ALL NOVEL Chapter 125: 124. Guardians of the Dawn
The Knight of the Abyss reeled, armor plates splintered and shadowy essence oozing from multiple wounds. Across the battered courtyard, shinobi braced themselves for another clash, every heartbeat a drumbeat of anticipation. High above, the Herald's wounded silhouette still loomed within the crimson vortex, silent yet seething, its presence a constant reminder that the true threat had not receded. The night air vibrated with negative energy, as though the very sky were alive, pulsing in time with the monstrous powers that besieged the Leaf.
Naruto, chest heaving, took a single step forward, forming a raspy grin. Tired lines crisscrossed his face, but his voice remained strong. "Knight or not, you're not overrunning our village." Beneath his words, Kurama's chakra glowed through swirling rivulets of reversed time, intensifying the aura around him. His fists clenched, knuckles white. Despite the exhaustion etched into every fiber of his being, he refused to stand down.
Beside him, Sasuke kept watch on the Knight's posture with unwavering focus. A swirl of gravitational arcs still danced around his sword, and he was painfully aware of how each advanced jutsu he used edged him closer to chakra depletion. Yet the flicker in his Rinnegan said it all: if he had even one more strike in him, he'd make it count. Black sparks of Void lightning crackled in anticipation.
Sakura, her illusions still shimmering faintly along her arms, exhaled a steadying breath. She could feel her heartbeat hammering in her chest, each pulse a testament to how much power she'd poured into her last few attacks. Her legs trembled, but the fierce resolve in her gaze refused to yield an inch. Threads of starlight illusions twirled in the air around her fingers, ready to blind or shatter the next wave.
At a slight distance, Minato surveyed the entire battlefield. His breathing was ragged, beads of sweat rolling down temples that once carried a calm, confident grin. Now that grin was replaced by an urgent seriousness. Dimensional seals glowed around his wrists, crackling with the potential for a high-level finishing move that he might only get one chance to attempt. Between him and Naruto's synergy, they might slice through any darkness if they timed it perfectly.
Ryusei hovered just above the ruined cobblestones, eyes flicking between the Knight and the Herald. His aura stirred with Time and Void in flux, a sign that he could still twist reality in a pinch. Yet even that motion carried the tremble of near-exhaustion. He'd manipulated too many timelines, reversed too many attacks. But giving up was not an option. He scanned the Knight's injuries, searching for any sign that it might falter—some new gap in its defenses to exploit.
Across the street, the Knight's ragged breathing echoed behind plates of fractured obsidian armor. Its greatsword still bled arcs of negative lightning, though they sputtered and hissed instead of roaring confidently. A jagged crack ran from its left shoulder to its chest, courtesy of the combined assault. Yet in its burning eyes glowed a fury that suggested it would fight until its final breath. When it spoke, its voice reverberated with malice:
"You are resilient… more so than the insects I've crushed in other worlds. But resilience only prolongs your suffering. The convergence will not be denied."
Naruto inhaled deeply, trying to muster a quip but finding only sincerity. "We don't care what the convergence wants," he said in a low, fervent tone. "We'll protect the Leaf, no matter what it costs us." A faint smirk then tugged at his lips. "We've got a knack for beating impossible odds."
Sasuke sidled in near Naruto, blade angled forward. "In other worlds, maybe you won. Not here."
Sakura, stepping up to flank them, nodded. "We're not just any shinobi. We are the protectors of this timeline, and we're not letting you take another step."
The Knight let out a hiss that crackled with stunted electricity. Shadows writhed behind it, forming half a dozen twisted shapes that separated from its aura. They lurched forward, half-sentient spawns armed with dripping claws. Possibly the Knight's final gambit—a last attempt to swarm the defenders. The battered squads behind Team 7 readied for an assault, illusions and graviton distortions swirling. But the Knight signaled, and the spawns froze, waiting for its command.
With a guttural snarl, the Knight hefted its sword. In the swirling clouds above, the Herald's broken silhouette drifted closer, staff raised. A fresh surge of dimensional distortion bent the horizon. Cries of alarm rose from the Leaf squads as thick pillars of negative lightning hammered the peripheral defenses. A battered Anbu unit cried out, nearly swamped by a group of newly manifested fiends, only to be saved by a sudden wave of illusions from Shadow Squad. Elsewhere, the Time Squad snared a dozen monstrous silhouettes in stasis before they could tear into an injured line.
At the center of it all, time stretched taut in a heartbeat of tension. The Knight took a single step forward. "We end this," it said, lightning coruscating along the sword in an ever-quickening pace. "Accept your doom or make peace with oblivion."
Ryusei clenched his fists, ignoring the protest of screaming muscles. "We choose neither," he shot back. "We choose to survive." With that, he unleashed a flicker of temporal manipulation, half a second of stasis around the Knight's ankles. Naruto and Sasuke dashed in from opposing flanks, each forging their ultimate synergy jutsu: Naruto's swirling Rasengan layered with reversed time, Sasuke's blade coated in gravitational arcs strong enough to shred dimensional barriers. Sakura soared overhead with illusions trailing her fists, while Minato flickered behind the Knight, seals glowing on his palms.
The Knight broke free of Ryusei's stasis with a roar, but the defenders had already closed in. In a flurry of blazing energy, Naruto and Sasuke struck simultaneously, Rasengan meeting the Knight's sword in a maelstrom of swirling force, while Sasuke's blade slashed across the Knight's fractured chest. Black lightning and arcs of swirling time energy erupted, saturating the air with cosmic sparks. The Knight recoiled, but just as it recovered, Sakura dived from above, illusions briefly blinding the Knight's sense of direction. Her radiant punch hammered into its back, cracks spreading further across its obsidian plating.
Minato's dimensional seals locked into place, warping the Knight's immediate surroundings. The negativity in the air lurched as space folded inward, threatening to pin the Knight for Ryusei's final blow. Yet even pinned, the Knight let out an unearthly scream, and shards of its armor erupted, each shard fueled by chaotic dimension energy. They shot outward like daggers, forcing the five defenders to scramble. Some shards clipped Naruto's side, shredding a patch of his Nine-Tails cloak with a sizzle of black flame.
Despite the Knight's savage counter, the synergy of these defenders refused to falter. Ryusei coalesced a swirling vortex of Time and Void in his palm, aiming straight at the Knight's core. "This ends now," he breathed, voice rough but full of conviction. Another heartbeat of synergy gathered—Naruto channeling time-laced Rasengan from behind, Sasuke bracing to cleave any illusions the Knight might conjure, Sakura summoning a final brilliance in her fists, Minato realigning the folded space to secure the Knight in place. And Ryusei himself readied that lethal strike.
But before they could unleash it, a deafening wail echoed from above. The Herald, ignoring the grievous cracks in its own form, unleashed a torrent of swirling black thunder that crashed between the defenders and the Knight. Raw chaos flooded the courtyard, forcing them all to scatter or risk being swallowed by scorching negative lightning. As the arcs subsided, the Knight jerked free of the partial seal. With a ragged snarl, it bounded backward, eyes blazing with hatred. The monstrous spawns howled in unity, surging to protect their injured master.
"We are not alone," the Knight rumbled, voice defiant. "The convergence binds us all. Herald, do you see how they persist?"
High overhead, the Herald hissed. "They cannot be allowed another moment of triumph. Together, Knight, we crush them now. Then their world becomes ours." Dim arcs of swirling red lightning glowed on the Herald's staff as it converged with the Knight's aura, forging a vortex of combined negativity. The synergy of the two enemies felt suffocating, pressing down on every living entity with the weight of an unending storm.
Naruto panted, shoulders rising and falling with every breath. "Guys," he said, voice tight, "any plan for dealing with both at once?"
Sasuke's gaze flicked between the Herald and the Knight. "We'll make one," he replied coldly. "No matter how big they think they are, we'll find a way."
Sakura exhaled shakily, illusions trembling around her arms. "We have to keep going. The village is counting on us."
Minato's eyes reflected the swirling chaos. "One chance. We let them combine if we must, then strike with everything. The squads below can hold the lesser fiends just long enough. But we have to time it perfectly."
Ryusei nodded, teeth gritted. "Then let's do it. One last stand."
As the Knight rejoined the Herald, the swirling black thunder overhead thickened, merging two fearsome powers into a monstrous singularity. The darkness grew so dense that every building and broken pillar seemed on the edge of vanishing into an endless shadow. A hush of dread coursed through the defenders, but also an unspoken vow: they would stand as guardians of the dawn, no matter how pitch-black the night became.