Seeing everyone completely confused, Evan took the initiative to explain:
"That was the Fourth Hokage's space–time ninjutsu."
Only then did the surrounding shinobi come to a sudden realization.
"So it was the Fourth Hokage…"
"No wonder."
"The Fourth has been fighting alongside us this whole time."
"As expected of the Hokage…"
Evan's lips lifted in a small smile.
Without doing much, he'd just given Namikaze Minato another huge wave of prestige in front of Konoha's shinobi and clan heads alike.
After tonight, once the Nine-Tails incident was over—
Even if Hiruzen wanted to, he wouldn't be able to treat Minato like some obedient little "lapdog Hokage" anymore.
Let Minato slowly consolidate power.
Once that happened, Evan could start setting up the next war.
With enough foreshadowing and tension built up in advance,
a young Hokage like Minato shouldn't be that cowardly about a war… right?
"Anyway, everyone—much as I hate to pour cold water on the mood…"
Evan raised his voice just as the crowd was about to cheer.
"As Konoha shinobi, we can't just stand around watching the Hokage stake his life out there while we do nothing, can we?"
"Evan is right," said a newly arrived Nara Shikaku, his tone calm and low. "What we must do now is drive the Nine-Tails out of the village."
"Exactly. We can't let it rampage here any longer," Yamanaka Haichi added, arriving with him.
Evan glanced at Haichi, and a stray thought slipped through his mind.
Oh? My future cheap father-in-law is here?
"Sorry we're late!"
Two men who looked almost identical—Hyuga Hiashi and Hyuga Hizashi—arrived with the Hyuga clan shinobi in tow.
Behind them soon came the Inuzuka, Aburame, Sarutobi, and other major clans, converging on the battlefield in succession.
After the brutal lesson earlier that night, they all understood one thing:
By themselves,
they couldn't stop the Nine-Tails.
And with neither Hokage appearing on the front line at this moment,
the only person with a power comparable to a Kage—
was Evan.
"Evan, do you have a plan?" Shikaku asked directly.
"A plan?"
Evan suddenly smiled.
Finally, my turn to show off in public?
"I have one sword," he said lightly. "We can try that."
On the other side of the village—
The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, finally stepped onto the scene.
He was clad in black combat armor, face pale, one hand pressing occasionally against his chest.
He'd clearly been injured.
"Damn… I still couldn't stop it."
Watching the distant Nine-Tails tear through the village, Hiruzen felt a blaze of fury burning in his chest.
When the Fox had been moving toward Konoha from outside,
he'd already led ANBU to intercept it on the way.
That was why he was so late.
After hearing Evan's "prophecy" from Minato,
Hiruzen had prepared for the worst, arranging an ambush in advance.
He just hadn't expected the enemy to simply summon the Nine-Tails directly into the village.
Combined with the Sharingan in the beast's eyes…
Even someone as usually calm as Hiruzen
couldn't help but instinctively associate this with the Uchiha.
That was why he'd ordered ANBU to pull the Uchiha off the frontline.
As someone who'd lived through the First Hokage's era, he knew:
There was only one man who had ever controlled—and summoned—the Nine-Tails.
Uchiha Madara.
Or perhaps… someone in the Uchiha clan now had those eyes again?
"Good thing Minato acted in time just now."
He thought of that terrifying Tailed Beast Bomb from earlier, and his scalp tingled.
If the Nine-Tails fired another one…
He certainly didn't have Minato's level of space–time ninjutsu.
Hiruzen turned to the ANBU kneeling behind him.
"To prevent further destruction, we must force the Nine-Tails out of the village," he ordered.
"Yes, sir!"
Dozens of ANBU responded as one.
"Buy me time to cast my jutsu," Hiruzen continued. "Do not let up the attacks for even a moment."
He was preparing to use ninjutsu to drive the Fox outside the village perimeter.
"Understood!"
The ANBU captain answered crisply, then shouted to his men:
"Move out!"
They burst forth, sprinting across rooftops, doing everything they could to slow the beast's advance.
Hiruzen wasted no time.
He bit his finger, flew through hand seals in the blink of an eye.
"Ninja Art, Summoning Technique!"
He slammed his hand to the ground.
"Come forth, Monkey King—Enma!"
BOOM!
White smoke billowed.
A white-furred ape in human clothing appeared, gaze sweeping across the ruined village with heavy eyes.
"It's the Nine-Tails, then…" Enma said, voice grave. "So the seal was broken after all."
"Drive it out of the village," Hiruzen said sharply. "Use Adamantine Staff."
"Understood—"
Enma was just about to transform into the staff when something caught his eye.
"Wait."
"What is it?" Hiruzen frowned.
Of all times, why hesitate now?
"The Konoha shinobi…" Enma said slowly, eyes narrowing. "They're retreating."
"What?"
Hiruzen's blood ran cold.
He wasn't ready with Adamantine Staff yet—
how could they retreat now?
If they pulled back at this moment, the Nine-Tails would have free rein to destroy everything.
He looked more closely.
Sure enough—
Beneath the towering Fox,
the shinobi who had been swarming around its feet like ants were falling back in an organized withdrawal.
They were even taking their wounded and the bodies of their fallen comrades with them.
It was too obvious.
Within moments, almost no one remained around the Nine-Tails except—
the ANBU, still obeying his order to harass the beast.
"How could this be…?" Hiruzen muttered, stunned.
"Look," Enma suddenly said, eyes going wide. "Someone's flying."
"Huh?"
Hiruzen stared blankly.
There were no shinobi in Konoha who could fly.
He followed Enma's gaze—
And froze.
A figure shot upward, feet resting on something unseen, streaking through the sky like a bolt of light.
In just a breath, he rose to the same height as the Nine-Tails' head, stopping in midair before it.
His black battle outfit fluttered in the night wind.
Seeing who it was, Hiruzen's jaw almost hit the ground.
"E–Evan…?"
"Shikaku… can Evan really pull this off?"
In the retreating ranks below, Yamanaka Haichi couldn't help glancing at his friend, worry all over his face.
"I believe in Evan," Shikaku started—
But Uchiha Fugaku spoke up first.
"I trust Evan completely."
Fugaku had already placed his full faith in him.
When everyone in Konoha was doubting the Uchiha,
Evan was the only one who stood on their side.
If he'd once considered using Evan as a political tool…
now there was a little more sincerity in it.
"Evan always finds a way to do the impossible," Hyuga Hiashi said quietly. "Wasn't that the case in the war?"
Everyone's eyes lit up.
That was true.
The man who had forced two great ninja villages to surrender single-handedly—
couldn't be measured by common logic.
Shikaku thought back to what Evan had said not long ago:
"I have one sword. We can try that."
And the condition he'd added:
"To avoid unnecessary casualties, every shinobi near the Nine-Tails has to pull back.
Otherwise… they might get caught in it."
When they'd first heard it, everyone had been stunned.
Retreat voluntarily?
If anyone else had said that,
they'd have been arrested as a spy on the spot.
But this was Evan, the living war legend of Konoha.
After a brief silence, Shikaku had made his decision.
He would gamble on Evan.
As the Hokage's chief strategist,
the others naturally trusted his judgment in an emergency.
And so, at that last-minute war council in the absence of any Hokage—
when Konoha's strongest fighter and its acknowledged tactician had agreed on a course of action,
no one had any objections.
Shikaku shoved his doubts aside and shouted:
"Everyone, speed up the retreat! Form the second defensive line as fast as possible!"
He had his own fallback plan, of course.
If their suicidal charges couldn't harm the Nine-Tails anyway…
They might as well let Evan try.
If Evan failed,
they would already have a reorganized army and fortifications to fall back on.
A proper strategist always had two plans.
Whooo—
A sharp sound split the air behind them.
Everyone turned in unison.
A streak of light shot into the sky.
A lone figure, standing on something under his feet, soared upward—
straight toward the Nine-Tails.
"It's Evan… he's flying!?" Hiashi said, Byakugan already open, voice filled with disbelief.
"He…" Hizashi added slowly, also using Byakugan, "…he's standing on a sword."
"…"
Everyone went perfectly still.
They didn't have Byakugan, but they didn't need it.
The image was already forming clearly in their minds.
"How is that possible?"
"Evan can fly?"
"On a sword? Is that even a thing…?"
Their voices were tangled with shock and disbelief.
Flying alone was absurd enough.
Flying on a sword?
Ridiculous.
"On a sword…" Shikaku murmured, a thought flashing through his mind.
I have one sword. We can try that.
Was Evan really planning to use a single sword… to fight a tailed beast?
Facing such a colossal monster—
what could one sword possibly do?
[Ding! 1,000,000 experience points consumed. Refresh "Spirit-Void Swordflight" successful.]
[Spirit-Void Swordflight (Level 6): Next refresh requires 2,000,000 hatred points.]
Evan stood atop his flying sword, the system's voice echoing in his mind, and grinned.
After refreshing Spirit-Void Swordflight, his control over the art had improved again—
and at last, he could truly fly on his sword.
When he'd said he had "one sword" he wanted to try…
He really had wanted to try it.
Facing a natural disaster like a tailed beast,
Evan also wanted to know where his so-called "divine arts" stood
on this world's food chain.
If the apex predator returned to the ecosystem,
it had to figure out exactly where it ranked.
As the only inheritor of this martial divine art in the ninja world,
Evan wanted to know:
Just what level had his ancestors' "sword arts against heaven" reached, here in the world of Naruto?
Just thinking about it stirred his blood.
He'd always had a visceral aversion to ninjutsu—
partly because he genuinely sucked at learning it,
partly because, at a soul-deep level, the whole system repulsed him.
So once he'd obtained the system and the martial divine art,
he'd thrown all knowledge of ninjutsu straight out the window.
With the ancestors' divine arts in hand,
why would he go learn the "tiny island country's" ninjutsu?
That'd be an illness.
Buzz—
The sword beneath his feet trembled, stabilizing his form as he hovered in midair.
He calmed his breathing.
Hands clasped behind his back, body straight, sword underfoot, black battle suit snapping in the wind—
he looked like some banished sword immortal who had taken a wrong turn into the ninja world.
The moment he appeared, every shinobi on the battlefield saw him.
"What is that?"
"It's a person… how is someone flying?"
"It's Lord Evan—so amazing…"
"Thank goodness… Lord Evan is going to face the Nine-Tails!"
"Are we finally saved?"
Chatter exploded across the battlefield, spreading outward like ripples.
In that instant—
every gaze in Konoha
focused on that lone figure in the sky.
Truly the center of attention.
"Damn it…"
Uzuki Yugao panted heavily, having just barely avoided a swipe of the Nine-Tails' claws.
Her condition was terrible.
The ANBU around her were in no better shape.
Several of them had already vanished under those same claws.
What crushed her most was this—
the other Konoha ninja had begun withdrawing.
But they had just received the Third Hokage's order to buy time.
That meant they couldn't retreat.
Even if they died here, they had to stay.
"All shinobi, clear away from the Nine-Tails within ten breaths."
A thunderous voice rolled across the sky.
Yugao and the other ANBU looked up.
When they saw the figure standing in midair,
they all froze for a heartbeat.
"E–Evan…?"
Yugao went pale.
What was he doing here?
And also… he could fly?
ROAR! ROAR!
The maddened Nine-Tails had also noticed the human hovering at eye level with it.
It bellowed furiously, massive claw sweeping toward Evan.
"So sensitive?"
Evan frowned.
He shifted the sword beneath his feet, darting aside to dodge the strike.
At the same time, he pointed with one finger—
and a crescent of sword qi slashed across the Nine-Tails' thick forelimb.
ROAR!
The Fox howled in pain.
But only a moment later, chakra surged along its leg, and the wounds twisted, then sealed as if rewinding in time.
"Just as I thought."
Evan nodded.
That confirmed his theory.
As a construct of chakra, a tailed beast wasn't a true "living creature."
Simple physical cuts were never going to truly hurt it.
"So strong…"
"He actually hurt the Nine-Tails…"
"As expected of Lord Evan…"
Evan himself was dissatisfied with his attack,
but to the shinobi below, it was pure shock.
They had thrown everything they had at the beast and hadn't managed so much as a scratch.
Yet with one casual swing of his "finger-sword,"
Evan had made the Nine-Tails scream.
That difference in power was like heaven and earth.
Of course, that strike had completely enraged the Fox.
It roared, hurling its massive body forward, trying to swat this annoying gnat out of the air.
But with the flying sword under his feet, Evan's maneuverability was off the charts.
He simply circled around the Nine-Tails again and again,
darting and weaving, staying just beyond reach.
For the first time, the beast found itself unable to land a hit.
However, as he flew, Evan's gaze dropped briefly to the ground.
The ANBU remained where they were, still harassing the beast.
His temper flared.
"I'll say it once more," he called, voice like a blade across the battlefield. "Everyone, evacuate from the Nine-Tails' side. Now."
"Otherwise—
you die."
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