Four figures stood silently above the lake, and with their appearance, the atmosphere of this sealed space changed completely.
Kisame tilted his head back, staring up at them, every muscle in his face tense. His gaze swept over the four one by one, before finally locking onto two of them and never moving away.
A white-haired man, with red markings on his cheeks and clad in old-era blue armor.
That face was etched into every Mist academy textbook—
The Second Hokage of the Leaf, Senju Tobirama.
The other was also white-haired, a short blade hanging at his waist. From the hilt, naked to the eye, white chakra coiled and flowed.
That was the man known as the White Fang of the Leaf, Hatake Sakumo—
A name that had once filled the entire shinobi world with fear.
"Second Hokage Tobirama? And the White Fang, Sakumo?"
Kisame's voice was dry and hoarse. He simply couldn't accept what he was seeing.
"This is impossible… Is this Edo Tensei… Impure World Reincarnation?"
That was the only explanation his mind could come up with.
Only the legendary forbidden jutsu could drag the dead back from the Pure Land.
But even with Edo Tensei, to summon and control two legendary, kage-class powerhouses at once…
What kind of monster would the caster have to be?
Obito's body went completely rigid.
His line of sight ignored the two people Kisame was fixated on and instead slid past them—
To the Uchiha standing at the eastern water wall.
Uchiha Shisui.
That name was not unfamiliar to him. In fact, he knew it all too well.
He knew Shisui existed. He knew Shisui was still alive.
What truly made his skin crawl…
Was the two men standing beside Shisui.
Tobirama.
The mortal enemy of the Uchiha clan, the man who developed countless forbidden jutsu, the one who personally killed Uchiha Izuna.
Sakumo.
The Leaf hero who had sent countless shinobi to their graves during the war.
Two legends who should long ago have rotted in their graves…
Now stood here, alive, right before his eyes.
Under the mask, Obito's Sharingan spun rapidly as he studied them closely.
This wasn't Edo Tensei.
Edo Tensei bodies would always carry the stench of death and dust.
Their skin turned an unnatural gray-white, with cracks appearing across it.
Even their eyes became a cloudy, dirty gray-black.
But the Tobirama, Sakumo, and even Shisui before him…
The chakra flowing through their bodies radiated pure, unmistakable vitality.
Color flushed their skin. Their breathing was steady. Their eyes were clear and sharp.
They were alive.
Living, breathing humans.
This realization exploded in his mind like a thunderbolt he simply couldn't comprehend.
The dead could not be brought back.
That belief was the foundation stone of his entire plan, the root of his despair toward this false world.
Because Rin was dead, he had to create a world where Rin existed.
Yet now, three "dead men" stood alive in front of him, completely overturning every law he believed governed reality.
He had always thought of himself as the one moving the pieces on the board—
The will hidden in the shadows of history, guiding the world toward its end.
The Nine-Tails' rampage.
The Uchiha massacre.
Akatsuki's movements.
Everything had followed his script.
But now, on the board he'd laid out, pieces that belonged to no known side had appeared—
Pieces powerful enough to flip the entire board over.
What was this?
What the hell was going on?
"Members of Akatsuki,"
Atop the water wall, the young man standing in the front finally spoke.
His voice, transmitted clearly through chakra, reached the ears of the two men below.
His tone was calm, utterly devoid of emotion.
"It seems you're very persistent about collecting the Tailed Beasts."
"Unfortunately for you… so am I."
The moment his words fell, the three legends behind him moved in unison, answering not with speech but with action.
Tobirama stood atop the roaring water wall, bringing his hands together in front of his chest.
Then he slammed his palms down.
All along the inner surface of the colossal water prison, the drifting blue seals suddenly flared with blinding light.
Dozens of gigantic water dragons, each composed of hyper-compressed torrents, peeled themselves out of the wall.
They roared silently, bodies coiling and writhing, every scale carved with the same sealing formulas that covered the wall.
Those water dragons crashed toward the imprisoned Isobu at the center of the lake with terrifying speed, twining around the Three-Tails layer by layer, binding it tight.
The rampaging power of the Tailed Beast was drastically weakened before these sealing techniques tailored specifically to restrain bijuu.
Dragged down and wrapped in chains of water, the massive body of the Three-Tails could no longer move freely.
On the western side, Sakumo's right hand closed around the hilt at his waist.
He slowly drew the short blade named White Fang halfway from its sheath.
A pure white radiance burst from the narrow gap of the scabbard and shot straight toward the sky.
That was not some flashy chakra effect from ninjutsu—
It was the manifestation of chakra refined to the absolute limit, fused with the blade's killing intent.
The white light was unimaginably sharp.
Wherever it passed, the mist inside the water prison was neatly bisected, leaving behind a vacuum path that refused to close.
Down below, Kisame felt a stinging pain prickling across his skin.
His body reacted instinctively, screaming danger at him.
On the eastern side, Shisui's Mangekyo Sharingan—its tomoe forming a four-pointed windmill—was locked directly onto Obito.
An invisible mental pressure crossed the hundreds of meters between them in an instant and descended straight into Obito's consciousness.
Obito felt his thoughts starting to drag, as though thick mud were clogging his mind.
The world in front of his eyes warped ever so slightly.
He recognized it immediately.
This was the omen of Uchiha's strongest genjutsu—
Kotoamatsukami (Distinguished Heavenly Gods).
He still hadn't finished working out a countermeasure…
And yet, the other party's ocular power was so overwhelming that even without direct eye contact, it was already affecting him.
With just a simple opening move, the three legends completely seized control of the battlefield.
Even with his space-time ninjutsu, Obito wasn't sure he could withstand them.
At this rate, they'd soon see through every trick he had.
The Three-Tails was thoroughly suppressed.
Kisame was locked in place by Sakumo's killing intent.
And Obito himself had to split his focus just to resist Shisui's eyes.
Cold sweat seeped down Obito's forehead beneath the mask.
All his carefully laid plans, every contingency, every hidden card—
Under this kind of unreasonable, absolute power, they all looked like a bad joke.
He'd always treated others as expendable pieces, moving them as he pleased.
Now, he had become nothing more than a piece on someone else's board, given no room to struggle or resist.
So this is what it feels like when the tables turn…
And this time, it was his turn to be crushed.
If things continued like this, there was only one outcome waiting for him—
Death.
Conventional combat no longer meant anything here.
Kisame might be able to tangle with Sakumo for a while.
But Obito himself would have to face Tobirama and Shisui at the same time.
He had no chance of victory.
He had to shatter this situation.
The only breakthrough…
Was that seemingly youngest figure standing right at the very front—
Their leader.
If he could take that one out, this bizarre combination might collapse on its own.
That thought flashed through Obito's mind, and he didn't hesitate.
"Kisame, stall them!"
Obito's voice suddenly sharpened as he barked out the order to his companion.
"I'll take care of their leader!"
The space around his right eye began collapsing inward violently, forming a spiraling vortex.
His body turned insubstantial as space twisted around him.
In the next instant, ignoring physical distance entirely, he became an untraceable blur—
And shot straight toward the top of the water wall.
Straight toward Shinju.
(End of Chapter)
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