A sharp crack rang through the air. It was the unmistakable sound of bone breaking.
"Aaah!" Danzo screamed as his leg buckled again and he collapsed to the ground.
Naruto grinned. "Time for a banana-shot curve ball!" He gathered a swirl of Sage Chakra at the tip of his foot, took aim at the tiny gap between the hands of Sasuke's Susanoo and swung hard.
Danzo's body shot out in a bizarre arc, sailing over Susanoo's half-raised torso before dropping toward the space behind Sasuke.
"Trying to run behind me? Foolish." Sasuke snorted. With a twitch of his fingers, Susanoo's spine arched backward like a scorpion's tail and slammed directly into Danzo midair.
The thud sounded like a truck hitting a scarecrow. Danzo spewed a fountain of blood and hit the ground like a torn sack before dying yet again.
The illusion popped. Another Danzo materialized, and the Sharingan on his arm visibly dimmed. Another eye shut. Only a handful remained open. His breath was ragged, his expression twisted with pain, terror, and desperation.
Three Sharingan left.
"Damn you, Uchiha brat, and you, Nine-Tails fox!" Danzo roared as he tried to form hand signs.
Naruto flashed behind him. "Here comes the demon fox. And here comes the demon fox's bicycle kick!"
Naruto flipped backwards through the air and drove a powerful inverted kick straight into the back of Danzo's skull.
Danzo's vision went black. His body flew forward like a knocked-down bird.
"Perfect. My turn to take the shot." Sasuke controlled Susanoo, gathering chakra at the giant foot like a penalty kick waiting to happen. The moment Danzo's limp body drifted into range, Susanoo swung.
The impact exploded like a cannon. Danzo's body burst apart midair, shredded instantly into a cloud of blood mist.
Izanagi triggered again. The torn flesh dissolved into bubbles.
Two Sharingan left.
Danzo appeared once more. This time he acted fast.
"Summoning Jutsu!" He slammed his palm down, calling out his dream-eating beast for backup.
The creature barely materialized before a massive Kusanagi blade burst through its body. It vanished in a puff of smoke the instant it arrived.
Still, the creature had bought Danzo a moment.
His right arm bulged grotesquely, twisting as the skin hardened into rough, bark-like plates. Sharp wooden spears erupted from his arm with explosive force, firing outward in every direction like a living storm of arrows.
"Wood Style: Burst Spear Grove!"
The piercing shriek of tearing wood filled the battlefield. Dense wooden spikes shot outward in a ten-meter radius, shredding the earth, pulverizing stone, and sending shockwaves through the clearing.
A brutal, wide-range attack, designed to impale Naruto at point-blank range and force Sasuke to retreat.
Naruto vanished the instant the wooden explosion fired.
Flying Thunder God. Always reliable.
In a blink, he reappeared at a safe marker in the distance.
"Oh? Wood Style?" Naruto steadied himself on the churned ground, eyeing the sudden forest of razor-sharp spikes with mild surprise. Mostly, though, he sounded amused. "Old man, you really have tricks. You even stole the First Hokage's power?"
Across the field, Susanoo crossed its arms defensively.
The spikes slammed into its chakra ribs with a screech of cracking bone. A few of the thicker spears pierced the outer layer and left deep fractures, but none broke through Susanoo's true core. The force snapped the spikes and scattered them across the battlefield.
"Hmph." Sasuke's Mangekyo eyes glowed through the dust and drifting splinters. "Clinging to life."
And thanks to sharing Naruto's Sage Mode, he had chakra to spare. Damage to Susanoo meant nothing.
Compared to Danzo's remaining lives, Susanoo was expendable.
Danzo finally staggered into a brief moment of breath. Sweat dripped down his forehead. His face was a mask of fear and frantic calculation.
The soccer-match-from-hell they'd put him through had pushed his mind to the edge of collapse.
He stared at the two remaining Sharingan on his arm. His eye twitched.
He understood perfectly well that these two monsters, with Sage Mode, Mangekyo Sharingan, and Flying Thunder God, could erase his remaining lives before he even finished a single hand sign.
He needed a way out.
He was Danzo. He refused to die here.
If he died, it should be on a battlefield for Konoha… not like this.
His gaze swept across the dozens of Flying Thunder God marks surrounding him. A prison of invisible death.
His eyes darted between Naruto and Sasuke, mind racing, searching for anything, anything at all, that might let him break free or escape.
But the two boys stepped forward again, locked on him like twin thunderbolts, suffocating in their intent.
"Looks like that warm-up game wasn't enough for you, Elder Danzo." Naruto raised his hand. Sage Chakra swirled violently in his palm, forming a massive Rasengan that hummed like a spinning star. The light burned against the dust. "So let's play overtime."
Sasuke said nothing. Susanoo's chakra arm drew back a glowing bow. A massive arrow of violet energy formed on the string, aimed straight at Danzo.
Despair washed over Danzo's face.
Naruto's Sage Art: Giant Rasengan and Sasuke's Susanoo arrow fired at the same time.
"Wind Style: Vacuum Wall!" Danzo tried to raise a barrier of wind to shield himself.
It meant nothing.
The combined chakra wiped out his defense instantly.
The wooden spikes around him disintegrated like paper under a blender. The blast tore the earth open into a vast, circular crater. Rocks, smoke, and wild chakra shot skyward in a roaring blast.
Danzo's scream vanished into the explosion. His body was torn apart, ripped to pieces in the storm.
When the dust finally settled, only a deep crater remained.
Sasuke's Mangekyo glowed through the haze.
There, at the rim of the crater, space rippled.
And Danzo's body refreshed into existence, like a drawing erased and quickly redrawn.