"Watch out!"
Kisame was the first to notice the hand. The ambushing limb didn't look particularly threatening, but it had been sent to this exact spot by a space-time jutsu as powerful as Yomotsu Hirasaka.
"!!!"
A flicker of surprise crossed Obito's eyes, but he quickly composed himself and calmly entered his intangible Kamui state, completely unconcerned by the hand's threat.
He even felt a twinge of regret. If he hadn't noticed it, the hand might have pierced his heart directly—erasing both Orochimaru's curse mark and Madara's seal.
It would have put him on the verge of death, but it might have given him the chance to become the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki...
Too bad... It really was a pity... He spotted the ambush ahead of time...
Crack!
A sharp pain suddenly shot through Obito's heart. He instinctively looked down and saw the hand had stabbed straight through his chest.
"How is this possible..." he thought, bewildered. "My body was clearly in the Kamui space..."
Obito couldn't understand it. Even though he was in his intangible state, which should have allowed him to avoid all attacks from the physical world, this hand had still struck him. This was completely outside of his expectations.
The sight shocked everyone present. Many knew how tricky Obito's Kamui was.
Aside from a counter from his other Mangekyo Sharingan, nothing had ever worked on him unless he grew arrogant or made a major mistake.
But now... Shirou's technique had broken through Kamui.
"Yomotsu Hirasaka is a top-tier space-time technique," Shirou's casual voice echoed from the dark portal. "I can modify its coordinates at any time to cancel a teleport, or I can open a gate directly inside your Kamui space."
"As long as I can pinpoint the coordinates of a space, Yomotsu Hirasaka can open a portal there. Now, the moment you use Kamui to hide, it's impossible to escape my pursuit..."
The next moment, Shirou instantly withdrew his hand.
A gaping hole was left in Obito's chest. His face went pale as he collapsed, but before he hit the ground, he frantically formed hand signs. A faint smile touched his lips as he murmured what seemed to be his final words.
"As expected... Shirou... you actually... gave me this chance..."
"You've got to be kidding me!" The expressions on many faces changed instantly.
Whether it was Madara, Orochimaru, or the members of the Allied Shinobi Forces watching from nearby, no one had predicted this sneak attack would have such a dramatic result.
Obito... was surely dead. After all, a person can't live without a heart.
No one had expected that Obito—the man who had constantly stood against Shirou and Madara, the one who had caused the Akatsuki so much trouble—would be killed so easily.
And yet... perhaps it was predictable.
Because the one who killed him was Shirou. For a man like Shirou, killing anyone—or rather, doing anything—shouldn't be a surprise. He had already killed the enemy's leader at the very start of this war.
"Lord Shirou's jutsu..." Madara's face showed a mix of awe and deep wariness. He could still feel the gap between himself and Shirou—a gap so vast that not even his Rinnegan could overcome it.
"As expected..." Black Zetsu wore a satisfied but eerie smile. "So, you've pushed Yomotsu Hirasaka this far already?"
Not good…
While the Akatsuki members were still reeling from Shirou's terrifying jutsu, Orochimaru saw Obito fall and felt a surge of panic. Ignoring Obito's corpse, he immediately turned and fled at top speed.
He knew that with Obito dead, he would be the Akatsuki's next target, and the reanimated ninja under his control would be useless against Shirou.
"Kabuto." Shirou didn't even need to use his senses to know Orochimaru was escaping.
He just tilted his head and gave an instruction to Kabuto, who stood beside him. "Retrieve Uchiha Itachi's body."
"Yes, Lord Shirou." Kabuto pursed his lips and slowly raised a finger. His lower body seemed to transform into a snake as he quickly chased after the fleeing Orochimaru.
With Orochimaru gone, the only ones left on the field were Kisame and Sasuke Uchiha. But no one thought those two could cause any more trouble. With Obito's apparent death, his side was completely defeated.
"Headquarters... Obito has lost..." Sai reported calmly from his ink bird, delivering news that left the Allied Shinobi Forces headquarters feeling helpless. "Orochimaru has escaped. Obito's side is powerless to resist. The Ten-Tails is going to end up in the Akatsuki's hands..."
This battle... it had happened so fast. And it had ended just as quickly.
The outcome the Allied Forces had hoped for was now completely out of reach. All they could do was watch as the situation took a sharp turn for the worse.
Next, they would have to face the most powerful evil organization and the strongest warriors in the world.
"Wait, that's not right," Sai suddenly said. "There's a change."
As he was reporting the defeat, he noticed something new and strange.
The Ten-Tails' body was starting to shrink rapidly. And at the core of its shrinking form was Obito—the man everyone had assumed was dead. He was still alive.
The speed at which the Ten-Tails shrank created a vortex, seemingly sucking everything nearby into its core.
"This is..." Black Zetsu's expression turned dark as he immediately explained what was happening.
He looked back at Shirou. "Obito should have died from your last attack, but once he becomes the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, all fatal injuries are healed. That guy had this as a backup plan all along..."
"..."
Shirou's expression didn't change at all. While everyone else watched Obito's transformation, he was more concerned about Kabuto chasing down Orochimaru.
As for what Black Zetsu said... it was true that Obito had planned this.
But he never got the chance to enact his plan himself. Shirou had already sensed the complex chakra inside Obito's body, so with one strike to the heart, he had essentially helped him out.
"The Ten-Tails Jinchuriki!" Madara's face was grim.
From what Black Zetsu and Shirou had told him, he already knew what this truly meant: Obito's chakra was about to undergo a fundamental transformation. That kind of power was called the Six Paths.
It was a level of strength that even Shirou himself might not be able to match.
"Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, huh?" But Shirou wasn't particularly nervous.
He drummed his fingers lightly on his chair's armrest, mentally gauging Obito's transformation time. He wasn't really worried about what form Obito would take afterward.
"Who knows..." he mused. "Maybe he'll even calm down a little..."
Shirou recalled Obito's former arrogance and recklessness—all of it stemming from a lack of true understanding of power.
Now, once Obito became the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, he might finally grasp what it really meant to stand at the pinnacle of the ninja world.
It meant that this once-arrogant Uchiha would finally be able to directly sense the gap between himself and Shirou.