Danzo offered no answer to Sasuke’s question. Instead, his attention remained sharply fixed on the battle itself. With the distance between them now more than sufficient, Danzo did not hesitate. He immediately formed the necessary seals and unleashed Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere.

Several compressed spheres of wind chakra shot toward Sasuke in rapid succession. Each one was a small but violent blast, tearing through the air with shrill, cutting whistles as they closed in on their target.

Sasuke moved.

His body blurred as he weaved through the incoming attacks, his speed and swordsmanship working in perfect harmony. Most of the vacuum spheres were cleanly avoided, slicing past him and detonating against the ground behind. The few that could not be dodged were met head-on—Sasuke swung his lightning-coated blade, and with precise Chidori-infused strikes, he shattered the wind spheres mid-air, dispersing them into harmless bursts of distorted air.

This was something the old Sasuke—limited to the Mangekyo Sharingan—would not have been capable of. But this Sasuke was different.

With the awakening of the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, his chakra reserves had increased drastically. His control over his ninjutsu had sharpened to an entirely new level. His reaction speed, perception, and overall combat awareness had all been pushed far beyond their previous limits. Every movement felt smoother, faster, more decisive.

Because of that heightened state, Sasuke handled Danzo’s assault with ease—evading the majority of the attacks and casually destroying the rest—his strength clearly having risen by more than just a single step.

Sasuke appeared directly in front of Danzo once more and swung his sword in a powerful vertical arc, the blade slicing upward and severing Danzo’s left arm. But before the body could even fall, Danzo dissolved again into a swirl of black mist and reappeared at a distance, completely intact.

There was no mistaking it—Danzo had used Izanagi yet again.

The repetition was irritating, even infuriating, but Sasuke understood the reality of the situation. There was little he could do to stop it outright. Then I’ll just kill you every time, he thought coldly. As long as Danzo continued to rely on Izanagi, Sasuke would continue cutting him down, again and again.

After reforming at a safe distance, Danzo did not rush in blindly. Instead, he calmly bit his finger and slammed his palm on the ground and activated the Summoning Technique. A moment later, his summoned beast appeared before him.

Baku emerged with an overwhelming presence.

The massive creature was as wide as the bridge itself, its bulk more than enough to block the entire path. Its length alone stretched across nearly half the bridge, dwarfing everything around it. This was the sheer scale of Danzo’s summon. Baku threw back its head and released a thunderous roar, the sound echoing violently through the air.

Sasuke studied the creature with a steady gaze. It was a grotesque chimera, a disturbing amalgamation of different animals fused into a single form. Yet despite its size and monstrous appearance, Sasuke was not particularly surprised.

Given that Danzo had been one of the primary backers and facilitators of Orochimaru’s forbidden research—experiments involving the First Hokage’s cells and countless other unethical projects—such an unnatural creature was hardly shocking. More importantly, Sasuke felt no intimidation at all.

Its size meant nothing to him.

Sasuke leapt onto one of the massive pillars at the centre of the bridge. The moment his feet touched down, chakra surged outward, and a half-body Susanoo formed around him, its armour solidifying.

Danzo reacted instantly.

"Baku," he ordered sharply, "use your suction."

The summoned beast obeyed without delay. Danzo’s intent was clear—he wanted to use Baku’s immense suction power to destabilize Sasuke’s Susanoo first. With its balance disrupted, he could then combine that force with his own technique, Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves, amplifying its destructive power by a wide margin.

Baku inhaled deeply, and a terrifying suction force erupted toward Sasuke. The air twisted violently as debris, loose stone, and chakra currents were dragged toward the beast’s gaping maw. The pull slammed against the Susanoo, attempting to tear it apart from the outside.

But the result was not what Danzo had expected.

Sasuke’s Susanoo trembled—but it did not destabilize. It resisted far more than Danzo had calculated.

Even so, Danzo did not hesitate. He followed through with his plan. Drawing in a deep breath, he unleashed Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves, exhaling multiple blades of compressed wind from different angles at once. The cutting currents screamed through the air, converging on Sasuke’s Susanoo and striking it directly.

The attack landed cleanly.

The Susanoo armour cracked and chipped under the relentless barrage, sections of it splintering as the wind blades tore into it. The technique achieved part of its purpose—it inflicted significant damage.

But that was all.

The Susanoo remained standing.

Its form was battered, yet intact. The defences did not shatter.

Danzo stared, his expression darkening. He had been hoping—expecting—that this combined assault would break through Sasuke’s defences entirely. That expectation failed completely.

If his attack had been even more powerful, perhaps the outcome would have been different. But it was not.

If this had been Sasuke’s half-body Susanoo from before the awakening of the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, Danzo’s Vacuum Serial Waves might have succeeded. But this Susanoo was different—its armour reinforced, layered with a far greater density of chakra.

Against that enhanced defence, Danzo’s wind techniques simply were not enough.

Sasuke endured the devastating assault on his Susanoo—but he himself remained completely unharmed. The battered Susanoo armour still stood firm around him. Calmly, he spoke, his voice steady and cold. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"Now it’s my turn."

The moment the words left his mouth, Sasuke formed the hand seals and unleashed Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique. A massive fireball erupted from him, roaring forward with overwhelming heat and pressure.

Baku was still using its suction.

The enormous sphere of fire was dragged straight toward the beast’s open maw. The violent winds generated by Baku’s suction wrapped around the fireball, feeding it oxygen and compressing it even further. The flames burned brighter, hotter, and far more lethally than before as the technique was forcibly pulled in.

The result was immediate.

The fireball detonated inside Baku’s mouth, and the summoned beast let out a brief, distorted cry before being completely overwhelmed. In the next instant, Baku was desummoned, vanishing in a white cloud of smoke accompanied by a dull boom that echoed across the bridge.

But Sasuke had not forgotten Danzo—not for a single moment.

The right arm of his Susanoo moved smoothly, a blade already formed from condensed chakra. It thrust forward without hesitation, impaling Danzo and killing him on the spot. Yet, just as expected, Danzo’s body dissolved into black mist once again and disappeared.

Izanagi.

Sasuke felt no irritation this time. He had anticipated it. He fully expected Danzo to rely on the technique again. And if even Danzo’s strongest methods had failed to produce results, then none of his ordinary attacks stood a chance against Sasuke.

The battle dragged on.

Danzo continued to attack with his Wind Release techniques, but again and again, Sasuke cut him down. Each time, Danzo was killed—only to return moments later through Izanagi. And throughout all of it, Danzo kept careful track of his remaining eyes. His gaze repeatedly flicked to his right arm, checking whether the Sharingan that represented another "life" was still available.

Sasuke noticed this behaviour.

He watched every glance, every subtle movement, committing it to memory. And as the fight continued, Sasuke began forming a plan—one that would turn Danzo’s own desperation against him.

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