The sound was earthy, desperate—even louder than the explosion of the detonating tags.
Uchiha Kiyo was helpless. The detonation tags Konan had deployed were capable of exploding continuously for ten minutes. Now that she controlled the sequence to detonate and target Obito, there was no guarantee Uchiha Kiyo wouldn't be caught in it too. He had just taken Nagato's Rinnegan—Konan's odds of choosing mutual destruction were extremely high.
The instantaneous power of 300 billion explosive tags was beyond what Uchiha Kiyo could endure.
To avoid total annihilation, Kiyo chose to sacrifice Obito.
A deadlock formed between Uchiha Kiyo and Konan.
Five minutes passed. Obito's intangibility phase finally ended, and a massive chain reaction of detonating tags erupted, seemingly vaporizing him.
But just before death, the Sharingan under Obito's mask spun, activating Izanagi.
The barrage was halved.
"Looks like it really can last ten minutes."
Uchiha Kiyo felt a headache coming on. Konan was terrifyingly thorough—she knew Obito's phasing could last five minutes, yet she prepared tags for double the time. For an enemy like that, Kiyo had no doubt she would choose death if it meant taking them with her.
Now Uchiha Kiyo began to panic slightly.
One crucial detail he hadn't considered: Izanagi's delay in resurrection. After Obito died, ten seconds passed without revival. Danzo had used too many Sharingan in succession and had to conserve chakra, delaying activations. Could Obito be doing the same?
Unbeknownst to Uchiha Kiyo, Konan hated him more than Obito. She wouldn't wait for Obito to revive—she'd rather act now than risk their plans unraveling.
Kiyo realized he had to escape—fast.
"I have to break the barrier first."
But Konan wasn't giving him that chance.
"Damn!"
His mind raced through countless simulations, looking for a solution.
Suddenly—an idea.
"Underground!"
The spatial barrier completely sealed the area, but how deep was it underground?
If deep enough, the earth above might absorb the explosive force.
Kiyo sent chakra into the ground to probe.
"Only five meters?"
Not enough. Five meters could only shield part of the impact.
Still no sign of Obito. Was he planning to delay even longer?
Based on Uchiha Madara's intel, Kiyo understood Izanagi's range—but not the exact duration of its activation. It was based on chakra and ocular power. The previous instance had delayed for nearly a day. Who knew how long Obito would delay this time?
He couldn't gamble.
Kiyo clenched his fists.
"Screw it. If I'm breaking out, I'm breaking out!"
Forming hand seals, Uchiha Kiyo prepared to summon his Lava Armor Giant Form.
He activated the Body Flicker Technique.
Konan, noticing his sudden shift, narrowed her eyes and hardened her heart.
"Detonate everything!"
The explosion obliterated the upper soil layer. Kiyo's lava-clad form emerged, magma coiling like armor over his body.
The shockwave annihilated the ground overhead and smashed into the Lava Titan, its searing shell taking the brunt.
Kiyo poured chakra into reinforcing it—repairing destruction, again and again.
But the detonation was too powerful. Destruction outpaced repair.
Still, half a second of resistance was enough!
The explosion's force shattered the spatial barrier.
The instant it ruptured, Uchiha Kiyo unleashed his teleportation jutsu, leaping ten kilometers away.
The explosion's shockwave swallowed everything in its path—flattening terrain, annihilating life, destroying all within ten kilometers.
Even after teleporting, the shockwave caught him and flung him back several hundred meters.
"Fuck!"
He fought nausea as his body tumbled uncontrollably. Gritting his teeth, he activated the teleportation again.
No pauses.
He teleported again and again—a dozen successive flickers—until finally he stopped, now far from the blast zone. Looking at the massive mushroom cloud in the distance, his heart trembled.
All of Amegakure and its surrounding regions were likely vaporized. The scale far exceeded what he had anticipated.
Sure enough, the most terrifying are women—especially those with nothing to lose.
He wasn't interested in surveying the wreckage.
"The Rinnegan is secured. No point in getting further involved."
Kiyo turned and left.
He arrived at the site of Uchiha Itachi's death—an abandoned research facility once used by Orochimaru. He needed the tools inside.
"Orochimaru left all this? Just how rich was he?"
After inspecting the untouched equipment, Kiyo sighed.
He suspected Orochimaru had discovered some secret way to manufacture instruments—or possibly reverse-engineered them himself.
Carefully ensuring there were no traps or hidden surveillance, Kiyo activated barriers around him and prepared for the next phase of his plan.
"Orochimaru's busy chasing the Uzumaki Death Mask right now. No reason for him to show up."
Some time ago, Kiyo had revealed information to Orochimaru—such as the Death Mask from the Uzumaki Clan's relics. Orochimaru had likely gone to the Land of Whirlpools to retrieve it.
It was tough for Orochimaru too. For a while, his arms had been unusable, forcing him to control his experiments through serpents alone.
Amegakure—
Shortly after Uchiha Kiyo's escape, Obito rematerialized.
He was pale—drained. The long Izanagi delay had clearly taken a toll.
From his Kamui space, he retrieved a right Sharingan, inserting it where the left had been. Relief mixed with frustration.
Only one eye. The right one.
"Damn it… I should've grabbed the left eye first—should've taken something from Kiyo…"
---
Two days later.
News of the Amegakure explosion spread across the ninja world. All the Hidden Villages responded urgently.
The Five Kage Summit was convened.
Meanwhile, Akatsuki, realizing their base had been compromised, accelerated their plans.
Obito, now wielding the Rinnegan, reasserted dominance over the remaining members. Resistance was crushed swiftly.
Akatsuki had always been a group of rogue shinobi pursuing their own goals. They followed only power. With Nagato dead and Obito in charge, their allegiance barely wavered.
Obito pressed forward.
In just two weeks, every tailed beast—except the Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails—was captured.
Simultaneously, the Five Kage Alliance reached a consensus: Unified resistance against Akatsuki.
They exchanged intel and finally grasped the severity of the situation.
Five tailed beasts had been seized in secret.
In each case, either the beast or the jinchūriki had been captured—and the Akatsuki had extracted the beasts without killing them, indicating advanced control over the process.
Within half a month, two more tailed beasts disappeared. The Five Villages could no longer stay passive.
"Damn it. What is Akatsuki really planning?"
"All ninja forces must prepare for war!"
Villages mobilized. Shinobi were summoned.
Akatsuki now held seven tailed beasts—enough to destroy any village singlehandedly.
No one knew how they planned to control the beasts, but they couldn't afford to assume otherwise.
Given how easily the extractions were done, Akatsuki clearly had knowledge far beyond any Hidden Village. If any of them could have done it, they wouldn't wait for their jinchūriki to die for the tailed beast to reappear.
Amegakure—Akatsuki's New Base.
"The Five Great Villages have united," Obito announced. "The Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails are under heavy protection. We won't be able to get them one-by-one. It's time for war."
"Finally! A war of our own making. This will be beautiful."
The room was filled with lunatics—grinning.
"Art is… an EXPLOSION!"
Deidara laughed.
---
Elsewhere:
In the ruins of the Land of Whirlpools, Orochimaru recovered the Mask of Death, performed the soul ritual, and resurrected the previous Hokage—sealing their souls for now. He stared toward the Land of Rain, anticipation gleaming in his eyes.
In a secret location, Kabuto Yakushi sealed a freshly grown body into a coffin.
At the same time, in the abandoned laboratory of Orochimaru in the Land of Grass, Uchiha Kiyo