"Izumi, someone's coming at us!"
Farther away from the main battlefield, Tachibana Jirō stood on Izumi's shoulder, watching the distant fight.
He knew Keizumi extremely well and understood that Keizumi was still fighting with ease, so he wasn't worried about his safety.
But as Jirō's ears perked up, he sharply sensed a surge of malice descending upon both him and Izumi.
"Is it other members of the Akatsuki?"
Izumi's gaze also shifted toward another part of the battlefield, where the Akatsuki were fighting. Facing that woman who could transform into sheets of paper and scatter with the wind at any moment, Izumi felt a certain pressure.
She had enough self-awareness—if she faced Konan alone, there was a very high chance she wouldn't be her opponent.
"No…"
Jirō hadn't even finished speaking when, in the next instant, his body suddenly expanded.
The massive ninja cat shielded Izumi behind him and slashed fiercely at an arm that had extended out of thin air.
"Uchiha Obito!"
Jirō's fur stood on end. From Keizumi, he had learned some information about Obito—he knew that Obito's Mangekyō Sharingan possessed a special space-time ability.
"You actually blocked it?"
Obito's body emerged from a swirling vortex. Looking at the enormous ninja cat before him, he couldn't help but frown.
Keizumi's information was no longer much of a secret across the ninja world, but as for Keizumi's summoned beast, Tachibana Jirō—Obito had almost no information at all.
At the very least, he had never expected that an ordinary ninja cat could block his sneak attack.
"I blocked your attack—have you ever blocked Kakashi's?"
Jirō recalled the intelligence Keizumi had told him. Thinking about how Obito had watched helplessly as the girl he loved was killed by Kakashi during the Third Great Ninja War, he couldn't resist provoking him.
"You're courting death!"
Obito didn't know how this ninja cat knew about him, Kakashi, and Rin.
But at this moment, Obito was completely enraged—the kind of furious that made him look almost ridiculous.
Everyone knew that Rin only cared for Obito as a friend. Compared to Obito, she clearly liked Kakashi more—after all, Kakashi was handsome and the sole heir of the Hatake clan. What did Obito have? Just a dead-last underachiever.
Lies don't hurt people—truth is the sharpest blade!
At this point, Obito had completely thrown aside any thought of capturing Jirō and Izumi. All he wanted now was to brutally torture this foul-mouthed ninja cat—and kill Izumi right in front of it.
You said you blocked it?
I, Obito, don't believe that!
As Obito's anger surged, his combat power also began to skyrocket. His fighting style might be slippery and elusive, but Kamui was simply too broken an ability!
Jirō's strength was by no means weak. Even in Konoha, he would be considered a standard jōnin-level fighter.
But against Obito's ghost-like, unpredictable Kamui-based fighting style, Jirō still found himself struggling to keep up.
...
On another part of the battlefield, as Keizumi sensed the violent fluctuations of several other chakra signatures at the edge of the battlefield, his expression grew serious.
"Uchiha… Obito!"
"He still dares to show himself? And he's even going after Izumi and Jirō?"
On Keizumi's Susanoo, molten lava began to boil and surge—this was the power of Lava Release.
Combining Lava Release with Susanoo—something even Uchiha Madara wouldn't dare claim he could do.
Of course, it might also be because Madara simply didn't possess the Lava Release bloodline.
The massive Susanoo, towering like a mountain, began to drip magma. The moment the magma hit the ground, it melted the earth into more molten lava, which slowly spread and covered the Susanoo.
For a moment, it made the Susanoo look like a god of fire.
BOOM—!
A terrifying roar erupted—Lava Release was exploding into action.
In a very short time, the entire battlefield had transformed into a domain of magma.
The lava not only radiated extreme heat, but also accumulated unimaginable destructive energy.
The previously stable ground suddenly erupted—it was the power of molten lava!
Everything happened too fast—so fast that even the Six Paths, watching with twelve eyes, couldn't react in time.
The three summoned beasts that had been harassing Keizumi were all instantly cooked alive.
As for the Naraka Path, which was supposed to serve as a resurrection mechanism—it didn't even have time to react before being swallowed by magma.
The explosion erupted beneath it. In an instant, the surging lava blew its body apart and melted it completely, leaving behind only the black rods formed from Yin-Yang Release.
After the Naraka Path was the first to be annihilated, the second was the Animal Path.
Just like the Naraka Path, it barely had time to react before being engulfed by the terrifying magma.
The Human Path and the Preta Path fared no better.
Only the mechanically modified Asura Path had yet to be completely destroyed.
As for the Deva Path, it was already floating in midair, allowing it to avoid the direct impact of the magma.
Even the volcanic eruption-like lava was repelled before it could reach its body.
...
Despite the heavy losses, the Deva Path had no time to spare for anything else.
It had also sensed the battle fluctuations in the distance and guessed that Obito had attacked Izumi and the ninja cat.
But what it didn't expect was that Keizumi's sudden outburst would place such overwhelming pressure on it.
The Susanoo, now covered in a layer of molten armor, was like a fire god incarnate.
The extreme heat distorted space itself—and even forcibly warped both attraction and repulsion forces.
And the massive Susanoo stepped forward, each step capable of crushing mountains, as it slammed toward the Deva Path!
"...This can't be real…"
Farther away, Kakuzu stared at the battlefield. Looking at the fire-god-like Susanoo, shock filled his eyes.
Having lived for decades—nearly a century—Kakuzu considered himself well-traveled and experienced.
He had seen Senju Hashirama before.
He had even glimpsed Uchiha Madara from afar.
But even Madara probably couldn't combine two kekkei genkai like this, right?
As someone who specialized in composite techniques, Kakuzu understood better than anyone how powerful such combinations could be.
But he had never imagined that not only ninjutsu—but even kekkei genkai—could be combined!
"A true monster…"
"What a pity we can't offer him as a sacrifice to Jashin-sama. Otherwise, Jashin-sama would definitely be delighted."
Meanwhile, the most idle of them all—Hidan—still had the leisure to think about such things.