Chapter 166 (Patreon)

Return to One did not disappear immediately.

The colossal wave of dark-red sword energy continued tearing across the battlefield for several minutes. At its widest point, it stretched across more than two kilometers.

Only after traveling several kilometers did its power gradually weaken. The edges slowly contracted until the final traces of dark-red light faded between heaven and earth.

What remained was an abyss.

It extended three to four kilometers across the battlefield and measured more than a thousand meters at its widest and deepest points.

Even when viewed from high above, the sight was astonishing.

Calling it a sword mark or ravine would have been absurd. It was a genuine abyss—one that would be recorded in the history of the shinobi world as the result of a single attack that had redrawn the map.

Mihawk remained beside Hinata, one hand resting on Nemesis’s hilt.

His breathing was controlled, but his body had yet to recover from the tremendous burden of Return to One.

“Hinata…”

Mihawk looked into the seemingly bottomless abyss.

“Use your Tenseigan. Find Madara and check his condition.”

“Yes!”

The patterns within Hinata’s blue-white eyes sharpened as her gaze pierced through the dust and darkness.

Several seconds passed.

Her eyes suddenly widened.

“He’s alive…”

Mihawk’s expression became serious.

Return to One had been no weaker than Night Guy’s final attack. In terms of range and overall destructive power, it had surpassed it completely.

Yet Madara had still survived.

“But only barely,” Hinata continued. “His chakra is extremely weak, and his body isn’t regenerating properly. Something inside him is becoming unstable.”

Deep within the abyss, Madara lay buried beneath the shattered earth.

Most of his Six Paths robe had disappeared. Terrible wounds covered his body, and the regenerative power of the Ten-Tails struggled desperately to repair them.

New flesh formed, only to split apart again.

Even the seemingly immortal body of a Ten-Tails jinchūriki possessed a limit.

It could recover from countless fatal injuries as long as the damage remained within that limit. However, Return to One had overwhelmed Madara’s regeneration and driven his body to the brink of complete collapse.

For the first time since becoming the Ten-Tails’ jinchūriki, Madara was truly on his last legs.

“Rrgh…”

Madara attempted to raise himself, but his arm collapsed beneath him.

His Rinnegan trembled.

Before he could suppress the turmoil inside his body, his back suddenly swelled.

A massive white bulge erupted from his shoulder, followed by another, then another.

His entire body began ballooning at a terrifying speed. Pale masses of flesh and chakra bubbled out of him, expanding to the size of buildings before sinking back into the constantly shifting mass.

Roar!

Several inhuman voices erupted simultaneously.

The outlines of the nine tailed beasts surfaced within the pale mass one after another.

A sand-colored head resembling Shukaku pushed through one side before being swallowed again. Blue flames appeared around another bulge as Matatabi’s features briefly emerged. Horns, shells, wings, and enormous tails continued appearing and disappearing across the swelling body.

The tailed beasts had not regained their freedom.

Their chakra inside the incomplete Ten-Tails had merely fallen into complete disorder.

Madara’s injuries were too severe for him to maintain control, causing the chakra of all nine tailed beasts to react violently and tear apart their jinchūriki from within.

The white mass continued expanding as it rose from the abyss.

At its center, a malformed head resembling the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path emerged from the shifting flesh. Numerous tails thrashed beneath it, each carrying the characteristics of a different tailed beast.

Madara’s voice had disappeared entirely.

Only the furious roars of a wild beast remained.

Hinata stared at it in shock.

“The Ten-Tails is swallowing him…”

“No.”

Despite his exhaustion, a faint smile appeared on Mihawk’s face.

“Madara has lost control of it.”

He looked at the monstrous mass rising from the abyss.

“We won.”

At that moment, Mihawk’s expression abruptly changed.

His advanced Observation Haki revealed the next several seconds before they occurred.

Space would twist behind the swelling Ten-Tails.

Obito would emerge from the spiraling Kamui portal with half his body covered in darkness. Black Zetsu would then abandon Obito and attach itself to the helpless Madara, taking control of him while his consciousness was at its weakest.

The vision ended.

Mihawk turned before the real Kamui distortion had even begun to form.

“Mihawk-kun?”

Hinata looked at him in confusion.

A spiral appeared in the air beside the abyss.

Space twisted inward, and Obito staggered out of the Kamui portal. His face was pale, his eye was unfocused, and the black substance covering half his body controlled his movements like those of a puppet.

Black Zetsu had been waiting for this opportunity.

Madara had lost control of the Ten-Tails, but he was still alive.

If Black Zetsu could attach itself to him now, there was still a chance to seize his body and complete its plan.

Black Zetsu began peeling itself away from Obito.

Its dark body stretched toward Madara like a spear.

It never noticed Mihawk move.

Black Zetsu believed Return to One had exhausted him too severely to interfere again.

That mistake cost it everything.

For an instant, Mihawk’s crimson eyes turned ice blue.

He raised Nemesis and swung once.

A silvery-white arc passed directly through Obito’s body without tearing his clothes or cutting even a single strand of his hair.

The slash continued through him and struck only Black Zetsu.

A true swordsman did not simply cut everything placed before his blade.

Upon reaching a higher realm of swordsmanship, he could decide what his sword would cut—and what it would leave untouched.

The same blade could sever steel while passing over a sheet of paper without leaving the slightest mark.

Mihawk had chosen Black Zetsu.

Nothing else.

The silvery-white arc traced the Line of Death running through Black Zetsu’s body.

“What—?!”

Black Zetsu had only enough time to release a startled cry.

Its body split apart and fell away from Obito. Cracks spread across the two severed halves before both disintegrated into black fragments.

Black Zetsu died before it could touch Madara.

The Kamui portal behind Obito began collapsing.

Before it could disappear completely, another figure forced his way through the distortion.

“Obito!”

Kakashi emerged from the Kamui dimension and caught Obito before he could fall.

He looked from Obito’s unconscious body to the fading remnants of Black Zetsu, then turned toward Mihawk.

“The thing controlling him is dead,” Mihawk said calmly.

Kakashi tightened his grip on Obito.

Mihawk said nothing else.

Now that Kakashi had arrived, Obito was no longer his concern. His attention immediately returned to the unstable mass rising from the abyss.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Two figures appeared above the malformed Ten-Tails.

They were Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha—the two who had been critically injured after Madara extracted the Nine-Tails and were taken away from the battlefield by Minato and Tobirama.

Their outward appearances had barely changed.

Their eyes, however, were entirely different.

Naruto was not surrounded by the golden light of Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, yet his pupils had become cross-shaped. There was also no pigmentation around his eyes despite the immense natural energy gathered within him.

Sasuke’s left eye had transformed into a purple Rinnegan containing six tomoe.

Both had received the power of the Sage of Six Paths.

Naruto looked down at Mihawk and grinned.

“Mihawk, you did an incredible job. Leave the rest to us!”

Sasuke stared at the monstrous mass below them.

“Naruto, don’t waste time. We seal it now.”

“Yeah.”

Naruto and Sasuke had returned for one purpose alone.

They would seal the out-of-control Ten-Tails before it could recover—or before anyone else could take control of it.

The enormous white mass sensed the threat approaching it.

Roar!

Several misshapen tails swept toward Naruto and Sasuke, but there was no intelligence behind the attacks. Madara could no longer control the creature, while the conflicting wills of the nine tailed beasts prevented it from moving as one.

Naruto and Sasuke separated.

Naruto rushed toward its right side while Sasuke approached from the left.

The sun-shaped mark on Naruto’s right palm and the crescent-moon mark on Sasuke’s left began glowing simultaneously.

They avoided the wildly thrashing tails and reached the unstable mass at the same instant.

Their palms struck opposite sides of its body.

“Six Paths: Chibaku Tensei!”

An incomparably powerful gravitational force erupted from the Ten-Tails.

The entire battlefield began shaking.

Crack!

The walls of the abyss split apart. Enormous slabs of earth broke free from both sides and flew toward the white mass.

The creature released an ear-splitting roar.

Its tails struck the incoming boulders and shattered several of them, but it could not resist the combined Yin and Yang power of the Sage of Six Paths.

The gravity continued intensifying.

The swelling masses across its body suddenly began tearing free.

Shukaku was the first to separate.

The sand-colored One-Tail fell from the white mass and struck the ground below. Matatabi emerged next, blue flames covering her body as she regained her original form.

Isobu, Son Gokū, Kokuō, Saiken, Chōmei, Gyūki, and Kurama followed one after another.

The unstable Ten-Tails could no longer keep their chakra fused together.

All nine tailed beasts crashed onto the battlefield as the pale central body continued rising into the sky.

Madara remained trapped inside its core.

Hinata’s Tenseigan could still see him buried within the shifting white mass. He was unconscious, and his nearly destroyed body no longer possessed the strength to escape.

“Kurama!” Naruto shouted. “Get everyone away from here!”

Kurama glanced at Naruto before looking toward the enormous pieces of earth being torn from the ground.

“All of you, move!”

The Nine-Tails led the other eight tailed beasts away from the gravitational field.

“Mihawk-kun, we should leave too,” Hinata said.

“Yeah.”

Mihawk placed his arm around her shoulder.

Hinata wrapped both arms around his waist and used repulsion to lift them into the air.

Only after carrying him beyond the reach of Chibaku Tensei did she deactivate Tenseigan Chakra Mode.

Below them, Kakashi had already taken Obito away from the collapsing edge of the abyss.

Boulders continued gathering around the pale mass.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Countless pieces of earth collided and compressed together, gradually forming an enormous sphere in the sky.

Madara’s presence disappeared beneath layer after layer of stone.

The final tail vanished into the growing satellite.

The furious roars ceased.

Several minutes later, the gravitational force finally weakened.

An enormous new moon floated above the ruined battlefield.

Mihawk stood beside Hinata and gazed up at the newly formed celestial body. Aside from his slightly labored breathing and exhausted eyes, little betrayed how deeply the battle had drained him.

Nevertheless, a rare look of satisfaction appeared on his face.

Madara had lost.

Black Zetsu had also lost.

The incomplete Ten-Tails had been sealed, and the nine tailed beasts had regained their freedom.

Mihawk’s arrival had ultimately changed the ending that should have occurred.

Black Zetsu would never betray Madara.

Kaguya Ōtsutsuki would never return.

This war had reached its end.