Faced with several figures charging straight toward him, the black-robed man formed a one-handed seal and unleashed his first ninjutsu of the day.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
It was only one of the most basic C-rank techniques.
Yet at that moment, everyone present felt a violent gale crash into them head-on.
Aside from Yuu, who could directly use the Substitution Technique to close the distance and was therefore unaffected, everyone else had their charging speed slowed to some degree.
"Fire Release: Flame Bullet!!"
Another breath of flame erupted.
The blazing mass roared forward and mixed into the violent wind from before.
In an instant, fire spread throughout the surroundings, almost filling the entire cavern with burning flames!
"…Heh."
Yuu sneered inwardly.
Finally willing to show a little of your real ability?
The black-robed man was still trying to conceal his true origins.
But in Yuu's eyes, his identity couldn't have been more obvious.
Who else in the entire ninja world could take the most ordinary Fire Release and Wind Release techniques and use them at this level?
Other than Uchiha Madara, one of the very few true grandmasters of Fire Release—
who else could it possibly be?
Surely not one of those Kirigakure ninja famous for Water Release.
However…
although Yuu had confidence in the slash he had landed earlier, and he was certain that from beginning to end he had never once made direct eye contact with the black-robed man, he was still somewhat surprised by how smoothly things had gone.
He had actually…
cut off one of Uchiha Madara's arms that easily?
And even after losing an arm, Madara had remained calm and restrained.
He hadn't even revealed his Sharingan to retaliate with something vicious?
All of this made Yuu briefly wonder whether he had already fallen under a genjutsu.
So he hurriedly asked inside his mind—
(Uh… Clone Technique, Little Phoenix. I'm not under genjutsu right now, am I?)
[Phoenix Sage Fire Technique: Huh? What genjutsu?]
[Clone Technique: Don't worry, I've been keeping an eye on you the whole time. If anything seems wrong, I'll tell you immediately~ Hmph. Can any of those other ninjutsu do that for you?]
[Substitution Technique: …]
Only after seeing the system responses did Yuu finally relax.
He steadied himself and released an enormous Water Formation Wall, sending it surging toward the ceiling and enclosing himself, Kakashi, Obito, and the others inside.
Water Formation Wall: Water-Heaven Barrier.
Water and fire collided, producing enormous amounts of steam.
Before the vapor could even block anyone's vision, torrents of water surged upward like an enormous hand spreading its five fingers.
They reached toward the black-robed man and forced him to abandon his attempt to continue using Fire Release.
Objectively speaking,
his Fire Release was powerful enough to ignore the elemental disadvantage and evaporate the water in front of him.
But if he suddenly used a technique on the level of Majestic Destroyer Flame, then his connection to the Uchiha clan would become almost impossible to hide.
Therefore—
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!!"
Rumble—!!!
A massive earthen wall rose from the ground.
It curved into an enormous ring dozens of meters across and blocked the oncoming torrent.
When the two collided, it resembled a tsunami smashing against a dam.
The entire cavern shook several times.
Yuu, Shisui, Kakashi, and the others rode the surging water forward, leapt over the top of the earthen wall, and launched a fierce coordinated assault on the black-robed man.
Despite having already lost one hand, the latter showed no sign of weakness.
He gripped his short blade tightly in his remaining left hand and leapt forward.
One against four—
yet he didn't fall behind in the slightest.
If anything, he seemed to be gradually suppressing them instead.
Yuu wasn't surprised.
After all, Uchiha Madara's taijutsu and reaction speed were both extraordinary.
In the original story, when Senju Tobirama attempted to use Flying Thunder God Slash against him, Madara had effortlessly counterattacked and nearly killed him.
Namikaze Minato had also tried attacking him with a senjutsu-enhanced Rasengan, only to have one of his arms smashed off.
Of course, during that later battle Madara had already become the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, so it couldn't be used as a perfect comparison.
Even so, Madara's reaction speed in his normal state was unquestionably among the absolute highest in the ninja world.
If Yuu didn't activate Nerve Activation Technique, even he would struggle to keep up with Madara's attack speed.
However…
to everyone else, this situation was anything but normal.
"This guy…"
"How can he be this strong?!"
The more Kakashi and the others fought, the more alarmed they became.
They had a decent understanding of their own strength.
And they understood Yuu's strength even better.
Under normal circumstances, even a Kage-level expert would have difficulty stopping all four of them alone.
Yet now…
when had Kirigakure produced a monster like this?
Could the Third Mizukage himself have come here?
But…
even the Third Mizukage shouldn't be this terrifying in taijutsu.
Logically speaking, that man was even older than Sarutobi Hiruzen.
No matter how well he had maintained himself, there was no way he should surpass Sarutobi, who had an all-around hexagonal stat spread and could swing his giant staff around like the Monkey King.
During a brief lapse in concentration, Kakashi took a kick directly to the chest.
He managed to raise both arms in time to block part of the impact, but the tremendous force still sent him flying backward.
He flipped once in midair before landing again.
Then came Obito.
The moment a gap appeared in their encirclement, the black-robed man's movements became even more flexible.
He immediately shifted from defense to offense.
Seeing this, Shisui closed and reopened his eyes.
The three tomoe quietly spun together, forming the shape of a four-bladed pinwheel.
Once again—
a skeletal Susanoo manifested.
Its massive fist swung forward!
Yuu simultaneously activated Instant Prison Shadow Killing Formation.
His figure split into five or six afterimages that surrounded the black-robed man and unleashed a storm of slashes.
The black-robed man remained extraordinarily fast.
But in the end, his weapon couldn't withstand the pressure.
Cracks first appeared across the short blade.
Then, after another violent collision—
Crash!
It shattered apart.
As the black-robed man immediately pulled back,
Shisui finally caught his opportunity.
The instant their gazes met—
his ocular power erupted.
"Kotoamatsukami!!"
This was Shisui's ultimate trump card—
a technique he had never used before.
It was also recorded in the Uchiha clan's secret archives as the strongest genjutsu.
In theory, no one could resist its power.
The instant a target was struck, their will itself would be rewritten by the caster.
Sure enough…
the moment Shisui released his ocular technique, the black-robed man's body paused slightly.
His movements suddenly became rigid.
At the same time—
one kilometer away, in another underground chamber,
Uchiha Madara sat cross-legged with his eyes closed, remotely controlling his Shapeshifting Clone.
His eyelid twitched.
Surprise appeared on his face.
"So it really is…"
"that ocular technique…"
At this moment,
Madara suddenly felt rather fortunate that he had chosen to use a Shapeshifting Clone against these brats instead of personally entering the battlefield.
His true body was far stronger than this clone.
But these little monsters clearly possessed unusual techniques of their own.
Whether it was Yuu's swordsmanship or Shisui's Kotoamatsukami, both were abilities capable of giving even Kage-level experts an enormous headache.
If his real body had gone into battle and he made even one careless mistake…
he might genuinely suffer a humiliating setback.
Fortunately,
Madara had chosen to play things cautiously.
He had used nothing more than his most basic abilities.
He hadn't even used his Sharingan dōjutsu or his strongest Fire Release techniques—
yet he had already baited out all of the enemy's trump cards.
The satisfaction of baiting ultimates with nothing but basic attacks made Madara feel rather pleased with himself.
Feeling the ocular power transmitted through the Shapeshifting Clone and attempting to rewrite his consciousness,
Madara abruptly opened his Sharingan as well.
The tomoe within his eyes spun rapidly.
An overwhelming amount of ocular power belonging to an expert beyond the ordinary Kage level surged forth—
and directly confronted Shisui's Kotoamatsukami.
Kotoamatsukami was indeed the strongest genjutsu-type ocular technique.
But…
talking about poison without considering the dosage was nonsense.
At the end of the day,
a dōjutsu was merely a specialized nature and shape transformation of Yin Release chakra.
Ordinary people couldn't resist because they lacked Yin Release chakra powerful enough to oppose it.
But Uchiha Madara…
had possessed the Eternal Mangekyō for decades.
By incorporating Hashirama's flesh, he had reached the realm of "all things in creation" and personally awakened the Rinnegan.
His mastery of Yin-Yang Release had long since reached an extraordinary realm.
Aside from the legendary and elusive Sage of Six Paths,
Madara considered himself unrivaled.
If Shisui possessed the Eternal Mangekyō,
then Madara might have been slightly wary.
But…
a newly awakened ordinary Mangekyō?
Where did this brat get the confidence to use Kotoamatsukami on the ancestor of the Uchiha clan himself?
What a joke!
At once,
Madara increased his ocular power even further.
Inside the cavern,
Shisui immediately felt overwhelming pressure.
Blood tears streamed continuously from his eyes.
Just like Fugaku, Shisui had been extremely confident in his Mangekyō ability.
He had originally believed one Kotoamatsukami would instantly subdue the black-robed man before him.
Yet he hadn't expected the other party's spiritual power to be so enormous.
It felt like staring into a boundless ocean.
For the briefest instant,
Shisui even felt as though he were confronting another Mangekyō user.
Everything happened in a flash.
From the moment Shisui used Kotoamatsukami to the moment Madara began opposing him from a distance—
the entire exchange took place in an instant.
And judging from the current situation, Shisui's dōjutsu would probably be forcibly broken in another one or two seconds.
Perhaps even less.
But inside that tiny, fleeting opening—
Yuu moved.
He used the Substitution Technique to flash directly in front of the black-robed man.
Once again, he gripped the Sword of the Thunder God with both hands—
and swung with all his strength!
This strike—
was completely different from all the others.
The instant Yuu swung the sword,
his mind entered an empty state.
Essence.
Energy.
Spirit.
All three condensed into a single line—
then merged together with the blade in his hands.
Everything within his vision seemed to disappear.
All sound vanished.
Between heaven and earth,
only the black-robed man remained.
And around that man's body—
were countless faint, translucent "lines."
Those were—
his Lines of Life.
Mushin: One Heart!
"DIE!!"
Yuu drove all his strength through his arms and poured chakra into the blade.
Then—
he slashed directly through that "line"!
Whoosh—!!
The blade tore through the air.
The black-robed man seemed to sense mortal danger.
He suddenly erupted with power, forcibly shattered Kotoamatsukami's control, and shot backward!
From an observer's perspective,
all they saw was the Sword of the Thunder God draw a white arc through the air.
Then the distance between Yuu and the black-robed man suddenly expanded by dozens of meters.
When the latter landed,
it seemed as though nothing had happened.
"…Heh."
"I was wondering what kind of technique that was.
"Such a petty little trick, and you dare show off before Mada—"
The black-robed man sneered.
Before he could finish his pun—
his voice abruptly stopped.
Crack…
A faint breaking sound echoed through the cavern.
A thin crack suddenly appeared across the Kirigakure ANBU mask on his face.
Then—
a line of blood emerged vertically along his body.
From his forehead,
all the way down his torso.
Pshh—!
Blood sprayed from the line.
Then—
it began gushing wildly!
At that moment, the Kirigakure ANBU mask the black-robed man had worn all this time split cleanly into two halves and fell toward the ground.
Beneath it was revealed an utterly ordinary middle-aged man's face, partly obscured by long hair.
"…Huh?"
Yuu's eyes narrowed.
So the "Uchiha Madara" standing here wasn't the shadow clone he had expected.
Instead—
it was…
a Shapeshifting Clone?
Right.
The Shapeshifting Technique had only appeared once in the main story of the original timeline.
When Gaara was killed and Kakashi's and Guy's teams pursued the artistic duo, Pain had used this technique to create copies of Kisame Hoshigaki and Uchiha Itachi to intercept them.
Compared with the Shadow Clone Technique,
its nature was closer to the Mind Body Switch Technique or Spirit Transformation Technique.
It allowed the caster to remotely control another person in battle.
In theory,
a Shapeshifting Clone could carry at most thirty percent of the original body's chakra.
That meant certain enormous AOE techniques couldn't be used freely.
But aside from that limitation,
ordinary ninjutsu and even kekkei genkai could be used normally.
And even if the clone were killed, it would reveal only the appearance of the "sacrifice," leaving the actual caster's identity hidden.
Of course…
for someone like Uchiha Madara, whose chakra reserves were measured in tons, that thirty-percent restriction wasn't particularly meaningful.
After all,
this was a monster capable of creating twenty-five Wood Release clones at once—
and every single one of them could independently activate Susanoo.
Still,
Yuu estimated that the Shapeshifting Clone in front of him probably didn't actually contain thirty percent of Madara's chakra.
Otherwise, Shisui's Kotoamatsukami probably wouldn't have been able to restrain it even for that single second.
And even with that momentary restraint,
if Yuu hadn't possessed the conceptual ability Mushin: One Heart,
quickly killing this thing would have been extremely difficult.
Unfortunately…
there were no "ifs."
The instant Yuu's blade touched the man's Line of Life,
he was already dead.
The thing still standing in front of them now was nothing more than—
"A corpse…
"that hasn't realized it's dead yet."
Yuu said.
"…?!"
The black-robed man opened his mouth.
His eyes remained fixed on Yuu, seemingly desperate to say something.
But his throat had already been destroyed.
No sound came out.
Finally—
he fell backward.
…
"…Damn it!!"
"That inherently evil white-haired brat again!!"
Inside a cave one kilometer away,
Uchiha Madara's eyes snapped open.
On his somewhat aged face appeared—
three parts anger,
three parts displeasure,
three parts surprise,
and one part sheer disbelief.
~~~
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