Shhhk!!
A single slash shattered Susanoo's head into countless cracks. With a swift reverse grip, Kaede unleashed another slash, a brilliant arc of light aiming to tear Susanoo apart completely.
"Even outside that temporal barrier... is the combination of taijutsu and chakra strong enough to damage a full-body Susanoo?"
Obito could feel it, Kaede had become significantly stronger than a year ago. He himself had made great strides in power over the past year, but so had Kaede!
He didn't hesitate.
The pattern of his Mangekyo Sharingan spun violently.
"Kamui!"
As his eye power surged, a vortex of warped space instantly formed in front of him, devouring the slash that was about to cleave through Susanoo.
Obito managed to block the second blow, but beneath the mask, his face had gone noticeably pale.
His heart sank.
Both his chakra and ocular power were starting to run low.
Compared to Uchiha Madara at his peak, Obito still fell short, his earlier inability to simultaneously control the Nine-Tails and maintain full-body Susanoo had already made that clear.
Kaede wasn't someone like Sarutobi Hiruzen or Jiraiya, who could be dealt with easily. His strength far surpassed them, and in a battle of this intensity, Obito couldn't hold out for long.
He couldn't drag this out.
This needed to end, fast!
Obito stopped using Kamui defensively.
And under Kaede's relentless slashes, the fully-formed Susanoo's head quickly reached its breaking point. With a thunderous blast, it shattered completely, exposing Obito's true body.
A streak of silver-white sword light sliced through Obito's torso, but passed harmlessly through him. Thanks to his phasing ability, he remained unscathed, still as overpowered as ever.
"Regular attacks don't seem to work on you…"
"Well then…"
"Let's see how you handle this!"
Obito's eyes gleamed coldly.
With a low shout, he unleashed a tremendous surge of Mangekyo power.
The strain caused his face to grow even paler under the mask, and even the broken remnants of his Susanoo began to show signs of collapse.
But,
He held on.
Vmmm!!
The damaged Susanoo's two massive hands grabbed hold of its broken, glowing-blue blade. At the fracture point, a creeping darkness began to spread.
In an instant, that black energy enveloped the severed half of the sword.
This darkness wasn't pure energy or matter, it was a manifestation of his Kamui power infused into the blade, transforming it into a spatial attack.
"Kamui!"
Obito let out a shout.
The sword, now charged with the power of Kamui, came crashing down.
He knew Kaede was fast enough to dodge it, so he deliberately aimed not only at Kaede, but also at the Konoha below!
This,
It was a forced dilemma.
If Kaede tried to block it, then no matter how much his barrier granted him Izanagi-like resistance, this attack could still break through!
Because this was a slash of space itself!
It could twist and distort everything it touched. Within its wide area of effect, it could force Kaede into Kamui's chaotic pocket dimension!
Even if Kaede could survive the spatial distortion, he wouldn't be able to return. Izanagi doesn't work across dimensions.
Being trapped there,
It was as good as death!
"A spatial slash, huh? Interesting…"
As the attack descended, a glimmer of light flashed in Kaede's eyes.
His Time Domain didn't follow him, it remained fixed in place after activation. While he could shift its area of effect, only one could exist at a time, creating a new one would erase the old.
He'd already tested this during earlier clashes with Obito: his Time Domain couldn't penetrate Kamui's alternate space. It had no effect inside that dimension.
Which meant,
If he made direct contact with the Kamui, who knew what would happen? Maybe the temporal power would be reversed into the alternate space, or maybe he'd be dragged there himself.
Even knowing that,
Kaede showed no trace of fear.
Because,
He had a technique like that too!
He sheathed his Kusanagi Sword, calmly watching the Kamui fall. Bringing both hands together in front of him, he slowly pulled them apart.
Time energy began to condense in the space between his palms, shimmering in a seven-colored glow. If you looked closely, it was as though countless afterimages layered within it, like a kaleidoscope.
This time energy converged,
And gradually formed into a radiant, gleaming sword.
It couldn't rightly be called a "Sword of Time," because it didn't represent time in its entirety, only a part of it. It was a blade formed solely from reverse-flowing time.
It was, -
The Sword of Reversal!
"What is that...?"
Obito's eyes narrowed.
He couldn't sense the energy in Kaede's hand, as if it didn't exist. But through the Mangekyo Sharingan, he could see more.
If Kamui contained twisted, chaotic space…
Then the radiant sword in Kaede's hand mirrored an infinite number of stacked realities, like facing mirrors that reflected endlessly back.
It was as though endless worlds were layered within it!
In the next instant, Kaede gripped the Sword of Reversal and swung it upward to meet the descending Kamui.
VMMMM!!
The massive broken blade, infused with Kamui's black energy, collided with Kaede's slender time-forged blade, and in that moment, time itself seemed to stop.
Kamui.
Reversal Slash.
It was a clash between space and time.
Kaede didn't know which had the higher priority, space or time, but in that instant of collision, he understood:
The Sword of Reversal took precedence.
Silently, without a sound...
Above Kaede's head, the black vortex of twisted space bloomed open,
But below it, where the Sword of Reversal struck, the distortion rippled like water, erasing the vortex and restoring the space to normal.
And then,
Everything vanished.
Obito's Kamui, along with the severed blade of Susanoo, disappeared entirely, leaving only Susanoo's broken arm to crash silently to the ground.
"My Kamui…"
Obito stared in disbelief.
What had that been? Izanagi? A technique that disrupted time itself? He wasn't sure, but he suspected it was the latter.
Tampering with time inside the barrier...
He'd considered the possibility.
But now that it was confirmed, the oppressive weight in his chest grew heavy.
Because this meant, he couldn't win.
At least, not with the power he currently possessed.
"Obito, we need to retreat. The Nine-Tails has been sealed into Minato's body. If you keep fighting now, you have no chance of victory."
White Zetsu's head emerged from Obito's shoulder, whispering urgently, "Who would've thought absorbing Ryūmyaku from Roran would give him this kind of power? Let's get out of here."
Obito felt a chill.
As if cold rain was falling on him, soaking through his skin and dripping into his heart.
He'd thought with the power granted to him by Madara, he could capture the Nine Tailed Beasts with ease. But once again, he was stopped by Kaede!
Kaede's strength,
Still towered above his own.
Obito clenched his teeth, eyes burning with unwillingness. Controlling the damaged Susanoo, he lifted its foot and stomped toward Konoha.
Kaede landed silently on the ground. With a blank expression, he clenched his right fist and punched up toward Susanoo's foot, his left fist following toward Obito.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!
In the blink of an eye, he unleashed countless punches. Each blow sent visible shockwaves rippling through the air, hammering down on the fractured Susanoo.
Under this relentless barrage, Susanoo's full-body form began to collapse, shattering from the foot upward, all the way to the torso, enveloping Obito in the devastation.
Watching the mighty Susanoo crumble under Kaede's overwhelming might, feeling the raw force in every blow up close,
The nearby Konoha shinobi were frozen in place.
Some of them,
Even collapsed to the ground in shock.
Compared to before, this scene was even more explosive, and even more terrifying!
"I can't use Kamui to escape… He knows my abilities inside and out..."
Obito remained phased, shielded from the physical damage, but as he sensed his chakra and ocular power nearly depleted, he grit his teeth and finally gave up the fight.
He turned to flee.
But Kaede had no intention of letting him go.
"You think escaping will be that easy?"
After shattering the full-body Susanoo completely, he stepped forward and gave chase, keeping Obito under constant attack and never giving him the chance to activate Kamui for dimensional travel.
The two vanished into the distance, one fleeing, the other pursuing.
The echoing sounds of their battle
Grew fainter and fainter.
Only now did the stunned Konoha shinobi finally begin to recover their senses.
But as they looked at the ruined landscape around them, split earth, flattened mountain peaks, they still seemed dazed.
All they could feel was confusion.
Only the distant sounds of battle proved to them that this wasn't some dream, this was real.
==========
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