Hinata: Byakurenden
Legend of the White Lotus
Twin blurs tore across the broken terrain—one verdant silver, one obsidian black. They collided in bursts of force and motion, the world cracking with every strike.
What had once been Akatsukigakure—a throne of divine ambition, a monument to faith and fear—was now a wasteland of ash and shattered stone. Craters gouged the landscape like old wounds, and the sky above, once thick with towering skyscrapers, now hung wide and far above, watching in silence. The battle that had seemed over was only just beginning again.
Hinata's palms lashed out in arcs of spiraling chakra, her movements fluid and precise, a dance of Jyūken refined beyond mortal discipline. Every step she took left rings of radiant chakra imprinted on the stone, like ripples in water. Her Tenseigan chakra cloak burned around her like moonlight woven into flame, jade robes trailing like the petals of some forgotten celestial bloom.
Amaterasu met her with mirrored grace, each movement unnervingly familiar, eerily perfect. The goddess spun and countered, her form a silhouette of elegance and fury, striking back with a style not unlike Hinata's own, though older and carved from flame.
Despite her reduced stature—no longer the towering empress of fire but a girl just barely older than Hinata herself—there was no mistaking her divinity. Her smaller form was no accident, but a reflection of her dwindling worship and her collapsing myth. The power she drew from faith had withered, leaving behind this adolescent incarnation: beautiful, lethal, but diminished.
Yet still, she fought with the intensity of a dying star.
Hinata, meanwhile, should have collapsed long ago, her bones still echoing with the aftershock of the Eighth Gate. Her muscles had been shredded, her life meant to end just a short while ago. But Kali's final act had not just mended Hinata's body. It had been rewritten. And now, wrapped in the Tenseigan Chakra Mode, Hinata's will surged past the pain, past the exhaustion. Her every nerve blazed with a light shaped by her heart.
Their palms met again mid-air, chakra detonating from the impact, blasting them in opposite directions. Hinata's body twisted with impossible control, flipping mid-flight, her sandals touching down atop a tilted spire of stone. Amaterasu mirrored her, landing weightlessly on a distant fragment of shattered temple, the fire of her Gurengan burning through the distance between them.
In the span of a single breath, they reset, recalibrated, and struck again.
Their forms collided against the backdrop of the open sky, this time high above the battlefield. But something about this exchange was different, Hinata's strike lacking the sharp grace of earlier, her arm buckling against the force. The light of her chakra flickered, if only for a heartbeat.
Amaterasu saw it, and the next instant she was upon her in a streak of deep crimson. There was no wind-up, no flourish, only precision. Amaterasu's palm slammed clean into Hinata's side, the impact detonating like a burst of pressure and heat. Jade light flared, chakra lashing out in protest as Hinata was launched across the landscape, bouncing once, twice, before skidding to a breathless halt across the fractured ground.
She coughed, spitting blood, her vision momentarily swimming. It would have been the perfect opportunity to finish her off, yet Amaterasu didn't pursue. The goddess descended slowly, the black flames floating around her dimming to a low, steady pulse. She landed without a sound, bare feet brushing against the scorched stone like a falling petal. There was no triumph in her eyes. No cruelty. She simply watched silently as Hinata struggled to rise.
The Tenseigan chakra cloak still shimmered around her, but it flickered now, unraveling at the edges like paper left in the rain. Her muscles burned with the aftershock of the Eighth Gate, the very marrow in her bones aching from overuse, yet still she rose, her eyes meeting Amaterasu's. But what stared back… wasn't a god anymore.
Hinata watched her carefully, searching. For a flicker of anger. Of purpose. Of pain. But there was nothing. No hatred. No sorrow. No desperation. No longing. Just… stillness. Like a candle that had gone out, but refused to admit it.
She remembered how it used to feel—standing across from this being. The weight of her will pressing down like sunlight, radiant and terrible. The loneliness that clung to her like a second skin. That desperate hunger to be seen, to be loved. Even in her fury, Amaterasu had burned with something real.
Now… she didn't feel anything at all. Not even resentment. Hinata's brow furrowed as a hollow ache opened beneath her ribs, this time not from pain, but realization.
The silence between them stretched.
"…What are you even fighting for anymore?" The question slipped out before she could stop it, soft as breath, barely brushing the air.
Amaterasu's eyes narrowed—not in anger, but reflection. Her head tilted slightly, black-flame hair shifting with the motion. Her lips parted, but no sound came. For a moment, she didn't speak.
"…What am I fighting for," she echoed, almost to herself. The words lingered, half-curious, half-lost. Then she blinked once, slow and deliberate. "I think," she said, "I finally understand now." Her voice was calm and even.
"My consort loves me because he has already lost everything else." Her gaze drifted toward the chaos in the distance where Obito remained, fighting for her even now, his faith unshaken. "That's what I was missing." She stepped forward, unhurried. "The people… they worship when it's easy. When they still have families. Homes. Futures." Her voice dipped slightly, almost wistful. "But true love—undying love—comes after all that's been taken. When there's nothing left to cling to but me." She raised her arms just slightly, not as a threat, but as if embracing the ruin around her. "I will give them clarity. I will take away their final hope."
Her gaze settled on Hinata again, sharp and steady. And in her eyes, there was no hatred. Only certainty.
"You." A long breath left her lips. "Once you're gone… there will be no one left to follow but me."
Hinata's chakra cloak flickering softly in the air around her, less a firestorm now and more a steady light. A heartbeat of warmth amidst the scorched ruins. She met Amaterasu's eyes not with defiance, nor with challenge. Just a quiet sorrowful gaze.
For she realized that Amaterasu really believed that.
"You think love is born when nothing else is left." Her voice came low and steady. "That it rises out of ruin, because that's all there is." She took a breath, slow and grounding. Her hand curled faintly at her side. "But that's not love. Not really."
She wasn't trying to convince Amaterasu. She was just… saying what she knew. Love didn't bloom from despair. It didn't wait for emptiness.
Love was hope. It was the thread people clung to when everything else was broken. The reason they kept holding on at all.
What Obito felt for Amaterasu… it may have been love in a sense, but that wasn't the only kind of love.
Hinata didn't know when the memories had started forming in her mind. Maybe they'd always been there, waiting for this moment to surface.
She'd carried love for Naruto for years—quiet, patient, never asking for anything in return. It had lived in the space between moments. In the way her heart lifted just watching him smile, even from across the training field. In the way she believed in him, even when she couldn't yet believe in herself.
Hanabi's small hand in hers during thunderstorms was the memory that came next. They'd both been scared, though they never said it. Hinata would squeeze her sister's fingers a little tighter, as if her own fear could become courage if she held on hard enough.
Then came Kurenai-sensei's voice, soft after failed missions, never sharp, never judging. Just there. Reminding her she hadn't disappointed anyone simply by being slower than the others.
And Yugao, silent but steady, trained with her long after the sun had gone down. Not out of duty, but because she saw something worth waiting for. Something worth shaping.
Even with her father and Neji, there had been love. It had been twisted, complicated, and never quite easy. Her father's disappointment had once felt like a wall she could never climb, and Neji's bitterness had carved wounds she thought would never fade. But with time, she saw the weight they had carried too. The pressure, the pain, and the grief, but somewhere in that, even if it had taken years to understand… there had been love. Imperfect, unspoken, but real.
Hinata took a slow breath and lifted her gaze toward the distant sky. Where the sun and the moon lingered together, somehow opposing yet simultaneously balanced.
"Love isn't just devotion. It's not worship. It's not a prize for surviving." Her voice dropped, but it didn't waver. "It's quiet. It's patient. It's imperfect." A faint smile tugged at her lips. "But it endures."
She looked at Amaterasu again.
"You don't have to take everything away to be loved."
Her eyes shimmered with light.
"You never did."
Amaterasu faltered. Her brows drew together not with wrath, but with something unfamiliar. Confusion. It was faint. Fleeting. But Hinata saw it.
A flicker that wasn't the goddess or the fire, but a girl buried underneath the embers. The one who once wished someone might look at her, not in fear, not to follow, but to really see her.
And for the briefest moment, Hinata thought she had reached her. She saw the same shimmer in her eyes. The slight parting of her lips… but then Amaterasu blinked and her form ruptured.
A wave of black flame exploded outward—not as an attack, but as an involuntary discharge, a violent burst of power without direction. The heat lashed at the earth, searing stone into glass. It was unfocused and wild, like a cry rather than a scream.
Hinata flinched, shielding her face with her arm as the air filled with heat. And when she looked back up—Amaterasu had changed.
Her teenage form was gone.
In her place stood a girl no older than ten.
Her robes still shimmered with divine flame, but they hung loosely on her smaller frame. Her hair, once a cascade of black fire, now clung to her in wild, uneven tangles like the bedhead of someone who had slept in and never combed it after. Her pale red eyes were wide, and disoriented.
She looked down at her hands, now small and childlike, and clenched her fists. The black fire around her flared and immediately recoiled, as though unsure whether to obey her.
Hinata's breath caught. "…Obito," she whispered. Amaterasu's eyes snapped to her, and in that instant, they both understood. The silence between them said it all.
He was gone. Naruto and Sasuke had done it. And with his death, Amaterasu's greatest believer—her last true anchor—was extinguished.
She still had power, for the sun still shone in the sky. And so long as there was a sun, there would be those who would offer prayers to its warmth. That abstract belief would sustain her, if only barely. But it was not the same as being worshiped. It was not love.
Amaterasu's childlike face distorted by fury far too old for it.
"I see," she murmured, her voice still echoing with divine tone, but thinner now. "So you would even take my last believer from me."
"No, I didn't—"
"Silence!" she hissed. "I will not be forgotten. I will not be abandoned again." She raised one small hand. A lance of black flame formed in the air, coiling like a dragon before straightening into a spear of pure, unrelenting heat. Her eyes burned, but there was a fragile, terrifying desperation behind them now.
"I must kill you. They will see. They must believe in me. And when they do… I'll be whole again." And with that, she hurled the lance forward, its scream tearing through the silence as it streaked through the air, aimed squarely at Hinata's heart. Knowing she had lost any chance at reaching her, Hinata raised her hands, chakra surging into her left eye.
"Yata no Kagami!"
A pulse of brilliant light radiated from her left eye socket, coalescing into shape—an ethereal, glimmering mirror forged of chakra and divine will. The shield shimmered with every color and none at all, translucent yet indomitable, pulsing with ancient power.
The lance struck and with a sound like glass humming in resonance, the Yata Mirror absorbed the full brunt of the black flame, drinking in the heat, the fury, the very will of Amaterasu's strike. The lance shattered into harmless wisps of smoke and embers that curled into the wind. But Hinata's focus stayed locked on the mirror too tightly.
Amaterasu had already moved, her smaller frame blurring like a flicker of heat against stone, weightless, fast in a way that defied expectation. The child-like goddess appeared to vanish, but that was incorrect—she had ducked low, darting under the glowing shield of the Yata Mirror, slipping beneath its arc like water around stone.
Hinata's breath caught, attempting to jump back but it was too slow. Amaterasu was already there. Too close. Her narrow frame almost delicate, her bare feet silent on the cracked stone. She moved with the ease of something that no longer needed to prove its power.
"I left that mirror with you long enough," she said, her voice low. Almost soft. "I'll be taking it back now." Hinata's eyes widened, her body shifting too late to dodge. She misjudged the timing, just a second off. And that was enough.
Pain erupted like fire across her face as Amaterasu's hand drove deep, her black fingernails like talons digging into Hinata's left eye socket in a single, blindingly fast motion. Her world tilted, white-hot pain exploding through her skull as her left eye was then ripped clean from its socket.
She staggered back, hand clutching the side of her face, blood spurting between her fingers. The chakra cloak around her sputtered, then shattered, dissolving in erratic bursts of light. Her body collapsed to one knee, left hand still clutching the space where her eye had once been, fingers trembling, blood slipping through them in warm, crimson rivers.
Across from her, Amaterasu stood still, unbothered, her tiny form cradling something round, slick, and glimmering. Hinata's eye. No, that wasn't entirely correct. It wasn't Hinata's, but originally Kali's. Her final gift, torn away and held like a trophy.
The goddess regarded it for a moment. Then squeezed. The eye cracked, splintered, and then shattered like brittle glass. The remnants of the Yata mirror dissolved into light, streaming up her arm and into her form in a slow, spiraling dance of reclaimed power.
With that, The Yata Mirror had finally been returned to its rightful owner.
Amaterasu looked down at Hinata, who remained on one knee, blood soaking the left side of her face, her breath sharp and shallow, vision swimming. She could feel the brittle, splintered pieces of her body threatening to collapse completely. And still she glared up.
Amaterasu smiled.
There was no cruelty in it. Only a strange, distant affection.
"I'll miss our time together," she said softly. "You were strong. You were honest. And for a moment, you made me question everything." She stepped forward, black fire curling once more in her palm. "But your story ends now."
Her voice lowered, quiet as a prayer, final as a death sentence.
"Just like with Kaguya… it's time to say goodbye."
Hinata's heart pounded, but it was slow and heavy now, each beat sluggish.
"I won't be the one abandoned this time," Amaterasu continued, her expression resolute. "You will be the one left behind. But don't fret… I will carry your memory with me. Always. That is the highest honor I can offer."
The flames bloomed, vast and merciless. She raised her hand.
"This will be your final death."
The black inferno roared toward Hinata like a wall of oblivion. She didn't move, although it would be more accurate to say that she couldn't. Her body wouldn't respond. The Tenseigan chakra mode hadn't yet returned and she wasn't even sure she could activate it with only one eye anyway. The mirror was gone. Her muscles still screamed from the Eighth Gate. There was nothing left. Not even time.
"Hakkeshō Kaiten!"
Two perfect Rotations exploded into being, twin domes of whirling Hyūga chakra spinning with blinding force. The black flames crashed into them—and were caught. The rotation howled, chakra grinding against divine fire, twisting it, dispersing it, scattering it upward into the sky where the winds devoured it harmlessly.
The twin detonations of the Kaiten whipped the earth into a storm, kicking up debris, shattering what remained of the landscape. The sunlight itself seemed fractured, struggling to pierce through the churning veil.
Hinata coughed, blinking through the haze as the battlefield dissolved into smoke and ash. Amaterasu's childlike figure stood still amidst the chaos, her Gurengan flickering with effort. Her vision, once absolute, now faltered with too much debris in the air, too many particles scattering the light. She narrowed her eyes, her divine senses working overtime to compensate.
As the twin rotations slowed to reveal her saviors, Hinata's one eye widened in disbelief. Standing before her, their backs to her broken body, were two figures she had thought she might never see again. The elder's stance was proud, grounded like an old tree that refused to fall. The younger's was fluid, elegant, every movement charged with quiet intensity.
"Forgive us for the delay, daughter," Hiashi said without turning, his voice clipped, yet touched with a gentleness that warmed the edges of his words.
Hinata stared at his back, at the straightness of his posture, the stillness of his stance. He stood like a wall, unmoved by the divine fire before him. For a moment, she saw not the clan head, but the father she had once reached for in silence, hoping he would see her.
He had always seemed so far away. So cold. So distant. But now, as he stood between her and a god, she realized something else: She had always leaned on his strength, even when she feared it. Even now, part of her still did. And he was there.
"You didn't think we'd leave you to handle a goddess alone, did you?" Neji stood beside him, calm as ever. But when Hinata looked at his eyes, her breath caught. The familiar veins of the Byakugan were still there, but within the pupil, blooming with quiet power, was a pale white lotus.
The mark of the Nichiren Byakugan.
She didn't know how he'd done it. How he'd crossed that threshold or how he'd walked the same path she had. But she wasn't surprised.
If anyone could have done it, then it was him.
"Neji-nii-san… Father…" Her voice cracked, barely more than a whisper, and yet the sound of it echoed louder in her heart than any explosion. "You're alive."
She hadn't known how much she was holding back, how much fear had nested in her chest, tight and heavy until the words left her lips and the tears began to well. For one breathless moment, everything else faded. The fire, the battle, even the constant pain in her limbs. All that remained was the relief that they were here, truly here and alive. She forced herself upright, her legs trembling beneath her. Blood ran freely down the left side of her face, her vision tilted and strange, her ruined eye socket still thrumming with ghost pain.
"You have to run," she added, her voice shaking with urgency. "She's weaker now, but she's still a goddess. Her power is beyond anything we've ever seen. Even if she looks like a child, she's still…"
Still divine. Still deadly. And Hinata couldn't bear to lose them again. Not now. Not when she had only just found them still standing.
"She may be stronger than any one person…" It wasn't Neji or Hiashi, but another voice that cut through the haze. It was calm, clear, and sharp as steel sliding free of a scabbard. The dust stirred, the wind shifted, and the ash curled away like curtains drawn back for the final act.
From the storm of soot and broken sunlight, a silhouette emerged.
He moved with quiet authority, each step slow, deliberate, and sure. His clothes were torn, their edges scorched. His skin bore the marks of battle in scrapes and burns. Exhaustion was etched into every movement, his chakra strained and stretched thin. Yet his gaze was steady. The crimson pinwheel of the Sharingan spun slowly in his eye, unwavering.
The Godaime Hokage, Uchiha Itachi, emerged to join them.
"…But we are not alone."
Another gust of wind tore across the field and with it came more. To Itachi's left: Ei, the Fourth Raikage, his massive frame etched with fresh scars, lightning flickering across his remaining arm like the veins of defiance. To his right: Gaara, the Sage of the Desert, his eyes fierce, the weight of his multiple personalities behind them, reflecting the wisdom of his Bijū and predecessor Jinchuriki throughout the ages.
The three of them stood side by side as legends of three nations, unbroken and unyielding. And behind them stood what remained of The Shadow Alliance.
Konoha's proud shinobi, weary but standing. The warriors of Kumo, thunder in their blood. The last remnants of Suna, sand and wind coiling at their heels. Veterans. Survivors. Fighters. A sea of strength, worn by war but not yet drowned.
The battlefield pulsed with energy and in the heart of the storm, hope was rekindled.
Amaterasu stared at the army that now stood between her and the girl she needed to kill, her Gurengan flickering in uncertainty. It wasn't rage that pulsed through her small, child-like form. Not yet. It was something else. Something less defined. Less certain.
Confusion.
She hadn't noticed their approach. Her eyes, her attention, had been too focused on Hinata, and on unraveling the threat she posed. Yet now… they were here. All of them. Standing against her. She tried to understand the feeling gnawing at the edge of her chest. The way her hands trembled not from weakness, but something colder.
Was it fear? No. It couldn't be. She was a goddess. She couldn't afford to feel fear. She needed to act now. Crush them. Burn them. Make them see. Make them understand. They had to learn that resistance was pain. That the only future was through her light. That belief was the only salvation left to them.
"Bring all you want, it makes no difference!" She shouted, but it was pure bluster. A means to disguise her growing uncertainty.
Yet while her words may have lacked bite, her power did not. Black fire bloomed in her palm. A wave of searing obsidian flame shot outwards, howling like a storm as it carved through the air in a torrent, burning hotter than the sun itself, its sheer intensity warping the ground beneath it before it even landed.
The flames never reached their mark.
A massive wall of sand erupted before the front line, curling upward like a tidal wave. Gaara's arms moved slowly, deliberately, his eyes narrowed in absolute focus. The sand coiled around the fire, encasing and suppressing it, slowing it just enough.
"Now!" he barked.
"Follow me!" Darui's voice rang out like thunder, clear and commanding as he surged forward at the head of a coordinated squad of Cloud shinobi. They moved as one, breaking from the right flank in a blur of motion.
"Ranton: Laser Circus!"
Arcs of brilliant light exploded from Darui's fingertips—lightning interwoven with water, his Elemental Kekkei Genkai dancing across the battlefield in streaks of radiant destruction. Behind him, Kumo shinobi unleashed their own jutsu in tandem, bolts of pure lightning converging with his, forming a luminous web of energy that lanced toward Amaterasu like divine retribution.
From the left came another voice—rougher, grittier, but just as resolute.
"Sarutobi Clan, don't fall behind!" Asuma barreled around the barricade with a roar, his chakra blades flashing in both hands. The Sarutobi moved with him, a tide of flame erupting from their mouths in perfect synchronization.
"Katon: Phoenix Barrage!"
Dozens of fireballs burst into the sky, spinning in tightly controlled spirals before colliding midair in a storm of heat and pressure. Asuma slashed through the air with his trench knives, wind chakra lacing the burning onslaught, sharpening and accelerating the flames with surgical precision. And it wasn't his wind alone fanning the flames.
"Fūton: Great Wind Wall!" Temari's fan snapped open with a crack like thunder, slicing a gale through the fire. Her chakra roared outward in a sweeping burst, catching the firestorm and carrying it higher, hotter. Suna shinobi surged behind her, hands flashing through signs, adding their wind to hers with seamless coordination.
The result was catastrophic beauty.
Flames surged skyward, doubled in size, then tripled—transformed into a column of raw, searing power. Not a single jutsu. Not a lone attack. But a united force.
Because this wasn't just one village. It was the Leaf, Sand, and Cloud. A coalition of clans, of nations, of beliefs. Warriors who had chosen each other over blind devotion.
And together, they burned brighter than any sun.
Amaterasu's feet slid back slightly, her brows furrowing as she stared up at the spectacle. Her once-flowing robes rippled violently in the storm of chakra, the winds tearing at their edges. Her eyes narrowed—not in fury, but in disbelief.
This shouldn't be possible.
She could feel it—that pull in her chest. That cold, subtle emptiness. Not just from Obito's absence. But something deeper. Their unity. Their will. It was scouring her. Even the memory of her divinity was being burned away.
"Yata no Kagami!" Amaterasu raised both arms and the Yata Mirror bloomed into being before her. The mirror's surface shimmered like liquid obsidian, swirling with black and gold light, its edge framed in divine flame. Once wielded by Hinata, now reclaimed by its original master, it pulsed with celestial force as Amaterasu poured her divine chakra into it.
The alliance's assault struck like judgment. Wind, flame, and lightning collided with the mirror's surface in a storm of blinding brilliance. The Mirror held, its surface rippling from the sheer force pressing against it. The ground beneath Amaterasu cracked, her bare feet skidding back across the fractured stone as pressure mounted from all sides.
The mirror didn't break, but it groaned beneath the weight of their will. She hissed through her teeth, sweat beading at her brow. She pushed harder, forcing the assault backward in a controlled detonation that tore the storm apart.
Smoke swallowed the sky, and from that smoke came a blur of electric blue.
"Don't think for a minute that we're done yet!" The Raikage exploded from the haze like a thunderclap, lightning coursing through his whole body, the stump of his lost arm crackling with residual energy. He moved like a hammer thrown by the gods, his body surging forward with a speed that seemed impossible for a man so massive.
Amaterasu barely got her arms up in time.
Ei's knee crashed into her palms like a thunderclap, the force of it rippling through the air. For an instant, it looked like she might hold.
But the Raikage's momentum was unstoppable. The impact sent her flying backward, her small frame hurled across the battlefield in a streak of crimson and gold. As she flew, Ei buckled. His knee—struck mid-surge by the lingering pulse of her Jyūken—twisted beneath him. A nerve point shattered. The chakra in his leg stuttered. He dropped hard to one side, his landing uneven, his breath ragged. Leaving him prone to a counter.
"Boss!" Shee was there in an instant, skidding to a halt beside Ei, his hands already glowing with medical chakra. Sweat clung to his brow as he pressed his palms to the torn muscle, chakra knitting tissue back together with rapid, practiced precision. "Stay with me—I've got you."
"You think I'll allow that!?" Amaterasu snarled. Her form twisted midair, and then she dove, black fire trailing behind her like a comet torn from the sun. The ground cracked in her wake, her small frame blazing with wrath as she streaked toward them, divine fury in motion.
"Protect the boss!" Darui shouted, leaping into her path, blade drawn and glowing. The ranged assault and the Raikage's reckless charge had been a prelude. A distraction to bait her reaction. And now, as her feet skidded across the battlefield, she found herself surrounded by the real strike.
In other words, she was being hunted.
She looked left—then right—chakra signatures closing in like a vice. The battlefield, once hers to command, had shifted. No longer a stage for divine judgment. Now it was a battlefield of wolves, and they were circling.
And at the center of it all, Itachi watched. His Sharingan spun in measured circles, tracking every movement, calculating every opening.
The goddess had stumbled.
Now it was time to bring her to the ground.
"Lee!" Itachi's voice cut through the chaos—calm, commanding, and unmistakable.
From the flank, Rock Lee landed with a thunderous crack, his sandals splitting the stone beneath him. Dust flared outward. His eyes locked onto Itachi's, already brimming with purpose. He didn't need the command, but Itachi gave it anyway.
"Back up the Raikage. Lead all who can fight with their fists. Press the advantage while she's off balance."
Lee's expression split into a wide, eager grin. "It will be my honor."
He turned—just for a moment—and looked at Hinata. She was still on one knee, battered and bloodied, barely able to keep her head up. Her chakra flickered weakly around her, still unstable, still wounded. But she was watching. And Lee's gaze softened—not out of pity, but out of shared respect.
"I have waited for the day I could fight beside you," he said, his tone sincere, proud. "Now hurry and catch up… or you'll get left behind."
And with that, he vanished in a blur. Without a word, dozens followed after him. Taijutsu masters from Konoha, Kumo, and Suna surged forward like a second wave, breaking from the main line and flanking Amaterasu, their movements precise and fluid, each of them moving in perfect sync.
Hinata watched in shocked silence, wondering how they were coordinating so smoothly. Then she saw it. Just behind Itachi was Yamanaka Ino knelt with both hands pressed to her temple, her eyes closed, her expression strained. Blood dripped from her nose, her lips pressed into a thin line of pain—but she didn't stop. It was her jutsu that linked all their minds. Everyone. All at once. Transmitting Itachi's battle plans, relaying movements, maintaining cohesion across dozens of squads.
It was killing her, but she didn't stop. Because this was their last stand. Their only shot. And she wouldn't let anyone fall out of step.
Hinata's hand clenched in the dirt, trying to rise. She had to help them… She had to fight too. But her legs trembled and gave out. Pain shot through her ribs, her empty left eye socket still weeping blood.
Sakura suddenly landed beside her in a controlled crouch. Without hesitation, she pressed her glowing hands to Hinata's missing eye and back, the pulse of medical chakra already flowing into her wounds.
"Take it easy," she said, her voice firm, but gentle. "You've already done far more than enough. Let us handle the next round."
"But—"
"No buts," Sakura cut her off, her tone sharpening. "You burned out your body fighting all on your own until now. Then you kept going. You've already done the impossible. Now shut up, breathe, and heal."
Hinata swallowed hard, the tension in her body slowly unwinding under Sakura's hands. Not because the pain was gone—but because, for the first time since the final battle began…
She felt like she understood that she didn't have to do this alone.
"…Thank you," she whispered.
Sakura didn't reply. Her focus remained entirely on the healing—hands glowing with steady green light as she poured chakra into Hinata's damaged body, working to mend what could still be mended.
With no choice but to wait, Hinata closed her remaining eye and reached inward, steadying her breath. She extended her awareness—sinking into the vision of her Tenseigan. The world opened before her in luminous detail, chakra threads flaring into view like constellations across a battlefield.
Beyond the shelter of Gaara's sand barrier, she saw it.
Amaterasu hovered at the heart of the battlefield, her childlike frame suspended above scorched stone, wreathed in black flame that danced like a crown of living shadow. Once regal, now desperate, her eyes no longer held distant divinity—but something sharper. Angrier. A fire edged with fear. And behind that fire, colder still—resolve carved from desperation.
Rock Lee dropped from above like a falling star, his heel crashing down with a thunderclap. Amaterasu twisted, intercepting the blow—but the moment her palm met his chakra, something shifted in her expression. It was heavier than she expected. Not divine, but focused and pushed past its human limits.
Then the others came.
Konoha's taijutsu masters. Suna's silent blades. Kumo's lightning strikes. A full strike force descending on her at once, their movements seamless, their timing exact. No hesitation. No wasted motion.
And for a brief moment—she faltered. Not because they were stronger. But because they weren't. And still they came at her all the same.
A towering Akimichi surged forward, his colossal fist crashing down. She raised the Yata Mirror, catching the strike with a groan of chakra, barely holding back the force that could've flattened mountains. Yet she didn't have time to drop her guard.
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
A serpent erupted from the dust, coiling toward her with fangs bared. Anko grinned from the shadows, her tongue flicking out. "Dinner time!" The snake snapped its jaws shut—swallowing Amaterasu whole. For a second. Then it burst apart from within, black flames erupting from its throat as Amaterasu tore free, eyes burning.
She shot skyward—into a storm of jutsu surging in from all sides. Lightning arced through the sand. Earth spires rose from beneath her feet. Sealing tags flared from the distance in timed succession.
This wasn't chaos, but perfect coordination.
Her eyes flicked across the field, trying to keep pace—Gaara's sand sweeping in to cushion a fallen shinobi. Rock Lee rebounding midair, using chakra pressure to double back. Hyūga shielded their comrades with rotating barriers of chakra.
They weren't fighting as individuals. They were fighting as one. A single body. A single will. And she, divine or not, was being overwhelmed.
Her childlike brows drew together, her gaze sharp and unblinking.
So what if they coordinated? So what if they fought as one? What was unity against divinity? What was human resolve against a god?
"I've had enough." Her voice rang out across the battlefield. Not loud, but piercing. Not deep, but shrill and absolute, like a blade of glass splitting the sky.
And above her, the sun responded.
It pulsed like a heartbeat in the sky. Then again, stronger this time. And then it flared. A solar bloom erupted in the heavens, searing golden and white, its corona unraveling like a divine thread. The clouds ignited. The atmosphere split. Solar flares arced downward in sweeping chains, not beams of fire but pillars of judgment, crashing to the earth like falling suns.
The battlefield shattered as holy fire rained across the city-sized crater in blinding ropes of light, twisting through the air like living serpents, carving through chakra barriers as if they were paper.
The Shadow Alliance reeled. Gaara's sand surged into domes, sealing entire platoons beneath thick dunes. Dozens of shinobi threw their bodies over allies to shield them. The heat didn't just burn. It suffocated. It pressed into lungs, into bones, into will.
Even diminished as she was, the sun still answered Amaterasu.
Hinata, still half-healed, felt it slam against the edge of Gaara's barrier, the air around her trembling from the pressure. Amaterasu floated at the center of the blaze, her crimson robes flaring like wings, her hair whipping in an invisible wind. Her expression was blank now, almost serene.
The Alliance's formation fractured. Communication lines broke. Medics scrambled to recover the wounded as shielding jutsu flickered under strain.
Amaterasu swept her arm forward and another arc of solar flame cut through a defensive line, scattering earth walls like dust. A second sweep, and the very ground cracked, glowing with molten heat.
The Shadow Alliance was forced to fall back—step by step, breath by burning breath—into the shadow of their own defenses. They may have struck as one but now they were scattering.
And above them all, the goddess smiled. Not in cruelty, but calmly, like the sun watching clouds burn away.
Itachi stood just behind the main formation, his Sharingan glowing faintly as he monitored the battlefield through Ino's sensory link. The coordination had been perfect, every squad operating as one body, one mind—but it still wasn't enough.
Amaterasu's solar flares scorched the skies. The battlefield was lit with wildfire and screaming light. She was getting stronger again. Too strong.
"As I suspected…" His voice was calm, but grave. "We need something more. Something that will end this… preferably in one blow. Otherwise, the cost will be too high."
He didn't look away from the carnage, even as his body ached with exhaustion. He had already fought Obito. Then Tsukuyomi. His chakra reserves were all but gone. And even if he had the strength, he couldn't abandon this command post—not while the Alliance depended on him to coordinate their countermeasures through Ino's link.
That meant it couldn't be him.
There was only one choice.
His Sharingan shifted.
To Hinata.
Sakura's head snapped toward him, her hands still glowing with healing chakra as she worked to stabilize Hinata's battered frame.
"Don't ask her that," she snapped. "You've seen what she's been through. It's impossible!"
But Hinata shook her head.
"It's alright, Sakura-chan." Her voice was soft, but certain. "Thank you for healing me… this much was enough." Her eye socket no longer throbbed. The bleeding had stopped. The wound had closed. But she could still feel the hollow space where her left eye had once been—a quiet absence that echoed like a missing beat in her pulse.
Still… the Tenseigan flickered faintly in her remaining eye. She could feel it. The power was still there. Weaker now. Diminished. The balance that once came from two celestial pupils had fractured. But even with one, she could still touch that power. The Tenseigan Chakra Mode would answer her call.
Once. And only for a few seconds. After that, there would be nothing left to give. That meant she'd have to reach Amaterasu without it. She'd have to cross the distance, close the gap, endure the storm without that divine protection. Her fingers curled against the ground.
Sakura blinked, incredulous. "Hinata—"
"I can do it." Hinata pushed herself up, one hand pressed to the earth, the other bracing her side as she rose. Her legs still trembled, but they held.
Her breath was slow, steady.
"I only need one chance." She looked toward the battlefield. Toward the sun. Toward the goddess-turned-girl who had once tried to unmake the world—and might still succeed, if she didn't stop her.
"I'll make it count."
She then turned to Itachi. "Thank you."
She remembered when they first met—how he had once stood across from her as an enemy, cloaked in shadows and silence. Back then, he had terrified her.
Now, his presence filled her with strength.
Itachi's expression didn't shift, but his eyes softened. "No," he said. "I should be the one thanking you." He looked past her, toward the empty blue sky. "After all this time… we're finally at the finish line. We can fix it. Undo what we started."
Hinata nodded one last time and turned toward the shifting dome of sand that protected them from the flares above.
"Gaara-san," she said gently. "Can you open the barrier?"
The sand stirred.
Gaara raised a hand, his expression calm and steady as ever, his voice a low rasp.
"Go forward, Hinata of the White Lotus." His sand began to part, swirling away to open a path. "It's all thanks to you that I found my purpose again."
The sun blazed above. The earth trembled below. And Hinata stepped forward. Or she tried to. Her knee buckled. Her vision swam. The echo of the Eighth Gate, the loss of her eye, the weight of divine power, all of it crashing down at once. She pitched forward—
—and a hand caught her.
Hinata looked up.
Uzuki Yugao stood at her side, her grip sure as she steadied Hinata and gently pulled her upright.
"You don't have to go alone," she said quietly. Her fingers tightened around Hinata's hand.
"Let's go."
It was just like that time two years ago, when Yugao volunteered to be the one to go with Hinata on her training trip to the eighty-eight shrines of the Hinoshita scattered throughout the Land of Fire. Back then, they hadn't really known each other, but now…
Hinata's breath caught in her throat. Her single eye shimmered, tears brimming at the edge. She squeezed back and nodded.
"…Thank you."
They stepped forward together.
Beyond the veil of Gaara's protective sand, the battlefield was still in disarray. Smoke coiled through the air, chakra signatures flared and scattered, and squads scrambled for cover against the lingering heat of Amaterasu's divine onslaught. Cries of confusion echoed between jagged stone and crumbling walls. The formation had buckled and lost all momentum.
The moment Hinata passed beyond the shelter, Itachi's voice rang out within the sensory link.
"All forces open a path! One that brings Hinata of the White Lotus to Amaterasu! Get her there, and I promise you: She will finish it!"
The words spread like a ripple through the scattered minds of the Shadow Alliance, cutting through the exhaustion and the fear. Heads turned. Breath caught. And then they moved.
Shinobi across all nations repositioned instinctively, realigning their defense around her. Wind-users created tail currents to ease her path. Lightning-users surged to the flanks. Medics withdrew, regrouping behind support lines. They didn't need any further explanation. Because they believed in the name of the White Lotus.
And Amaterasu felt it. The shift, the pulse of something foreign and old—terrifying not because it burned, but because it endured.
Hope.
She twisted sharply, her childlike frame coiling with power. Her oversized sleeves snapped in the wind, black flames trailing like ribbons of fury. Her face contorted—not with amusement, not even with rage—but with something stranger.
A mix of disbelief and spite.
"You return," she said, her voice echoing across the shattered land. "Finally resolved yourself to die then?"
Hinata didn't answer.
She just ran.
Hand in hand with Yugao, her legs still shaking with strain, her eye locked forward. Each step rang with purpose.
That simple act, the two of them running together, set something off in Amaterasu. Her small hand rose. The air pulsed and the heavens screamed. A blinding spear of sunlight tore downward in a solar flare, raw and unchecked, searing a direct path toward them with blistering speed.
"Hyūga!" came a sharp cry from the rear. "Protect Hinata-sama!" Natsu's voice rang like a war drum, and in the next instant, the entire Hyūga clan moved. They surged forward in perfect synchrony—Hiashi, Neji, Natsu, and every Hyūga who could still stand—spinning as one, their chakras forming a radiant wall.
"Hakkeshō Ichizoku Kaiten!"
The ground trembled as a single, massive rotation erupted into being. A jutsu that was originally only meant for the main branch, now used by both sides of the clan together. Dozens of Byakugan ignited at once, a cyclone of chakra twisting into a dome of absolute defense.
The solar flare crashed against it and bounced.
It howled past them in a ricocheting blaze, slamming into the earth just ahead of Hinata and Yugao, where it exploded in a shockwave of force and flame. The ground cracked, a gaping chasm splitting open before them, molten rock glowing at the bottom like the mouth of the world itself.
Hinata's foot caught the fractured edge. She stumbled, arms flailing as her balance slipped. Yugao didn't hesitate, her grip on Hinata's wrist tightening like iron.
"Go!" she shouted and with a surge of chakra, she pivoted, braced, and hurled Hinata forward with everything she had.
The world tilted. Hinata's body twisted in midair, the breath torn from her lungs. She soared over the abyss, momentum carrying her, but not far enough. Her eye widened. The far edge was too distant. The chasm stretched beneath her, a vast emptiness yawning wider with each heartbeat.
She was going to fall.
Suddenly a shadow fell over her and a rush of air slammed into her from below, something warm and solid catching her—thick fur beneath her palms, the jolt rattling through her bones as she landed hard on a broad, familiar back.
A bark rang out.
"Yo!" Kiba's voice shouted over the rushing wind. He rode in front of her, one hand gripping Akamaru's fur, the other bracing her protectively. "Hang on tight!"
"Kiba-kun!? Akamaru!?" Hinata let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and for just a moment, she clung to her teammate's back.
Kiba laughed, his eyes wild with adrenaline.
"Don't worry, Hinata! We'll carry you the rest of the way!"
Hinata clutched the thick fur beneath her fingers, her breath catching in her throat not from fear, but from something warmer. Kiba and Akamaru had always been there, even when she faltered. Even when she felt like she couldn't go on, they carried her forward.
Just like now.
Akamaru bounded forward with unmatched speed, chakra pulsing through his limbs, kicking up debris as he cleared each shattered stretch of battlefield. Kiba bent low, his grip tight, eyes scanning the ruined terrain as they closed in.
"She sees us!" Kiba shouted, urgency laced in every word.
Hinata's head snapped up just in time.
Amaterasu floated above them, her childlike silhouette alight with coiling black flame. Her hand rose again, fingers curled around a conjured lance of fire—vast and twisted, writhing like a dying star. The very air bent around it, chakra crackling as the heat warped the horizon. Its weight felt biblical, not just in power, but in judgment.
With a flick of her wrist, she cast it straight at them.
Hinata's breath caught in her throat.
"Akamaru—!"
But it was too fast.
A bolt of movement dropped from the sky like thunder between them and the spear.
"You think I'd let something like that through!?" Raikage Ei landed in front of them with an earth-shaking crash, stone cracking beneath his feet. His single arm raised high—its chakra-reinforced vambrace glowing red-hot from the sheer proximity of the incoming flame. His stance was firm, unmoving, a wall between them and the divine.
Hinata's eyes widened, her heart leaping.
"Raikage-sama…!"
The man who had once ordered her kidnapping. Who had viewed her as nothing more than a tool, a means to an end. And yet, now… He stood before her, defending her. Not because he had to, but because he chose to. For a heartbeat, she saw not the Raikage, but the man—scarred, grizzled, unyielding. A leader shaped by war. A man who had made mistakes—and now stood here to correct them.
"White Lotus!" Ei roared, chakra flaring around him. "Go and do your duty!"
The lance of flame struck in a blinding impact.
The force collided with his arm and vambrace—and for a split second, it looked as though the black flames would consume him whole. The air screamed, light fractured, and the chakra shielding around his vambrace began to rupture.
But he didn't break.
Ei pivoted at the last instant, channeling every ounce of force into a redirection, his body twisting with raw precision. The flame was deflected and launched skyward, where it spiraled out into the sky above. His arm hung limp, vambrace half-melted, skin scorched to the bone, yet he didn't fall.
But the explosion still came all the same. Even with Ei's deflection, the residual blast of divine chakra detonated like a second sun behind them. The shockwave roared outward, unstoppable and absolute, tearing across the battlefield in a wall of searing pressure and heat.
Hinata, Kiba, and Akamaru were flung like broken leaves in a hurricane. She felt the world spin—the sky flipping, the wind screaming—and then her body hit the earth hard. Stone cracked beneath her. Pain flared white-hot through her spine and ribs.
Dust swallowed the sky. Her vision blurred. For a moment, everything was silent except the ringing in her ears and the thundering beat of her heart. She gasped, coughed, her lungs desperate for air. Her palms scraped across broken ground as she pushed herself upright, dirt and blood streaking her skin. Her legs trembled, balance wavering.
Her one remaining eye blinked away the haze.
Where—?
Amaterasu was already preparing another attack. She hovered high above the field, her childlike form glowing with wrath, a corona of black flame coiling around her like a crown of serpents. Her hand was raised, chakra boiling in her palm. No hesitation. No pause.
This was it. Hinata braced herself. She was still too far, she would never make it.
But then Amaterasu paused. There was a sound. Low at first. Then rising. The chorus of wings. Like the stirring of a thousand hives. A swarm of insects poured from the shadows—beetles, locusts, chakra-consuming kikaichū—blanketing the sky in an instant. They surged toward Amaterasu like a black wave, crashing against her glowing body, smothering her sight and her focus. She recoiled in the air, snarling in confusion, her aim thrown off as fire scattered wide.
Hinata blinked through the dust and saw them. A line of silent figures emerging from the haze, their cloaks billowing, their hands outstretched in control. The Aburame clan.
At their center, calm and unmoving, stood Shino.
"Hinata," he said gently. She turned toward him, still catching her breath. He reached out a hand. She hesitated, just for a moment, then took it. His grip was firm, grounding. He pulled her to her feet with care, his shades glinting in the red haze of the battlefield. "You're still trembling," he observed quietly.
"I—" she tried to speak, but her voice cracked. "I thought…"
"That you couldn't keep going?" he asked.
She swallowed and then nodded.
Shino gave the faintest smile. "You've always kept going. Even when you shouldn't have. That's what makes you… you."
She blinked, the weight in her chest softening.
"Go," he said. "We'll handle her vision, you just handle the rest." He turned slightly, nodding toward the goddess above, still fighting to burn her way free of the living swarm.
Hinata's hand tightened once in his.
"…Thank you," she said. Then she turned and ran. Her legs screamed in protest. Her ribs ached. Her eye socket still throbbed with the ghost of what had been taken. But she ran all the same.
Forward. Toward the light. Toward the end.
Her vision swam, half-dark, half-light—but she was adjusting to the depth perception of only having one eye quickly. Her remaining eye focused sharply ahead, compensating for the loss. The wind tore at her hair.
The battlefield screamed behind her, but she didn't look back. Ahead of her came a roar like a furnace cracking open. A pulse of black chakra surged outward as Amaterasu erupted from the insect cloud, her tiny frame swallowed whole by a towering suit of obsidian flame.
Each plate of searing black fire slammed into place with the weight of a falling mountain, shaping a colossus of burning wrath. A massive cuirass engulfed her, pauldrons like spiked monoliths jutted skyward. A kabuto helm descended like the lid of a furnace, sculpted with jagged horns and a demonic grin that bore no resemblance to the girl inside.
The armor moved with her, a walking shrine to her rage.
She conjured a blade befitting the titan she wore. A sword of black flame, its edge jagged and serrated, forged not for elegance but for ruin. It dragged behind her with a hiss, carving molten grooves into the battlefield with every step. Raising the blade high, the colossal sword of black flame caught the pulsing sunlight. The air groaned under its weight, the battlefield trembling as if the world itself recognized what was about to fall.
"I've had enough," Amaterasu whispered. Her voice echoed with layered tones—child and goddess, wrath and sanctity. "This ends now."
The sword came down in a single, cataclysmic arc—fast, furious, and final.
Only it never landed.
A shriek howled across the battlefield—like the scream of a star being born. A streak of pure cerulean fire tore in from the left, slamming into the descending blade mid-swing with a roar that cracked the heavens and shattered stone beneath it.
Matatabi, the twin-tailed monster-cat cloaked in living flame, crashed into the colossus of black armor with a deafening impact. Her massive claws dug into the molten plates with a hiss, tails coiling tight around Amaterasu's midsection, blue fire surging against the oppressive black.
"You're not the only one with special flames!" Yugito's voice thundered from Matatabi's throat, shaking the ruins like a war drum.
Amaterasu snarled in response, her obsidian blade yanked back. She struck—once, twice—with the hilt of her weapon, each blow hammering against the celestial feline like a gong of fury. Sparks flew. Flames clashed. But Matatabi didn't yield. She held fast, her tails constricting tighter with every heartbeat.
And below it all, Hinata ran.
She darted beneath the clash of titans, the battlefield groaning under the weight of their battle. Her body was dwarfed by the scale above, her one eye shimmering with the reflection of fire and fury. Ash drifted around her like falling snow, each flake glowing faintly in the dying light.
"Hinata! Get ready!" Yugito roared.
Matatabi's body erupted into a pillar of blue fire—no longer a beast, but a conflagration incarnate. The heat rippled outward in concentric waves, warping the very air. A blinding radiance swallowed the world. There was no horizon, no sky—just light and pressure and sound.
The explosion hit like a god's breath.
A shockwave thundered across the battlefield, flattening stone, ripping through ash clouds, slamming into the bones of every shinobi still standing. The ground shook violently beneath Hinata's feet, and the wind that followed was hot and raw, carrying the tang of scorched rock and burning chakra. Ears rang. Skin prickled. Vision blurred from the sheer intensity of the detonation.
When the blaze finally died and the searing light faded from the world, the towering samurai armor was gone—vaporized, obliterated without a trace.
And at the heart of the crater, Amaterasu lay exposed.
Her small form trembled, smoke trailing from her scorched limbs. Her divine dress was in tatters, skin streaked with soot and glowing cinders, the last vestiges of her fire sputtering like dying embers. Her chest rose and fell in uneven gasps. Her hair, once flowing like fire, now clung in heavy, tangled strands to her face.
And Hinata was almost there. Their eyes met—Tenseigan to Gurengan—as Hinata continued to close the distance. For one fragile heartbeat, the war fell silent. No screams, no flames—just the dying light between two souls on opposite ends of fate.
Amaterasu's expression twisted not in divine anger, but something far more human.
Fear.
"No…" she whispered. Her voice trembled. "No—no, I won't… I won't be defeated again."
A pulse of power exploded from her back, black fire bursting outward like wings. The shockwave knocked rubble across the battlefield. With a sharp crack, she launched herself upward, streaking into the sky on a spiral of jet-black flame, her form rocketing toward the sun overhead.
Amaterasu was escaping.
Hinata gritted her teeth, feet digging into the earth, but her body refused to move fast enough. Her muscles screamed in protest. Amaterasu was climbing too high. She was slipping away.
There was no choice, she was going to have to activate the Tenseigan Chakra Mode and just hoped it lasted long enough to reach her. Yet before Hinata could do just that, she felt a tug at her back, a familiar chakra signature surging behind her.
"We're not letting her get away!" Kankurō's voice rang out like thunder as he twisted his whole body, chakra strings tightening with a snap. "Now go!" He pivoted, bracing one foot against the fractured stone, then hurled her skyward with the full force of his puppeteer's strength, the wind tearing past her ears as she rocketed into the sky.
Hinata's body blasted upward like a puppet on a slingshot. But it wasn't enough. She could feel it—Amaterasu was climbing faster. Still out of reach.
This time for sure, she had no choice but to reach Amaterasu with her own power. Only to be surprised yet again as there was a sudden snap around her wrist. A golden chain of chakra whipped into existence, looping once around her arm like a tether of steel.
"Don't let her get away now!"
Uzumaki Tayuya smirked from above, her red hair whipping wildly in the updraft, chakra flaring as she spun midair—twisting her body like a coiled spring to build momentum. The chain snapped taut between them, gleaming with strain.
"Now fly, princess."
With a final whip of her arm, the full force of the Doki sealed inside her surged through the chain and launched Hinata like a missile.
The sky split around her. The air cracked like lightning, the sound barrier shattering in her wake as she rocketed skyward. Hinata's single eye widened as Amaterasu's form rushed toward her—
Finally, Hinata closed the distance.
And this time, the goddess had nowhere left to run.
Hinata's eye blazed, the Tenseigan igniting once more, a blossom of burning jade flaring across the sky. Her chakra surged like a tidal wave, flooding her veins, her skin glowing with celestial light. Her battered robes shimmered and shifted, reforming into the jade silk of the Tenseigan Chakra Mode, argent trim trailing behind her like the tail of a comet.
Gudōdama formed in perfect orbit—only three now, the others lost with her left eye—but they spun faster, sharper, and focused. Fewer, yes. But more than enough.
And as the world slowed to a crawl around her, time itself seemed to hold its breath. Below her—across the battlefield, across the cracked earth and blood-stained rock—the voices rose.
"Hinata-sama!" The cry of her clan, their pride and devotion ringing like bells.
"Hyūga Hinata!" some called, putting name and clan together as one—reminding the world of where she came from, and how far she had soared.
"Hinata!" Her friends—Kiba, Shino, Tayuya, Yugao, Sakura—those who knew her not as a symbol, but as a person.
"White Lotus!" others chanted, those who had only heard stories, who had seen her stand against gods and not fall.
Dozens of voices. Hundreds. Thousands. All different, but united. Their cry rose in one thunderous roar, loud enough to shake the heavens.
"Finish it!"
And above them all, Hyūga Hinata, the girl who had once been quiet, overlooked, and unseen burned like the rising sun.
She pulled her arm back, one Gudōdama spinning into her palm, pulsing with the weight of all their hopes. The Tenseigan flared like a star behind her lone, burning eye.
"Kinrin Tensei Baku!" she called out, her voice cutting through the sky like a divine decree.
A blade of golden light erupted from her Gudōdama, not slender like a katana, but vast and radiant—a sword worthy of the heavens, forged from pure chakra and faith. Its form shimmered, carved from willpower and love, arcing behind her like the dawn itself. The blade shot forward like a divine execution, screaming through the air with impossible speed, trailing afterimages of light, roaring toward its mark.
And in that moment, Amaterasu saw it as the world shifted. From her childlike body, her warped, divine senses stretched outward as the golden blade neared, but her eyes weren't looking at it. They were looking past it.
At Hinata and the battlefield below. At the faces staring up—not in fear, but in hope. And suddenly she understood. That confusion in her chest. That ache she couldn't name. That flicker she had tried to burn away.
It wasn't the fear of death, but something deeper.
This impossible miracle surging from a girl with only one eye, a body broken and bruised, still standing, still rising—this was what she had been searching for. This was love. Not the hollow worship of the masses. Not the burning obsession of a single man. But love as it truly was: everyone coming together to help this one girl, not because they worshipped her. But because unlike Amaterasu, she was weak.
And in her weakness, she had built bonds with others. Bonds that allowed her to even reach a god.
"…Oh," Amaterasu whispered, voice small. Her hand reached out towards Hinata not in defiance, but in realization. "So this is what you meant…"
The golden blade struck, but it wasn't pain that met her. It was warmth. A light she hadn't felt in eons—soft and enveloping, not burning but embracing. It wrapped around her like a memory long buried, pulling her back to a time before divinity, before worship, before war.
A time when she had been just a girl. Small fingers clasped in her own. Kaguya's laughter—quiet and breathless—as they ran hand in hand through fields of golden sunflowers that swayed taller than both of them. No crowns. No temples. Just sun and soil and the feeling of being seen, not as a goddess, but as herself.
She remembered now. She had been loved. Truly. Before she even knew the word for it. Before she started chasing it in prayers and power. She had it.
And she let it go.
Her lips parted, but no sound came. As the sword of golden chakra unraveled her divine form, scattering her into petals of flame and starlight, one final thought bloomed like fire behind her eyes—
"…Kaguya…"
And then she was gone.
Silence fell. Not the silence of anticipation, or fear. But the kind that only came after the storm.
Hinata hovered in the air, suspended by the lingering embers of the Tenseigan Chakra Mode, its glow now dim—gentle, like the last flicker of a candle that had done its duty. Her robes drifted around her, moved by a breeze that no longer carried heat or ash, only peace.
Below her, the battlefield lay still.
What remained of the Shadow Alliance stood in silence, heads raised, eyes locked skyward. Even those who had no strength left to stand, still found themselves looking up.
The sky was clear.
Brilliant blue. No more clouds. No more fire. Just the sun, warm and distant—and, for the first time in a long while, not a threat.
Hinata breathed in. Slow. Deep. The taste of smoke still lingered on the wind, but underneath it… there was life. Hope. The world was broken—but still turning.
She closed her remaining eye.
And for a single, perfect moment she let herself feel it. Not triumph. Not glory. But stillness. Relief.
She had made it.
They had all made it.
And as the sun drifted slowly through the afternoon sky, its golden rays brushing the earth like a benediction—
Hyūga Hinata, the White Lotus of the Hidden Leaf, hovered weightless in the light.
Chapter End
Notes: While Hinata may have delivered the final blow, I wanted this chapter and the one before to be a celebration of everyone who helped her get there. Big roles, small moments—they all mattered. She didn't make it here by herself, and neither did this story; Thank you to everyone that has helped me along the way, be that in kind comments, suggestions, or even just following silently along. I'm grateful to you all.
Only the epilogue left now.