Speedrunning Naruto to the Top

Uchiha Madara sped through the air, yet he felt an acute sense of urgency.

He understood that Izayoi wielded space-time powers.

Whether it was that black portal, the Flying Thunder God Technique, or the trick of sending an object to a preset point and then warping to it, every one of those moves out-paced simple flight.

So, while flying Madara formed hand-seals and once more invoked Wood Release on a Kekkei Mōra scale.

With a series of sharp cracking sounds, an immense mountain peak was instantly pulverized.

Much as in the past when weakness bound him, a tree branch even larger than the mountain itself burst out of the shattered rock and shot toward Madara at high speed.

Beside that branch, Madara looked as tiny as a mosquito.

A narrow slit opened in the branch; he slipped into it like an insect.

At once three massive chakras—each a different color—surged from who-knows-where and flooded into the branch, making it glow like a giant light tube in three alternating hues.

The flickering lasted only a few seconds before vanishing.

Those three chakra masses were: Gyūki, the Eight-Tails within Killer B; the Yang half of Kurama inside Uzumaki Naruto; and the Yin half of Kurama that Izayoi had sealed away and left a Wood clone to guard.

Infinite Tsukuyomi paired with God: Nativity of a World of Trees does more than plunge everyone into dreams and feed on them with Wood Release until they turn into White Zetsu.

That combo jutsu is also a chakra-recycling technique.

Anyone cocooned in wood and hanging from the branches can have their chakra siphoned off by Madara.

Right now Madara could harvest the whole shinobi world's chakra, yet he refrained and took only the Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails.

Even so, the well of chakra now inside him was terrifying.

It had already been practically limitless; at this point any ninjutsu, Six Paths Senjutsu, or even Kekkei Mōra-class technique was his to use at will.

"Only the Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails? Still too soft-hearted."

When Madara emerged from the branch, Izayoi was already outside waiting. His golden Rinne-Tenseigan studied Madara's condition and judged, "Even now your chakra stores don't match the Sage of Six Paths I once saw."

Since awakening the "Tensonari," Izayoi had watched the battle of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki against her two sons in the Ice-Snow dimension.

Using the far-sight and x-ray vision that let his Tenseigan survey the entire shinobi world, he had also found their old battlefield, replayed that months-long fight, and seen the God-Tree become the Ten-Tails before Hagoromo sealed it inside himself.

Although Madara had become the perfect Ten-Tails jinchūriki, the gap between him and Hagoromo remained large.

It was not only pure-blood versus mixed-blood; Hagoromo and Hamura had inherited the God-Tree's chakra, whereas the chakra of later generations traced back only to Hagoromo, however diluted by a thousand years.

Madara's stats might now exceed Hamura's, yet they still fell short of Hagoromo's and, of course, Kaguya's.

Nevertheless his strength far outstripped the Six Paths Madara of the original story.

"It's more than enough to deal with you," Madara sneered, thunder rolling on a clear day. "You'll pay for your arrogance!"

"Feel free to try," Izayoi chuckled.

Their gazes met like a horizon and sparked.

A heartbeat later, Madara moved.

He seized the floating Staff beside him and slashed, unleashing an obliterating white arc.

Even Izayoi's Flying Thunder God and Yomotsu Hirasaka were too slow to deploy—the distance between them was too short, the slash too fast.

Yet Izayoi did not dodge; he merely raised his right hand.

The next instant the white slash froze in front of him.

Madara's Rinnegan and Rinne-Sharingan stared, reading Izayoi's chakra flow to pin down what power this was and where it came from.

He quickly found his answer.

Watching Izayoi absorb the white slash again, Madara said in a low voice, "So this is your personal dōjutsu. Just as I thought—you spin tall tales. All that talk about 'eyes worthy of being looked at' was a lie. Was Ōtsutsuki Isshiki part of your fabrication too?"

"A half-blood Ōtsutsuki remains a frog in a well." Izayoi shook his head and asked with a playful smile, "Since you're the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, do you even know what the eye on your forehead is called?"

"The Rinne-Sharingan."

"And your eyes?" Madara locked on to Izayoi's, sure of himself. "Rinne-Tenseigan, right?"

"Two natures combined makes a Kekkei Genkai; three make a Kekkei Tōta." Izayoi kept smiling. "Do you know what category our eyes fall under?"

"What category?" Madara played along, expressionless but clearly skeptical.

"They're Kekkei Mōra." Izayoi did not hide it. "By the way, dōjutsu of that level usually grant at least two distinct abilities—each one Kekkei Mōra-grade."

Madara's face finally twitched—not because Izayoi had two personal dōjutsu, but because he realized his own Rinne-Sharingan held only one: Infinite Tsukuyomi. Wood Release: Kekkei Mōra had been gifted by the Ten-Tails.

Unaware of Madara's thoughts, Izayoi continued, calmly revealing his techniques. "My Rinne-Tenseigan retains all the powers of the Rinnegan and Tenseigan and gives each its own special dōjutsu. The Tenseigan is called Tensonari, letting me see past and future.

"The Rinnegan's special dōjutsu is… Miketsu."

Izayoi lifted his right hand again. As Madara's eyes widened, Izayoi's lips curled. "Its ability is quite simple: it turns every attack… into food."

As he finished, a mass of black substance formed in his palm and shaped itself into a black longsword.

Unlike Madara's oddly shaped Spear, Izayoi's black blade was an ordinary double-edged sword.

Yet the sight of it made Madara's gaze tremble.

Before he could speak, Izayoi swept the sword horizontally.

The familiar roaring white slash burst forth.

Because it expanded so rapidly, and because Madara lacked space-time powers, he could not evade. Instinctively he raised the staff to cleave the incoming white wall, hoping his wish-granting weapon would split it in two.

Had this flash been a Truth-Seeking Ball detonation he might have succeeded. Unfortunately Izayoi's slash, like Madara's own spear, was a "Sword of Nunoboko" onto which overwhelming will and unyielding conviction could be imprinted.

It was the emblem of a strong heart.

Even the slightest wavering emotion could turn this otherwise omnipotent heart-sword into scrap a top-tier Kage could smash.

It was the one and only strike of true heart, able to rival Kekkei Mōra powers.

Targeted by Izayoi's dōjutsu, Madara simply lacked the strength to sever it.

That was why Izayoi could afford to divulge his secrets.

Shwoooom—

A colossal white crescent flashed across the sky over the Land of Lightning. The light of Infinite Tsukuyomi scattered, and darkness briefly reclaimed the land—only for daylight to blaze again for a few seconds.

In those seconds countless towering peaks were erased.

Clouds drifting in from other lands vanished once more.

Anything brushed by the white light—mountain tops, clouds, even the wind itself—was annihilated; there was no air resistance at all.

The slash left the Land of Lightning in mere seconds—and Madara was flung out right behind it.

Had Izayoi lacked the power to absorb the white slash, he too would have been hurled a tremendous distance even if he weren't bisected or erased.

Because of Madara's unwavering conviction and the nature of the heart-sword, Izayoi's slash did not shatter the Spear; the immortal Madara emerged unscathed.

But the blow shook him and weighed heavily on his mind.

Before he could regain composure and reactivate the spear at full power, Izayoi's voice came from behind.

"You know I possess the Rinne-Tenseigan—so why do you think I never once tried to seize the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path?"

Voice and rushing wind arrived together. Madara spun and flew backward, blocking Izayoi's strike. At the same time he fired a Truth-Seeking Ball beam at Izayoi.

With a casual flick Izayoi knocked it aside, then crossed swords with Madara in mid-air, continuing his self-dialogue:

"Because I wanted you to become the Ten-Tails jinchūriki first, so that I could then use Miketsu to absorb the abilities unlocked by that form.

"Why go to all that trouble and risk? Wouldn't being the jinchūriki myself, with near-infinite chakra, be better?"

"Simple. My eyes saw the past. Inside the statue sleeps a power—Six Paths Sage Mode—that even the Rinne-Tenseigan can't override. It's Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's safeguard."

Izayoi glanced at Madara, who had unwittingly lost focus: his swordplay was faltering, and maintaining the Rinnegan and Rinne-Sharingan was becoming difficult.

Izayoi chuckled. "Can you still reach the Wood clone guarding Black Zetsu?"

That pierced Madara's mental defenses; he faltered for an instant.

Izayoi seized the chance and slashed again.

Madara tried to block on reflex, but the Spear cracked with a ka-cha.

A tearing sound followed.

Madara himself, like the spear, was cut cleanly in two.

A gigantic white crescent winked behind him; for a heartbeat sky and earth blazed daylight before darkness fell once more.

Shinobi across the continent could have seen that sight—if they weren't all dreaming under Infinite Tsukuyomi.

Izayoi did not press the attack. One hand held the sword while the other rose; a golden orb formed in his palm.

Streams of multicolored chakra flared from Madara's bisected torso and poured into the orb.

The sight shocked Madara awake.

Realizing he had fallen into Izayoi's trap, he banished every stray thought. Instead of immediately wrapping his halves in a Truth-Seeking Ball, he widened his eyes and summoned four Limbo clones, each swinging a Spear to fire invisible slashes at Izayoi.

Izayoi smiled. "A sword isn't only a sword."

His black blade liquefied like a Truth-Seeking Ball into a hemispheric shield that blocked all four unseen cuts.

None of them could pierce it. Had it been an ordinary Truth-Seeking staff, it would have been sliced already—Six Paths–level Release is enough to sever those rods. Such is the unreasonable power of the true heart.

While Izayoi defended, Madara's two halves rejoined and healed.

But his face darkened, because in that brief span Izayoi had already stolen an enormous amount of his chakra.

In the original lore, Ōtsutsuki Toneri, empowered by the Giant Tenseigan, drained Naruto's chakra from afar in an instant. Had solar energy not gone berserk inside Toneri, the outcome might have differed.

Izayoi's Rinne-Tenseigan, a Kekkei Mōra eye, was faster still.

Were it not for the Ten-Tails jinchūriki's absurd immunity, Izayoi wouldn't need to break Madara's guard; he could have siphoned him dry from a distance.

~~~

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