His silhouette blurred within the warped space as he abandoned physical movement entirely and activated Kamui (Divine Authority).
His plan was simple—
End that command-giving boy in the shortest time possible.
Obito's instinct for danger was sharp.
Even with several legendary figures present here, the one who felt most dangerous to him…
Was that youth.
But to his surprise, someone moved even faster than him.
Tobirama had already predicted his route of advance.
Hiraishin no Jutsu (Flying Thunder God Technique) activated—
In an instant, Tobirama appeared directly in Obito's path.
In his hand, he gripped a specially crafted kunai.
The handle was engraved all over with the formulas of the Flying Thunder God, and along the blade's edge, high-frequency Raiton (Lightning Release) chakra crackled as he drove it straight toward Obito's mask.
Obito's hazy form didn't slow in the slightest.
He phased straight through Tobirama's body.
Tobirama's strike hit nothing but air, leaving no wound behind.
"His intangibility can last up to five minutes. When attacking or absorbing something, his body must become solid."
Shinju's voice came crisply through the miniature communication device into Tobirama's ear.
All the intel they had on Obito was transmitted to the Second Hokage without the slightest reservation.
Receiving that crucial information, Tobirama's eyes grew even colder.
His wrist flicked.
Three identical Flying Thunder God kunai shot out in a triangular pattern, embedding themselves in the airspace to Obito's left, right, and above along his flight path.
Obito continued his charge, ignoring the three kunai that boxed in the space around him.
Either he truly didn't care about them—
Or he believed a few kunai couldn't affect him at all.
He phased through the kunai's afterimages without any change.
His speed remained undiminished as he brushed past Tobirama, his target locked on Shinju from beginning to end.
Tobirama didn't look back.
He merely stood where he was, silently, using his powerful sensory abilities to analyze the strange flow of chakra within Obito's body.
On the other side of the lake, the battle was just as intense.
Facing Sakumo, Kisame felt a level of pressure he'd never experienced before.
He had always been confident in his own strength, his chakra reserves so enormous that he'd earned the title of "tailless Tailed Beast."
And yet, in front of this legend from the previous era…
He still found himself suppressed.
He swung the great blade Samehada again and again, trying to rely on the sword's nature and his overwhelming chakra to crush his opponent.
Every time Samehada clashed with that short blade in Sakumo's hand, it managed to devour some of Sakumo's chakra.
But their affinity was horribly mismatched.
Sakumo's fighting style completely countered him.
The White Fang's short blade had no fancy movements.
Every attack was pared down to the absolute minimum—
Simple, direct, and lethal.
Kisame was forced to constantly adjust his stance and redirect the flow of his chakra just to fend off Sakumo's attacks that slipped in from every angle.
The longer the fight dragged on, the more shocked he became.
So this was the power of the legendary shinobi of the previous generation?
Even so, Kisame didn't dare relax.
He racked his brain for ways to break the stalemate.
He tried to launch a large-scale Suiton (Water Release) jutsu to pull away and open up distance.
But his opponent's speed was nothing short of terrifying—
Sakumo never gave him even a heartbeat's worth of time to form hand seals.
The White Fang's offense flowed like quicksilver—
Wave after wave, endlessly pouring in.
Kisame could only retreat, defend, and endure.
Even if he had complaints, he could only grit his teeth and keep holding on.
High above the battlefield, Obito had already rushed right up to Shinju.
He prepared to release his intangibility, grab Shinju's shoulder with his right hand, and drag him into Kamui's otherworldly space in an instant.
Tobirama's figure appeared in front of him once more, blocking his path.
Obito tried the same trick again, ready to phase right through him.
This time, Tobirama didn't use a weapon.
His hands flashed through a rapid string of seals in front of his chest.
Suiton: Suidanpa (Water Release: Water Severing Wave).
But the water stream wasn't aimed at Obito.
The point of impact—
Was the surging water wall beneath his feet.
The strike blasted up a violent wave directly along Obito's trajectory.
His body phased through the obstacle, his intangibility allowing him to ignore physical interference.
But his rhythm was thrown off.
His speed dropped—
By exactly one hundredth of a second.
For someone fighting in the realm of space-time, a 0.01-second discrepancy was not an error you could ignore.
It was enough to decide the outcome of a battle.
Tobirama didn't use the Flying Thunder God this time.
He relied purely on his physical prowess to close in on Obito at blinding speed.
Obito poured more power into his right eye, forcibly maintaining his intangible state.
Against this legendary shinobi, he didn't dare show the slightest carelessness.
He had to fight at full strength.
If he'd known in advance that his opponent would be the Second Hokage, he would have made far more thorough preparations for this operation.
Tobirama's hand chopped down in a knife strike—
His palm passed cleanly through Obito's torso with no resistance at all.
Behind his mask, Obito let out a silent, mocking laugh.
The Second Hokage was indeed powerful,
But he clearly didn't understand the true nature of Obito's ability.
Just as Obito was about to counterattack, he noticed that Tobirama's cold face showed no hint of surprise at the failed strike.
"An interesting eye jutsu," Tobirama said calmly, his voice utterly devoid of warmth.
"You transfer your body into another space to avoid damage."
"And in the instant you wish to attack, your body must return to this space."
"Between intangibility and tangibility, there exists a tiny gap."
"For me, that gap… is more than enough."
Alarm bells screamed inside Obito's head.
After only a few brief exchanges, the man had almost completely grasped how Kamui, his prized space-time dojutsu, actually worked.
He immediately abandoned his plan to attack Shinju.
The Second Hokage standing before him—
This was the enemy that had to be neutralized first.
His body twisted midair, the intangible silhouette reversing direction and surging straight toward Tobirama.
This time, he would use Kamui's absorption ability.
At point-blank range, he would erase this troublesome opponent from existence.
Watching Obito charge straight at him, Tobirama didn't retreat.
Instead, he stepped forward to meet him.
The kunai wreathed in Raiton (Lightning Release) chakra appeared in his hand once more, thrusting out with pinpoint precision—
His target was the only opening in Obito's mask.
Obito was still intangible.
That strike shouldn't possibly hit him.
He ignored Tobirama's attack, ready to activate Kamui the moment their bodies made contact and drag him into the void.
Just as the kunai was about to pass through the mask's eyehole—
Tobirama's wrist suddenly twisted.
The kunai's trajectory shifted.
The straight thrust turned into a horizontal slash, and the target moved from Obito's eye… to the back of his neck.
It was a trap.
Obito understood instantly.
The attack was a feint.
Its purpose was to force him to react—
To expose the exact instant he became solid.
But he didn't take the bait.
His body remained intangible, his right hand already spread wide, reaching for Tobirama's arm.
He had even prepared the hidden chains tucked inside his sleeve, ensuring that once he got a grip, the Second Hokage would have no chance to escape.
His fingers were about to close around Tobirama's forearm.
His body began shifting from intangible to solid.
And in that exact moment—
Tobirama vanished.
Obito's hand grabbed nothing but empty air.
Hiraishin no Jutsu (Flying Thunder God Technique).
Obito's wariness spiked to the maximum.
He knew Tobirama would reappear near one of the kunai he'd thrown earlier.
His gaze snapped around the battlefield, sweeping every corner as he braced himself for an attack from any direction.
But he still didn't see Tobirama.
A suffocating sense of danger surged up from behind him.
Tobirama had already activated Hiraishin: Ni no Dan (Flying Thunder God: Second Step).
Using one of the marked kunai on the battlefield as a relay point, he executed a second consecutive space-time jump.
Very few people in history had ever been able to defend against this move—
And right now, it spelled mortal danger for Obito.
The final landing point of this jump was the absolute blind spot of Obito's defense—
A location Tobirama had calculated precisely through observation in their earlier exchanges, timed to coincide with Obito's moment of materialization.
At the back of Obito's neck, Tobirama's silhouette appeared out of thin air.
His right hand was pressed together like a blade, sheathed in highly compressed Suiton (Water Release) chakra that glowed with a ghostly blue light.
Obito's Mangekyo Sharingan had already sensed the chakra flaring behind him.
His body had only just completed its shift from intangible to solid.
His movements couldn't keep up with his mind.
He no longer had time to form any meaningful defense or attempt to evade.
The instant he became solid…
Was the moment his defenses were at their weakest.
Tobirama's hand strike chopped cleanly across the back of Obito's neck.
Thud.
A dull, heavy impact.
Obito's consciousness was cut off in an instant.
In his eyes, beneath the mask, disbelief froze in place.
The Kamui he had taken such pride in—
The space-time dojutsu he believed to be unmatched—
Had been read and dismantled this easily
By a "dead man" from the previous era.
His body dropped bonelessly from the sky, crashing into the lake below and throwing up massive waves.
(End of Chapter)
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