Obito's scalp prickled.
Behind him, thousands of flaming gun-bullets screamed through the air. If they hit, his body would be shredded. But if he used Kamui phasing and hid his body in the Kamui space, he'd be turned into paste by the hundreds of Naruto clones waiting inside.
Between two evils, Obito chose the lesser, face gone green as he sprinted for his life.
"Damn it—that's my Kamui space…"
Now he truly regretted it. If he hadn't dragged Naruto into the pocket dimension, that place would still be his trump card. As it was, it had become his grave.
Seeing the flaming rounds about to overtake him, Obito skidded to a halt, clenched his jaw, and slammed his left hand to the ground.
"Mokuton: Ibara no Hayashi (Wood Release: Forest of Thorns)!"
In an instant, several bark-bare trunks bristling with spikes erupted upward, spinning as they spread. Anyone standing atop them would have been skewered into a grisly string.
Bang-bang-bang…
The flaming bullets hammered into the wood. In a heartbeat the trunks were riddled with holes and burst into roaring fire. Many rounds simply punched straight through.
"Mokuton: Kongō Shōboku (Wood Release: Adamantine Summoning Wood)!"
Obito roared again. Square-section pillars thrust up to form a wall, once more interposing themselves before the incoming barrage.
But under that storm, they were still shredded and set ablaze in moments.
"tsk tsk…" Naruto couldn't help clicking his tongue. "Your Mokuton is weird. Where's the moisture?"
Plenty of folks in the shinobi world bore Mokuton cells—Danzo, Yamato—able to use wood techniques. Their wood had life in it. It was nowhere near Hashirama's, sure, but at least it didn't catch fire at a touch.
Obito's Mokuton, though, was an extreme case: hard and deadly to attack with, yet utterly dry. Touch it with a spark and it went up—perfect kindling.
Obito's face went iron-blue. He said nothing, just kept forcing out Mokuton, and the fires around him only grew.
Naruto offered a "helpful" reminder. "You're about to turn into a wooden doll, y'know."
Obito glanced down—and nearly choked.
The entire left side of his body had fiber-wooded into brown grain, a fresh green sapling nearly three meters tall sprouting from it. If he kept this up, he'd be taking root right here.
"Pain!!"
Obito bellowed.
Without access to safe phasing, his offensive power wasn't even half of Tendō's.
"I know," Tendō said coldly.
He clapped his hands together, chakra surging wildly through him as he slowly drew his palms apart. A black sphere drifted free and rose into the air.
He brought his hands together again and roared:
"Chibaku Tensei (Planetary Devastation)!!!"
The shattered ground, rubble, and ruins around them suddenly obeyed an unseen pull, floating skyward against gravity.
Naruto's steps paused. He glanced up to see the growing mass of debris swallowing the black core, its gravity swelling stronger and stronger.
"Chibaku Tensei, huh?"
A smile tugged at his mouth.
In the original tale, that move nearly sealed him twice. In legend, the Sage of Six Paths forged the moon with it—sealing the Ten-Tails and Ōtsutsuki Kaguya inside.
"You don't want Amegakure anymore?"
Naruto swept a look over the village. Under Chibaku Tensei, the whole place would be stripped upward. Not just Amegakure—the pirates under his banner would get hauled into a rock prison too.
"Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Technique)…"
Weaving seals mid-run, Naruto split off dozens of clones. "You guys—handle the thing up there!"
"Got it!"
The clones didn't fight the pull. They arrowed straight toward the black core.
"What!?"
Tendō's pupils tightened. "He… saw the weakness of Chibaku Tensei!?"
In its earliest moments, when it has attracted only a little rubble, Chibaku Tensei is at its weakest—the easiest time to crush it. Only after it swells with mass does it become truly formidable.
"Konan!!"
Tendō shouted.
High above, Konan beat wings of white paper, straining against the gravity while unleashing tens of thousands of tags.
Zzzzz—
The rain of tags flared.
"Don't throw that kind of thing out here to embarrass yourself!" one Naruto clone laughed, driving a blazing fist through the storm.
"Hiken (Fire Fist)!!"
A surging tide of flame devoured the tags. They burned so fast most didn't even detonate.
"Damn…" Konan bit her lip, glaring at the clone. "Flame… He hard-counters me…"
Her paper style was powerful and immune to most physical strikes—one of the stronger mid-tier arts. She'd once routed Sasori with its intangibility. But gain something, lose something: paper is thoroughly countered by flame. Against fire, her art was barely better than plain white sheets.
By now Tendō had swept into the sky above the clones, arms flung wide as he roared:
"Chō Shinra Tensei (Super Almighty Push)!!!"
It was his second Chō Shinra Tensei of the day. Pure repulsive force condensed into white radiance, a heavenly scourge pouring downward.
A Naruto clone couldn't resist quipping, "Two Chō Shinra Tensei plus one Chibaku Tensei—you trying to get your real body killed, Gedō?"
Tendō only roared on.
Meanwhile, deep beneath Amegakure, in a shadowed chamber—
A gaunt man bristling with black receivers arched in his chair. Nagato's eyes were shot with blood; a scarlet trickle ran from his nose as a fever-bright mania twisted his face…
(End of Chapter)
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