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[NTU] [ARC-22] Chapter : 298
🕑 Added 2025-04-19 16:04:45 +0000 UTCPuff!
A sharp, sickening sound rang out—steel tearing through flesh. A jet of bright red blood erupted from Tendō’s chest. The Kusanagi sword had pierced clean through, leaving a deep, unmistakable wound.
“Yahiko…”
Nagato, hidden away in the hollow of a tree, gasped aloud, eyes wide.
“What is it?”
Konan, who had been silently monitoring Nagato’s condition, turned toward him immediately, concern flashing in her eyes.
Nagato gritted his teeth, his expression contorting in frustration.
“It’s nothing… Just that the Fifth Hokage sent me a message. A brutal one.”
He hadn't expected this.
Not even for a moment had Nagato believed Yahiko’s body would be so easily overwhelmed—cut down in their very first real clash. Though technically just a reanimated corpse, it was still Yahiko.
His friend. His brother in arms.
Watching that body defiled, even in combat, ignited a quiet fury inside him. It was a line that Toshiro had now crossed.
Meanwhile, above the battlefield, Toshiro watched calmly as Tendō floated in midair, the sword still embedded in his chest.
“As expected… no real reaction.”
There was no satisfaction in his expression—only a cold calculation.
After all, the enemy wasn’t truly alive. This was no living body—it was simply a vessel, animated by the power of the Rinnegan and fueled by Nagato’s chakra from afar.
He knew destroying it would not end the fight. But it would send a clear message.
Just as Toshiro narrowed his eyes to study Tendō more closely, a sudden shift occurred behind him.
Uchiha Itachi, silent and expressionless until now, began to move.
With both hands, Itachi reached into his ninja tool pouch, swiftly pulling out several kunai. With a sharp, practiced motion, he hurled them high into the sky.
As they left his fingers, the faint crackle of thunder followed—a subtle sizzle of lightning chakra coursing through the metal.
Though Chidori was a technique originally developed by Toshiro, as the heir of the Uchiha clan, Itachi had studied its scrolls before. He never fully trained in Lightning Release—his natural affinity leaned more toward fire and genjutsu—but he had learned enough to channel a faint current of lightning chakra into his tools.
It was just enough.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Kunai clashed in midair with surgical precision, their trajectories altered slightly with each strike.
Above him, Deidara’s white clay birds swarmed across the sky like a living storm. But Itachi didn’t aim for their bodies. He understood that targeting their cores would only take out one bird at a time—and there were far too many.
Instead, he focused on their wings.
A kunai to the wing would throw them off balance, send them spiraling down—sometimes even colliding with other birds in a chain reaction. That required precision, agility, and an almost unnatural eye for movement.
Itachi had all three.
His attacks weren’t brute force—they were chess moves. With each perfectly timed toss, kunai ricocheted off one another, shifting angles midair, striking wing after wing before moving on to the next.
Balanced on the back of Yamawashi, Itachi stood poised. His Sharingan blazed a vivid crimson, scanning every inch of the sky. Lightning flickered in his palms as he continuously charged more chakra into his weapons—cool, calculated, and relentless.
One hand always ready.
Another kunai already on the way.
While Itachi kept the kunai dancing in the air with impeccable control, Yamato wasn’t standing idly by.
Without hesitation, he shrugged off his ninja tool pouch, tossing extra shuriken and kunai to Itachi in one smooth motion. Then, his hands flew into a flurry of seals.
“Water Style: Rain Scattered Bullets!”
A series of crystalline droplets materialized around Yamato, each one glistening in the sunlight before launching upward with precision. They streaked toward the sky, targeting Deidara’s swarming white clay creations with sharp, watery impact.
From above, Deidara watched with growing interest.
“Not bad at all~” he muttered with a smirk, clearly impressed.
Itachi’s technique, in particular, caught his eye. The way his kunai sliced through the sky—changing trajectory midair to intercept clay birds with unerring accuracy—was nothing short of art. Deidara, an artist in his own right, could appreciate the beauty in such deadly precision.
Even Yamato, though less refined, managed to hold his own. His water bullets disrupted the flight of wingless clay beasts, halting their advance before they could overwhelm their defenses with sheer numbers.
“Let’s see how long you can keep this up...” Deidara laughed from above. Their defense was impressive, yes—but it wouldn’t last forever.
Those kunai infused with Lightning Release wouldn’t retain their charge indefinitely.
“Here, let me give you something extra!” he grinned.
Clutching a large clump of clay like it was a priceless treasure, Deidara chuckled with delight.
“Fly, my little darlings…”
He hurled it downward. With a puff of smoke, the lump burst into multiple clay constructs—some sprouted wings and soared towards Yamawashi, while others took on rotund, pig-like shapes and plummeted toward the ground like bombs waiting to explode.
From below, Toshiro gave the scene a quick glance, unfazed.
"Deidara... He's better off left to Itachi."
His focus remained locked on Tendō.
Despite being run through by the Kusanagi sword moments ago, the figure floated calmly in midair. The gaping wound in his chest didn’t seem to hinder him in the slightest—as though pain, or even damage, didn’t matter to him.
But before he could act again...
Whoosh!
Another sound sliced through the air behind him.
Tendō’s brows furrowed.
Clang!
Reacting instantly, he raised his right arm and parried—redirecting the path of another Kusanagi sword with the barest motion, its edge ringing as it was deflected.
He wasn’t finished yet.
But neither was Toshiro
Swish!
Just as Tendō prepared to breathe a sigh of relief—confident that he had finally deflected Toshiro’s attack and was ready to pass judgment for desecrating Yahiko’s body—
Swish!
A faint ripple in the air signaled another body flicker.
“Impossible...”
Tendō’s eyes, glowing with the power of the Rinnegan, widened in disbelief.
Hovering above him was a familiar figure—Toshiro—seemingly suspended in the sky, his hand reaching out to snatch the Kusanagi sword that Tendō had just deflected.
‘Wasn’t he just on the back of the summoned beast?’
That thought barely had time to register before a blinding arc of steel slashed toward Tendō’s neck.
Clang!
Tendō’s reflexes took over. His black chakra rod intercepted the strike—but something was different this time. The clang of metal-on-metal was gone, replaced by a deep, resonant thud, like the toll of a temple bell.
Though he blocked the blow, the sheer force behind it, amplified by gravity, drove Toshiro downward. He hit the ground hard—but showed no signs of frustration.
Instead, a soft blue-green glow shimmered along the edge of his Kusanagi sword.
Swish!
Five or six crescent-shaped energy waves burst forth from the blade, slicing through the air with deadly precision, all arcing toward Tendō.
Without missing a beat, Toshiro followed up—his arm whipping forward to hurl the Kusanagi sword itself directly at his foe.
“They're too fast…”
Nagato, watching through Tendō’s eyes, silently counted the seconds. The cooldown for Shinra Tensei hadn’t finished.
But he had other options.
“Water Style: Water Formation Pillar!”
With swift hand signs, he conjured a surging column of water beneath Yahiko’s suspended body. The torrent rose, engulfing him and propelling the corpse ten meters sideways—just enough to dodge both the sword slashes and the Kusanagi.
The weapon sank harmlessly into the flowing water.
“Not bad…” Toshiro muttered under his breath, admiration slipping into his tone.
Nagato’s quick thinking had not only redirected Tendō’s body out of harm’s way but also disrupted Toshiro’s ability to follow up using Flying Thunder God. With the Kusanagi sword now submerged within a water-style jutsu, teleporting to it was no longer a viable option.
“Getting a clean hit… won’t be easy after all.”
Toshiro wasn’t surprised to see the enemy using Water Style ninjutsu—after all, in the original timeline, Yahiko’s chakra nature was associated with water.
Splash!
As water sprayed outward, the sharp rattle of metal chains echoed through the sky.
Toshiro ignored the Kusanagi sword marked with his Flying Thunder God seal. Instead, he opened his mouth and unleashed a massive fireball—nearly 30 meters in diameter—blazing with intense heat that distorted the air and completely obscured Tendō’s vision.
"What is this...?"
Tendō, who had just evaded the previous attack, squinted at the wall of fire now blocking his line of sight. Anxiety crept in.
If it were merely a fireball, it would be manageable—but Tendō knew his opponent well enough to realize: this was only the beginning.
It was the faint, telltale grind of metal that truly unsettled him.
Ssshhh—!
As he manipulated the surrounding water, a veil of white mist hissed into the air, trying to mitigate the fire’s intensity.
“Here it comes…”
At that moment, just as his Water Style jutsu activated, a gleam of golden light pierced the mist.
Chains.
Thanks to the heightened perception granted by the Rinnegan, Nagato saw them—several golden chains following in the wake of the fireball, their momentum unbroken. They tore through the defenses like predators on the scent, homing in on Tendō with deadly intent.
Swish!
Without hesitation, Tendō hurled a black iron rod to disrupt some of the chains. It bought him a moment—but not much.
He clenched both fists, and two more black chakra rods formed instantly in his hands.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sparks burst like fireworks as metal collided with metal. Tendō's purple Rinnegan eyes stayed locked on the erratic movements of the golden chains, reading their trajectories and responding with split-second precision.
The twin rods spun in his hands like windmills, deflecting strike after strike.
Nagato, controlling him from afar, silently thanked fate for the gift of the Rinnegan. Without its extraordinary vision and reflexes, Yahiko’s body would have been obliterated long ago—a loss Nagato would never forgive himself for.
Extending his arms, Toshiro spread his fingers wide. A golden light pulsed from his palms, and six gleaming chains, each as thick as an arm, erupted forth.
They moved like serpents—entangling, lunging, piercing—relentless in their pursuit.
The source of this technique was none other than Kushina. As Hokage of Konoha, he had used his authority and his unique eye power to master this forbidden technique—and now, in Toshiro’s hands, it proved its worth.
“The Rinnegan...”
Watching Tendō fend off the chains with only two rods, Toshiro couldn’t help but be impressed.
The Rinnegan’s clarity and reaction time may even surpass that of the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. Otherwise, how could the opponent block such relentless, precise attacks?
"Fire Release: Fire Dragon Jutsu!"
With that call, Toshiro opened his mouth again.
A focused stream of fire shot forth, latching onto one of the golden chains. In an instant, it morphed into the shape of a massive dragon’s head—roaring and writhing, fueled by chakra and rage.
Anyone watching might have mistaken it for an A-rank or even S-rank technique, judging by the sheer scale.
Roar!
The blazing dragon lunged, mouth agape, charging along the chain toward Tendō like a fiery serpent ready to consume him whole.
With both hands occupied defending against the chains, Tendō had no way to counter the incoming fire dragon.
This time, even the legendary reflexes of the Rinnegan might not be enough...
