With a blinding flash, the golden light of the Flying Thunder God Technique struck the battlefield like a meteor. In that instant, Minato Namikaze—Konoha's Yellow Flash—reappeared beside the lone colossus known as Radahn.
But the world he returned to… was not the one he had left.
Minato blinked.
A cold wind brushed across his cheek.
His feet landed not on crushed grass or bloodstained earth—but on barren soil. The battlefield that had once roared with the fury of jutsu, fire, and chaos… was now quiet.
Too quiet.
The terrain was unrecognizable.
The once-dense forest had been ripped from its roots. The towering trees had been replaced by jagged craters and scorched wasteland. Not a single body, not a shred of clothing, not even a broken kunai littered the field.
It was… empty.
Utterly empty.
Minato's sharp eyes scanned the area. His breath caught in his throat.
No sign of the enemy army.
No sign of the Raikage.
No sign of the hundreds of shinobi that had been preparing a final assault.
Just silence.
Just… Radahn—the crimson-helmed titan standing tall amidst the devastation, his giant twin blades humming low with lingering magic, arcs of violet lightning tracing their edges as if thirsting for more.
And in the distance…
Two figures.
Floating midair, barely standing—Onoki, the proud leader of Iwagakure, panting and visibly shaken.
And beside him, a monstrous feline form cloaked in flame-blue chakra, the fully transformed Two-Tails, her tails twitching restlessly in sheer animal dread.
Minato's brows furrowed, stunned.
'What happened here…?'
His mind raced to make sense of it.
'This was supposed to be a last stand. Two Kage, a Tailed Beast, an army of hundreds… What kind of battle happened in these few minutes?!'
He clenched his fists, trying to understand the impossible.
'Where's the Raikage? Where are the shinobi? There were hundreds of them...!'
His gaze then fell on the scared faces of the Jinchūriki and Onoki-
His heart skipped.
'…Masaka—No, it can't be… Don't tell me he… obliterated them all? In mere minutes? That's impossible! Not even Lord Hokage … could—'
Just then, a faint, eerie sound stirred the air—a soft whimpering breeze brushing past his ears.
Minato's instincts flared. His gaze flicked toward Radahn's side.
There—half-buried in the dirt, tossed like a ragdoll by some unseen force—lay a lifeless body.
The corpse was still cloaked in remnants of lightning chakra armor, fingers twisted backward, neck bent unnaturally, eyes wide in a final moment of disbelief.
Minato's pupils shrank.
"Raikage…"
His stomach turned.
He understood now.
The Third Raikage—the man famed for his indestructible body and unmatched speed—was dead.
Not wounded. Not defeated.
Dead.
Minato looked up at Radahn, whose massive frame remained motionless, crimson hair rustling gently in the wind.
The only thing louder than the silence… was the pounding of Minato's own heart.
The dead wind blew across the battlefield, carrying dust and silence in its wake.
Minato stood at Radahn's side, eyes darting from the collapsed landscape to the only two living enemies left—Onoki of the Dust, and the Two-Tails, cloaked in flames and tension.
The air was heavy. Not with chakra, not with jutsu—but the kind of pressure that precedes a storm.
Minato was still reeling from what he saw. The Third Raikage, crushed. An army, erased. The terrain itself turned into a grave of nothingness.
He struggled to grasp how all of it had happened in the short minutes he'd been gone.
'How much power does Radahn truly hold…?'
Then, just as the tension hung like a sword on a thread—Onoki spoke.
"Minato..." the old Tsuchikage said, his cracked voice echoing with unexpected confidence. A sly grin tugged at the corner of his lips.
"How will Konoha respond to this monstrosity you've allied with?"
Minato turned slowly toward him, expression tightening.
"The death of the Raikage… the annihilation of hundreds of shinobi… Do you intend to bear the weight of that, Yellow Flash?"
Onoki's arms opened mockingly, as if presenting the ruined battlefield to the Hokage himself.
"What we've witnessed here is no longer a battle—it's a war crime. A massacre. This monster—this 'ally' of yours—will plunge the Five Nations into a crisis like never before!"
Minato's mouth opened slightly in disbelief. He took a cautious step forward, confused, caught between indignation and sheer confusion.
'He's the one who led the attack... and now he's trying to twist it?'
Even Yugito, in her full beast form, flinched.
Her blue fire-like tails flickered erratically.
'Is this old fossil serious?' she thought bitterly.
The devastation was everywhere. Her own survival had been a miracle. Her limbs still trembled from the sight of her comrades being sucked into black stars, limbs torn and crushed like paper dolls.
And yet, Onoki grinned.
Yugito's eyes narrowed. Her ears twitched toward her partner inside her mind.
'This idiot want to die or something?'
But Onoki turned his head slightly and gave her a small nod.
The kind of nod that said,
'I have a plan. Follow my lead.'
'Tch… this old man…' Yugito thought.
Minato, now facing them fully, stared.
He was dumbfounded.
What was Onoki doing?
The wind whispered across the wasteland, brushing the ashes of over four hundred fallen shinobi. Their legacy now lay in a barren crater, with only Onoki, Yugito, Radahn, and Minato standing amid the aftermath.
Radahn's Greatswords hummed faintly with residual gravity, still embedded with flickers of violet static.
Minato said nothing.
Radahn, ever still, hadn't moved a muscle.
And yet Onoki stood tall—shoulders back, voice clear. His confidence seemed to grow by the second, feeding off their silence.
"Don't worry, Minato…" Onoki began with a sly smirk, his voice calm and condescending.
Minato's eyes shifted slightly, his golden hair fluttering in the breeze.
'W-what…?' Minato thought, his gut twisting.
"This... this unfortunate event can be overlooked." Onoki gestured vaguely toward the battlefield, as if brushing aside the genocide.
"Mistakes happen. After all, wars are… unpredictable."
Minato's expression darkened, brows knitting together.
'Is He seriously trying to bargain… after this?'
Then, the old man pressed harder, his voice rising, bolder now.
"However, to avoid escalation and preserve balance between the nations..."He paused for effect, smiling cruelly.
"We demand war compensation... and the head of this beast."
A heavy silence fell.
It was as if the air dropped ten degrees.
Minato's eyes widened.
His mouth opened slightly, stunned.
'H-He's serious... He really thinks this is diplomacy?!'
But the loudest reaction didn't come from Minato.
It came from within Yugito.
Inside her soulscape, Matatabi, the Two-Tails, growled—her voice vibrating with disbelief and scorn.
"This old fool has lost his mind. He's bargaining with the executioner while the axe is already swinging."
"Yugito, I think our journey ends today…"
Back in the real world, Yugito's fists clenched. The flames around her tails whipped with agitation.
She glanced sideways at Onoki.
Her jaw twitched.
'I swear if he wasn't technically an ally... I'd punch the Dust out of that wrinkled face right now.'
The sheer absurdity of the moment made her skin crawl.
Her entire platoon was gone.
The Raikage was dead.
And this political corpse wanted to negotiate?
Minato, meanwhile, finally managed to speak—his voice low and stunned.
"...You want what?"
Onoki, emboldened, stepped forward ever so slightly.
"You heard me, Minato. You brought this calamity upon the battlefield. Konoha must answer for this."
Minato turned his head, slowly… and looked up at Radahn.
Still silent. Still unmoved.
But his golden eyes were watching.
The breeze rolled through the scorched battlefield—silent, eerie.
Minato finally broke the stillness, his voice sharp yet burdened.
"How absurd…" he muttered, eyes narrowing.
"Konoha will never sacrifice its allies—especially not for—"
But he didn't get to finish.
"Kid."Onoki's raspy voice cut in like a dagger laced with condescension.
"You're still too young to understand how this world works."
The old man raised a trembling hand toward the sky as if invoking ancient power through his arrogance.
"Follow our demands, or Konoha will face the wrath of every nation combined."
His voice echoed across the emptiness.
And then—he stopped.
Because a hand had risen in silence.
A single, gloved, massive hand.
Radahn hadn't made a sound.
Yet in the blink of an eye, Onoki—who had stood hundreds of meters away—was suddenly standing right in front of him.
A step away from the war God's chest.
No flash of chakra.
No thunderous movement.
Just teleported by sheer overwhelming force.
The battlefield froze.
Yugito's eyes widened.
"W-what?!" she gasped.
Onoki staggered backward, his short body dwarfed by the looming shadow of Radahn's colossal frame.
He gasped.His skin went pale.
'W-What… what just happened?!'
He spun around. The camp, the sky, the battlefield—gone from his view.Radahn's chest filled the horizon.
'How did I get here? There was no chakra fluctuation—no jutsu—I didn't see anything!'
Then something even worse struck him.
He reached inward.Nothing.
'Wait… I—I can't feel my chakra?! What is this?! I'm empty?!'
Terror swelled in his chest.
'H-He did this?!'
Radahn's voice came like rolling thunder, slow, deep, final:
"You were talking about my head…"
The words echoed like mountains falling.
Onoki's legs buckled.
Sweat ran down the creases of his face.
Radahn leaned just slightly forward, eyes glowing golden like twin suns.
"Then say that… to my face."
A silence so absolute it roared in their ears.
Even the wind dared not stir.
Yugito felt her heart leap into her throat.
'Oh... he's dead now.'