As Itachi and the masked man—Obito—shifted into a battle stance, the entire Uchiha district seemed to sink under a crushing weight. The air grew heavier by the second, thick enough to suffocate.
But just as that pressure was about to crush everyone's nerves, Ren seemed to remember something. He glanced at Fugaku and spoke evenly.
"Have everyone fall back. I don't want the clan caught in the crossfire."
"Understood!" Fugaku's expression flickered once, then he raised a hand.
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh.
The Uchiha shinobi retreated in an orderly wave, pulling away from the plaza.
"Now!"
Itachi had been waiting for exactly this.
His body flashed—and he appeared directly in front of Ren. The Mangekyō Sharingan spun, erupting with terrifying ocular power.
"Amaterasu."
His voice was ice.
His right eye tightened, focus snapping onto Ren.
Ren frowned slightly. A sweep of Observation Haki told him what was coming—and he didn't bother dodging.
Instead, he tightened his grip on Murakumogiri.
Hiss—!
Tremor-Tremor power surged. Armament Haki surged with it.
A pale-white halo—laced with hardened black—wrapped around the blade's edge.
Then Ren casually swung at the air.
The next instant—
The air cracked with sharp, snapping fractures.
In Itachi's disbelieving stare, the black flames of Amaterasu had barely ignited before a white cutting wave slammed into them and blew them apart, shredding the inferno into scattered fragments that splashed across the ground and began burning in isolated patches.
"How…?!" Itachi's expression changed sharply.
If Amaterasu—the so-called strongest physical attack—couldn't do it…
Then he'd switch.
His left eye's power surged.
"Tsukuyomi."
Blood began to spill from Itachi's eyes under the strain, but something twisted and sharp curled at the corner of his mouth.
Because—
The genjutsu had landed.
In that instant, the world around Ren turned unreal—hollow, unstable—until reality collapsed into a desolate space of only red and black.
Ren's eyes swept the void.
"So this is Tsukuyomi," he said flatly. "The world where you control time itself."
He looked up at Itachi hovering above.
"…It's weak."
Itachi's expression hardened.
"Weak?" he repeated coldly. "In Tsukuyomi, everything—time, location, mass—everything is under my control."
As he spoke, Itachi raised a hand and slowly clenched his fingers.
A massive cross appeared out of nothing.
Chains erupted and coiled around Ren's body, winding tighter—dragging him toward the cross like a sentence being carried out.
Ren watched it all with faint amusement.
"If this were the past," he said, "I might've endured it."
"But now…?"
His smile sharpened, meaning layered beneath it.
"Do you know what it means to possess a presence that stands above everything… a will that can rule?"
Before the last word even fully fell—
A kinglike aura poured from Ren's body.
No warning.
No buildup.
Just absolute dominance, as if the entire shinobi world should kneel.
Crack—crack—crack.
Itachi's Tsukuyomi space began to fracture.
Thin lines split across the red-and-black sky like broken glass spreading spiderwebs.
Then—
With a sound like reality being torn apart—
The Tsukuyomi world exploded, blown apart by sheer presence.
Reality
Itachi screamed.
Blood poured from his left eye.
But he didn't even look down at it.
He stared at Ren like he was looking at something that shouldn't exist.
A… presence?
Tsukuyomi… broken by presence?
Was this a joke?
Without him realizing it, despair flooded his chest—thick, heavy, unstoppable.
Not because Itachi was weak.
Because the opponent was too strong.
"You've lost," Ren said, stepping forward calmly.
"When your body reaches a certain level… your spirit undergoes a transformation."
"Genjutsu stops having meaning."
"Don't get arrogant—!" Obito gritted out.
He finally moved.
His body flickered behind Ren, and his right hand clamped down on Ren's shoulder like a vise.
"Kamui."
Humm—!
A terrifying pull erupted.
Space twisted into a spiral around them, warping into a vortex that tried to swallow both men whole.
Obito was trying to drag Ren into the Kamui dimension.
"Uchiha Ren," Obito hissed, madness flickering behind the mask, "go rot in my space!"
Ren turned his head slightly, smiling wide—as if he'd been gifted a joke.
"You're the first shinobi who's dared to get this close."
Then he bared his teeth.
"Do you know what real power looks like?"
"The kind that can destroy a world?"
"Enough talk!" Obito snarled. "You really should die!"
Ren's eyes went cold.
He clenched his fist—
And punched straight into the twisting vortex.
Tremor-Tremor power.
Top-tier Armament Haki.
Sage Body chakra.
All three fused into one blow.
CRACK—!
The sound wasn't air breaking.
It was space.
The spiraling distortion itself let out a fracture-scream.
Obito's mind went blank with disbelief.
He'd never imagined Ren would do something this insane—
Punch the Kamui distortion head-on, trying to break the warp itself.
And Obito understood—better than anyone—what space tearing apart could mean.
Fear punched through him.
"…No—!"
Ren inhaled once—then drove more power into the punch.
In full view of everyone—
A vast Tremor force detonated outward.
The spiraling distortion centered on the two of them collapsed—
and then burst, unleashing a shockwave that looked like it wanted to erase everything in its path.
"Madman—! You're a madman!"
Obito panicked.
"Kamui—intangibility!"
He forced his body into phasing to avoid the space-burst impact.
Only then did he truly understand what Ren meant by "world-destroying power."
Ren's lips curved.
"I was waiting for you to phase."
His entire body snapped under black-hard Armament Haki, coating him like armor.
He took the space-burst shock head-on—and in the same breath, threw a punch straight into Obito's chest.
Because Obito was intangible, the fist passed through him.
The shockwave passed through him too.
No damage.
Obito's Mangekyō gleamed cold behind the mask.
"It's useless," he said. "While I'm phased… I'm invincible."
"Then I'll beat you out of it," Ren replied calmly.
"I'll attack you without pause for five minutes."
"Let's see if that's enough."
Obito's head rang like a bell.
His blood ran cold.
He knew the weakness.
One eye.
Intangibility had a time limit.
Continuous pressure could force the timing window open.
And with his Mangekyō already heavily drained—even with Hashirama cells supporting him—
He might not last five minutes.
Hell.
Maybe not even three.
Ren didn't give him a second.
In the span of a heartbeat, Ren's fists became a blur—dozens, then countless strikes—passing through Obito's intangible body and detonating the air behind him.
Each miss still cracked the atmosphere and kicked up brutal shockwaves, hammering the battlefield like artillery.
From far away, the retreating Uchiha could only stare.
"This… this is insane."
"Itachi and that masked man are getting completely bullied."
"Ren… he's like a human-shaped monster."
Itachi, meanwhile, collapsed to the ground.
His Mangekyō faded back to a normal Sharingan as his chakra and spirit bottomed out.
"…It's over."
He sounded empty.
On the battlefield, Ren's relentless assault continued.
Second after second, Obito's heart pounded harder, panic creeping in. He'd never felt this suffocated.
He'd dug the hole himself—
And he knew exactly what waited the moment his intangibility ended.
"No… time's up!"
Obito's expression snapped.
The phasing state dropped.
His body turned solid.
And at that exact instant—
Ren's Observation Haki caught it.
His fist tightened.
He struck.
"You—!"
Obito's eyes flashed with pure horror beneath the mask. His mouth opened as if to speak—but there was no time.
BOOM—!
A crisp, brutal impact.
Obito's body was blown apart in one punch, bursting into blood mist that drifted through the plaza.
"Explode."
In that same instant, hidden in the darkness, Black Zetsu and White Zetsu finally couldn't sit still anymore.
They triggered the explosive tags Root had buried throughout the Uchiha district long ago.
A chain of deafening explosions erupted.
The shockwaves turned the compound into chaos—ground shaking, buildings buckling, fire blooming.
"Damn it—!"
"Put out the fires!"
"They planted that many explosive tags?! That's disgusting!"
The Uchiha, still reeling from the sight of Ren punching Obito apart, snapped back to reality and scattered to deal with the destruction. Fugaku didn't even need to give orders.
In the confusion—
No one noticed when Itachi vanished from the plaza.
Ren watched the burning compound, eyes calm, expression faintly mocking.
"Izanagi… Black Zetsu… Obito… Itachi…"
He seemed unsurprised.
With top-tier Observation Haki, most things couldn't hide from him.
He'd sensed the explosive tags long ago.
He'd sensed Black and White Zetsu lurking in the shadows.
And he'd sensed the truth behind Itachi's disappearance—
Itachi hadn't escaped on his own.
He'd been taken.
But Ren didn't move to chase.
Not now.
Not worth the time.
He had other business.
Because right now—
The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, was still sitting in his office, waiting for news that the Uchiha had been wiped out.
Well.
Since the Uchiha weren't dead—
Why not wipe out the Sarutobi faction before dawn?
Then, when the sun came up…
The real show could begin.
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