a frantic speed, gnawing into the barrier's structure. He wasn't trying to punch a hole. He was sending a monstrous vibration through the entire network, targeting a specific node.
The shockwave passed through the wall of energy like current through a wire and hit the source—Tayuya.
The girl inside the barrier, maintaining the seal, suddenly widened her eyes.
Through the distorted haze of purple fire, she saw the source of the threat. The absolutely calm, cold face of a boy holding a storm in his hand. That image burned into her memory a split second before the backlash hit her.
"AAAH!" she screamed.
Blood gushed from her nose and ears. Her concentration was shredded by the brute force of the impact.
She fell to her knees, breaking the hand seal.
The balance was broken.
The square barrier flickered... and went out.
The purple flame vanished as if blown out.
With the disappearance of the Barrier, below, in the stands, the fight froze for a second.
Hinata Hyuga, having just knocked back an enemy with a Gentle Fist strike, looked up. Her Byakugan saw what was hidden from others.
The purple dome was gone. On the roof, amidst the chaos of chakra, stood a lone figure with a smoking arm. She would recognize him out of a thousand.
You did it... You succeeded, Naruto-kun, she whispered.
Resolve resonated in her heart. Fear vanished. If he could do the impossible up there, she had no right to lose here, on the ground.
"GO!" the cry of the ANBU Captain, who instantly assessed the situation, rang out across the roof.
The squad of elite fighters surged toward the center.
Naruto fell to one knee, breathing heavily. His feet tore away from the tiles, leaving deep imprints in the roof. The red chakra hissed as it retracted back into his arm. His skin was red, scorched, but still intact. Smoke rose from his palm.
In the center of the roof, the battle paused.
Hiruzen, pinned by tree roots, raised his head. He saw the barrier fall. And he saw Naruto standing at the edge, with a smoking arm.
Orochimaru, who had been watching the Hokage's struggle with sadistic pleasure, snapped his head around. His snake eyes narrowed.
"The barrier... destroyed?" he hissed. "By whom?!"
His gaze found the blonde. The Sannin's pupils trembled.
That strange power of his again. It's not just the Fox... And the signal from Anko is gone... So it was him? Interfering in my affairs again.
"You again..." a mix of rage and twisted admiration sounded in the Sannin's voice. "Unruly brat."
Naruto slowly rose. He felt fatigue, but his gaze remained steady.
"I won't let you destroy my home," he uttered, looking the Sannin in the eye across the expanse of the roof.
The battlefield filled with ANBU. The situation had changed drastically.
Now Orochimaru was not the hunter. He was the cornered beast.