The Final Battle

Standing once more at the Valley of the End, Naruto turns over Neji's old warning about the darkness gripping his friend. Sasuke lays out the philosophy he drew from Itachi's life: a true Hokage is someone who bears the loathing of everyone else on his own shoulders. He means to pull all power and all hatred toward himself, then kill the tailed beasts and the Kage so the shadows of the past can be wiped away. Naruto argues that no one would accept such a scheme, and that certain battles, like the one against Kaguya, can never be settled alone. He rejects the notion of blotting out history, since his own has shaped who he became. As Hagoromo dissolves away, he urges Kakashi to keep his faith in the two of them.

The pair open with hand-to-hand exchanges before Sasuke hurls fireballs and Naruto counters with clones and Rasengan. Sasuke's Rinnegan drags the clones in and skewers them with black flames, but the real Naruto shields himself with chakra arms and strikes from overhead. Slipping into Six Paths Sage Mode, then Tailed Beast Mode, Naruto parries a Complete Body Susanoo and bumps fists with Sasuke, each glimpsing the loneliness of the other's childhood. When Naruto hesitates to hurl a Tailed Beast Ball at a downed Susanoo, Sasuke seizes the opening for Kirin. Their techniques collide, and inside their linked minds Sasuke insists the villages only banded together against shared foes. Naruto asks what becomes of that peace once Sasuke is gone. Sasuke replies that the Rinnegan lets him govern from the shadows, then calls down the Chibaku Tensei holding the sealed tailed beasts as his first move into darkness.

When Sasuke shifts behind Naruto after the blocked fireball, one of Naruto's three Truth-Seeking Balls vanishes, as though it had swapped places with him. The corresponding manga version of the fight leaves this detail out.