Chapter 613: The Battle on the Moon III
Izumi Uchiha, knowing the power of Orochimaru's All-Killing Ash Bones, cautiously dodged the calamity. However, Orochimaru did not stop his offensive.
After disposing of the Susanoo, Orochimaru immediately cast ninjutsu to maintain pressure on Izumi Uchiha.
At the same time, taking advantage of Izumi Uchiha's Susanoo being destroyed, Orochimaru's main body charged forward again.
Orochimaru didn't fly over but extended his body directly to close the distance between them, catching Izumi Uchiha off guard.
While retreating, Izumi Uchiha kept her Rinnegan fixed on Orochimaru's hands.
Sure enough, after getting close, Orochimaru immediately threw a bone spike.
Prepared for this, Izumi Uchiha lightly waved her right hand, immediately generating a repulsive force that deflected Orochimaru's bone spike directly.
Orochimaru's eyes flashed; Izumi Uchiha's first dōjutsu had appeared—it was a relatively conventional gravity ninjutsu.
Not expecting a single bone spike to finish off Izumi Uchiha, Orochimaru didn't stop. While Izumi Uchiha was deflecting the bone spike, his right arm stretched incredibly, punching toward Izumi Uchiha's head.
Izumi Uchiha seemed to use her left hand to block instinctively in her haste.
Seeing Izumi Uchiha swing her left fist to meet him, the corner of Orochimaru's mouth curled up.
The Uchiha clan was never famous for physical strength. Orochimaru was confident that his body, modified multiple times, could completely overpower Izumi Uchiha.
Boom~
When their fists collided, Orochimaru's newly recovered right arm was smashed directly, and his body was sent flying backward.
Orochimaru's eyes widened, ready to unleash a shockwave to deal with Izumi Uchiha's follow-up attack at any moment.
He had no time to think about why Izumi Uchiha could smash his arm or where she got such great strength.
He knew that since Izumi Uchiha had tricked him once, she definitely had a follow-up attack.
Sure enough, Izumi Uchiha, having just gained the advantage, didn't hesitate at all. A small black sphere appeared abruptly in her right palm, and with a flick of her wrist, she threw the small black sphere directly at Orochimaru.
Unsure of what it was, Orochimaru immediately activated his prepared dōjutsu, deflecting the small black sphere back along its original path.
The small black sphere reversed direction, smashing toward Izumi Uchiha, the caster.
Orochimaru's Byakugan stared intently at Izumi Uchiha's reaction, wanting to see what the function of this small black sphere was.
But the next moment, his vision blurred, and the Izumi Uchiha in front of him suddenly became larger.
"Is it a Genjutsu? No, the distance between us has closed! Is Izumi Uchiha that fast?"
As soon as this thought arose, Orochimaru realized something was wrong. It wasn't that Izumi Uchiha suddenly came to him, but that he was suddenly pulled in front of Izumi Uchiha.
He returned directly to the position where he had exchanged punches with Izumi Uchiha earlier.
Before he could figure out what was happening, Orochimaru felt as if his back had been hit by something.
Not good, it's that small black sphere from just now.
Although he didn't know what it was, the fact that Izumi Uchiha was willing to expose multiple dōjutsu just for this one strike showed how confident she was in this move.
Sure enough, before Orochimaru could react, the prepared Izumi Uchiha had already finished forming hand seals.
"Chibaku Tensei!"
Orochimaru heard Izumi Uchiha's words, and then he felt an indescribable sense of weightlessness.
At this moment, although his Byakugan vision remained, the chaotic weightlessness made it momentarily impossible for him to distinguish between the sky and the ground.
While dizzy, thud, thud, thud, he felt heavy blows constantly hitting his face and body.
He gritted his teeth and used the shockwave dōjutsu again, managing to repel the objects around him for a short distance.
But this time was very short. Once the shockwave effect passed, he was hit by the surrounding objects again.
However, using that gap, he finally figured out his current situation.
He was still in the air, but a large number of rocks from the ground were smashing toward him.
As if to encase him directly within these rocks.
Orochimaru looked grave but didn't panic.
He didn't resist futilely immediately but began to gather strength.
At this time, from the perspective of Izumi Uchiha, Ishiro, and the others, they saw that Orochimaru was already encased by those rocks.
The rocks in the sky grew larger and larger.
As time passed, Orochimaru's hope of escaping would only grow smaller.
suddenly, Neji-kun said, "Something's wrong. The rocks inside are having issues. It's that move, All-Killing Ash Bones!"
Sure enough, as soon as Neji-kun finished speaking, the rocks originally flying toward the sky suddenly lost momentum and fell one after another, while the rock sphere in the air quickly turned into ashes.
Orochimaru's body rushed directly out of the ashes.
Ishiro was surprised. Chibaku Tensei could be broken like this? Why didn't Kaguya do this back then?
Was it because there wasn't enough time, or was her combat experience too lacking?
However, being sealed twice consecutively by the same move couldn't simply be explained by lack of experience.
This was actually because the Sage of Six Paths' Chibaku Tensei used Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's body as the gravitational center.
But Izumi Uchiha's Chibaku Tensei used a small black sphere as the gravitational center.
As long as Orochimaru found an opportunity to destroy that small sphere, Izumi Uchiha's Chibaku Tensei would lose its gravitational force.
Kaguya Ōtsutsuki didn't have such a loophole to exploit.
Ishiro cast his gaze toward Orochimaru. Although he didn't know how he escaped, he knew the price Orochimaru paid wasn't small.
Another tail-cutting survival!
The current Orochimaru had less than one-third of the chakra he had before being sealed by Izumi Uchiha's Chibaku Tensei.
This situation was similar to when he escaped Sōkai's Sword of Totsuka just now.
After rushing out of the Chibaku Tensei, Orochimaru didn't attack Izumi Uchiha again. He stopped in the air in front of her, his expression fluctuating.
Izumi Uchiha was somewhat surprised. She looked at Orochimaru, still pondering how the opponent escaped the Chibaku Tensei.
Orochimaru spoke at this time: "Izumi Uchiha, your dōjutsu are very powerful!"
"Leaving aside Shinra Tensei, that punch should have also used a dōjutsu—one that amplifies strength!"
"I didn't expect such an ordinary dōjutsu to be able to ambush me."
"Then the move that pulled me in front of you—if I'm not mistaken, it should be a time-based ninjutsu!"
"I didn't sense any spatial fluctuations, yet you could pull me directly back to my previous position. Impressive!"
"And the last move is called Chibaku Tensei, is it? I'll remember it!"
Pausing, he said, "This round, I lost!"
Orochimaru knew that his biggest trouble now wasn't how much chakra he consumed, but that his injuries hadn't recovered yet.
When forcibly rushing out of the Chibaku Tensei seal, his dōjutsu suffered a backlash that hadn't subsided yet.
His right arm, smashed by Izumi Uchiha, was also still recovering.
Izumi Uchiha didn't answer. Ishiro made the decision for her: "Izumi, come back. Don't kill Orochimaru directly; give Neji-kun a chance to spar."
Izumi Uchiha nodded and flew back to the group.
Shion immediately greeted her, saying, "Sister Izumi, you were amazing! You almost sealed that guy."
"Thank you for venting my anger!"
"Also, what's the principle behind the sealing ability of your Chibaku Tensei? It feels even more powerful than my Priestess Seal."
Izumi Uchiha smiled at Shion but didn't speak, just signaling Shion to watch the battle between Neji-kun and Orochimaru.
Neji-kun didn't attack right away but waited quietly for Orochimaru to recover from his injuries.
A moment later, Orochimaru's right arm returned to normal, and the violent pupil power tremors in his eyes slowly calmed down.
Only then did Neji-kun launch a charge at Orochimaru.
Compared to the conservatism of Sōkai, Shion, and Izumi Uchiha, Neji-kun's tactics appeared much more aggressive.
Like an arrow leaving the string, he rushed quickly toward Orochimaru.
Orochimaru had witnessed the battle between Neji-kun and Hiashi Hyūga, knowing that fighting Neji-kun with pure Taijutsu would be tricky, so he chose to combine Taijutsu and ninjutsu.
Katon: Gōryūka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique).
Orochimaru cast a Fire Release first. Neji-kun's response was very simple; he raised his hand and fired several Vacuum Palms, directly dispersing the fire dragon.
Fūton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough).
Seeing that single-target ninjutsu attacks were easily exploded by Vacuum Palms, Orochimaru chose a wide-range ninjutsu.
Neji-kun remained unhurried. He pointed his finger toward Orochimaru's Wind Release a few times.
Several invisible attacks hit specific locations of the Wind Release directly.
Seemingly simple attacks easily destroyed the entire structure of the Wind Release.
Orochimaru frowned. Gentle Fist can be used like this?
However, he was only slightly surprised and didn't pay too much attention. instead, he cast ninjutsu multiple times again.
Five-attribute ninjutsu bombarded in turns.
But the result was the same; Neji-kun easily exploded them every time.
Neji-kun was the earliest among everyone to become a Sage. He had more time than others to familiarize himself with his strength.
He had even figured out various tactics on his own.
How to deal with the enemy's conventional ninjutsu was the first thing he pondered.
So no matter what ninjutsu Orochimaru used, Neji-kun's response appeared practiced and easy.
Ninjutsu failed to stop Neji-kun's advance, and the two were soon entangled in close combat.
Orochimaru changed his body shape rapidly, sometimes closing the distance to fight Neji-kun, sometimes dodging and interfering with ninjutsu.
Although Orochimaru's Taijutsu was inferior to Neji-kun's, he managed to fight evenly with Neji-kun relying on experience.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
After a long entanglement, Orochimaru still had several tenketsu struck by Neji-kun. Orochimaru quickly shed the body struck by Neji-kun.
Then the new Orochimaru rushed toward Neji-kun again, holding a bone spike.
His face looked unpleasant. Neji-kun actually gained the upper hand in normal combat with him.
Even forcing him to use the Byakugan's special dōjutsu first.
This was undoubtedly a huge humiliation for Orochimaru, who had been famous for decades.
Calculating seniority, in the entire ninja world, except for that old man Ōnoki, Orochimaru was the ninja who became famous the earliest.
Losing to Ishiro was one thing, but now he couldn't even beat Neji-kun.
Watching Orochimaru rushing toward him with a bone spike, Neji-kun didn't retreat cautiously like Ishiro.
As if he didn't care about the terrifying lethality of the bone spike at all, he met it head-on just like before.
Swish!
Orochimaru's thrust was dodged by Neji-kun. Just as Orochimaru was about to sweep horizontally, Neji-kun slapped his arm with a backhand palm.
If this hit landed on anyone else, the arm would be more or less useless, but Orochimaru's body was different.
He forced his arm to bend, and during the bending process, the arm extended unnaturally again, making the bone spike stab toward Neji-kun's body once more.
Neji-kun didn't expect Orochimaru's body to have so many changes. He immediately used Imperial Wheel to move himself sideways.
Orochimaru was somewhat surprised. He originally thought Neji-kun would use repulsive force to deflect the bone spike.
For this reason, he was even prepared to use his dōjutsu shockwave to offset Neji-kun's Imperial Wheel.
Who knew Neji-kun didn't use the Imperial Wheel on him, but on himself instead.
Orochimaru was familiar with this scene; it was exactly Ishiro's close-combat movement technique. Ishiro had also used it during their fight just now.
However, although Orochimaru was surprised, his attack rhythm wasn't disrupted. The hand holding the bone spike continued to turn, sweeping toward Neji-kun again like a tentacle.
But this time Neji-kun was prepared. Using his hand as a knife, he slashed directly at Orochimaru's arm.
Orochimaru recognized it at a glance; it was the Chakra Scalpel commonly used by medical ninjas in combat.
Kabuto liked to use this move against enemies.
His right arm had already been severed twice today; he didn't want it to happen again.
So Orochimaru retracted his arm quickly.
Neji-kun felt somewhat regretful. He warned himself again not to be restricted to Byakugan secret techniques during battle.
If he had used the Chakra Scalpel on the first strike just now, Orochimaru's arm should have been broken by now.
Taking a deep breath, Neji-kun took the initiative to launch an attack on Orochimaru again.
This time Neji-kun no longer limited himself to using Byakugan secret techniques but began to use Tenseigan dōjutsu.
Clap, clap, clap. After colliding several more times, a sword several tens of meters long suddenly appeared in Neji-kun's hand. Neji-kun held the sword and slashed horizontally.
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. As expected, this move. Prepared long ago, he used the Snake Substitution and dodged easily.
Neji-kun's Tenseigan dōjutsu was exactly as he expected, the same one he used against Hiashi Hyūga during the joint Chunin Exams in Konoha.
Back then, Neji-kun exposed the Imperial Wheel, the giant sword of Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion, and the rock golem.
So Orochimaru had long been guarding against Neji-kun's moves!
Neji-kun's sword only slashed the shed body of Orochimaru, which made him feel somewhat regretful.
Sure enough, his dōjutsu had long been guessed by Orochimaru.
Sōkai and Izumi Uchiha nearly killed Orochimaru precisely because Orochimaru knew nothing about their dōjutsu.
But it was difficult for Neji-kun to achieve surprise.
Neji-kun calculated his dōjutsu. The rock golem was perfectly countered by Orochimaru's All-Killing Ash Bones, and the Imperial Wheel had no advantage against Orochimaru's shockwave dōjutsu.
The Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion also wouldn't be effective if Orochimaru was prepared.
The Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion was originally meant to deal with super-large targets. Using a giant sword calculated in kilometers at full power to slash people was truly inappropriate.
In that case...
A layer of green chakra suddenly surfaced on Neji-kun's body. It was the Tenseigan Chakra Mode.
Clad in the green chakra cloak, Neji-kun's speed and strength increased significantly, and he rushed directly at Orochimaru.
Even if Orochimaru didn't recognize Neji-kun's Tenseigan Chakra Mode, the impressive aura of this move was enough for him to be fully alert.
Katon: Gōka Messhitsu (Fire Release: Great Fire Destruction).
Fūton: Renkūdan (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet).
Orochimaru routinely used ninjutsu to test what strength Neji-kun had in this state.
But this time, Neji-kun didn't attack with Byakugan secret techniques, nor did he absorb the ninjutsu with the Tenseigan.
His response method was very simple, just one word: Ignore!
Neji-kun didn't stop his forward charge, plunging headfirst into Orochimaru's ninjutsu.
He ignored Orochimaru's ninjutsu directly, rushing straight toward Orochimaru with the Tenseigan Chakra Mode.
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow, thinking to himself: Really tricky!
Though he thought so, his hands didn't stop. Since conventional ninjutsu was ineffective, he would use All-Killing Ash Bones.
Orochimaru's hands moved ceaselessly, throwing bone spikes one after another at Neji-kun.
Facing Orochimaru using All-Killing Ash Bones spikes as kunai, Neji-kun didn't panic. Holding a golden chakra light sword several tens of meters long, he constantly swatted these bone spikes away.
The properties of All-Killing Ash Bones could spread, but every time Neji-kun swatted a bone spike, he would directly discard a section of the golden giant sword.
This way, his golden giant sword wouldn't be used up all at once.
When approaching Orochimaru, the golden light sword in Neji-kun's hand was only half a meter long.
Smack!
Neji-kun threw out the golden light sword in his hand to knock away the last bone spike. By this time, he had completely arrived in front of Orochimaru.
Neji-kun clenched his right hand into a fist, punching straight at Orochimaru with all his strength.
Orochimaru naturally dared not take it head-on. Neji-kun's state was clearly a close-combat form.
He was already inferior to Neji-kun in close combat, and now he was even less of a match.
He used bone spikes to restrict Neji-kun's movements while using his body's flexibility combined with Snake Substitution to dodge.
If he really couldn't dodge, he used the shockwave dōjutsu.
But Neji-kun's speed under Tenseigan Chakra Mode completely exceeded Orochimaru's expectations.
He had just abandoned his original body when Neji-kun had already rushed in front of his new body.
Bang, bang, bang. This time Orochimaru didn't dodge. He was hit multiple times by Neji-kun consecutively, and his whole body flew far away.
While in the air, he spat out a large mouthful of fresh blood.
Even so, Neji-kun didn't let him go. He exploded with full speed again, dashing directly to the side of Orochimaru, who was flying backward.
Neji-kun opened his right hand, and a black sphere appeared immediately in his palm.
He pressed the black sphere directly toward Orochimaru's body.
"Another small black sphere?" Orochimaru had already suffered a loss from a small black sphere once today.
Naturally, he dared not let Neji-kun succeed easily this time.
Even though Neji-kun's small black sphere looked completely different from Izumi Uchiha's.
He immediately cast the shockwave dōjutsu, wanting to repel the black sphere along with Neji-kun.
But Neji-kun simultaneously cast the Tenseigan dōjutsu Imperial Wheel.
Repulsive force and shockwave met, falling into a brief deadlock.
And during this brief deadlock, the small black sphere in Neji-kun's hand abruptly changed shape, from spherical to rod-shaped, piercing Orochimaru's heart with precision.
At this moment, time seemed to stop. Orochimaru opened his mouth again to spit out blood and said to Neji-kun, "Neji Hyūga, nice dōjutsu."
"However, watch out!"
Neji-kun frowned. He didn't understand what Orochimaru meant. He could sense that after piercing Orochimaru's heart, his vitality was dissipating rapidly.
Neji-kun was hesitating whether to give Orochimaru another strike.
Just then, he heard Ishiro's voice: "Neji-kun, come back!"
For Ishiro's command, Neji-kun didn't hesitate at all. He immediately retreated quickly while recalling the Truth-Seeking Ball.
Neji-kun flew back to Ishiro's side backward, so he clearly saw that after he left, Orochimaru's body underwent tremendous changes.
First, a layer of black substance emerged from his head, spreading rapidly to his whole body, finally strangling him tightly like a net.
Neji-kun could sense that the black substance seemed to stabilize Orochimaru's vitality.
Only Orochimaru's life form was also changing at this time.
Neji-kun tried to fire a Vacuum Palm at Orochimaru in this state, but the moment the Vacuum Palm touched Orochimaru's body, it was immediately sucked away by a suction force.
After absorbing the chakra from Neji-kun's Vacuum Palm, a large amount of chakra surged rapidly from the ocean directly below Orochimaru, and this chakra was also absorbed by Orochimaru immediately.
Then Orochimaru's body changed rapidly again.
Orochimaru's appearance first changed directly into the likeness of Hiashi Hyūga, except at this time his whole body was wrapped in black stripes.
As more and more chakra surged from underground, the black stripes on Orochimaru's body became thicker and thicker, and soon the black stripes connected into a sheet.
Until finally, Orochimaru's whole body was covered by this blackness.
This wasn't over. Immediately after, the shape of Orochimaru's pitch-black body also began to change, soon turning into the shape of a woman wearing a loose robe.
Finally, the pitch-black color faded, and the woman's true appearance was presented before everyone's eyes.
Long white hair, white robe, white skin, even white eyes, with only a half-open red Rinne-Sharingan on her forehead.
This person was naturally Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
She completed the possession when Orochimaru was extremely weak and on the verge of death!
After a thousand years, the progenitor of chakra, known as the Rabbit Goddess, Kaguya, finally regained her freedom!