What kind of ability was that?
Watching Oonoki's face contort while he remained completely unable to move, Uchiha Shisui was shaken. The scene unfolding before him was beyond anything he could comprehend.
"I suppose this is the end," Aizen said calmly as his gaze swept across the area. "Konan-senpai, I'll leave them to you."
What do you mean, "leave them to you"? You never even planned to kill them in the first place! Do you just enjoy putting on a show?
Konan silently cursed in her heart but gave a small nod on the surface.
Clang.
Her right hand gripped the hilt of her sword and drew it from its sheath.
Whoosh.
Suddenly, an orange-haired figure stepped in front of her.
"Pain…" Konan froze, her expression complicated.
"I've already heard everything," Pain said, his pale purple eyes locking onto hers. "You've chosen to side with Aizen. Is that true?"
Konan didn't answer, but to Pain, her silence was as good as confirmation. "I see. Then I'll kill him."
His eyes turned to Aizen, filled with unmistakable killing intent.
Pain believed his friend had been deceived. If he got rid of Aizen, Konan would return to his side.
Crack.
Before he could make a move, a sudden chill spread from his feet. In the blink of an eye, his lower half was completely encased in ice.
Pain's eyes widened in shock as he turned toward Konan.
Her Zanpakuto had already entered its released state, and she spoke in a cold, unwavering tone. "Sorry, Pain. I won't let you lay a hand on him."
She was doing this to protect her friend. If Pain truly fought Aizen, he would at best be severely injured—if not worse. So it was better for her to stop him herself.
But Pain completely misunderstood her intentions. His face twisted in anger, and cracks started forming in the ice around his body. However, with Konan constantly reinforcing it with her spiritual energy, the cracks were quickly sealed again.
The two of them were now locked in a tense stalemate.
"Oh? It seems Konan-senpai is unavailable for now." Aizen glanced at them and spoke with amusement. "In that case, I'll just end this myself."
With that, his right hand slowly reached for the hilt of his sword.
Boom!
Before he could draw it, a pair of hands suddenly burst out from the ground and grabbed his legs. At the same time, two other figures appeared in an instant, restraining his arms from both sides.
"This is the end for you, Aizen!"
"You have no chance of winning now!"
Swish, swish, swish.
More figures appeared. Might Guy, Kurenai, Mitarashi Anko, the Fourth Kazekage, Chiyo, and several members of the Akatsuki all arrived at the battlefield.
"Sosuke… he's really still alive…"
"But why?"
"Was all of this really his doing?"
"What a familiar sight." Aizen remained relaxed as if he had expected this all along. He glanced at the people surrounding him and then shifted his gaze slightly. "Just as I thought, you two came as well. Jiraiya-sama, Tsunade-sensei."
Sensei?
Konan's eyes widened in surprise as she looked at Aizen and Tsunade. They had that kind of relationship?
Tsunade furrowed her brows and said coldly, "You still have the nerve to call me sensei, Aizen?"
"Of course. I've never forgotten," Aizen said with a small smile. "If it weren't for your guidance four years ago, I wouldn't have mastered Yang Release chakra manipulation so quickly. For that, I've always been grateful to you."
"So, out of gratitude for your teacher's guidance, you decided to destroy the village she cared about?" Jiraiya scoffed, his face full of mockery. "You're quite the student, huh."
"It seems Jiraiya-sama has a deep misunderstanding of me." Aizen didn't seem to care about his tone and replied calmly, "If my goal was to destroy Konohagakure, then why would I leave a letter for the Hokage?"
His words made the Konohagakure shinobi freeze for a moment, exchanging glances.
That actually made sense.
If Aizen truly wanted to wipe out Konohagakure, he could have just left no warning at all. That way, the village wouldn't have been able to prepare for the combined attack from Kumogakure and Sunagakure.
"So, what, we should be thanking you?" Tsunade sneered.
"No need for that." Aizen chuckled, a faint smile forming on his lips. "If it weren't for all of you in Konohagakure, I wouldn't have been able to complete my plan so easily."
Plan?
Sarutobi Hiruzen frowned and turned to look at Naruto, who had already been separated from the Nine-Tails. "You mean while we were busy fighting each other, you managed to steal the Nine-Tails?"
Aizen responded with an unexpected question. "Hokage-sama, do you really think the Nine-Tails is the only thing that matters?"
Only the Nine-Tails?
The moment he said that, an uneasy feeling spread among the shinobi present—whether they were from Konohagakure, Sunagakure, or Iwagakure.
The disheveled Chiyo directly asked, "What do you mean by that?"
Aizen replied at a steady pace, "If my goal was only to create chaos in Konohagakure and take the Nine-Tails, then there was no reason to involve so many other villages, was there?"
"You… Don't tell me—" Oonoki's face changed as he seemed to realize something.
"Oh, looks like it's time." Aizen smiled.
Buzz.
At that moment, a massive black rift tore open in the sky, and beams of golden light shot down toward the ground.
Seeing the golden light, Setsuna, Jiraiya, and Tsunade instinctively felt something was wrong and quickly backed away.
In the next moment, the beams of light enveloped Aizen, Konan, Itachi, and Naruto.
Crack.
The ground beneath them split apart as they slowly began to rise into the air.
"They're flying?"
"Wait, what's that inside?"
"Monsters! They're all monsters!"
"So, this is Hollowfication?" Jiraiya's expression darkened, his brows furrowing. "Just like we were warned… These creatures don't belong in our world."
Through the rift, they could clearly see strange creatures covered in bone masks, clawing and snarling. Leading them were four human figures, also wearing bone masks on their foreheads and cheeks.
They were dressed in long white robes, swords at their waists, their presence cold and ominous.
"Those… Are those the containers for the Tailed Beasts?" Sarutobi Hiruzen's gaze focused on the black cubes each of them was holding—identical to the one in Itachi's hand. "So this was Aizen's true goal!"
"Damn it!"
Chiyo also noticed that one of the black cubes had the kanji for 'One' written on it. That meant while she and the Kazekage were away, Aizen's forces had already infiltrated Sunagakure and taken the One-Tail.
The humiliation and fury of being played made Chiyo's face turn grim. She controlled her puppets, ready to strike, but someone acted faster than her.
"Aizen Sosuke, you little brat!" Oonoki roared, forming hand seals.
Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World!
A transparent, cone-shaped cube shot out, smashing into the golden barrier. But to Oonoki's shock, the Dust Release—an ability that could disintegrate anything down to the atomic level—did absolutely nothing to the golden light.
Tsunade also knew there was nothing she could do at this point. Her voice was heavy as she asked, "Tell me, Aizen. Why are you creating the Ten-Tails?"
"For a higher level of existence." From above, Aizen's tone remained indifferent.
"So you'll go this far just to get what you want?" Uchiha Shisui struggled to stand, his voice cold. "You've completely lost your way, Aizen."
"You're the one who's arrogant, Shisui."
Aizen removed his glasses and casually crushed them in his hand. "From the very beginning, no one stood at the top. Not you, not me, not even the gods. But that empty throne in the sky… That vacancy is over."
He looked down, his gaze unwavering.
"From now on, I will stand above all."
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