"So you possess some way to absorb Ninjutsu…" Jashin said as he calmed himself, recovering from the sight of Sasuke surviving the rain of blood. "Then I shall just destroy you with Taijutsu!"

Countless gigantic chains suddenly erupted outward from every part of Jashin's soul, intertwining and twisting at various junctures until at last the resulting form of the chains was a silver headless human-shaped golem so utterly massive its shoulders were touching the bluish white flames in the sky. Meanwhile, the blood red aura from Jashin himself pulsated from within the centre of the chest, making it appear as though this colossal construction had a heart.

"What just happened, Sasuke?!" Ino asked in panic. "It sounded like a lot of metals were grinding and screeching as they collided together!"

Sasuke looked up at the monstrosity, trembling. "Jashin's put together a massive battle suit using his Adamantine Sealing Chains. And from the looks of things… it's almost twice as big as the Ten-Tails."

"The TEN-TAILS?! You're telling me one man collected enough power to surpass all the Tailed Beasts put together?! Is that kind of power even possible for someone to get in the living world?! Without becoming its Jinchuriki?!"

Sasuke's expression turned grim. "One person… one person managed it. Kaguya Otsutsuki, the Sage of the Six Paths' mother and the first person to ever have chakra. We don't have the time for details right now, but a millennium-long plan eventually brought her back from being sealed away, and Team Seven, Obito, and I had to work together to seal her again. I couldn't have defeated Kaguya without any of their help, and now I'm up against someone at least as strong as Kaguya… and I'm all on my own."

Ino sighed in desolation. "I can feel you shaking… It must be really scary for even you, huh…"

"Enough of that chattering down there!" Jashin interjected from his spot in the humongous contraption. "Behold… I shall use all the Shinigami Energy I've amassed over the last 119 years to destroy your souls so completely that not a trace shall remain! I am Lord Jashin, the God of Destruction, and the Second God of Death as well! No one stands a chance against me inside My Holy Ground… So be erased from existence before my Divine Power… and PERISH!"

With the end of his rant Jashin's Adamantine Chain Goliath got down on its right knee, causing the black ground to shake for some distance that was too far for Sasuke to accurately measure. On instinct, Sasuke tried running in the opposite direction, but found that a silver fist was coming down on top of him from the top corner of his eye, and in the next second there was a silver ceiling descending on to the entire area. Sasuke could now tell that Jashin was intending to punch him and Ino flat with the statue's right fist.

It looks like there's no way to run from something this big… In that case…

Sasuke smirked as purple energy expanded from his own soul, engulfing him and Ino, forming a purple tengu in samurai armour with wings and a sword at each hip, Sasuke and Ino in its forehead. It would be considered massive by most standards but was demonstrably small compared to the gargantuan construct it was up against; indeed, Susano'o's entire body was not even half as wide as its opponent's fist.

Nonetheless Susano'o drew both its blades and began hacking away at the construction of chains. It tore apart bond after bond until eventually the mechanism's right hand was no more, its components falling to the floor near Susano'o's feet and reverting to bluish white flames upon contact with the ground, then rising to the sky. Jashin was speechless upon witnessing the event.

"Ino, when I was trembling earlier, that wasn't out of fear." Sasuke remarked. "I was trembling… with excitement."

Ino listened in awe at the confidence in Sasuke's voice, feeling the warmth of the energy around them that somehow protected them from the attack.

"Ever since my first battle with Jashin, I knew that I could hold Susano'o for longer than I could when I first went on my journey, but I didn't have a chance to test out just how much longer… until now."

Susano'o began flying straight for Jashin the moment Sasuke finished speaking. But the Goliath stood back up and opened its left hand, intent on swatting Susano'o like a fly. In response, Susano'o started making an upward loop as soon as the left hand got close, narrowly averting being swatted, and instead faced the back of the statue's hand.

Jashin next attempted to backhand Susano'o, but Sasuke would have none of that. Susano'o put both its blades together and charged them with lightning, then dove for the back of the silver left hand with the unified tip of the blades in front, spinning all the while, appearing like a violet mountain-sized drill. When Susano'o and the left hand connected, Susano'o pierced a large hole through it, exiting at the palm and destroying enough bonds in the chains to make all five fingers fall off. The fingers burst into flame as soon as they hit the ground.

Look at that, Jashin… You're not the only one that can combine lightning and spinning to pierce through even the strongest materials… Sasuke thought as he stared right at the heart and resumed flying straight to it.

"What a blasphemous move!" Jashin shouted as he moved to push the arms together and squish Susano'o between them. Sasuke stopped Susano'o's flight to let them come close, and then slashed both arms at once - the right arm with his left swing and the left arm with his right - cutting both forearms open. This gave Susano'o enough room to rise out of the arms' way as they collided.

Taking advantage of this, Jashin pulled the left arm out its socket with the right and manipulated the chains' bonds to form a scythe for the right arm to improve its reach. Jashin stepped back with the left leg to simultaneously distance himself from the incoming Susano'o and provide balance as the right arm attacked with the scythe. Sasuke saw the attack coming and Susano'o altered course, flying for where the right arm and scythe were connected.

Please… I need this to work…

Sasuke prayed as his Rinnegan began bleeding - a consequence of absorbing so much Blood Style Shinigami Energy - and he used Amaterasu to ignite the joint in black flames.

"This happened once before; those flames cannot sto-"

Jashin was interrupted by Susano'o piercing through the joint connecting the right arm and the scythe with a spinning stab, this time not charged with lightning. Instead, Susano'o picked up the black flames on the blades as it tore through the elongated limb at the midpoint.

"You never learn, Jashin. All I needed was for Amaterasu to rust your chains, not burn right through them." Sasuke remarked as the scythe fell to the ground and, the piercing causing Jashin to lose balance, the golem fell to the ground on its back, now with no hand on its right arm and without a left arm at all.

The impact the Adamantine Chain Goliath made with the ground caused a tremor so great that the entire dimension shook, and the scythe burst into bluish white flames upon contact with the shaking floor. But before those flames could reach the sky, they flew around Sasuke's two Amaterasu-emblazoned swords, held up above Susano'o's head and united at the tip once again.

"Inferno Style: Shinigami Flame Control Sabre!" Sasuke shouted.

The flames from the sky descended in a vortex around Susano'o's swords along with the flames underneath him from the detached scythe. After Sasuke attracted as much of the sky as he could, the bluish white flames became fuel for the flames of Amaterasu, darkening in colour and coming together with Susano'o's swords to form a single sword held in both hands composed of bluish black flames over ten times the length of Susano'o itself. With no time to spare, Susano'o swung the burning blade horizontally to the ground at the fallen titan's waist.

"No… YOU CAN'T POSSESS A TECHNIQUE LIKE THAT!"

The blade came down on Jashin as he screamed in abject horror. He tried to kick the Chain Goliath's legs up to disrupt Sasuke's swing, but he was too slow; in no time the Shinigami Flame Control Sabre completely burned through the statue's waist, cutting the structure in half. The lower half burst into bluish white flames and rose to the sky as the Shinigami Flame Control Sabre itself did right after finishing the slice.

As expected… I don't have much time left after that… Sasuke thought as he flew directly above the flashing crimson light that was Jashin. As quickly as he could he drew Susano'o's bow, formed an arrow filled with lightning, and fired it aiming straight under him at the glowing red aura. Jashin saw this and reacted by uncoiling all the chains, then reforming them into thirteen hands, and stacking them all on top of each other to block the incoming attack.

Despite Jashin's best efforts, Sasuke's arrow pierced through all thirteen hands of chain, them bursting into flame one after another. The strike did not hit Jashin himself, however; he managed to roll to the left, dodging the arrow by a hair's breath as it penetrated the ground.

This was good news for Jashin, but bad news for Sasuke. Even worse for Sasuke was that his Susano'o dissipated and he, along with Ino, were falling to their dooms.

Dammit… I suppose summoning isn't an option here… but I know what is. The Uchiha thought.

"Sasuke… why are we falling?" Ino asked, feeling the weight of gravity pulling her down along with Sasuke.

"Susano'o ran out, but it's fine. We'll survive this. Just make sure you hug yourself for dear life the moment you stop feeling me… got it?"

"I don't know how that will help, but -"

Before Ino could finish she stopped feeling Sasuke in her arms. Panicking, she tried to hug herself as Sasuke instructed, but found that she was holding on to something… something that tickled her when she touched it.

Meanwhile, Jashin stood up. He recovered from the Adamantine Chain Goliath being destroyed down to the last chain to find Sasuke standing where his arrow was only moments ago. His Rinnegan was closed… and blood was on his left cheek right under it.

"Ha ha! Since absorbing the rain of blood, you could bleed! Victory shall be mine!"

Jashin launched himself at Sasuke during his rant. Sasuke, while currently unable to see due to his Rinnegan closing from overuse, could hear Jashin coming and calmly dodged his attack.

As a result, Jashin was now standing in the exact spot Sasuke was before his last-ditch effort, and within seconds an arrow of lightning came striking in the same place twice. It ripped through the top of Jashin's back and exited near his pelvis as it dissipated, leaving Ino to force Jashin to the ground face-first by inadvertently sitting on him from behind.

"Sasuke?! Oh god… Did you just impale yourself with your own technique?!" Ino cried with worry.

"Relax… The one you hit was Jashin. I knew Jashin would get excited about my bleeding and try to get at the blood, so I led him to where the arrow would strike again."

Ino sighed with relief, but then immediately jumped off the man underneath her in disgust. "So… Jashin… made contact with… marred… my PERFECT ASS?!"

"Sorry…" Sasuke turned his head away from Ino's voice in embarrassment and shame. "It was the only thing I could think of to save us both and defeat Jashin all at once…"

"Defeat… Yes… that's what happened…" Jashin struggled to reply thanks to his normally fatal wound. "Virtually all the Shinigami Energy I've gathered these past 119 years… has been sliced, diced, drilled, shocked, burned, and punctured away from me. I don't even have enough to see… much less use jutsu. How … How could a god such as myself … lose to a mere mortal?"

"I'll tell you why." Sasuke approached Jashin's voice and looked down on him. "It's because you called yourself a god, and because you were so assured of your own divinity, that you lost."

"What do you mean by that, Sasuke?" Ino asked.

"You're not the first 'god' I've encountered, Jashin; far from it. Orochimaru, Yoshitsune, Nagato, Obito, Madara, Kaguya… They all considered themselves gods. Want to know what happened to them? They failed, every last one. Self-appointed gods are doomed to fail to live up to their own divinity. That's something my eyes see very clearly."

"Gods… are doomed to fail? I'd laugh at the ridiculousness of your claim, but I don't seem to have the strength." Jashin retorted.

"I'm serious. Orochimaru, Yoshitsune, Nagato, and Obito all realized they couldn't live up to their godhood and rescinded their claims. Madara did achieve everything he wanted to, sure… but all along, he was following someone else's instructions and he was too consumed with his own ego to realize it, so he paid the ultimate price for his folly. And Kaguya… where to begin? She had all the power in the world to back up her godhood, but she couldn't handle the possibility of someone becoming stronger than her. Or much worse, the idea that someone weaker than her could pose a threat despite the gap in power. That caused her to make many mistakes when my team fought with her. That's where you failed too. Comparatively, you might have a shuriken and I might only have a stone… but I'm an expert with the stone I have, and you've never thrown that shuriken before in your life."

"What?! But he smoked us! All of us!" Ino objected.

"When he was able to safely control Kagemaru's body from another dimension and we had no idea how his powers worked, yes. But inside this dimension, where he supposedly has home field advantage and can use all his power? That's another story altogether. Despite gathering enough Shinigami Energy to become even stronger than Kaguya, he'd never fought someone directly with it before… And you must have realized that on some level, Jashin."

"That's preposterous… This is My Holy Ground… I have all the advantage here… No one could possibly defeat me…"

"Yet someone did. You're listening to him right now. That's why you were so scared of me when I told you I could see your cross. No matter how powerful you believed you were, the moment you heard that, you began imagining me coming in here and defeating you from the inside. That means at least part of you considered me a threat this whole time… And why is that? It's because you never fought someone in this dimension before, and if someone else who could see in here found their way in and figured out this dimension's rules, they could compensate for their inferior power with superior skill and defeat you. But you couldn't admit that to yourself… doing so would contradict your godhood. So you continued on as if you were still unbeatable, and that led to plenty of mistakes."

"Plenty of mistakes?" Ino interjected. "What kind of mistakes were they?"

"To start with, Jashin could have killed me with Blood Style when we first met in the Southern Hideout, but he didn't. The elation he'd get from the Ceremonial Killing… He didn't have it for 119 years and it altered his priorities. He tried to use the Ceremonial Killing on me rather than take my soul because I was the first person he met that he was afraid of, but he denied himself being afraid enough to go all out against me and use a more practical method of getting rid of me. That blew up in his face when Karin approached us and used her chains to stop him."

"Looking back… I suppose you weren't completely defenseless." Jashin said. "Your legs were out of commission, but you still had use of your arm… and you summoned twice and swapped two bodies… I should have used Blood Style immediately… I violated the Fourth Commandment of Jashin…"

"Your second mistake was deciding to come to Whirlpool Island to steal Karin's body… you already know why that was a mistake, but I'll repeat it for Ino's benefit. You underestimated my ability to gather information, and you gave up your biggest advantage in the process of screwing up your body theft: Puppet Mode. That leads us to your third mistake, which you repeated twice…"

"Twice?" Jashin asked.

"Yes… Two times in a row you refused to analyze my techniques. When I repelled your chains inside my mind, and again after I absorbed the rain of blood. Instead of thinking about what I was doing and how I was doing it, you switched tactics without thinking about how to counter what surprised you, steadfastly believing I couldn't counter the next trick you had up your sleeve. That made you predictable in our final battle. As for the fourth mistake… you were enraged enough by my seemingly incomprehensible feats, but not willing to admit your previous mistakes, that you used all your energy you had with no thought for conservation. You probably would have won just now if you didn't throw your power around and treated me like a genuine threat rather than a mere annoyance. And finally…"

Ino raised an eyebrow. "There's another one?"

"Yes, and it involves you, Ino…" Sasuke looked up to approximately where his Susano'o dissipated. "During the last exchange, Jashin, you were so embittered by me destroying your colossus, and unable to accept your own part in that loss, that you couldn't fold your hand right then. You tried for my blood one last time, so intent on killing me that you lost sight of the arrow I swapped with to land, and failed to consider that I planned on the blind woman who can't use any jutsu, and not myself, to land the decisive blow. Kaguya made the same mistake you did; she was so intent on escaping Naruto and me that she didn't spot Sakura coming in from above her. I figured you had the same weakness of character she did, and made my final move predicting that you'd act the same way… and I was right."

"And all of those mistakes… stem from me not being willing to take you seriously as a threat… even though I knew just how dangerous you were… It's too bad I didn't realize the one flaw to my divinity before it was too late." Jashin sighed.

"But it's not too late." Sasuke objected as his Rinnegan opened after the discussion gave him a chance to rest it. "Today you learned that your claim to being a god… was an illusion. That illusion has been destroyed beyond repair, leaving you with the truth; you are Jashin Uzumaki, a human who has tried to escape from their own humanity for almost 120 years. You can accept that truth and go to the Pure World in peace when I release everyone from here… or you can refuse that truth and be destroyed now, and in your own words, you'll be erased from existence… your choice."

"Spare me your pity… and your mockery! Flawed as I may be, I am still a GOD! Human? I've evolved beyond such a pathetic life form… All you've taught me is that there's always room for improvement. When I leave here, I'll become a better god than I ever was before! I will NEVER lose to a mere mortal ever again because of the valuable lesson you taught me here today! Ha… HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Jashin's maniacal laughter did not end no matter how long Sasuke and Ino waited.

"Shut this monster up already, would you, Sasuke?!" Ino yelled in aggravation after about two minutes or so of nonstop laughter.

"I intend to."

Sasuke's expression turned grim as he charged his hand full of lightning and aimed his fist down at Jashin's head.

"It's over, Jashin!" the Uchiha shouted as he moved to punch through Jashin… but he was stopped by the most unexpected force:

"CEASE THIS VIOLENCE AT ONCE!"

A terrifying voice echoed in Sasuke's ears. What terrified him even more than the voice itself, however, was that it didn't seem to come from any specific direction; the roar was coming from all sides, bombarding him every which way. It stopped Sasuke from finishing Jashin off and froze him in place; he was unable to move under the sheer power and coldness of the voice. It was as if he was listening to death itself screaming at him. Sasuke looked around and saw Ino holding herself, shivering, and Jashin seemed to have stopped laughing as well. The others were most likely hearing the same thing he did.

Within moments, a purple-skinned man with a perpetual smile wearing white robes materialized next to them, easily double the size of anyone in the dimension. The only presence larger than it was Aoda, but he was merely a dark blue wisp; this figure had substance to him. Above all that, the figure's position was also fairly close to a cross.

Sasuke recognized the figure from the one time he saw it during the Fourth Ninja World War. "You're…"

"Yes, boy… I am what you call the Shinigami! The TRUE Shinigami!" it replied, making a voice despite not moving its mouth. Sasuke figured it was speaking to everyone telepathically. "And as God of Death, I cannot allow you to completely destroy anyone's soul… no matter how foul that soul is! That is a complete violation of the laws of death! And you dare to commit such blasphemy in MY OWN HOME?!"

"But he's been syphoning power off you for over a century! Aren't you the least bit angry about that?" Ino asked.

"Of course I am! That's why I allowed your battle to progress as long as it had! You gave back all the power Jashin stole from me, and that's all that needed to be accomplished here! Now you're free to settle things in the living world, as living people ought to do… so no more violence in this dimension, understood?!"

"Couldn't you have just done that yourself?" Sasuke wondered. "As God of Death, your powers would be supreme here… right?"

"WRONG!"

There was such force in the Shinigami's voice that Sasuke and Ino instinctively dropped to their knees.

"Mortal understanding of the divine has always perplexed me. Did you even ONCE think about how taxing my job is?! I have to judge all the souls of the deceased, and guide them all to their proper spots in the Pure World. Every day, people die… I hardly ever catch a break! And when I do, I want to take advantage of that break and RELAX! That's why this dimension exists: so I can REST from my job as God of Death, if only for hours at a time… And during that time, I release all my burdens, letting them soar to the ceiling of the world… Indeed, within here I am quite POWERLESS!"

Your voice begs to differ, Shinigami! But still, I suppose there's truth to what it says… If the Shinigami could have stopped Jashin from stealing its power, then it would have done so over a century ago… Sasuke thought.

"Gods… can be powerless at times? Losing once in a while I understand, but to have no power at all?" Jashin spoke up in confusion. "That's not right…"

"It is not up to you to make that decision, thief! The first step to successful godhood is recognizing what - and what NOT -you have authority over! Here's an example… Me! Where souls of the departed go after they die? My domain! The conflicts of mortals while they're still alive? NOT my domain!"

Everyone was quiet for several seconds that seemed like hours.

"Come on, then… what's taking you?!" the Shinigami broke the silence while pointing at Sasuke.

"… Excuse me?" Sasuke replied, albeit his mind not totally concentrated on the Shinigami, overwhelmed with questions about life, the universe, and everything.

"You're the one with the most physical energy, and the only one who can see me, thus you can harm me the easiest… so HARM ME already and release all the souls here!"

Sasuke hesitated for a moment, and then stood up to face the god before him with serious eyes:

"I'll do that, but there are two things I must ask of you first: a question and a request."

"I shall allow them, since you were so kind as to strip Jashin of the power he stole from me. Your question first."

"Alright… Kamina Uzumaki. He was the first person to use your powers in our world, to seal Jashin here in the first place. How did he notwind up in your dimension along with him?"

"I am not sure…"

The Shinigami's revelation shocked Sasuke and Ino, but it only made Jashin chuckle.

"When that BLASTED Kamina came here, I WARNED him that using my powers to remove someone from the cycle of life and death was a sin that violated the laws of the universe, and that he had to pay the price by doing the same to himself… but he CONNED me! All I can say about it for sure is that he moved his arms a little after he summoned me, and the next thing I knew Kamina's soul wasn't in his body when I was going to pull it out of him!"

Kamina moved his arms and his soul left his body before the Shinigami could take it? That sounds like something only a Yamanaka like me could do, using the Mind Transfer in the middle of the sealing… Did that Yoko that Jashin talked about teach Kamina that technique?! Ino thought.

"On to the request!" the Shinigami shouted.

"That… I only ask this because he is already dead and I won't have a chance to speak to him again once he's free…" Sasuke pointed over to Itachi's soul. "Please… let me talk to my brother one last time. You can give him a portion of your energy so he can hear me, right?"

"That… is a simple request."

The Shinigami made an 'ok' hand gesture and moved toward Itachi. It placed a hand on his chest, and some bluish white flames moved from the ceiling to within Itachi. A few seconds later Itachi dropped to the ground and he felt the impact.

"What is… going on?" Itachi asked aloud, seeing no one else in the vast expanse of black. "I was unable to move but suddenly I-"

Itachi was interrupted by Sasuke hugging him with his only arm. "This feeling… you're here too, Sasuke?"

"Yes, Big Brother, but we're on our way out. I came here to save you and everyone else. Before that, though… there are a few things I need to ask you about."

"I… want to speak with you as well." Itachi nodded and smiled as he received this one final meeting, to hear how far his little brother had come.