"How... is this possible?!"
Not only Orochimaru, but even Jiraiya, Yamato, and the others outside the barrier, who had just experienced violent emotional fluctuations, also had their pupils suddenly contract the moment they clearly saw the suddenly appearing visitors!
The Four Violet Flames Formation… this was a barrier technique capable of trapping even the Third Hokage!
Its sturdiness was such that even a village's Kage would find it difficult to break through from the outside in a short time.
Yet these two...
How did they get in?!
Even the four Otogakure's Ninja maintaining the barrier hadn't noticed in the slightest!
"Sakon! Tayuya! What's going on?!" Orochimaru shouted sharply.
At the four corners of the barrier, the Otogakure's Ninja quartet responsible for maintaining the formation also had faces full of horror and confusion.
"O-Orochimaru-sama! We... we don't know!" Sakon's voice came through the barrier, carrying obvious trembling.
"The barrier hasn't been attacked at all! Chakra operation is completely normal! They... they just appeared out of nowhere!"
"I can't sense them! I can't sense their Chakra Fluctuations at all!" Tayuya shrieked, cold sweat appearing on her forehead.
"It's as if... they don't exist at all!"
'Non-existent Chakra?'
Orochimaru's golden pupils narrowed slightly, his gaze firmly locking onto the two figures in the air.
'No, not non-existent.'
'Rather, the nature of their Chakra was completely different from any known Chakra in the Ninja World!'
'A higher-level Chakra that conventional sensory Ninjutsu could not effectively capture.'
"Th-This is..." Hiruzen used the last of his strength to lift his head, his clouded old eyes looking at the two white figures in the air.
When he clearly saw Urashiki's white clothing and red light fishing rod, as well as those pure white eyes, an expression of realization appeared on his blood-stained face.
He remembered…
After Naruto and his team's Land of Waves mission ended, Jiraiya had made a detailed report to him alone.
The report particularly emphasized the enemy they encountered, a mysterious Ninja calling himself 'Otsutsuki Urashiki', who possessed a Byakugan, could control time, and whose strength was terrifying enough to instantly kill an Elite Jonin.
Even someone as strong as Jiraiya had found him extremely troublesome.
If Menma hadn't erupted with a mysterious power at the critical moment that made the opponent cautious, the entire Team 7 would likely have perished in the Land of Waves.
And now, this mysterious enemy had not only appeared in Konoha but had also brought a companion with an equally strange aura and unknown strength!
"New... enemies... huh... truly... troubling times..." Hiruzen struggled to utter these words. With each word, more blood gushed from the wound on his shoulder.
"Old man! Don't talk!" Jiraiya's eyes nearly split, his fists viciously slamming against the barrier wall.
An Anbu specializing in sensory perception beside Yamato suddenly began to tremble violently. He knelt on one knee, hands supporting the ground, as if bearing some invisible pressure.
His face beneath the mask was as pale as paper, his voice carrying uncontrollable fear: "I can't sense them... their Chakra... so strange... no, not strange, it's fundamentally... incomprehensible!"
Jiraiya's heart clenched painfully.
'One Urashiki had already been so difficult to deal with.'
'Back in the Land of Waves, if Menma hadn't suddenly erupted into that strange form called Kama, overwhelming Urashiki and driving him back, we all would have likely died there.'
'And now, Urashiki had not only returned but also brought a helper who seemed even more unfathomable!'
'What did these two... want to do?!'
"Oh my, my~" Urashiki, carrying his red light fishing rod on his shoulder, looked with interest at the tense standoff below. His Byakugan swept over Orochimaru, the dying Hiruzen, the anxious Jiraiya outside the barrier, and finally landed on Hashirama and Tobirama.
"Tsk tsk, don't you think these two natives' forms are quite interesting?" Urashiki tapped his shoulder lightly with his fishing rod, his tone flippant.
"Even though they're clearly dead, their bodies are composed of some strange substance and can repair themselves... This kind of ability has never been seen even in our Otsutsuki Clan's records."
Upon hearing this, Jigen merely glanced down expressionlessly.
His gaze lingered on Hashirama and Tobirama for less than half a second before coldly moving away.
"Irrelevant." Jigen's voice was calm and unruffled, carrying an inhuman emptiness.
"Urashiki, where is that 'vessel' you mentioned? I don't sense any Chakra Reaction matching the description."
Urashiki pursed his lips, seemingly a bit dissatisfied with Jigen's coldness, but still answered: "It should be in this arena. According to the intelligence I gathered, that guy was supposed to participate in this match. However..."
He paused, his Byakugan sweeping the entire area again, slightly frowning: "That kid seems to be quite good at hiding his presence. It seems... we'll have to use some methods to force him out."
The two's unrestrained conversation, their air of disregard for others, and the condescending arrogance in their words made everyone present feel naked contempt.
"Tch, being looked down upon." A flicker of coldness passed through Orochimaru's golden vertical pupils.
"No matter who you are, since you've intruded into my plan..." Orochimaru slowly raised his hands, which still maintained the hand seal gesture, the corner of his mouth curving into a dangerous smile.
"Then let me properly 'entertain' you two."
Before his voice faded, the hand seal gesture in his hands suddenly changed!
Hum—
The bodies of Hashirama and Tobirama shook simultaneously!
"Here we go!" Hashirama let out a low shout, his voice carrying a trace of helplessness, but his movements did not stall in the slightest, as he suddenly leaped up.
Tobirama followed closely behind. Although the two lacked the ability to fly, relying on the nearly infinite physical strength and Chakra of their Edo Tensei bodies, and using the dozens-of-meters-high towering trees grown by Wood Release as springboards, their speed was so fast that they pulled blurry afterimages in the air. After a few sharp leaps between the thick tree trunks, they had already approached Urashiki and Jigen, who are floating a dozen meters in the air!
Even though they were under control, Hashirama and Tobirama, these two legendary Hokages who founded Konoha, still stood at the peak of the Ninja World in terms of combat instinct.
"Unable to fly, but using the spring from the trees, their instantaneous burst speed can reach this level..." Urashiki raised an eyebrow, a flicker of surprise passing through his Byakugan.
"This world's natives do have some unique aspects in their use of the body."
"Be careful, Brother!" Tobirama warned in a low voice as he raced, his gray eyes firmly locking onto Jigen.
As a master of forbidden techniques, his perception of Chakra was far more acute than an ordinary person's.
Although he couldn't understand the 'imperceptible Chakra' of the two, his sixth sense told him that the threat posed by that bald man was far more deadly than the guy with the fishing rod beside him!
"Ah, I know." Hashirama responded, his expression rarely serious.
At the peak of his leap, he suddenly clapped his hands together in front of his chest!
"Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique!" No complicated hand seals, no lengthy Chakra mobilization process. This was Hashirama's combat style… the [God of Ninja]!
Rumble—
The vast, full of vitality Chakra around Hashirama erupted violently!
Beneath him, the countless giant trees of the Deep Forest Emergence seemed to come to life. Thick branches madly twisted, grew, and hardened, instantly differentiating into hundreds of giant wooden shuriken!
Each shuriken was the size of a door panel, its edges sharp as knives.
The next moment, these hundreds of giant wooden shuriken, as if thrown by a tremendous force, transformed into a deadly storm that blotted out the sky, strangling towards Jigen and Urashiki in the air from every angle, leaving no blind spot!
The sound of them cutting through the air was as piteous as ghosts wailing, as if even the air itself was being sliced to pieces!
Almost simultaneously, Tobirama's figure appeared behind and to the side of Hashirama.
The speed at which he formed hand seals was extreme. The afterimages completed the seals in an instant.
Tiger – Ox – Monkey – Rabbit!
"Water Release: Water Severing Wave!"
Tobirama opened his mouth, and a refined to the extreme, only thumb-thick azure water line was spat out!
At first glance, the water line seemed unremarkable, but the terrifying high pressure and cutting force it contained made the air along its path emit an unbearable shriek!
The water line attacked in a straight line, viciously aiming straight for Jigen's throat!
Under Orochimaru's control, the two brothers executed a flawless coordination.
Hashirama used a large-scale, no-dead-angles attack to seal off evasion space, forcing the opponents to either block or defend... Tobirama then used a penetrating, single-target Ninjutsu for a lethal strike.
Orochimaru was confident that even his teacher would have to temporarily avoid the edge against such an offensive... one slip-up could be fatal!
However, the ones they were facing now were Otsutsuki.
"Heh, boring tricks." Urashiki chuckled lightly. Facing the howling storm of giant wooden shuriken, he didn't even show any intention of dodging.
He merely casually raised the red light fishing rod in his hand and lightly drew a circle in the air before him.
Hum—
A semi-transparent sphere about three meters in diameter, composed of pale red light, instantly materialized around Urashiki, enveloping his entire body.
The next moment, the hundred or so giant wooden shuriken, capable of cutting through metal and jade, slammed viciously into the red light sphere!
Then, a scene that left everyone dumbfounded occurred.
Those giant wooden shuriken, containing Hashirama's vast Chakra and with enough power to easily destroy city walls, the moment they touched the red light sphere, were reflected back along their original trajectories with exactly the same speed and force!
"What?!" Hashirama's pupils suddenly contracted. Mid-air with nowhere to gain leverage, he could only forcibly twist his body, his fists continuously punching out, shattering the reflected shuriken one by one.
Amidst the flying wood chips, his face became extremely grave.
"Pretty impressive, isn't it?" Urashiki, carrying his fishing rod on his shoulder, stood inside the sphere, leisurely watching the two's disheveled state, his tone carrying the pleasure of a cat playing with a mouse.
"In front of my Tamatebako, any form of Chakra attack is ineffective, you know~"
On the other side, facing Tobirama's Water Severing Wave aimed straight for the throat, Jigen's reaction was even simpler.
He merely slightly raised his right hand, palm facing up, aiming at the direction from which the water line was coming.
Then, the black diamond-shaped mark of Kama in his palm faintly lit up. That Water Severing Wave, which condensed Tobirama's peak Water Release mastery and was enough to pierce the roots of the Ten-Tails' God Tree, was forcibly decomposed into water-attribute Chakra, then compressed, absorbed, and incorporated into Jigen's black diamond-shaped mark.
Like a mud ox entering the sea, without even causing a ripple, it simply disappeared into thin air.
As if that water severing wave had never existed, merely an illusion of everyone.
"..." Tobirama landed on an outstretched branch, his gray eyes staring at the black diamond-shaped mark on Jigen's right palm.
As a master of forbidden techniques, as the Second Hokage who developed countless Ninjutsu, he knew better than anyone the power contained in that strike. He was confident it could even cut through his brother's strongest Wood Release.
Yet a strike like that had been 'absorbed' by the opponent in such a casual manner?
"Do you see, Brother." Tobirama spoke in a low voice: "That guy on the left... it seems he can absorb Ninjutsu."
Hashirama also landed beside Tobirama, his gaze never leaving the two enemies.
"Ah, I felt it." Hearing Tobirama's words, he slowly nodded.
"That kind of ability... I've never seen it before either. These two guys are likely even more troublesome opponents than Madara."
"Stronger than Uchiha Madara?!" Tobirama's heart tightened. He knew his brother's strength well, and also understood the terror of Uchiha.
'Brother was actually evaluating these two mysterious enemies so highly?'
Although their hearts were full of doubt and caution, their bodies were completely under Orochimaru's control at the moment, without a will of their own.
Moreover, the enemy had chosen to appear in Konoha at this time, in this way… their hostility was self-evident.
Outside the barrier, Jiraiya stared intently at Jigen. A memory that had almost faded suddenly surfaced!
A few years ago, in Amegakure.
To investigate the leader of the Akatsuki, Pain, he had infiltrated Amegakure. After being discovered by Konan, he eventually engaged in a fierce battle with his two former students.
That battle was one of the most perilous experiences of his life. The Six Paths of Pain's bizarre, unpredictable, and seamlessly coordinated abilities had nearly driven him to the brink.
And just as he was severely injured and near death, a figure had suddenly flown backward into the battlefield.
It was this very bald man with the Roman numeral 'IV' tattooed below his left eye!
Jiraiya still vividly remembered that scene. This man displayed many strange abilities. With every gesture, space distorted. Pain's Rinnegan ability had little effect on him. A casual strike from him killed one of the Pains.
Yet, a man who could so easily crush the Six Paths of Pain had himself been crushed and ground into the dirt by Shura!
His strange abilities seemed to lose their effect before Shura, and he was beaten without a chance to fight back by Shura's Ninjutsu and Taijutsu.
At that time, Jiraiya had seized the opportunity to escape the battlefield, encountered Ajisai and her companions protecting evacuating villagers, and finally fled Amegakure under Ajisai's protection. Therefore, he was unclear about the outcome of that battle.
"So it's him..." Jiraiya's voice was dry.
"He's working with Urashiki?!"
'One Urashiki was already terrifying enough.'
'Now there was another enemy capable of casually crushing the Six Paths of Pain!'
'If these two joined forces... could Konoha really survive?'
Just as Jiraiya was burning with anxiety,
"Wasting time." Jigen, who hadn't even deigned to look directly at them, seemed to be growing impatient due to failing to find his target.
He withdrew his gaze from the arena below and indifferently glanced at Hashirama and Tobirama, who were gathering strength.
That look was like a human looking at two mantises below his feet, waving their claws, trying to provoke.
He raised his right hand and casually waved it towards where Hashirama and Tobirama stood.
Shhh! Shhh! Shhh! Shhh!
Dozens of pitch-black, slender spikes emerged from the void around Hashirama and Tobirama without any warning!
"What?!" Hashirama and Tobirama's expressions changed simultaneously, their bodies instinctively trying to dodge.
Pfft pfft pfft pfft—!
The dull sound of sharp blades piercing through leather erupted in succession!
Hashirama and Tobirama couldn't even make the movements to react, block, or dodge before they were instantly pierced by dozens of Yin-Yang Release black rods from every angle!
The terrifying impact carried their bodies flying backward, finally 'thud, thud', they were firmly nailed to the trunks of the two thickest Wood Release giant trees behind them!
The black rods were deeply embedded in the trunks, leaving only a small section exposed, still trembling, emitting a low hum.
The black rods not only completely sealed off their movements but also madly interfered with and eroded the matter and Chakra constituting their Edo Tensei bodies!
"Ugh...!" Hashirama let out a grunt, discovering that at the places pierced by the black rods, the repair ability of his Edo Tensei body seemed to have been completely 'frozen'!
Not only could he not break free, but even the flow of his Chakra had become extremely sluggish. His body rapidly grew stiff and cold.
Even more terrifying, he could feel that this body of his was being eroded and disintegrated by some power contained within the black rods!
At the edges of the wounds at the pierced sites, fine gray dust was slowly drifting away, not quickly condensing and repairing as before!
Tobirama was also pierced through his vital points by several black rods, nailed to another tree. His gray eyes were full of shock and confusion.
"Wh-What are these things?!" Tobirama also discovered the abnormality. He tried to mobilize his Chakra, but the moment his spirit and Chakra touched the black rods piercing his body, they were swallowed up like a mud ox entering the sea.
"Brother! These black rods... are destroying the core of the Edo Tensei!" Tobirama said with some horror.
Even as the developer of Edo Tensei, he couldn't perfectly find the weaknesses of this technique or its method of breaking it.
"Ah... I can feel it." Hashirama, nailed to the tree, looked down at the black rod piercing his chest, then up at the expressionless Jigen in the air. A bitter yet slightly resigned, emotional smile appeared on his face.
"Truly... an incredible power."
"This nature of Chakra... Tobirama, it seems the technique you developed has truly met its match this time."