Chapter 107

[A/N: For those who read the last chapter the day it was first released, the latter half was rewritten, I advise you to read it again if you didn't.

I appreciate critics when they are explaining what's poorly written or not, and I agree that the way MC acted was out of character, I also changed it from a third to a first-person point of view because it felt better to do it this way in my opinion.

I believe MC's loss doesn't feel forced like before too, and while some might still dislike that it happened, I needed it for the rest of the story, you'll see.

Still, it's better to explain what you think isn't good than just write 'lame' like some guy I won't name.]

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*Third Person POV*

It's been many hours since a bloody war started in the middle of a barren land where once stood one of the biggest cities of the Land of Iron, and while there were 52 000 shinobi at first, this number was reduced to nearly half, the number of casualties reaching 22 570 not too long ago.

While there were many wonderful shinobi, they were still a minority and not enough to prevent the army of beasts from killing dozens of Jōnin and Chūnin as well as samurai with a simple motion of their tails, arms, or smaller version of the beast balls thought the later happened occasionally.

And despite all of that, none gave up yet, even though every time they killed two beasts, another one would appear, something that slowed down their progress but still indicated that the number of beasts was going down, albeit slowly.

One man in particular allowed this to happen, far in the frontline, a titanic wooden statue with thousands of hands originating from its back was blocking the Ten-Tails alone, preventing it from creating an infinite amount of smaller beasts while also taking on any beast balls launched at it by rebuilding itself in a matter of seconds.

Hashirama proved to the world why he was known as the strongest shinobi in the world, a dated title that he could somewhat take back after being brought back to life and trained to death by his grandson-in-law.

Unfortunately, he couldn't take care of both attacking and defending alone, that's why another man began to help him at some point, after his own business was over, a man who possessed the Rinnegan and who was currently inside his full-body Susanoo attacked the Ten-Tails while his rival, and friend, defended.

In the middle of the battlefield, many were fighting the waves of beasts, and four shinobi held a specific similarity.

One was a woman with red hair, her body covered in yellow chakra, her pupils now slit, and thick whisker markings appearing on her face.

It was Kushina who currently used the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, and more specifically the full version of it, allowing her to kill beast after beast while saving as many lives as possible by covering any shinobi close to her with a chakra cloak.

Another woman with light blond hair was also doing the same further away, but instead of being covered by yellow chakra, she was instead covered by dark blue chakra while being granted cat-like features.

This was Yugito Nii using the Two-Tails Chakra Mode which she technically could use before Kushina could use hers, if not for her young age which made it too dangerous to be used before.

Then there were two men who, instead of using Chakra Mode, were currently fully transformed into their respective tailed beasts, the Six-Tails through Hirotaka and the Eight-Tails through Death B.

These two were purposely on the edge of the battlefield to avoid friendly fire, while also making sure that no beast tried to get away from the battlefield and wreak havoc in the rest of the Land of Iron, resulting in potential civilian casualties.

The leaders of this battle also participated greatly, both Rasa and the Sixth Raikage A were doing their best to protect their armies while killing beasts either by desiccating them with sand or shredding them by using powerful hurricanes.

Of course, it wasn't necessarily going well everywhere...

"Be careful, they're coming for you!" a shinobi yelled to an exhausted Malice, her ability greatly affecting her as she made copies of Minato and Tobirama to use their Flying Thunder God Technique to prevent most beast balls from killing hundreds of shinobi at once by sending them to the nearby ocean

'I can't move' Malice thought as she saw a large number of shinobi tasked to protect her getting killed by dozens of beasts comings out of the ground, targeting her since she was greatly reducing the speed at which they could move forward with her clones

She couldn't be too far from the clones, thus had to stay on the battlefield, and while she would have liked to make clones of stronger shinobi, she couldn't copy Dōjutsu, Sage Mode, and Tailed-Beasts' chakra.

Once her bodyguards were dead, one of the beasts rushed toward her claw first, but as she closed her eyes and waited for her death, she felt someone carrying her and when she opened her eyes she saw a man with long light blue hair flying away with her in a princess carry.

"T-Thank you, Dan." Malice informally said, having already met Dan for a while now since she asked Yuichi for it, both being the last members of their clan which Dan didn't know about before, being an orphan adopted quite young

"You're welcome. Now I should bring you to the medical-nins, you're going to die from exhaustion if you're staying here any longer." Dan exclaimed but Malice quickly retorted "I can't! They need m-" but was interrupted by Dan who added "You can rest now, look, they came back." as he made her look toward Tobirama, who now missed a hand, and Minato, both back and ready to prevent any beast balls from affecting the shinobi army

She, therefore, closed her eyes, knowing she could rest even for a bit, while enjoying Dan's hold on her though she wouldn't openly say it.

Well, she would have stayed safe even without Dan's intervention since someone was doing their best to save the wounded, or those with important roles.

After all, many injured shinobi on the battlefield disappear from everyone's sight, leaving behind a piece of burnt and torn paper instead.

Because far in the backline, near the encampment where medical-nins worked, a woman with neck-length blue hair and a wonderful crystalized flower on her head was sitting cross-legged, her clothes short as it revealed her toned stomach, whole arms, and legs, sweat covering her body as she teleported the wounded near her.

She was sitting in the middle of a seal, surrounded by dozens of red-headed women from the Uzumaki Clan that provided her with a constant flow of chakra so that she could pull out any shinobi too injured to continue fighting.

As for who led the medical-nins, it was none other than Tsunade, once she came back along with her two friends who currently fought in the frontline, her seal still activated to heal as many people as possible in a short amount of time.

Before her arrival, an Uzumaki elder took the role to lead the medical-nins, his Clan having a large number of them which greatly helped Tsunade with her work.

And right now, Tsunade was swiftly moving left and right, healing any patient on her way by touching them and extending the black marking on her body to them which was even able to regrow lost limbs, at the cost of her life force, if not for the natural energy helping her.

At some point, when she was near the place Konan was bringing the injured, she saw a fair-skinned woman with tattered clothes getting teleported in front of her, something that made her wary at first because of how sudden it was but then she quickly recognized Kaguya and exclaimed "What happened? Are you alright?"

Kaguya's first expression was definitely one of anger, veins showing around her eyes as she didn't like how Yuichi pushed her away when he was the one getting into danger, and when she thought twice about that, her anger shifted to realization as she exclaimed "Tsunade! Yuichi might be in danger!" while grabbing Tsunade's sleeve and shaking her

"Calm down Kaguya. Is it because of Isshiki? I believe in Yuichi, he won't lose." Tsunade replied, trying to calm down her friend and fellow wife of Yuichi as she inwardly felt scared that something happened to her husband, something he might not have expected

"I believe in him as well but Isshiki, he's... He was always arrogant, but this time something felt wrong, his objective wasn't to get me but Yuichi instead, and if that's the case then knowing him he should have observed and learned everything he could about Yuichi!" Kaguya said as she calmed down a little before biting her lips and adding "I can't go back to his dimension..."

"So he might have sent him into a trap?" Tsunade asked to which Kaguya nodded as she replied "While Isshiki fully reincarnated, I believe he's still less powerful than Yuichi, even though he beat me easily... And I believe he knows it too and prepared something."

Tsunade was scared. She knew how strong her husband was, being outmatched by none, as well as how careful he always acted, but still, there was a chance even slim of him getting killed or outplayed, and worst of all, she hated the feeling of powerlessness she had to help him.

While the two women were talking, a shrieking "NO!" brought them back to reality as Tsunade said "Konan?!" and dashed toward her followed by Kaguya.

"What's wrong?" Tsunade asked as she held Konan who had one hand on her head as well as a terrified expression before replying "It's Yuichi! He-" but her answer was cut short by a sudden earthquake coming from one particular location

Everyone looked north and saw something massive growing in size, something that made Kaguya let out in horror "The God Tree is growing... That means Yuichi is..."

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Back to the frontline, the appearance of a pale man dragging the Fourth Hokage by the collar while floating above the battlefield made any kind of fighting halt, the beasts as well as the Ten-Tails no longer moved as if they were ordered not to.

Madara and Hashirama were the closest to the Ten-Tails as well as Isshiki who appeared above it, and, when both saw Yuichi's unconscious state and somewhat sickly appearance, they both charged toward Isshiki to prevent whatever was going to happen from happening, only for Hashirama's titanic statue to get shrank to nothingness while Madara's Susanoo was completely blocked by massive length black rods negating the chakra.

Right after and without wasting time, Isshiki threw Yuichi's body inside the Ten-Tails' mouth as it was waiting for that to happen before closing it, a surge of chakra bursting from it before it began to rapidly change shape, taking the appearance of a tree with a massive bud on top of it that had yet to bloom.

All beasts then began to vanish, getting absorbed not by the God Tree but by Isshiki whose chakra grew to an unimaginable amount as he let out loudly "Greeting mortals... And farewell. You're leader already lost and the God Tree is growing, your lives are mine to harvest, they always were."

Isshiki then raised his hand and created dozens of beast balls before hurling them around the battlefield now void of any monsters which meant that only the shinobi were present.

Tobirama and Minato were the first ones to try and teleport away these balls before getting helped by the four Jinchūriki present who used their own version of the attack to 'nullify' them.

Unfortunately, a few of them couldn't be stopped, despite Hashirama and Nagato helping, while Madara now decided to attack Isshiki more directly, no longer using his Susanoo since it got canceled by the black rods.

He was later joined by Tobirama and Minato as well as Hashirama who all tried to fight Isshiki away from the shinobi army, and meanwhile, a portal appeared near A, Rasa, Mifune, Mei, and Michiko revealing Kaguya, Tsunade, and Konan.

"Great, you're here. Any plans to deal with that thing?" A asked as he pointed at the God Tree which was rapidly growing

"Now that the sacrifice has been made the only option we have is to try and destroy the God Tree..." Kaguya said while clenching her fists, not even knowing if it was possible to do so

"Is there truly no way of saving Yuichi?" Tsunade asked as she hoped that Kaguya had a solution but seeing how she shook her head left and right she knew it wasn't possible

"From what I know the only way a sacrifice can survive is to have preemptively created a Kāma... I... I don't think Yuichi made any." Kaguya replied as they were joined by other shinobi such as Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Kushina, and many others

"Letting the God Tree grow will doom us all, trying to destroy it is the only option... In both cases. Yuichi is gone, and the latter might not even be possible, but it's worth trying." Kaguya added which made both Konan and Tsunade hold back their tears before Orochimaru bluntly said "It might be careless of me to say this but I might be able to bring Yuichi back from the dead if you have anything containing his DNA somewhere."

"...You're right, all hope isn't lost. For now, we should focus on destroying the God Tree and killing Isshiki, but with how powerful he became, I don't know how can we do it." Tsunade said as they saw the three Hokage and the legendary Uchiha struggling against Isshiki

Kushina was also angry about what happened to Yuichi, but before she could say anything, a voice exclaimed "I will do it." making everyone look toward it only to see a hairy man wearing a green jumpsuit standing in front of them

"Dai?" Tsunade let out before Rasa added "You're a friend of the Fourth Hokage right? No offense but how can you deal with that Isshiki guy alone when these four are struggling?" as he doubted a shinobi like him could do anything in a battle against such an opponent

"Well, for once, I'm not alone." Dai first said as his eyes changed and his teeth grew, red fur starting to cover his exposed body parts before adding "I have Son Gokū with me, and both of us have a way to occupy Isshiki for long enough, killing him, possibly..."

When he said that Kushina's face also changed, gaining whiskers, sharper teeth as well as different eyes as a low voice exclaimed "You're not thinking of using 'that' are you, Son Gokū?"

"I am. And since when did you start to worry about any of us, Kurama? Don't make me laugh, I can choose to use it if I want to, and besides... Dai's optimism might have affected me quite a lot, and when he has such resolve, I can't help but to go along and support him." Son Gokū replied through Dai as the voice was different, feeling older and surprisingly not louder

"Dai you... You're going to use that Kinjutsu? It will kill you!" Tsunade said as she didn't really know what both Tailed Beasts talked about but thought about Dai's Eight Gates

"I owe Yuichi everything, Tsunade-san. He allowed me to become the shinobi I am today, without him, I might have stayed as a Genin forever, and I wouldn't have a place to raise my son, a rival who allowed me to surpass myself ever further... I owe him my life in a way. I know how Yuichi chose to protect his family above all else, I am the same, and that's what I intend to do... So please, let me take care of that man and... Could you take care of Gai for me? Tell him that his father is gone because he protected those he cherished, I want him to be proud of me, not to drown in sorrow." Dai exclaimed with a smile as well as a thumbs up, showing that he was always optimistic regardless of the situation

"Alright, I know how stubborn you are so I won't tell you not to do it." Tsunade replied with a sigh before looking at Shikuro who came back with Dai and asked him "Did you warn them to fall back? Dai will be the one fighting Isshiki." since Shikuro summoned four insects capable of recording a conversation only once

"It's done." Shikuro shortly replied while the struggle against Isshiki going on a few kilometers away was being heard by everyone

"Let me explain our next objective, my voice should be loud enough for everyone to hear." A declared as the entire shinobi army minus Dai would be attacking the God Tree to try and take it down

"I will be going then." Dai said as he saw Tobirama, Minato, Madara, and Hashirama coming back so he punctured himself with his finger just above the heart, causing a flaming red aura to surge which was actually bloody steam coming out of his body, his hair going red as well

After activating the Eighth Gate, Dai's body changed even more through Son Gokū, his skin almost completely covered in red fur, two horns growing from his forehead as well as two long teeth reaching his neck in length.

From the back of his jumpsuit, Dai gained a cloak with four lava-colored chakra tails, two going up and reaching above his head while two were going down and went to the side of his legs, the muscles on his body becoming more ripped and increasing in mass as they were clearly visible even with his loose jumpsuit on.

Not even a second later, Dai kicked the ground and flew past the four shinobi who were previously facing Isshiki, surprising them since Madara wasn't even able to follow Dai's movements with his Rinnegan, but the most surprised one was Isshiki who didn't have any time to react as he received an assault of five punches with so much strength it broke the supposedly indestructible cubes that were made to protect him.

Dai then followed with a powerful kick that sent Isshiki into one of the mountains a few kilometers away, barely stopping him from getting sent even further.

Dai moved above the mountains with such speed it felt like teleportation and then surrounded his right fist with a combination of steamy blood and lava before delivering a meteor-like punch toward the mountain, creating a massive explosion followed by an unbearable heatwave.

The aftermath revealed a massive crater inside the mountain, now looking like a hyperactive volcano as lava was boiling everywhere, however, Son Gokū warned Dai that Isshiki was still alive somehow, and suddenly saw himself parrying dozens of black rods hurled at him, not affected by the chakra loss because of the Baryon Mode being in use.

"Mortals like you shouldn't have so much power!" Isshiki shouted, another eyeball wasted to stay alive, however, he felt his life force going away every time he got hit by Dai which scared him and prompted him to not allow Dai to land a hit ever again

A smart but impossible decision since Dai's speed was beyond Isshiki's perception, as such, he once again received a powerful kick that blew his head away, only to reappear a bit further and get slammed back into the boiling lava below as Dai combined his tails to hit him.

"It doesn't matter how many times you come back, I just have to beat you again and again!" Dai let out before raising the lava below him into a massive ball and hurling it toward the place Isshiki was going to reappear, taking him off-guard as the lava suddenly solidified and suffocated him to death, thought Dai didn't wait for that and broke it by simply snapping his finger, creating a powerful sound wave with it that dealt heavy internal damages while completely shutting off Isshiki's hearing as he reappeared while the sound wave was still in effect

'Dai, try to immobilize him while having contact, killing him isn't efficient enough, and our time is running out quickly' Son Gokū explained to Dai who nodded and appeared behind Isshiki, grabbing his arms and legs with his tails while his arms were around his waist before speeding up high in the sky, the energy covering Dai's body burned both of them extremely quickly and began to take form

From far away, it looked like a comet was going back to space, but in reality, it was Dai who voluntarily burned away his lifespan even quicker to do the same to Isshiki who struggled to leave his grasp as he let out "You're insane!" as he knew that Dai was also killing himself by doing so

Isshiki wanted to shrink himself to get away but the tails grabbing him were also absorbing his chakra, while the aura surrounding them wouldn't allow him to get away as well.

After a few minutes, when both were high enough, Dai performed a kick in the air that spun both of them head-down before propelling them at an increasing speed back to the ground, the bloody steam surrounding them now taking the full shape of a gigantic eastern dragon.

While Isshiki feared for his life, seeing it burning away, Dai let out in his mind 'It was a pleasure knowing you, Son Gokū' to which the monkey replied 'I think the same, my friend. While our lives are gone, our youth will forever prevail' which made Dai smirk as they met the ground, creating a massive explosion followed by a tremor that shook the entire land.

Back beneath the God Tree, all attempt to damage it was halted when they all saw the massive red dragon flying high in the sky before crashing down on the ground, many were in awe because of the sheer pressure it exhibited, and most of all, the God Tree also greatly shook, the burst of chakra produced by Dai getting absorbed by it and alleviating the tremor felt by the shinobi army.

Since the army started to attack the God Tree, not a single scratch was done on it, and instead, any chakra-based jutsu was absorbed, essentially overcharging it.

And it looked like Dai's last stand was the last push needed as the roots of the God Tree began to spread around the battlefield and incapacitated anyone around, while the top half of the God Tree bent down, the bud in the process of blooming.

While everyone became unable to move because of the roots, Isshiki appeared in front of the bud, seemingly unharmed aside from his tattered clothes though, in reality, he was on the verge of dying, his remaining life force being enough only to stay alive for a few days.

"Your useless struggle is coming to an end! Trying to destroy the God Tree was a waste of time, and while that man was dangerous, he's gone!" Isshiki let out as he was the only one capable to move, the roots preventing the use of chakra for everyone else below the God Tree while he came face to face with Kaguya with a smug expression as he felt himself being close to victory

"Isshiki..!" Kaguya let out as veins were around her eyes, she was clearly furious about what was happening and tried everything to get out of the roots, however, her expression changed when she saw the bud far behind Isshiki slowly open, looking like many overlapping white flowers which reminded her of someone before revealing something in the middle of it.

Tsunade, who was near Kaguya, also noticed something when she looked at the flower and let out "Yuichi..?" which made Isshiki frown before turning his head to look behind him, only the meet a terrifying gaze that released such pressure he couldn't move a single finger and was barely able to let out "A-lready... Impossible..." before falling on his knee, unable to get up or do anything

Floating in front of the overlapped white flowers was a tall man with long flowing white hair, greyish skin, two long curved horns sprouting from his head as well as two wings that weren't feathered but instead looked more organic, as if made of extremely tough bones.

His two main eyes were releasing a constant white light, typical of the Tenseigan, though it also had the circles of the Rinnegan as well as dozens of tomoe, the center of the eye having a triple scythe pattern.

[Here, it's the last stage of this one I promise]

On his forehead was a vertical eye, the sclera black, and the eye was white with a small hue of light blue, the Jōgan.

[Here]

His left palm had a sun-looking eye, the Hōgan, while his right palm had a moon-looking eye, the Senrigan.

[Both here]

His clothes consisted only of a long black cloak made of unknown fibers that were fully revealing his torso and a long pant made with the same fibers which left his forearm and feet uncovered.

One thing was sure, that man was Yuichi, Tsunade, Kaguya, or Konan couldn't be wrong about his identity since they always recognized him no matter what, but the question now was simple after gazing into his deep cold eyes...

Was he still the same man they knew?