The moment the battle began, the Allied Shinobi Forces found themselves facing a crisis of trust.
The command headquarters immediately received reports from the intelligence units attached to every combat division.
There weren't many enemies disguised as Allied shinobi, and the damage they caused was limited, but they were incredibly troublesome. No one could fight at full strength anymore—they had to stay on guard against every teammate around them.
Who knew whether the person beside them was still the same one they had been fighting alongside?
The worst part was that this wasn't an ordinary Transformation Technique. There was no way to detect the impostors by appearance or chakra fluctuations, and there wasn't enough time to interrogate everyone one by one.
After a brief discussion, headquarters quickly came up with an emergency solution: have shinobi who knew each other well ask personal questions that only the two of them would know the answers to.
Makoto knew the method would work. When White Zetsu spores remained parasitizing a target's body for long enough, they could indeed learn some of that person's secrets and habits.
But that required a long period of observation.
And that was precisely what this world's White Zetsu army lacked. Once the Akatsuki had gathered the Tailed Beasts, they simply hadn't had enough time to carry out their infiltration plan.
The fact that Nagato had managed to create an entire army of White Zetsu artificial bodies was already a burst of inspiration on his part.
Even so, headquarters' solution would still waste precious time, and it wasn't entirely reliable. The best approach would be to identify every disguised infiltrator at once and eliminate them.
Just then, an astonishing surge of chakra erupted from the rapid-response unit stationed near headquarters.
Moments later, a figure wrapped in pale golden chakra flames flew toward them like a radiant deity.
Fortunately, the chakra cloak billowed and curled like fire instead of blasting straight outward. Otherwise, he really would have looked like he was cosplaying a Super Saiyan.
His chakra felt warm, vast, and boundless. Compared to an ordinary shinobi's chakra, it was like comparing a small lake to the sea.
It was Uzumaki Naruto in Nine-Tails Chakra Mode.
The Four Kage already knew he was Minato's son, but Kurama's chakra was so overwhelming that they finally realized something.
The jinchūriki of the strongest Tailed Beast, the Nine-Tails, had never been the Hokage's wife.
It had been his son all along.
Konohagakure really was unbelievably crafty. They had actually pulled off a fake-and-real jinchūriki scheme.
The Raikage stared in disbelief.
"That feeling... Is this... the perfect Tailed Beast Chakra Mode?"
The other three Kage immediately understood.
The Hokage's son had likely reached a level of power beyond what ordinary people could even imagine.
Konohagakure was simply terrifying. One overwhelming powerhouse after another kept appearing, leaving everyone else no room to breathe.
Minato, however, no longer cared that Naruto's identity as a jinchūriki had been exposed. Naruto had already surpassed him and possessed more than enough strength to protect himself.
"What are you doing here, Naruto? Did something happen to the support unit?"
"Dad, an enemy disguised as one of our own tried to sneak in and launch a surprise attack. I discovered that I can identify them with my negative emotion sensing."
Minato's eyes lit up.
"Negative emotion sensing can do that? Excellent! Then hurry and find every disguised enemy. The faster, the better!"
Makoto added, "Use Multiple Shadow Clone Technique. We'll each cover half the battlefield and meet up at the Fifth Combat Division's sector in the north."
Naruto blinked.
"Huh? Sensei, you can tell them apart too?"
"You think I'd be unable to use something you can? Quit talking and get moving."
"Got it, Sensei!"
The two instantly created a massive number of shadow clones.
One group headed east, the other west, each racing toward different battlefields.
Once they departed, the powerful shinobi gathered inside headquarters also set off toward the Akatsuki's base.
They believed the time had come to confront the final enemy—
The leader of the Akatsuki, who had revived the Ten-Tails.
And the one standing behind him.
Uchiha Madara.
...
The battle raged on.
Across the area surrounding the Akatsuki's base, the Allied Shinobi Forces remained locked in combat with the remnants of the White Zetsu artificial-body army.
But everyone fought with extreme caution.
Their eyes weren't just fixed on the enemy.
They were constantly watching their own allies as well.
After yesterday's fighting, the artificial-body army had already been reduced by more than half. Under normal circumstances, the Allied Forces could have overwhelmed them with sheer numbers.
But now, no one dared fight in coordinated groups anymore, severely slowing their advance toward victory.
Makoto's many shadow clones skimmed across the battlefield at low altitude, fully extending their senses to scan the mental fluctuations of everyone below.
The moment they found a target, they didn't even bother landing.
With a rapid series of flicks, they hurled black receivers forged from Yin-Yang Release straight down from the sky, pinning the disguised White Zetsu firmly to the ground.
The results proved that there really weren't many of these infiltrators.
Within each fragmented section of the battlefield, most areas contained only a dozen or so White Zetsu impostors.
It seemed Nagato didn't have many White Zetsu capable of moving freely and thinking for themselves. In the end, it all came down to not having enough time to cultivate them.
Yet even with so few of them, they had everyone second-guessing each other.
As soon as Makoto moved on, both sides froze for a moment. Looking at the traitors who had reverted to their true forms, everyone realized that this tactic of sowing distrust had lost its effectiveness.
The Allied shinobi's morale immediately surged. They re-formed into squads and launched an all-out assault.
The scattered remnants of the White Zetsu artificial-body army could no longer hold out. They were quickly either killed or taken prisoner.
Meanwhile, Naruto dealt with the infiltrators in much the same way.
Flying low over the battlefield, the chakra merged with the Nine-Tails extended into dozens of long energy arms, instantly crushing every disguised White Zetsu his negative emotion sensing detected.
At that moment, he looked like some indescribable flying horror, bizarre tentacles sprouting from his body as he slaughtered people below.
Fortunately, Naruto's chakra felt warm and full of life. Once the disguised White Zetsu he crushed fell to the ground, they immediately reverted to their original forms before transforming into lush, flourishing trees.
It was as though the trees had become spirits, only to return to their true forms upon death.
Only then did everyone finally relax completely.
They no longer had to worry about being stabbed in the back by fake comrades.
The shinobi of Konohagakure all recognized Naruto, and couldn't help thinking to themselves:
Just as expected of the Fourth Hokage's son.
...
After dealing with their respective sectors, Makoto and Naruto reunited in the northern battlefield and quickly eliminated the remaining infiltrators there.
The remnants of the artificial-body army in that area were already on the verge of collapse under the Fifth Division's relentless assault. Their destruction was only a matter of time.
Then, without warning, the calm earth began to tremble as though a massive earthquake had struck.
But it wasn't an earthquake.
The strongest of all beings—
The Ten-Tails—
Had awakened.
Amid a series of earth-shaking roars, the ground above the Akatsuki's underground headquarters in the central region—already torn open by a massive crater—was suddenly blasted skyward.
The earth split apart.
Boulders flew in every direction.
Then something resembling a gigantic tail, far larger and taller than human imagination could comprehend, burst free from underground like a prisoner finally seeing daylight after an eternity of confinement.
It swayed joyfully through the sky.
Stretching from earth to heaven, it resembled a colossal pillar holding the world itself apart.
Then came a second.
A third.
...
In all, ten enormous tails erupted from beneath the ground.
Each ended in a razor-sharp point aimed toward the heavens, twisting and writhing like the world-ending monster of ancient myth.
Beneath those tails was a massive, hideous body.
It forced the earth apart as it climbed free of its underground prison, finally revealing its true form.
Even as it emerged, the Ten-Tails continued to grow, rapidly swelling to an utterly unimaginable size.
Now fully revived, it was as enormous as a small mountain.
Compared to it, humans were pitifully insignificant.
Simply looking at it filled one's heart with an instinctive terror reserved for colossal beings.
Even from an enormous distance away, Makoto and Naruto could clearly make out its appearance.
Its body was vaguely humanoid, crawling forward on all fours, supporting itself with both hands and both knees as though it were perpetually bowing before someone.
Behind it, ten tails whipped wildly through the air like the tentacles of a giant octopus, producing deafening gusts of wind.
A massive, sharply pointed protrusion rose from its back, resembling an enormous bamboo shoot.
This...
Was the Ten-Tails' first form after its revival.
At that moment, both the Allied Shinobi Forces and the few remaining members of the White Zetsu artificial-body army stared blankly at the monstrous creature that had suddenly appeared.
Never before had the shinobi seen a Tailed Beast so unimaginably large—or with chakra so overwhelmingly violent.
"You've got to be kidding... What is that thing?"
"So that's the Ten-Tails? At that size, no ninjutsu could possibly do anything to it."
"Why does something like that even exist in our world?"
"It's over... Haruna, I'm done for! I won't be able to come back and marry you!"
Faced with the Ten-Tails, ordinary shinobi didn't merely lack the will to fight.
They lacked even the courage to approach it.
The White Zetsu artificial-body army wasn't made up of actual White Zetsu. The people inside those bodies were shinobi from Amegakure and Otogakure, so they had all seen the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path within the underground base.
That statue had already been unimaginably huge.
But they had never imagined it could become even larger...
Even more terrifying.
At that moment, even those without sensory abilities could feel the Ten-Tails' savage chakra washing over them.
The overwhelming aura snapped many of them back to their senses.
Dear God...
Can this thing really bring peace to the shinobi world?
There's not the slightest trace of peace in it. It looks like it wants to wipe out every human alive and destroy the entire world.
Could it be that the organization's so-called plan for world peace was actually a plan for human extinction?
If every human is dead... then the world really would be peaceful.
...Technically, they're not wrong.