Chapter 303: Clash
Blood surged, heart pounding, breath coming ragged.
An urge too raw to put into words rose up from somewhere deep inside Obito, threatening to shatter whatever restraint had held his mind together this long.
He no longer cared how the Hokage knew about Madara.
Right now, all he wanted—
Was to kill.
To kill.
To kill.
To kill this damned pink-haired menace standing in front of him.
Everything I've done — what was it all for?
My wish was to gather every soul in this world into Infinite Tsukuyomi, and finally put an end to every injustice that's ever existed.
Everyone, sharing in one beautiful dream, together.
A world with no more pain. No more war. No more loss.
I was doing all of this for everyone. Working toward everyone's happiness.
I was—
A savior!!!
So why—
Why—!!!
Why does she talk about me like this?
Why does she insult me like this?
What did I do wrong?
What exactly did I do wrong?!
The Uchiha clan. Minato Namikaze. Kushina Uzumaki—
They were just sacrifices, made for the sake of a better future.
What's wrong with that?!
What's wrong with that?!
I'm not wrong!!!
I'm—the savior!!!
The savior of this entire world!!!
Obito's chest heaved violently, his already-crimson Sharingan burning now with unrestrained, murderous fury.
He was the most fervent of saviors.
This world—
Would be saved by him.
Could only be saved by him.
This path was destined to be steep, unforgiving, misunderstood by everyone around him.
Only I—
Only I—!!
Only I can carry this weight!
"Are you... done talking?"
Obito's head snapped up, his glowing red eyes locking, unwavering, on the pink-haired woman still taunting him.
At that moment—
Kamui was gone.
His fully materialized body appeared, at last, within Inner Sakura's senses.
"Heh..."
"Finally showed your face, little~ O~bi~to~"
Inner Sakura's expression sharpened instantly, her malice-filled eyes brightening with something close to anticipation.
"Someone like you could never understand what I've been through!"
"I'm going to kill you!"
Before the words even finished, Obito's form vanished, reappearing some distance away.
The rod of black Yin-Yang Release he'd carried before wasn't what materialized in his hand this time — repeated failed attempts had already proven it couldn't break through her defense.
Instead, a wooden spike roughly the length of his forearm formed in his grip.
Obito moved like the wind, his body enhanced dramatically by the combination of speed-boosting techniques and Steel Release.
Even against Inner Sakura, he had genuine grounds to stand and fight.
"Plenty of people have wanted to kill me."
"None of them ever managed it."
Facing Obito's charge, Inner Sakura's expression showed no trace of alarm at all — she simply charged forward to meet him, without hesitation.
If Kamui's intangibility hadn't been so genuinely irritating to deal with, she'd never have wasted this much breath sparring with him verbally in the first place.
The instant the two of them clashed, Obito's Mangekyō Sharingan activated fully.
The eye-power stored inside him surged violently, and reinforced by both his Yin-Yang Release and Wood Release, that single Mangekyō pushed itself into overload.
Not to activate Kamui.
To track his opponent's movements — to read and anticipate every motion she made.
Steel Release, his enhanced speed, and even the Wood Release cells woven into his body gave Obito a real margin for error here.
Which meant, right now, Obito—
Was fighting for his life.
Fighting with everything he had.
Fighting to kill this pink-haired woman.
He would kill her.
He would kill the one who'd insulted his will, his ideals, everything he stood for.
...
Something in Sakura seemed to catch, and she glanced over at Inner Sakura, still locked in combat with Obito in the distance.
Was that a trick of the eye?
She's grown weaker.
Inner Sakura had gotten weaker.
Sakura had already noticed something off before this — back when Inner Sakura had briefly taken her place in the Hokage's office, something about her had felt subtly wrong even then.
Inner Sakura's own explanation had been simple: Sakura herself had simply grown stronger, which made Inner Sakura seem weaker by comparison.
But now, watching this, Sakura's brow furrowed.
Facing Sasori, Kisame, and Hiruko earlier, Inner Sakura had only actually finished off one of them — Sasori, and only because he'd been distracted by Deidara's death.
That wasn't like Inner Sakura at all.
Sakura would never believe Inner Sakura had simply let an opponent go.
And now, facing Obito — considerably stronger here than his canon counterpart, certainly, but still—
Inner Sakura was currently operating under full Sage Mode.
With the complete arsenal of Sage Technique, Ward, Superhuman Strength, Yang Release, Light and Heavy Rock techniques at her disposal — that Inner Sakura, wielding this entire top-tier combat toolkit, hadn't already ended Obito outright...
Could it be—
Something tightened, briefly, in Sakura's mind, a possibility surfacing.
But this wasn't the moment to chase that thought down. She filed it away to examine later, once things had settled.
With that, she turned her focus back to the man before her.
Nagato.
The piece Madara had chosen to cultivate as the Rinnegan's caretaker.
"See it?"
Sakura said, calm.
"See what."
Nagato answered.
"This broken, ruined world..."
"This ruined world exists because of people like you — Konoha's own doing."
Before Sakura even finished the sentence, Nagato cut in, furious.
"No. Konoha has never once started a war against anyone."
Sakura shook her head. She'd genuinely intended to say something more to the man before her.
But looking at the hatred burning in his eyes, she found herself losing interest entirely.
Whatever she said, he wouldn't believe a word of it.
Madara had had a talent for choosing pieces. He'd seen in Nagato exactly the right blend — a mind easily steered, yet stubborn enough to hold that direction once set.
And having lived through Yahiko's death, Nagato had long since lost the ability to see past his own convictions to whatever truth lay underneath.
And now she'd just killed Konan in front of him, on top of everything else.
If he wanted to tear her apart a thousand times over, that was probably the least she deserved, in his eyes.
No point in further words.
Kill him. Take the Rinnegan. Then head straight for the Land of Frost front.
"In that case—"
"Let me be the one to end this life someone else has been pulling the strings on."
The Hokage looked at him and spoke, calm.
"Heh. Heh heh. You think... you've already got me beaten?"
Fury twisted into something like laughter on Nagato's face.
With that, without a hint of caution, he charged straight at the Hokage himself.
He stamped one foot down, and the earth split apart.
The ground itself churned beneath him, becoming his ally.
And not only that — his entire body wreathed itself in crackling blue-white lightning.
Lightning hissed and roared. Stone and soil surged and heaved.
Earth Release fused with Lightning Release — something no ordinary shinobi could ever hope to accomplish.
If Deidara had ever mastered this same fusion, his clay bombs wouldn't have been so vulnerable to Lightning Release in the first place.
At that moment, Sakura found herself remembering something Jiraiya had once told her.
Nagato was a genuine prodigy — mastering all five chakra nature transformations and shape transformations by the age of ten.
A flicker of genuine regret crossed Sakura's expression at the thought.
Was the Rinnegan powerful?
Very.
But that power had belonged to its original owner.
If Nagato had never been chosen as Madara's piece, his own raw talent alone might well have made him more formidable than he'd ever been with the Rinnegan at all.
Such a waste.
At that moment, Sakura moved as well.
Stamping down the same way, the earth split apart beneath her too, and she came on like some prehistoric beast descending onto the battlefield.
At the sight, Nagato's expression sharpened.
Here it comes.
Their previous encounter had only ever involved Pain's proxy bodies — but even then, Nagato had come away with a real, visceral understanding of exactly what this woman was capable of.
Just as Nagato braced to give everything he had, a fist suddenly filled his entire field of vision.
!!!
When—
That fist carried a burst of force so violent it was almost blinding to look at, and, faintly, the roar of a tiger seemed to echo from it.
There was no time left to think. Shinra Tensei erupted from him on pure reflex.
But—
The Hokage had no intention of trading words further. This punch carried nothing held back.
There was no way a hastily improvised Shinra Tensei could stand against a blow like that.
A crack like thunder split the air, and a figure was sent flying backward, hard.
That figure—
Was Nagato.
And in the same instant, another figure closed the distance right behind him.
"Did you know?"
The Hokage caught up to Nagato, still hurtling backward, bent her arm into an elbow, and drove it straight at his face.
Nagato let out a furious shout and raised a single palm toward her.
Chibaku Tensei!
"Last time we fought, I only had about sixty percent of my chakra."
The Hokage said it plainly, stating it as simple fact.
What?!
Nagato's eyes narrowed sharply at that.
A psychological attack?
Yes... it had to be.
Definitely a psychological attack.
There was no version of this he could believe — that the woman who'd stilled an entire storm with a single fist had done it with barely more than half her chakra remaining.
The invisible pull of Chibaku Tensei tugged at the Hokage's body, but she seemed entirely unaffected by it, already closing the distance to stand right in front of him.
Expression blank, she raised her elbow again, and brought it down.
At that instant, Nagato had no time to spare on anything else — one leg snapped down against the ground like lightning, wrenching his position aside in an instant, and the devastating strike grazed past the very tip of his nose.
A sharp crack of displaced air tore through the space where he'd been standing.
Using the narrow window while the Hokage's old momentum had spent itself and new force hadn't yet built, Nagato — still moving at high speed, skimming low across the ground — swung one hand toward her.
Searing, explosive flame burst from his open palm.
No surprise, really, from someone who'd mastered all five chakra natures by the age of ten. Every motion, effortlessly, carried real destructive force behind it.
This was Nagato's own natural talent — nothing the Rinnegan had granted him. And ever since his legs had been crippled, he'd never once had cause to use any of the five elemental release techniques again.
Which meant everything he was drawing on now was raw skill from his youth — abilities left untouched for over twenty years, and yet he could still call on them this fluidly, without hesitation.
If Madara had never set his sights on him, Nagato alone — without the Rinnegan at all — could have led the Land of Rain into becoming a sixth Great Hidden Village in his own right.
But—
There was no "if," in the end.
At that moment, the Rinnegan caught sight of it: faint golden light glowing along the pathways just beneath the pale skin of the Hokage's throat. The explosive burst of flame hadn't so much as singed a single hair on her.
If he didn't do something now, he'd end up exactly like Kisame and the others.
(End of chapter.)
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you