Zetsu is dead.
The battle field pauses to take this new development in. Kushina and Mito stop pulling each others hair in order to stare as Zetsu's ashes fall to the ground, allowing Minato to finally prise them apart before turning to stare himself. Kakuzu and Kisame narrowly avoid getting hit by a devastating kick from Might Dai before all three turn to watch the seal. Ikkaku Umino falters in the middle of creating a seal that might have destroyed the entire temple as Zetsu is disintegrated, allowing Nagato and Jiraiya to escape from the seal he cast to bind them in place. Kohari stops in the middle of attacking Mei, Cojiro and Ao at the same time as Ikkaku falters. Sasori and Deidara pause long enough to glance over and see that Zetsu is dead, before shrugging and going back to beating the artistic taste out of each other. Hiashi, Hizashi, Hana, Kinoko, Kimimaro, Asuma and Kurenai pause in their fight against Hanabi Otsutsuki and ten or so white Zetsu, while the zetsu and Hanabi falter as Zetsu is destroyed. Yashamaru, Rasa and Baki do not stop or look: their focus is solely on eachother.
"Ooooh, that's got to hurt," says Gengetsu Hozuki, pausing with his hand over Kankuro's face. Kankuro stops pathetically trying to hit Gengetsu and turns to look at the seal. Gaara uses the distraction as an opportunity to attempt to seal Gengetsu. Gengetsu effortlessly dodges without even looking.
Shukaku's Guards and Gaara's siblings stop staring at Zetsu's ashes and turn their attention back to the fight against the Second Mizukage.
The other defenders simply smile or sigh in relief and continue fighting the horde of white zetsu clones.
Hashirama and Tobirama breathe a sigh of relief. Fugaku closes his eyes for a second and lets out a long breath. They've won this fight. Now, they just need to clean up the reanimations and find the jutsu caster. The white zetsus should be easy enough to take care of.
Then Sasuke and Naruto scream.
Fugaku snaps his eyes open to see Zetsu rise up out of the ground. Thorny branches protrude from Naruto and Sasuke's chests. There is blood all down their fronts and expressions of shock and pain on the two children's faces. "SASUKE!" Fugaku feels a power well up inside him that he has never accessed before: one that he was afraid to touch.
Zetsu laughs as Sasuke and Naruto fall to the ground, the branches still sticking out of their chests. "I have a very powerful ally hiding in the shadows!" Zetsu gloats. "I think I'll let him handle you, Hokage."
"I'll kill him and then I'll kill you," Fugaku growls as a purple skeleton forms around his body. Ribs, arms, head, legs - it takes form and grows in size until Fugaku's full, perfect Susanoo fills the battle field.
"Oh, you've done it now," sighs Tobirama, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes.
The Masked Man appears beside Zetsu and says, calmly, "I will not let you ruin our plans, Fugaku."
Fugaku lifts a hand and the susanoo slaps the Masked Man into the barrier seal around the Temple. The Masked Man burns away to nothing in an instant.
Fugaku turns his attention back to Black Zetsu, only to discover that the slippery plant monster vanished while he was preoccupied. Fugaku lowers his susanoo, not wanting to waste his chakra on such a huge jutsu. If he needs it, he can summon just the ribcage. The full susanoo will crush everyone fighting on the temple stairs if he so much as moves with it.
The Masked Man appears, alive and well, in the middle of the defenders.
What just happened?
Fugaku leaps forward, over the heads of the defenders and white zetsus. Just as he gets airborne, Fugaku is blasted to the ground by a wave of powerful, angry chakra. As he picks himself up from the dirt, Fugaku turns to see Minato and Kushina angrily striding towards the Masked Man. An angry red aura of deadly chakra surrounds Kushina, who is cracking her knuckles. Her hair floats around her head in red clumps that resemble the Kyuubi's tails. Her eyes promise a painful death. Minato is surrounded by a crushingly heavy yellow aura of pure rage. He spins his Hiraishin kunai around one finger, calm rage written all over every inch of his body language.
The reanimations all fall to their knees, and the white zetsus turn to white goop under the weight of Minato and Kushina's killing intent. The Masked Man takes a step backwards in fear.
"Let's take that mask off, shall we?" says Minato, casually throwing his kunai and vanishing, only to reappear behind the Masked Man a moment later and cut the strap holding the mask in place.
"I thought you seemed familiar," says Minato.
Every medic on the battlefield, except Tsunade, rushes past Fugaku to where Sasuke and Naruto are lying in in a growing pool of their combined blood.
The mask falls to the ground.
"Where did you get the Izanagi, Danzo?" asks Fugaku, realizing that his old bully is now his enemy, the Masked Man.
"From Uchihas who tried to stop me from from doing what I needed to," says Danzo, pulling back his sleeve to reveal four eyes imbedded in his arm. Two of the eyes are closed. "I had a pair while I was still in the leaf. I used one to escape my execution. The other, I used to kill two young Uchiha police who found me and tried to stop me from escaping. These four eyes are thiers."
"So it was you who killed those two," says Shisui, his eyebrows forming an angry V. "We thought enemy shinobi did that, but it was one of our village elders. How low can one man fall?"
"I have not fallen," says Danzo. "I simply work to bring about a better world!" He is promptly impaled by Kushina's chakra chains.
"The world will be better when you are no longer in it," says Shin, the young genin originally from Root. "What sort of twisted man forces children to kill each other in a village built so that children would not need to die?"
"I hate to admit it," says Ao of the Hidden Mist. "But things were pretty s***y in my day, when we had to kill our friends as part of our graduation exam. I always thought the Leaf was too nice to allow something like that to happen for any-." He is cut off as a branch shoots out of the ground and impales him.
A cry from Shin alerts Fugaku to the fact the boy suffered the same fate.
"BROTHER!" Screams Sai, falling to his knees beside his brother.
A split second later, Danzo appears on the steps of the Temple, safe and sound. An eye on his arm closes.
"Three," says Minato, calmly.
"Come on, kids," Fugaku hears Sei mutter to Naruto and Sasuke. "Hang on - we'll fix you up."
They're alive. Fugaku feels intense relief flood his entire body.
Rin runs over to Shin and Nono Yakushi runs over to Ao.
"The boy is dead," says Rin. "I can't help him." Sai's crying gets a little louder and a lot more teary.
"Lord Ao is dead too," says Nono, shaking her head.
Shisui shunshins behind Danzo and cuts him in two. The old man vanishes in a puff of smoke. A log appears in his place. Danzo reappears a moment later, beside Tsunade and Iruka. Danzo has a wooden stake in his hand, which he brings down on Iruka. Before the blow can connect, Kohari, Ikkaku and Mei all impale Danzo with the sharpest weapons in their inventories. Where Mei was keeping a windmill shuriken that size is not something Fugaku wants to contemplate. Blood spurts out of Danzo. This time, there is no replacement log.
Danzo falls to the ground, only for his body to vanish as he appears in front of Shisui. The fourth eye on Danzo's arm closes as he pins Shisui. Minato throws his kunai. Fugaku leaps forward. The entire battle field, bar the inactive reanimations and the medics, all leap towards Danzo as one.
Shisui screams as Danzo pulls out his right eye. Danzo substitutes away with the eye. Fugaku and his allies stop in their tracks and turn to the Temple Stairs, where Danzo stands triumphantly.
"Shisui, we'll get your eye back," says Fugaku.
"That's not what I'm worried about," says Shisui. "My eyes have a special power…"
"That's right," says Danzo, pulling off the bandages covering his right eye. He opens it, revealing an empty socket. Carefully, Danzo pushes Shisui's eye into his empty eye socket. "And now I posses that power. You will all die here, and Project Tsukuyomi will go ahead as planned." Danzo activates Shisui's mangekyou sharingan.
Shisui holds up his hand in a half ram seal. "I prepared for something like this," he says calmly. "Hidden Bird."
Both Shisui's eyes explode, sending blood flying everywhere.
Danzo lets out an angry yell.
A moment later, a sword blossoms out of his heart as Obito appears behind him. As Danzo falls to the ground dead, Obito looks down at Shisui and says, his voice full of anguish, "I'm sorry I'm late, Shisui."