Ninja vs. Ninja: May the Best Ninja Win!

The castle ruins host the trilogy's promised spectacle: three summoning seals, three towers of smoke — Gamabunta, Manda and Katsuyu, toad, snake and slug, the Sannin deadlock recreated at full scale a generation later. Tsunade, phobia burned away, fights like the war veteran she was: hauling Gamabunta's blade one-handed, pinning Manda's jaws with it through solid rock. The duel underneath is uglier — fists versus a blade-tongue — and ends with Orochimaru retreating, armless still, promising other roads to everything.