"You…!"
Obito stared at Shigure, eyes wide, utterly unable to comprehend what had just happened.
Genjutsu?
Impossible.
He was an Uchiha—genjutsu was their domain. There was no way Shigure could overwhelm his illusion. If anything, Obito should have been the one trapping Shigure in a genjutsu, not the other way around.
Yet the pain was real. Excruciatingly real.
His face drained of color.
If not for the Hashirama-cells reinforcing his body, losing a chunk of his abdomen—a gaping blood-soaked hole—should have killed him instantly.
He was alive only because his body refused to die.
"Shigure, what did you do to him?"
Even Terumi couldn't believe what she was seeing. One moment Obito was fine; the next, a massive hole tore open in his torso.
No sign of ninjutsu. No seals. No movement.
Nothing made sense.
Shigure hadn't touched him.
Shigure lifted a hand, brushing his fingers lightly against his own eye.
Erasing the enemy… was it still beyond him?
Erasing Yahiko's Edo Tensei vessel with Kotoamatsukami had only worked because Yahiko's body was nothing more than reanimated earth. A living target was a different matter entirely.
He could feel it—his Six Paths chakra had fallen by nearly a thousand points. His knees wavered.
Obito, gritting his teeth through agony, tried activating Kamui to escape.
But the familiar pull of space-time never came.
Something—some unseen pressure—was suppressing his Mangekyō ability.
Damn it! Why? Why can't I activate Kamui?
Obito's gaze trembled as he looked at Shigure, horror creeping across his face.
This man—this impossible man—was suppressing his ocular powers without even moving.
"Zetsu…" Obito whispered urgently. "Get me out of here."
Black Zetsu blinked in confusion. "What are you talking about? Just use Kamui."
Obito laughed weakly, despairing. "If I could activate it, why do you think I haven't already!?"
Black Zetsu froze. Even he felt a rare flash of disbelief.
Obito… couldn't use his Mangekyō?
First the massive wound, then suppression of his pupil technique—
Just what was Shigure?
He hadn't even done anything. No hand seals. No chakra flow. Just… reality bending around him.
For the first time, even Black Zetsu felt fear—an instinctive, primal kind.
Shigure stepped forward, the space around them warping as if reality itself bowed under pressure.
The expanding field of distortion swept across the ground, swallowing earth, stone—everything.
In an instant, he appeared before Obito.
One hand wrapped around Obito's throat.
Obito desperately stabbed with a kunai, but Shigure stopped his wrist with a gentle tap, as though halting a child.
"Without your pupil technique, you're far too weak to stand before me."
It was the simple truth. Without Kamui, Obito's fighting ability plummeted.
Black substance surged from Shigure's palm.
Obito's eyes widened with reluctant horror—he couldn't stop it.
Black Zetsu stared, paralyzed.
Should he intervene?
If Shigure noticed him, he could very well be erased next.
And Obito could no longer escape via Kamui.
Survival came first.
Obito's life—or death—was secondary.
Only if Zetsu lived could he resurrect his mother.
A heartbeat later—
Shigure ripped the Two-Tails from Obito's body.
The bijū tore free, its chakra screaming as it was forcibly extracted.
The black substance coiled around the Two-Tails, swallowing its chakra like a nest of ravenous serpents. In the blink of an eye, the bijū was consumed.
Even Terumi and the others froze in shock.
Just what kind of power does Shigure possess?
[Great Sage: Congratulations to the host for devouring the Two-Tails. It has been added to the Gluttony Food Chain.]
[Skill: Gluttony — fully repaired.]
Shigure's eyes snapped open.
Black matter surged across his body, and the ambient natural energy was sucked toward him like a collapsing vortex.
Terumi could only stare.
It felt as though anything—chakra, nature energy, even space—could be swallowed whole by the completed Gluttony.
With the Two-Tails fully absorbed, Shigure felt his Six Paths power surge.
Not only restored—perfected.
Even the consumption he expended earlier was replenished.
The growth wasn't as dramatic as when he devoured the Nine-Tails, but the result was undeniable:
His Six Paths foundation was now complete.
The power of all nine tailed beasts was now his.
Even Kotoamatsukami, and the newly-developed abilities born from the Ope Ope no Mi, trembled with increased potency.
A violent chakra storm exploded outward.
[Great Sage: Skill "Gluttony" is attempting to initiate a full fusion. Metamorphosis is preparing to integrate the complete tailed-beast chakra. Approve fusion?]
Shigure blinked.
Fusion?
Drawing on the Great Sage, Degeneration, and Gluttony simultaneously…
Fusion of all the tailed beasts?
Of course he wanted to see what would emerge.
The Ten-Tails—no, something beyond it.
He approved.
In an instant, the lingering spiritual fragments of the One-Tail and Two-Tails were expelled from his body—no longer needed now that their chakra had been fully devoured.
The Great Sage's analysis simulated their complete forms, rendering their will and consciousness unnecessary.
Gluttony activated.
The chakra of all Nine Tailed Beasts began merging.
Three supreme abilities—Great Sage, Gluttony, and Metamorphosis—all triggered at once.
Outside, massive swells of tailed-beast chakra spilled from Shigure's body.
To Terumi and the others, it looked like a Jinchūriki in the throes of a catastrophic rampage. The pressure alone made their hearts thunder in their chests.
"It's going to collapse!" Hiroshi Akayama shouted.
Terumi immediately ordered everyone to retreat. She cast one last glance at Shigure.
"Hold on… just don't die on us."
Obito lay unconscious. Black Zetsu—already fleeing—dragged him away.
"Count yourself lucky," Zetsu hissed as he escaped. "If that kid weren't transforming, we'd have died here."
Konan was carried off by Terumi's group as the underground cavern groaned and buckled.
The entire chamber collapsed—
And at its center, Shigure stood engulfed in dense, black-red tailed-beast chakra, forming a massive cocoon around him.
No one could see what he was becoming inside.