"Get ready. We're moving."
On the battlefield, the allied forces of Iwa and Kumo had already made their preparations, though the number of people who actually responded wasn't very large.
Onoki's judgment had been correct. By this point in the fighting, the morale of both Iwa and Kumo had clearly started to slip.
After all, they were the ones who had launched the offensive, and momentum always worked the same way: the first push hit hardest, the second was weaker, and by the third, exhaustion set in.
Not to mention they had an "undying army" on top of that, and yet the battle had still turned out like this. Anyone's morale would have taken a hit.
"Don't look so discouraged. Don't forget, our Kage still haven't even made their move yet. We're not going to lose!"
Faced with that kind of mood, the field commanders could only do their best to rally the troops.
"There's movement!"
At that moment, one of the sensory ninjas suddenly cried out.
In an instant, he sensed a suffocating burst of chakra appear out of nowhere.
That chakra felt like some primordial beast. Its flow seemed calm on the surface, yet beneath it was a pressure so overwhelming it stole the breath from his lungs.
"What is it?"
The commander asked sharply, but his heart had already sunk.
For a sensory ninja to react like this was enough to tell him how serious the situation was.
"Th-There… over there! It's coming this way!"
Cold sweat poured down the sensory ninja's forehead as he pointed toward a barren stretch of land in the distance.
That area had once been a forest, but the war had already reduced everything there to ruins.
And on that empty wasteland, a single figure was walking toward them at an unhurried pace, each step light and steady.
"Captain, something's happening!"
Over on Konoha's side, their sensory ninjas had also picked up on the anomaly.
That savage chakra was so terrifying that none of them dared probe it too deeply. The moment they brushed against it with their senses, it felt like being swallowed whole by an endless sea of power.
But unlike the panic on the enemy's side, the sensory ninjas in Konoha's camp were visibly excited.
"What's going on?"
The commander in charge of this sector hurried over, but the moment he arrived, he froze in place.
And he wasn't the only one.
All across the front, shinobi rose to their feet.
They stared out toward the figure who had appeared in the open ground between Konoha's lines and the allied enemy forces. He wore a black robe, and his short black hair shifted gently in the wind.
They couldn't see his face clearly, since he was walking toward the Iwa and Kumo army, but that overwhelming aura spread across the entire battlefield.
It was vast.
Oppressive.
Enough to make anyone tremble.
"That guy is…?"
On the Iwa and Kumo side, the shinobi almost instinctively took a step back. Cold sweat broke out across their brows as well.
Quite a few of them had already recognized who it was.
Ren might have always kept a certain air of mystery around him, but he had carried out too many missions for his face to remain unknown.
And now he was Konoha's Hokage's aide, practically the confirmed future Fifth Hokage in all but name.
His image and information had long since been circulated.
A lot of people knew exactly who they were looking at.
"Shirahara Ren…"
"Damn it, it's him!"
Breathing on the Iwa and Kumo side suddenly turned heavy, but over on Konoha's side, the reaction was entirely different.
"Is the aide here?"
"Lord Ren is here. That means it's over!"
"Damn it, that's nothing to celebrate!"
"It means we performed so badly that Lord Ren had to come personally. This is humiliating…"
Quite a few Mist and Sand shinobi felt their spirits lift at once. If Ren had arrived, then the situation was under control.
His name was one they had all heard over and over again. Sure, there was probably some exaggeration mixed in with the stories of his power, but no one doubted that he was monstrously strong.
The Konoha shinobi, on the other hand, felt embarrassed. If Ren had to show up himself, then that just meant they hadn't been good enough.
"This place is perfect. Plenty of people, close to the Land of Iron, and just right for what I want to do."
Ren naturally had no idea what all these people were thinking.
He had chosen this battlefield simply because it suited his purposes. There was nothing more complicated behind it than that.
After staying in the rear for so long, he genuinely wanted to move around a little.
Especially since this battle was no simple matter. He needed to get himself into the right state.
"And besides, Madara's little 'dance' has always stirred my blood. I can't let him have all the fun."
Now that Ren had already stepped into the realm of a true sage, it was not as though Madara had been beneath him back then.
Madara had done it.
So if Ren did the same, what was the problem?
"He's alone! Don't be afraid!"
In the Iwa and Kumo ranks, the commanders immediately began shouting the moment they saw Ren still walking toward them.
"Remember this: we united in order to break Konoha's grip on the world! The chance is right in front of us. We can't let it slip away!"
"That man came here alone. It doesn't matter if he's bait or not. We have to do something! If we kill him, it'll be the greatest achievement of the war!"
With that kind of rallying cry, the allied shinobi did begin to waver.
It was true.
Ren's record was terrifying, but he was still only one man.
No matter how strong you were, could a single person really overturn thousands upon thousands of shinobi?
Besides, hadn't the Third Raikage once fought ten thousand enemies and still been worn down in the end?
The moment that thought arose, the Kumo and Iwa shinobi instinctively exchanged glances.
The awkwardness and bitterness in their eyes nearly overflowed.
But this wasn't the time to dwell on any of that.
One by one, all of them rushed out of formation, their eyes locked tightly on Ren.
"Oh? They're reacting?"
Ren tilted his head slightly, still advancing at the same measured pace.
Though he was only one man, his aura pressed down over all of them as if they were the ones being surrounded.
Slowly, he seemed to decide that walking was too slow.
His pace began to quicken.
And as he accelerated, that oppressive presence only became thicker and heavier.
"This guy…"
Something inside the allied shinobi was beginning to go wrong.
They wanted to tighten their grip on their kunai, but discovered that their hands were trembling.
Cold sweat streamed down their faces, and in their eyes, what was approaching them no longer looked like a person—
but a bloodthirsty asura, a butcher that meant to devour every last one of them.
And no matter how many thousands they had gathered together, not one of them could feel even the slightest sense of safety.
"Ahhh!"
At last, as Ren drew closer and that invisible pressure grew stronger and stronger, some of the shinobi simply snapped.
A raw scream tore out of one of them, and in the next moment the entire allied force erupted in a deafening roar.
Weapons came up.
They charged.
Madly, desperately, as if their lives no longer mattered.
They were on the verge of breaking.
"This is bad. Lord Ren is being too reckless…"
On Konoha's side, plenty of shinobi nearly dropped their jaws.
One man charging straight at an army of thousands—
it was insanity.
Quite a few shinobi had already leapt out of the trenches and started rushing forward. They had no idea what Ren was trying to do, but they couldn't just stand by and watch.
"Th-This is…"
Before they had even taken a few steps, they froze.
Not just them—even those who had seen Ren fight before, whether during the Chunin Exams or elsewhere, were now standing there in a daze.
Ren did not slow down in the slightest.
In fact, the instant the two sides were about to collide, he accelerated again.
He became a streak of light, plunging straight into the enemy formation.
Boom!
With a violent blast, countless shinobi were hurled into the air.
In a ninja battle, numbers might not be everything, but they always mattered.
No one had ever dared imagine one person facing thousands like this.
And yet that was exactly what was happening before their eyes.
"Damn it!"
"Where is he?!"
"Ahhh!"
Almost at once, the battlefield on the Iwa-Kumo side erupted into overlapping screams.
Ren moved like a stream of light, tearing through their ranks.
He wasn't using elaborate taijutsu.
He wasn't using any grand or spectacular ninjutsu either.
Everything he used was basic.
And yet even so, the destruction he caused was enough to suffocate the mind.
Inside that sea of shinobi, Ren moved like a butterfly through flowers.
Anyone who so much as brushed against him was sent flying.
And his movements were so ghostlike that no one could catch even a trace of him.
Bang!
A simple punch smashed inward.
One shinobi's chest caved in instantly, and the force behind the blow rippled through dozens more behind him, slamming them violently into the ground.
In the next heartbeat, two blades flashed from front and back, stabbing toward him.
Slash!
The sound of metal piercing flesh was jarring—
but the two attackers stared at each other in disbelief.
Ren had already vanished from that spot.
They had just run each other through.
Bang!
Another dull explosion rang out.
Ren had somehow already shifted dozens of meters away, and with another casual blow he sent a cluster of shinobi flying.
By the time the people in that section reacted, he had already appeared somewhere else.
"Be careful! It's Flying Thunder God! Stay alert!"
At last, some of the enemy commanders realized what was happening and shouted at the top of their lungs.
"The Raikage told us about this! His Flying Thunder God works through Wood Release seeds! Earth Release users, do something!"
"Fast reaction."
But the commander had barely finished shouting before he realized in horror that Ren was already standing right in front of him.
He reacted quickly and reached for his blade—
but a chill suddenly passed across his throat.
The next thing he felt was dizziness.
He opened his mouth, trying to speak, but not a single word came out.
The strength in his body fled all at once.
He knew, instantly, that his artery had been cut.
Even so, just before dying, he still flung out a hand, trying to grab Ren.
"Die!"
At the same time, three shinobi lunged at Ren from behind, their blades gleaming coldly in the sunlight.
Thrust!
Thrust!
Thrust!
In less than a second, their blades pierced straight through Ren—
and yet all three of them froze in disbelief.
Their own chests had somehow been impaled as well.
Ren stood there unharmed.
And the commander they had just tried to save had been skewered by their own attack, dead beyond saving.
"I'll borrow this."
Ren spoke as casually as if he were greeting an acquaintance. He stepped out from between the blades, stooped, and picked up the commander's sword.
Then he swung it.
Slash—
Blood sprayed.
Another shinobi who had just rushed in crumpled to the ground, and Ren vanished again.
Moving through the crowd of several thousand like this, Ren seemed less like a man and more like a god of slaughter.
No matter whose attack it was, none of them could touch him.
His movements were ghostly, and it felt as though he might appear next to anyone, anywhere, at any time—
and kill them instantly.
In just a few short minutes, no one even knew how many had already died by his hand.
And because he moved so quickly, because he kept slipping through space itself, no ninjutsu could properly lock onto him.
The result was simple.
What he was doing was no longer battle.
It was slaughter.
"Is this guy… even human?"
No one knew how many allied shinobi from Kumo and Iwa were already beginning to mentally collapse.
Faced with a being like this—something closer to a divine demon than a man—there were very few who could hold themselves together.
Especially when every nerve in their body screamed that he could appear right before them at any second and kill them instantly.
That kind of fear.
That kind of helplessness.
That kind of despair.
It spread like poison.
Some of the shinobi had already begun swinging their weapons mechanically, no longer even knowing what they were attacking or where they were supposed to strike.
Some had gone so far as to slap explosive tags onto their own bodies, ready to die just to put up some kind of resistance.
"So this is Lord Ren…"
"Can a human really possess power like this…?"
On Konoha's side, every shinobi could only stand there in stunned silence.
They watched the enemy—those same people who had been fighting them to the death not long ago, displaying all the discipline and quality expected of elite shinobi—
now being cut down like livestock, blood already flowing in rivers.
The shock this inflicted on them was just as immense.
For a brief moment, every last one of them was deeply grateful that Ren belonged to their side.
And they could almost understand the despair of those facing him.
It was hard not to think that perhaps their Hokage's aide…
had already become a god.
While Ren continued carving through the battlefield, space rippled violently in the rear enemy lines.
In the next instant, Onoki, the Fourth Raikage, and the others arrived together.
Thanks to the Heavenly Transfer Technique, they had been able to reach the battlefield ahead of the main body.
After all, they had heard that Ren had shown himself.
There was no way they could hesitate in the face of a monster like that.
Even though reserve forces were already being mobilized here, they had still chosen to come personally in advance.
What they had not expected, however, was the thick smell of blood that greeted them the moment they landed.
Looking ahead, what they saw was utter devastation.
Bodies of their shinobi littered the ground in every direction.
The survivors were dazed and helpless, the air around them already thick with despair.
Despite their overwhelming numbers, they were on the very edge of collapse.
And there in the middle of it all, Ren was still casually killing their people one after another.
The worst part?
There wasn't a single Konoha shinobi helping him.
All of this had been done by Ren alone.
Could a human being really be like this…?
"Shirahara Ren!"
Onoki finally lost it and roared in fury.
Ren seemed to sense it. He stopped what he was doing, tilted his head, and looked toward the rear. Then he smiled.
"So you've finally come."
"A little slower than I expected."
"But it doesn't matter. I've had more than enough time to warm up."
"Now it's about time I moved around properly."
"Are you ready, Obito?"
Back in the Land of Rice Fields base, Black Zetsu looked at Obito, who had just transplanted the pair of Rinnegan, and couldn't help asking.
Truthfully, he was the one most anxious right now.
He had no idea what would happen to this fool.
If Madara hadn't abruptly turned against the plan and decided to cancel it, Black Zetsu would never have resorted to someone as worthless as Obito.
But now he had no other choice.
Even if he had to force this through at the cost of everything, he had to keep moving.
Because after the appearance of that so-called Senju relic, he knew there would never be a second chance.
His "dear elder brother" had played him like a pawn.
That was something he could not accept.
So now, he was going all in.
"Yeah. I've never felt better."
Obito nodded.
In reality, he didn't feel especially good at all.
But at this point, he had no choice except to say that.
Madara had played him.
From beginning to end, he had been treated as nothing but a chess piece.
This was his desperate counterattack.
No matter what, he could not afford to lose.
"Let's begin."
"I will create a world of my own. A real world where Rin exists."
"I will not lose to anyone."
"I will succeed."
"I will make the Eye of the Moon Plan a reality!"
With that low shout, he rapidly formed hand seals.
Under his control, the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path released a heaven-shaking roar.
Blood immediately began to stream from Obito's eyes, though.
There had been no time to adapt. He was forcing it through by brute will alone.
Fortunately, his body was also a form of Senju-Uchiha fusion. He could still control the Rinnegan.
And with it—
the Demonic Statue.
Buzz—
As chakra thundered, the Demonic Statue's chakra began pouring into Obito's body under the pull of the Rinnegan.
The Ten-Tails resisted, of course.
Just as tailed beasts hated being sealed, it too loathed the idea of being forced into a jinchuriki.
But Obito, crude as he was, had at least learned the Six Paths techniques.
He knew how to suppress the Ten-Tails.
And with the Rinnegan in hand, his suppression of it reached an entirely different level.
Roar—
The Ten-Tails let out another earth-shaking howl.
Then, in the next moment, it was completely absorbed into Obito.
Thump.
A heartbeat echoed faintly.
And this heartbeat clearly belonged to Obito.
Thump.
Another one followed.
And with it, some strange power began to emerge from his body.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The heartbeat grew faster and faster, and that eerie power intensified with it.
Before long, that force burst outward from within him, instantly swallowing Obito whole.
"What is this?"
Standing beside Black Zetsu, Orochimaru frowned as he watched.
This bizarre scene was deeply unsettling.
Especially because the aura radiating from Obito now felt like disaster itself was about to descend.
"This is the necessary process for becoming the Ten-Tails' jinchuriki."
Black Zetsu offered the explanation in a low voice, but he himself was just as tense.
Everything depended on this.
He was personally raising a man he considered a complete waste into a height that should never have belonged to him.
How could he not be worried?
"Ahhh!"
As the pale chakra gathered more and more densely, Obito suddenly let out a scream.
In the next second, he was completely enveloped, forming a flesh-colored sphere.
It looked like an egg.
A living, pulsing egg.
Each beat made it twitch like a heart.
As if some dreadful lifeform were being incubated inside it.
"So… it's hatching?"
Orochimaru tilted his head, unable to keep the curiosity from his voice.
But he also had to admire it.
"Even in this state, the chakra it's giving off is astonishing. Unbelievable."
"I told you long ago—the Ten-Tails is not something ordinary tailed beasts can compare to."
Black Zetsu glanced at Orochimaru and shook his head calmly.
"And becoming its jinchuriki is nothing like becoming the jinchuriki of a tailed beast."
"If he fails…"
"If he fails, what?"
Orochimaru latched onto that word instantly.
"Fails, and everything goes badly…"
Black Zetsu sighed, clearly unwilling to elaborate.
Because if Obito failed, that meant his own plans were over.
He would never again get another chance to save his mother.
"So you really are very familiar with this process."
To his surprise, Orochimaru suddenly asked a question that made Black Zetsu's pupils shrink.
"Your rebellion against Madara was only the beginning."
"Your knowledge base seems a little too vast."
"You even know this much."
"Your identity really doesn't seem all that simple, does it?"
"..."
Black Zetsu said nothing.
He merely turned and stared coldly at Orochimaru.
Only he knew how badly he was panicking.
He had no real combat ability.
Perhaps it was because his two "beloved elder brothers" had both betrayed their mother, but when she created him, she had never given him the power to fight directly.
Instead, she had sealed nearly everything away with bloodline chakra beyond even yin-yang release.
Orochimaru was no ordinary man.
If it came to a fight, Black Zetsu's only real option would be to run.
At that moment, he deeply regretted letting his guard slip.
Now he had to think very quickly about how to handle this.
"Don't look at me like that. Relax, I don't have any hostile intentions."
What Black Zetsu hadn't expected was that Orochimaru would casually spread his hands and smile.
"Who you are isn't important. What you want to do doesn't particularly matter to me either."
"For me, the most important thing—the most interesting thing—is knowledge."
"Endless knowledge."
"Knowledge that lets me see through the nature of the world."
"Knowledge that allows me to keep moving forward."
"So… how about a trade?"
"..."
Black Zetsu hadn't expected that either.
But when he thought about it, this was exactly the kind of move Orochimaru would make.
Compared to someone stunned into helpless silence, a person like Orochimaru—whose greed was directed entirely at truth—was much easier to handle.
"Fine."
"I can even give you a little something in advance."
Thinking it through, Black Zetsu spoke directly.
"But there's a condition—"
"You're still worried, even after I've already made my choice?"
Orochimaru looked at him with amusement and shook his head.
"Ren won't spare me."
"And his power isn't something ordinary."
"I'd rather not die at his hands before I've finished uncovering the truth of the world."
"I understand."
"In that case, take this."
Black Zetsu thought over Orochimaru's words, then decided to trust him for now.
He pulled out a scroll and handed it over.
The truth was, Orochimaru had a point.
Ren would never let him go.
Orochimaru really didn't have many options left.
And handing him a piece of "basic knowledge" like the Six Paths arts now could both keep him temporarily steady and give him greater reason to continue clashing with Ren.
There was no reason not to.
The only thing Black Zetsu was completely underestimating was Orochimaru's lack of moral bottom line.
Or rather, it was more accurate to say the man had none whatsoever.
He was a moral singularity.
The moment he got the scroll, Orochimaru immediately created a shadow clone and had it start reading through it at once, apparently checking something.
At the same time, he was already thinking about how best to pass all of this along to Ren.
Serve them faithfully?
What a joke.
A true adult always profits twice from the same deal.
Orochimaru had already decided that he was going to sell them out.
"Oh, right. One more thing."
Watching his shadow clone rapidly skim the contents, Orochimaru suddenly spoke up.
"Ren has already gone to the battlefield."
"And if nothing changes, he should be meeting Onoki and the Raikage right about now."
"He's gone already?"
Black Zetsu looked startled, but then nodded.
"In that case, we need to move as well."
"Set Madara, Hashirama, and Tobirama loose."
"Are you sending them to strike Konoha, or to hold back Ren?"
Orochimaru shrugged and asked curiously.
"We…"
Just as Black Zetsu started to answer, his expression suddenly changed.
He turned toward the egg.
The thing was pulsing faster and faster now, and the unstable aura coming off it made his instincts scream.
"Damn it. Is this because the tailed beasts weren't fully collected? Because so much of what he absorbed was only chakra fragments?"
Black Zetsu immediately realized what was happening.
This egg was underdeveloped.
It was struggling to complete its transformation.
And that was absolutely not something he could accept.
He walked forward at once. After a brief hesitation, he pressed a hand against the egg.
"You manage the battlefield."
"You understand the terrain best, and you've been directing the war."
"So you should know better than anyone what to do now."
Black Zetsu had no spare attention left. He had to stabilize this egg with his own chakra.
Otherwise, everything would have been for nothing.
"Fine."
Orochimaru licked his lips.
A perfect opportunity had just dropped into his lap.
Meanwhile, Black Zetsu slowly poured his own yin-yang chakra into the egg.
As that chakra entered and began stabilizing it, the egg also started to change.
It gradually steadied.
Its chakra became fuller, more complete.
But as the power seeped deeper, Obito inside the egg suddenly seemed to awaken.
"AHHH!"
A shrill scream rang out again and again.
It no longer sounded human.
It sounded more like the howl of some monstrous beast.
"AHHH!"
Inside that egg, as Black Zetsu's chakra stabilized the transformation, Obito awoke—
only to discover that his consciousness felt as if it were being torn apart.
An invisible monster was devouring his will.
Erasing his memories.
Destroying him completely.
"AHHH!"
The pain of having his soul split apart was unbearable.
For the first time, death seemed terrifyingly close.
More than that, he felt as if the world itself was trying to erase him.
"Rin… Rin…"
He whispered the name weakly.
His consciousness was growing dimmer and dimmer.
In that moment, he finally understood just how terrible it was for jinchuriki to fight off a beast trying to consume their minds.
Because right now, he couldn't do anything at all.
"Rin… Rin…"
He kept whispering, but the image of the girl was becoming blurrier and blurrier.
"Rin… Rin…"
His soul began to splinter even more violently.
And that memory of the girl seemed on the verge of being torn to pieces as well.
"RIN!"
Then, in that instant, a terrifying obsession suddenly exploded out of him.
"No… how can I forget Rin?"
"I've struggled and crawled all the way here—how can I forget her now?!"
Obito's eyes flew open.
A savage roar tore from his throat.
And in that moment, some unknown force burst forth from inside him.
His shattered will and broken soul were dragged back together and forcibly stitched into one again.
Outside the egg, the shell itself began to change.
"What is this?"
Black Zetsu stared, momentarily stunned.
But then he seemed to realize something and immediately jumped back.
Crack!
At the instant he withdrew, the egg split open like a shell being broken from within, and a figure emerged.
This person had two horns of uneven size growing from his head.
A ring of strange protrusions circled his neck.
His body looked covered in a crystalline layer of chakra, marked with patterns like scales.
Most striking of all, a row of black magatama had appeared across his chest.
Vast, overwhelming chakra poured from him without restraint.
Just standing nearby was enough to make people feel despair and suffocation.
"Did he succeed?"
Black Zetsu still didn't dare be certain.
He stared at Obito with a mixture of fear and hope.
If this had failed, then what stood before him would be nothing more than the Ten-Tails' puppet, and all he could do then was flee.
But more than anything, he wanted this to have worked.
This was his only chance.
Orochimaru was equally tense.
He was already prepared to run if necessary.
"So this is the power of a Ten-Tails jinchuriki…"
Fortunately, Obito seemed to take a moment to feel through his own body before finally speaking.
As he did, he lifted one hand, and black Truth-Seeking Orbs appeared behind him.
One of them dropped into his grip and transformed into a staff.
"So this is…"
"the power that truly belongs to the Sage of Six Paths?"
"I… succeeded."
"Warm-up? Move around a little?"
Back on the battlefield where Ren had appeared, the expressions on Onoki and the others' faces had grown extremely ugly.
Everything Ren had done just now—
in his eyes, that had only been a warm-up?
And now that their group had arrived, he considered the real exercise to be starting?
That kind of humiliation was impossible for anyone to accept.
Especially the Raikage line—they absolutely could not tolerate it.
"As if."
Ren shrugged, looking at Onoki and the Fourth Raikage with a faint smile.
"We're old acquaintances by now."
"You and the Fourth Raikage have both had your books taken by me."
"Surely you understand exactly what I mean."
"You—"
Both Onoki and the Fourth Raikage looked livid.
Because Ren had beaten them down personally before.
And what's more, this bastard was doing it on purpose.
His voice, carried by chakra, spread astonishingly far.
Everyone present could hear it.
Even the reinforcements still rushing toward the battlefield could hear every word.
He was deliberately disgusting them.
He was deliberately crushing the morale of their forces.
Buzz—
Without the slightest warning, the hot-tempered Third Raikage moved.
Seeing so many casualties had already filled him with rage.
And after hearing Ren speak like that, he knew he absolutely couldn't allow the man to keep talking.
Besides, he wanted to see what this so-called terror, the one who had made both the Third Tsuchikage and his own son fear him, was really capable of.
"Hell Stab: One-Finger Nukite!"
Lightning wrapped around his body as he blurred forward at impossible speed, carrying enough force to tear straight through anything in his path.
"So impatient?"
Ren stood where he was, looking completely unconcerned by the Third Raikage's charge.
Boom!
A violent impact exploded across the field, cracking the ground apart, but the Third Raikage's face changed.
"You do know I can use Flying Thunder God, don't you?"
"Charging in recklessly like that… no wonder you died surrounded by Iwa shinobi."
Ren had suddenly appeared beside him, his foot stamping down on the man's hand and driving the thrust straight into the earth.
"But joining forces with your enemy—especially when your son allied with the man who killed you…"
"That really does chill the heart."
"Particle Style: Detachment of the Primitive World!"
Just as Ren finished speaking, the Second Tsuchikage rose into the sky. A pillar of light shot from his hand, slamming straight toward Ren.
But faced with that, Ren simply raised one hand in a single seal.
In the next instant, a Torii Gate descended in front of him.
Boom!
The first gate shattered instantly under the force of the Particle Style.
No one could deny how terrifying that technique was.
But as the attack passed through successive layers of the gate, it weakened further and further, until in the end it had lost all threat.
Buzz—
Yet just as that attack was blocked, the ground beneath Ren suddenly shifted.
"Earth Release: Light-Weight Rock Technique!"
The First Tsuchikage slammed both hands into the earth, pouring out massive chakra and lifting Ren's body high into the air.
"Hah!"
In the next moment, the First, Second, and Fourth Raikage appeared around him in midair.
Their speed was absurd.
And as they leapt, they rose unnaturally high, as though gravity itself had loosened its hold on them.
"Light-Weight Rock Technique?"
Ren tilted his head.
In a blink, the three Raikage had already closed in around him, while below, Onoki had finished another set of hand seals.
"Earth Release: Added-Weight Rock Technique!"
The ground erupted upward, and everything beneath Ren was violently upheaved and thrown into the air.
Their intelligence-sharing had clearly been thorough.
They all understood that Ren's Flying Thunder God likely depended on Wood Release seeds hidden underground.
If they could expose and destroy those seeds, they could cut off his movement.
"Not bad."
Ren looked around at the three Raikage drawing close and the upheaved earth below, then slowly shook his head.
"But your understanding of me…"
"…seems a few versions out of date."
Everything they knew about him was from several versions ago.
The current Ren had gone far beyond the level of understanding this world could keep up with.
"Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence."
There was no hand seal at all.
He simply stood there as chakra moved.
In the next instant, thick vines exploded up from the earth, instantly intercepting the attacks of the three Raikage. Then they twisted together and thickened into towering trees.
"Damn it!"
"When did he form seals?"
"That fast?!"
The three Raikage's expressions changed dramatically.
And the trees created from those vines only continued to spread.
In the blink of an eye, the forest that war had once destroyed had returned—
no, it had become even denser and more monstrous than before.
"Seems like the pressure you can give me… still isn't enough."
Ren stood high atop the trees as they continued to lift him, looking down at the Kage struggling to evade the vines that pursued them, and the mass of shinobi below—already pushed near collapse, now trying to flee in complete disarray.
Then, suddenly, he halted his assault.
He looked down at Onoki and the Fourth Raikage with apparent curiosity.
"There's something I've always wondered."
His voice rang out like a great bell, spreading across the entire battlefield so that even the reinforcements still approaching could hear every word.
"Why did you two form an alliance?"
"Why would men with blood debts between them join forces?"
"And why throw in with the Akatsuki?"
"You knew they were terrorists."
"You knew Konoha had been hunting them."
"But now…"
"I think I understand a little."
"That Obito Uchiha really is something else."
"You—!"
Onoki and the Fourth Raikage seemed to realize immediately where this was headed. They opened their mouths to cut him off, but Ren had no intention of giving them the chance.
Not even a moment.
The terrifying vines lashed at them like death itself, and no matter how high they rose into the air, those vines pursued them relentlessly.
"The matter of the Fourth Mizukage, I'm sure quite a few people here have already heard about."
Ren's voice continued, and in that instant Onoki and the Fourth Raikage's expressions changed completely.
Below them, the fleeing shinobi and the reinforcements still arriving also felt their minds jolt.
"What does he mean?"
The various Raikage were thrown off, and the two Tsuchikage furrowed their brows.
Then, in the very next second, their expressions shifted too.
"The Fourth Mizukage was controlled by Obito Uchiha through genjutsu."
"That was the origin of the infamous Bloody Mist policy."
Ren's voice remained steady, but his words were already drilling into the hearts of everyone listening.
"And now the two of you have done the same."
"You put aside even a father's murder and joined hands, all for the sake of fighting Konoha."
"So I can't help but wonder…"
"Have the two of you also been controlled by Obito Uchiha?"
"Are you his puppets too?"
Those words were fatal.
And the worst part was that, for a moment, they had no way to answer them.
The more fiercely they denied it, the more it would look like guilt.
And the less they denied it, the more it would look like confirmation.
Because Obito really did have a history of exactly this sort of thing.
"Damn that Obito Uchiha!"
Onoki and the Fourth Raikage seemed ready to explode with hatred. Their eyes were red with fury.
But Ren stood atop the forest like a king surveying the battlefield, looking down at the army, at the Kage, and then lightly shook his head.
"Forget it."
"Whether you're puppets or not, right now you're my enemies."
"So let me ask you one little question."
"Have you ever experienced despair?"
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