Simultaneous Time Travel: What Villain? I'm the Protagonist!

The Susanoo was placed on the wooden dummy; this was not a combination that anyone had taught them, nor had they even practiced it.

But Hashirama and Madara had been locked in a stalemate for half their lives, their fighting styles known to the bone. The wooden dummy bent down, its hands supporting Susanoo's feet as if supporting a shrine. Susanoo's four arms stretched out, its blades pointing diagonally, the chakra flames distorting the air.

A colossal statue, hundreds of feet tall.

On the battlefield, the angle of elevation was pushed to the limit, and many people refused to lower their heads even when their necks ached.

Sheng Ren remained standing in the same spot. He looked up at the colossal statue, his face showing no fear, only barely concealed excitement.

Susanoo's sword arrived first.

The four blades did not strike simultaneously, but rather in sequence: the first blocked the left, the second the right, the third the top, and the fourth aimed directly at the center. The blades crisscrossed, forming a net so fine that not even a bird could pass through.

Sheng Ren made a move.

He dodged the first blade, the wind whistling past his cheek and lifting a few strands of hair. He raised his right hand, two fingers catching the tip of the second blade, and with a flick of his wrist, he floated up like a falling leaf. The third blade grazed the sole of his shoe, and the fourth missed its mark.

He flipped in mid-air, his feet not touching the ground, and had already covered ten zhang (approximately 33 meters).

"Why are you running?"

Madara's voice came from above Susanoo's head. The Rinnegan turned, and the suction force of the Universal Pull suddenly erupted. Morihito's figure paused in mid-air, as if his ankles were being pulled by invisible ropes.

Just this one meal.

The wooden figure's fist has arrived.

That was a punch without any fancy moves. Pure power, pure speed, pure—size.

Sheng Ren crossed his arms and took the hit head-on.

boom!

The impact point unleashed a visible shockwave, instantly cracking and collapsing the ice surface within a radius of a hundred meters. Sheng Ren, like a stone thrown into the air, plummeted diagonally to the ground, his legs carving two deep furrows several meters long into the ice.

He glanced down at his forearm. The white fabric was torn, revealing skin—with a faint red mark on it.

"That's interesting," he said.

Madara gave him no chance to catch his breath. Susanoo's four swords slashed down again, this time faster and denser. The wooden golem didn't stop either; its giant hand slapped down from the side, like swatting a lone fly.

Sheng Ren moved between blades and palm strikes.

His speed was incredible, his afterimages overlapping, making it impossible to distinguish which was the real him. The blade grazed his clothes three times, and the wooden figure's fingertips nearly touched his back twice. Each time, it was by the slightest margin.

But he dodged it every time.

Madara's expression grew increasingly grim. Susanoo's swordplay had reached its limit; his four arms whirled like windmills, the blades weaving a net, the mesh tightening to the point of no return—yet he still couldn't catch that fish.

"Hashirama".

"Know."

The wooden figure suddenly stopped. It ceased its pursuit and instead slammed its palms into the ground.

boom!

The ice shattered, and dozens of tree roots, thicker than a person could hug, burst forth from the ground beneath Sheng Ren's feet—not as an attack, but as a blockade. They intertwined, instantly weaving an impenetrable cage.

Sheng Ren severed three roots with a single stroke, and resin oozed from the cuts. But more roots surged up, filling the gaps faster than he could cut them.

The cage closed.

Susanoo's four swords simultaneously pierced into the cage, sealing off all evasive angles from four directions.

Madara's Rinnegan was fixed on the white figure in the cage.

"Let's see where you hide."

Sheng Ren did not dodge.

He sheathed his sword, clasped his hands together in front of his chest, and the seven-colored halo behind him suddenly condensed.

"Immortal Technique - Yin Yang Void - Return to Nothingness"

An invisible wave exploded outwards from him. The tree roots touched the edge of the wave and silently turned into wood chips, which then turned into powder, which disappeared into the air.

Susanoo's four swords were also swept by this wave. The blades began to disintegrate from the tips, breaking into countless tiny blue specks of light, like a swarm of startled fireflies.

The pupil of the spot suddenly contracted.

In that instant, he made his decision. Susanoo abandoned its defenses, retracting all four arms and concentrating all its chakra in its chest—

Then open your mouth.

"Fire Release: Great Flame Annihilation!"

This is no ordinary fire jutsu. This is the blazing flame of Susanoo form, where chakra is burned to its limit. Deep blue flames spewed from the giant's mouth, the temperature so high that the air screamed, and wherever they passed, ice vaporized and even rocks began to melt.

Without hesitation, the wooden figure took a step back and pushed forward with both palms.

"Wood Release: Advent of the Tree World!" Countless trees rose from the ground in front of the wooden figure, intertwining to form a wooden wall several meters thick.

Sheng Ren did not move.

He stood there, watching the blue sea of ​​fire rush towards him, until the heatwave had singed the tips of his hair—

Then he raised his hand.

Clench your fists loosely and aim them at the very center of the inferno.

"Immortal Technique: Water Escape: Dark Ice Seal"

In the instant of the collision between extreme cold and extreme heat, there was no explosion, no roar. Only billowing white steam, like a sudden, dense fog, enveloped the entire battlefield.

A series of rapid metallic clangs came from the steam, the clash of Shengren's and Susanoo's remaining blades at extremely close range, followed by the muffled thud of a heavy object falling to the ground, the crisp sound of ice shattering, and Madara's suppressed groan.

The steam dissipated.

On the battlefield, Sheng Ren stood about ten feet away, his white clothes bearing several scorch marks, and a trace of blood hanging from the corner of his mouth. He raised the back of his hand to wipe it, glanced at it, and said nothing.

Susanoo knelt on the ground, a gap more than a foot long cracked in the armor on its chest, from which deep blue chakra overflowed, like a bleeding wound.

The wooden figure took three steps back, each step leaving a footprint more than a foot deep on the ice.

Madara didn't speak. He looked at his Edo Tensei hand, which was slowly repairing itself. The cracks in his palm were spreading to his wrist, and the repair was much slower than before.

Hashirama didn't speak. He looked down at his hands, where the traces of the Returnless Wave remained—a few faint white marks.

Sheng Ren spoke up: "If you join forces, you can indeed stop me," his voice was flat, as if stating a fact, "but you can only stop me."

Ban did not refute.

In that last exchange, both sides gave it their all. Susanoo with Wood Golem, Fire Release combined with Tree World—this was the highest level of combined attack they could muster. Sheng Ren was injured, coughed up blood, and his armor was torn.

But he is still standing, still able to speak, and still able to fight again at any time.

Susanoo's armor was cracked, the wooden golem's right shoulder was ruined, and the regeneration rate of his impure body was clearly slowing down. They couldn't hold out much longer.

Hashirama suddenly asked, "Since you have such strength, why didn't you go all out from the start?"

Sheng Ren thought about it.

"Because I want you to see clearly," he said, "to see clearly that even if you give it your all, even if you join forces, even if you use the best teamwork you've ever had—"

He paused.

"That's all we can do."

Hashirama remained silent.

Ban also fell silent.

No one spoke on the battlefield. Within the allied forces, the Kage-level powerhouses exchanged bewildered glances, unable to utter a single word.

They witnessed the battle firsthand, seeing what the God of Ninjas and the Asura of the Ninja World could achieve when they joined forces, and also seeing the limits of that achievement.

Just then—

A gray shadow pierced through the clouds and fell diagonally.

They were messenger hawks. Not just one, but three, flying in from different directions and crashing into the allied forces' ranks almost simultaneously.

The messengers staggered to their respective shadows and unrolled the scroll.

The Fourth Raikage, A, glanced at it and his expression suddenly froze.

"Yugito... has been captured." His voice was hoarse, each word seemingly squeezed out of his throat. "The Two-Tails Jinchuriki was forcibly transferred by a masked guy using space-time ninjutsu. The entire guard was wiped out!"

Almost simultaneously, the scroll in Onoki's hand slipped and fell to the ground.

"Five-tailed," his voice trembled, "Han was also captured using the same method."

Rasa gripped the scroll, trying to suppress his anger: "The One-Tailed Beast, Gaara..."

Before he could finish speaking, Hiruzen Sarutobi's pipe fell onto the ice with a thud—oh no!