Giant flames fell from the sky.
The oppressive dark clouds pressed infinitely close to the earth. The incessant clamor reached the ears.
Fighting!
No matter what the barking, fighting alone could shatter it, using blood and fire to bring fear to the enemy. That was Madara's way.
"Wood Release: Wood Dragon Technique!" Madara laughed wildly, putting his hands together and releasing a large number of wooden dragons.
His crimson Sharingan locked onto every escape route of Sakura, sending the wood dragons, their bloody jaws agape, biting toward her.
"Stop, reverse!"
Sakura, already in Sage Mode, growled. Senjutsu Chakra crashed into the wood dragons created by Madara, usurping his control over them.
"Oh, Senjutsu!"
Facing the biting back wood dragons, Madara didn't care at all.
He formed hand seals in return, took a deep breath, and spat out a hundreds-of-meters-high wall of fire, igniting all the wood dragons.
Fire meteors danced and circled in the sky. On the ground, Tobirama, having restored his Edo Tensei body, had already used the Flying Thunder God Technique to approach Sakura.
His mastery of 'Ocean Release', which had reached its peak, created a large amount of water on the flat ground, spinning at high speed and cutting toward Sakura.
"Don't get in the way, Second Hokage!"
The fruit's power, which distorts common sense, plundered the heat of surrounding objects, freezing all the water flowing across the ground.
At the same time, techniques personally taught by Tobirama in the past interfered with the space-time anchors he had projected. Her entire body flickered as she chased after the figure like a cyan light.
"Hmm?"
Tobirama, who had been moving through the ice, waiting for an opportunity to attack Sakura, suddenly turned his head, only to find a wooden spear burning with blue flames already at his heart.
Seeing this, Madara's Sharingan slightly spun, his gaze focusing on Sakura's long spear. Then a vast amount of Yin Release Chakra descended, rewriting reality and stagnating the spear's time!
"This Chakra, Uchiha Madara?"
Her Observation Haki swept out. Without turning her head, Sakura could feel him staring intently at her. She poured her Haki even more fiercely into the long spear.
Using her own will to deny all modifications of external reality upon herself, the Senjutsu long spear then moved again, piercing Tobirama's heart.
"What! Is this Senjutsu? No, what did you do?" Madara, rushing over, created a water blade to slash at Sakura, his eyes showing surprise.
Ignoring the decaying Tobirama before her, Sakura pulled out her long spear and thrust it backward. "This is Haki. The power to deny all changes with one's own will. In nature, it is the same as your Mangekyo, both belonging to Yin Release!"
The spear tip, wrapped in two colors of Haki, collided at a distance with the high-speed spinning water blade. Haki burst the Chakra from within, shattering the water blade and continuing, its momentum undiminished, toward Madara's head.
And the power of the Senjutsu Evolution Technique - Decay followed like a shadow, carving ripples of annihilation through the void.
The veins on his temples pumped. Even though he was already dead, Madara perceived ample danger from the thrust of that spear.
Hastily raising his finger, he instinctively used his most skilled Ninjutsu, the Uchiha Clan's ancestral Fire Release.
—Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique!
An orange-red brilliance, mixed with burning ashes, formed a giant fire dragon. After erupting from Madara's mouth, it did not strike Sakura, but instead caused a massive explosion in front of his body.
Using the cover of the smoke and the push of the impact, Madara forcibly created an Edo Tensei displacement method, blasting himself to a place dozens of meters away from Sakura.
Though his body was damaged, the immortality brought by the Edo Tensei quickly repaired the wounds on his body. At the same time, the Ocular Power in his eyes converged.
The convergence of the two time-manipulating Dojutsu gave birth to the Uchiha Clan's divine power… Susanoo!
A miniaturized Susanoo shadow dragged his mutilated body into the sky, once again dodging the cross-shaped great spear thrown by Sakura.
"Senjutsu, Yin Release, Taijutsu... among all the enemies I've fought, you are the most dangerous and troublesome!" Having gained a chance to breathe from the intensive assault, Madara, his body repaired, could once again say some smooth talk to maintain his style.
"But this is it. Next, I'll show you the power I learned from Hashirama!"
Madara gathered a large amount of Natural Energy, pressing one hand onto the face of the person on his chest.
The face paint of the Sage bloomed from Hashirama's face, allowing his bearer to seamlessly enter Sage Mode.
In Sakura's Observation Haki, Madara now had two energy circulation systems within his body.
The system from Hashirama was responsible for refining Natural Energy, while Madara was responsible for using it. Wasn't this also a perfect Sage Mode?
"Sage Art: Nativity of a World of Trees!"
The Wood Release, manipulated by Madara's Senjutsu Chakra, instantly took shape, carrying Natural Energy as a large number of branches and roots strangled toward Sakura.
"Trying to use Senjutsu to prevent me from interfering with the Wood Release?" Sakura chuckled lightly.
Having traveled between two worlds, the Wood Release she had injected with Yang Release for personalized development had already stepped far beyond the shoulders of her predecessor, Senju Hashirama.
She put her hands together, forming the Dragon seal, and responded in kind with Senjutsu Chakra to manipulate the plants.
—Sage Art: Higanbana Manifestation!
The tiny flowers, nourished by Senjutsu Chakra, took root at various key nodes of the tree world, causing Madara's energy transmission to cease.
The numerous branches and roots that had been coming fiercely stopped the moment they extended before Sakura, unable to advance another inch.
"You..." Madara's pupils contracted, secretly alarmed.
This level of control over Wood Release, as if it were part of his own arm, was not something that could be achieved by plundering it all at once. Even with the same technique, a Ninja's tempering in experience and operation would directly affect the outcome of the clash.
So, he too would have to play some tricks with Wood Release to resist this little girl before him.
"Haruno Sakura, you're quite impressive. This is the first time in so many years that someone has pushed me this far!" Madara, his Senjutsu Chakra surging, looked down, indifferently staring at Sakura.
"Oh, isn't it because you've lived underground for so long that your skills have deteriorated?" The girl twirled her spear in a flourish, hoisting the cross-shaped great spear onto her shoulder, her expression mocking.
"Hmph, you'll soon find out!"
Madara snorted, putting his hands together and releasing all at once the accumulated Chakra.
—Sage Art: True Thousand Hands!!!
Countless vines shot into the sky, interweaving and shaping into a several-hundred-meters-tall Thousand-Armed Buddha.
"Not done yet! Watch closely, brat!"
Along with Madara's roar, powerful Yin Release Chakra descended from the top of the giant Buddha, covering it below, causing the entire Buddha to ignite with blue flames.
—Majestic Attire: Susanoo!
The incomplete Susanoo shadow could not completely envelop the giant Buddha. Only horned cloaks, broken and resembling giant cloaks, covered the Buddha's sides. A pair of shining eyes emerged on either side of the horned cloaks.
Purple ribbons extended from the Buddha's sides, burning with scattered, shattered Yin Release light particles.
Countless fists were wrapped by arm guards arranged in rows. Between the knees, a long sword spanning the Buddha was placed.
A hundred forms of martial arts. This was Susanoo wrapping the Great Buddha!
"Take this, brat!"