LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 122: 121. Eclipse of Hope
A sudden hush seized the raging skies as the herald spat black fire from the cracks in its silhouette, its malevolent glare falling upon the five shinobi who had dared to wound it. An eerie glow from the swirling storm painted the shattered rooftops and battered streets below in surreal red hues, as though the village itself lay under a fractured eclipse. No one moved; even the monstrous hordes halted for a drawn-out heartbeat, waiting with savage anticipation to see if their master would obliterate these defiant warriors in one decisive stroke. But Naruto and the others refused to flinch, drawing in ragged breaths and summoning every ounce of resolve still coursing through their veins.
Naruto's voice came first, low and determined, "We've come too far to back down now." His grip on the swirling Rasengan tightened, arcs of reversed time dancing around its edges. Though sweat dripped down his temples, his eyes shone with unyielding spirit. With a surge of Nine-Tails chakra, orange flares lit his entire form, stirring a wind that blew back his hair in wild tufts.
Sasuke stood at his side, sword crackling with gravitational pulses. One sharp glare from his Rinnegan made the air shimmer, distorting the space around him so that any lesser fiend attempting to close in would have been torn apart by invisible shear forces. His earlier exhaustion remained, but the cold fury in his gaze spoke of a man willing to endure any strain to finish this fight. "We crippled your illusions once," he said to the herald, voice cold. "We'll do it again."
Sakura drew closer, fists shimmering with illusions of luminous starlight. She was battered—bruises across her cheek, a tear in her leggings—but her posture remained upright, every breath measured. She recalled how she'd shattered nightmares in the Eternal Battlefield, how she'd confronted her own self-doubt. That memory became the anchor she needed in this moment. "You might have an army," she murmured, setting her stance, "but we've got something stronger: each other."
Minato hovered just behind them, two kunai spinning in his fingers. Intricate seals glowed around his wrists, ready to bend space at a moment's notice. As a Hokage and father, the grim knowledge of the cost weighed on him—so many shinobi wounded, the village on the brink. But he allowed no hesitation to mar his features. "We end this," he said quietly. "No matter what it takes."
Ryusei completed the formation, temporal and void energies faintly coiling around his body like serpents of light and shadow. His eyes flickered with fatigue, yet he summoned a fresh wave of power in defiance of physical limits. If the herald drew on infinite dimensions, Ryusei would counter with every timeline he'd once traversed, each lesson and every scar fueling the synergy they now commanded. "We'll do it together," he said, voice firm.
The herald sneered, voice reverberating in an unholy echo. "Futile. You gnats rely on fleeting bravery, on illusions of unity. The convergence is eternal. It has devoured entire worlds more advanced than yours. Your precious Leaf will be no different."
A swath of black lightning arced overhead as the storm roiled, unleashing fresh monstrosities from lesser rifts—a re-formed legion of twisted fiends that hissed and shrieked. But for once, the leaf squads below blocked their advance, illusions and gravitational barriers slamming shut. Freed from distraction, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Minato, and Ryusei faced the herald alone, five luminous points of raw determination against the swirling red gloom.
Naruto lunged first, channeling Kurama's might into a new technique: a Rasengan brimming with reversed time-layers. A subtle distortion made the sphere flicker in and out of sync, warping the seconds around it. He roared, slamming it forward. The herald responded by swiping its staff, conjuring a wave of negative energy. Time twisted at impact, but Naruto's new jutsu bent the clash in his favor, forcing the wave to partially freeze. Exploiting that instant, Naruto poured more chakra in, ripping the wave in half. The herald recoiled, trailing black sparks from its fractured aura.
Sasuke capitalized, flickering behind the herald with a silent gravitational warp. He unleashed a double strike: a Chidori saturating his blade's edge, combined with a localized Void compression. Steel sliced, space collapsed, and the herald howled as a fresh wound opened. Before Sasuke could follow up, a backhanded blow from the staff collided with the gravitational shell around him, sending him tumbling. The blow would have pulverized bone if not for his swift Void-phase to disperse the impact across an expanded space. Even so, he grimaced, forced to cede ground.
Sakura then appeared from above, illusions flaring around her fists. She unleashed a cataclysmic punch powered by Chrono Essence, momentarily accelerating her muscles to deliver a blow that arrived faster than the herald could blink. Her left fist connected with the staff, creating a shockwave that cracked the air. The herald lurched, shadows exploding off its frame. It screeched in fury, driving a twisting spiral of black lightning at point-blank range. Sakura braced, channeling illusions into a defensive flash that parted the attack around her, though the recoil still flung her back with staggering force. She managed a landing on a swirling platform conjured by Minato's seals, breath ragged but resolve intact.
Minato darted in, space folding around him. He hurled a pair of kunai that glowed with advanced sealing arrays. The herald snarled, conjuring a swirl of devouring darkness to swallow them. But in that heartbeat, Minato teleported behind it using a flicker of dimensional steps. A complex pattern of seals lit along his arms. "Begone," he whispered, slamming a seal-laden palm into the herald's back. An outpouring of space manipulation erupted, attempting to bind the herald in a sealed pocket of reality. For an instant, the herald's movements froze, staff pinned mid-swing. Then black lightning crackled. The herald's roars shattered multiple seals at once, its power violently exceeding Minato's partial entrapment. Minato grimaced as he teleported away just before a savage blast of negative energy scorched the space he'd occupied.
Ryusei seized the opening, weaving his Time and Void energies into a glimmering spear that bent reality around it. He hurled it at the herald's center mass, warping time in the spear's wake so it arrived at an accelerated rate. The herald shrieked, trying to shift intangible. Yet the spear pierced a portion of its aura, temporal feedback washing across its form. Shadows bled from the wound, sizzling in arcs of blackish vapor. The herald nearly buckled, forced to erect a swirling barrier of swirling red thunder to fend off the next volley.
They had hurt it again. Glancing between each other, the five found renewed hope, though their bodies ached and chakra levels fell dangerously. The herald's eyes flared with lethal intent. "Insolent worms! You think these trifling wounds matter?" It unleashed a wave of negativity that made the air coil in agony, forcing them all to brace or risk being thrown from the ephemeral platforms. "I can rend your reality as easily as tearing paper. I will see your village burn across the infinite timelines."
Panting, Naruto formed a fresh Rasengan, arms trembling. Sasuke readied a new gravitational sequence, sparks dancing across his blade. Sakura tensed for another cataclysmic blow, illusions swirling. Minato channeled the last of his advanced seals, determined to exploit any opening. Ryusei let temporal folds swirl around him, prepared to freeze space in a final gambit. They were battered, battered beyond imagination, but none of them would yield.
Time slowed as the herald gathered a culminating force in its staff, arcs of black thunder coalescing in a sphere so dense it strained the boundaries of this half-formed dimension. The swirling red clouds parted overhead, as if making room for an act of cosmic destruction. Even from below, shinobi felt a wave of dread as they glimpsed the swirling mass poised above the Leaf's defenders. If that blow struck, it could unravel half the village in an instant, possibly warp entire blocks into oblivion.
For the briefest moment, everything hung on a knife's edge. The five warriors, battered and bleeding, stared up at the unstoppable blow. Then a flicker of lightning revealed the unwavering determination in their eyes. They lunged as one, synergy pulsing through them—Time, Void, Light, illusions, spatial mastery—fusing in a final gambit to intercept the herald's finishing strike.
The night air trembled. The herald roared, hurling that cataclysmic sphere downward. Naruto and Sasuke combined their attacks mid-leap: a monstrous Rasenshuriken crackling with gravitational distortions. Sakura infused illusions of radiant starlight into the swirling mass, doubling its destructive force. Minato threw the last of his specialized dimensional seals into the mix, shaping the path. Ryusei bent time around the entire conglomeration, accelerating its velocity. The collisions of swirling energies shattered the gloom with deafening thunder. The blast wave reverberated, fracturing illusions across the sky. The final confrontation of that wave lit the entire horizon as if day had broken anew.
Whether their combined jutsu outmatched the herald's orb or merely matched it was unclear, but the resulting explosion turned the sky white. The five felt themselves battered by a hurricane of churning negative and positive forces. They clung to consciousness by sheer force of will as the unholy roar crescendoed, fading into echoes that gradually receded. When the brilliance subsided, they found themselves hovering in the aftermath, panting, vision blurred. The herald's silhouette still hovered, but great chunks of its form had shattered away, leaving it reeling in ragged fury.
In that suspended moment, hope ignited like a spark in the darkness. Their combined synergy had at least equaled the herald's ultimate blow. Perhaps it could be beaten—perhaps the unstoppable was not so unstoppable after all. The herald's eyes burned with a hatred beyond words, staff wavering as black flame poured from cracks in its body. With a vengeful snarl, it prepared to conjure more dark lightning.
But Naruto and the others were done retreating. As the battered swirl of ninjutsu cleared, they mustered their last embers of strength, ready to charge one final time. The night around them felt perilously thin, as if reality might tear with another blow. Yet their hearts thundered with fearless unity.