Naruto, Madara is my girl.

Lightning cracked through the steam-veiled mud as Akira's chakra flared. Screams echoed between each explosion-wet blasts followed by electric snaps that left Cloud shinobi convulsing under arcs of power they couldn't control.

"Stop!"

"Yameteee!"

Begging voices broke apart as dozens of thunder balls lit up the battlefield. Bolts danced across the mud-slicked terrain and snapped between spheres. Akira stood at the edge of it, face set in complete contempt as the glow lit him up between pulses.

"Thunder Release-Thunder Ball."

More dropped from above with quick shrieks of energy, blinding flash before earth, shaking impact.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Mud sprayed skyward with every blast. Water churned beneath them like stirred soup, and those Cloud shinobi, unsteady on the soaked battlefield, scrambled helplessly to even take one step forward. Their chakra was already fried from Akira's earlier attack, legs heavy and coordination gone from being caught in his massive whirlpool technique.

They'd been trained for close combat. Their bodies were weapons, but weapons weren't worth shit when buried in sludge and blind to incoming death.

One shouted in disbelief right before his body jerked with electricity: "What-?!"

Another broke into guttural cries as lightning shot straight down his throat and burst through the soles of his feet. Water sizzled around him until it popped like oil over fire, steam hissing from the surface as elements clashed violently again and again.

Any defensive earth-style they tried cracked instantly under direct hits. Walls of dirt bent backward and shattered when thunder balls slammed through them with blunt force.

Those caught in the middle had no time to recover and no direction to flee.

Flashes of light and sound left them dazed on their feet. Others were tossed aside like weightless sacks when blast waves carved out deep craters around impact sites.

One after another collapsed into silence.

And just when silence began creeping back under falling debris, Akira's clones struck from the side again.

"Earth Release: Yellow Springs Swamp."

Wet sucking noises rippled outwards as thick mud turned bottomless under their boots. Desperate yells followed immediately, the same voices that had begged for their lives now crying out as legs sank too deep and arms flailed uselessly above waterlogged earth.

"I-I'm sinking!"

"No chakra, it's gone-!"

They tried climbing over each other in panic-but the swamp dragged them back under in slow suffocating pulls until only their heads remained above surface, mouths open wide in terror.

"Lord Kinkaku! HELP US!"

Kinkaku stumbled forward, covered in filth and fury. He'd barely clawed his way free, but not fast enough to stop anything that had happened. Rage contorted his face as he took in the devastation ahead, the broken cries of his entire unit buried or burned alive in the very battlefield he was supposed to command.

"What did you do... to my troops?!"

Red chakra erupted off him in wild bursts. The next moment, he vanished with booming speed, punching through tree trunks and stone alike as he charged straight at Akira's figure and smashed through it-

Only for smoke to explode on impact.

Shadow Clone.

"Dammit-!"

Another one appeared in the corner of his vision, then exploded too before he could connect properly. Again and again, he darted between clones, each heavier than steel and just out of reach. None were the original. And each time he thought he found him, the clone burst into fog and mocked him silently in its absence.

"FUCK!"

Kinkaku's roars grew hoarse. Ten strikes, twenty strikes, still not one shadow clone destroyed mattered. Because new ones appeared just as fast as if Akira had endless chakra to burn. (T/N: considering he is an edo tensei, yeah.. he really does.)

One clone ducked his punch and flickered backwards into another teleport seal burned into the bark of a tree behind him. Another leapt overhead and hurled kunai embedded with tags across the field like spreading rot.

Tobirama's own observation narrowed into one low exhale from high above, hidden behind cover and using his telescope technique for distance vision.

"Is it really okay for you to treat him like some kind of training dummy?"

Akira shrugged without looking at him, hands already moving through another set of signs before forming another seal.

"What choice do I have? He's carrying Six Paths relics. If I get sealed, it'll either trap me forever or erase my soul on the spot. I'm not taking that kind of gamble."

"You've tied up his whole army AND their strongest fighter." Tobirama's eyebrow rose slightly. "What's left is just Silver Horn and some background extras."

Akira shot him another sideways glance-tone laced with challenge under his breath.

"You saying you're not up to it?"

Tobirama snorted once and cracked his knuckles behind his back.

"Please, I'm the fucking Hokage."

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