Chapter 269: Curtain Call in the Rain
The white short blade tore through wind and rain, striking at the black-clad man before it.
A black rod, gleaming with a cold light, once again intercepted that fierce arc of white steel.
"Kakashi."
"You've gotten stronger."
"But not strong enough."
Obito regarded the white-haired man before him.
Black and white, they'd clashed dozens of times across this rain-drenched battlefield.
Obito's black-and-red-cloud cloak had by now been all but shredded by the fang short-sword, and yet he still hadn't taken a single wound.
Steel Release didn't just amplify his taijutsu significantly — it also provided formidable, near-impenetrable defense.
Swift Release elevated his speed to an entirely different tier.
Kamui offered a full five minutes of complete intangibility.
The Sharingan let him effortlessly track even Kakashi's blistering speed.
Storm Release filled in the one gap he otherwise lacked — a proper offensive edge.
The vast reserves of Hashirama cells within him didn't just grant him Wood Release — they also gave him the resources to spend chakra and eye techniques as freely and wastefully as he pleased.
Right now, Obito genuinely had the confidence to stand toe-to-toe with Pain himself, one on one.
Kakashi watched Obito grimly, tightening his grip on the fang short-sword.
He had to admit it — the current Obito was terrifyingly strong.
Kakashi had the raw power to break through Obito's Steel Release directly. But breaking through Kamui was another matter entirely.
And Steel Release combined with Kamui, weaving false and real together, kept him constantly guessing.
Which meant Kakashi had to hold something back on every single strike against Obito.
There was no way to tell, in the moment, whether Obito would meet an incoming attack head-on with Steel Release, or simply phase through it entirely with Kamui.
And beyond that—
Kakashi's gaze swept, subtly, across the wreckage-strewn ground around them, crimson arcs of lightning still crackling faintly across the surface.
Storm Release's raw destructive power was genuinely terrifying.
Lightning Release, savage and violent as a chakra nature on its own, became almost docile as a housecat once fused with Water Release into Storm Release.
Storm Release didn't just amplify Lightning Release's raw power — it also inherited Water Release's easy controllability.
An enemy like this...
Kakashi lowered his gaze slightly, and for a moment, a pink-haired silhouette seemed to flicker before his eyes.
Maybe only Sakura could actually stand up to Obito's relentless assault, force him to burn through that five-minute Kamui window, and then just cave his steel body in with a single punch afterward.
"Kakashi. Have you still not accepted your own weakness?"
"Without the Sharingan, there's no possible way you can be my equal."
Beneath the driving rain, Obito's expression stayed grave, watching Kakashi.
He had to admit — Kakashi, even without a Sharingan, was formidable.
Had this been the man Obito was before completing the Ghost Sprout Technique, he'd only have had Kamui itself to dodge the sheer variety of Kakashi's combined ninjutsu, taijutsu, and swordsmanship attacks.
But the instant Kamui's window ended, dealing with the Kakashi standing before him now would be genuinely difficult.
If only...
But there was no "if only."
Kakashi, in the end, was exactly what he'd been over a decade ago. Useless. Nothing more.
"You're wrong."
"Weakness has never been another word for running away."
Kakashi lifted his head, his gaze fixed steadily on Obito.
"The Sharingan is the mirror of the soul."
"The moment the Mangekyō awakens, the power it manifests reflects the state of its bearer's heart."
Kakashi's black eyes carried a light that Obito found himself unable to meet directly.
"A man who's cowardly, who runs from everything, who can't face the truth."
"What right do you have to spout nonsense like this?"
"Your own Kamui is the clearest proof of exactly that."
As Kakashi finished, the wind and lightning swirling beneath him surged more violently still.
Hearing this, Obito's face darkened into something genuinely terrifying.
How dare he...
How DARE he say something like that!
This man...
"Seems it's necessary to cut you down here, then."
Obito raised a hand, crimson lightning gathering in his palm, clearly resolved now to settle this once and for all, life or death.
"Is that so..."
Kakashi showed not the slightest fear at Obito's words.
Since he couldn't match Obito in raw strength head-on, he'd simply have to use everything he'd already learned about Obito's abilities to land a decisive, tactical kill instead.
And that, conveniently, was exactly where Kakashi's own strengths lay.
No matter who he faced, Kakashi could always find some way to fight back.
At that moment, a white paper crane landed on Obito's shoulder.
His brow furrowed slightly at that.
Konan?
What does she want now?
Ignoring Kakashi, still watching him warily, Obito took the paper crane from his shoulder and unfolded it.
But its contents made his expression shift — and a cold, mocking smile crossed his face as he turned back to Kakashi.
"Kakashi. Consider yourself lucky."
"Your target was Jiraiya, wasn't it."
"Unfortunately for you — just like Minato Namikaze — you were always one step too slow."
Obito's words sent a jolt of unease straight through Kakashi.
No way...
"What do you mean by that?!"
Kakashi demanded urgently.
"What do I mean?"
"Heh heh heh. Go see for yourself."
Obito gave a cold laugh, then dissolved into a warping vortex, vanishing into the sheet of rain.
Watching the now-empty battlefield, Kakashi's sense of dread only deepened.
Just as he prepared to go find Mei and the others, a figure came drifting toward him through the rain-soaked air...
A figure wrapped entirely in countless sheets of white paper, carried aloft by hundreds of paper cranes...
No — that wasn't a figure at all...
That was—
A corpse!
Kakashi's chest tightened, his eyes widening in disbelief at the sight of that body, borne on a sea of paper cranes...
The cranes gently laid the corpse down before him.
"This is Jiraiya-sensei's body."
The countless paper fragments covering the corpse gathered together, forming the shape of a woman with blue-violet hair, a paper flower tucked into it.
And at the same moment, the paper scattered away from the body on the ground, revealing Jiraiya's face beneath it...
Kakashi stared, transfixed, at the man lying before him.
Lord Jiraiya... he...
...is dead.
"...You're Jiraiya-sensei's student."
Kakashi lifted his head, fixing his gaze on Konan's paper clone before him, a cold, icy light in his eyes.
"We gave sensei three separate chances to leave. He refused, even at the cost of his own life."
Konan's voice stayed calm, carrying a faint, barely perceptible tremor beneath it — a tremor instantly swallowed and erased by the driving rain.
"So... you killed your own teacher!"
Kakashi's words seemed to strike something in her.
"Get your facts straight first."
"Jiraiya-sensei disregarded the state of relations between Konoha and Amegakure to come here and pry. And you, all of you—"
"Not killing every one of you here already counts as mercy on our part!"
"Right now, the only value the rest of you hold for us is collecting Jiraiya-sensei's body."
Konan's expression was cold and furious, fixed on Kakashi.
Kakashi's grip tightened around his blade.
He had nothing to say to that.
Because what she'd said was true.
Even Konoha, faced with unauthorized infiltration by unidentified persons, would default to lethal force first, without hesitation.
Konan turned and left, leaving Kakashi alone with Jiraiya's body, grief and anguish written across his face.
Lord Jiraiya...
Why did it have to come to this.
(End of chapter)
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