In the two remaining sectors of Mirror Space, Kaito's wider trap unfolded like a slow, silent noose.
To the east, Kaze Uchiha and his elite squad had seized control—intercepting and containing threats with ruthless precision. Their movements were choreographed, nearly invisible to the outside world, like blades behind glass. Every enemy they encountered vanished without a sound.
Meanwhile, on the western front, the ANBU and Fugaku-loyalist faction stood in uneasy formation. Their discipline held, but something was off. Whispers of distortion. Flickers in the sky. A low hum in their ears. The invisible pressure of a world that no longer obeyed their senses. They couldn't shake the feeling that they weren't in Konoha anymore—and every shinobi, no matter how hardened, could feel it.
At the center of it all stood Kaito, surrounded.
He faced five Kage-level shinobi—and didn't flinch.
They came at him in waves, each strike clean, minimal, surgical. Not a single wasted breath. Not a single wasted step. These were no arrogant elites. These were killers trained by war.
And yet—
Every time he struck, God's Presence flowed seamlessly with him—his body phasing, reappearing, slashing. He was a phantom with precision. A weapon forged not of chakra but inevitability.
They couldn't predict him.
And because they couldn't predict him, they feared him.
But beneath the surface of that spectacle—under the smooth transitions and sharp counters—Kaito was struggling.
Badly.
His eyes remained sharp. His blade never faltered. But behind the veil of supremacy, his heart pounded harder with each exchange. Sweat collected beneath his collar, stinging the raw skin around his neck. His vision flickered at the edges—momentary, subtle—but enough for him to register the creeping toll.
Landing a decisive blow was near impossible.
He closed gaps with pinpoint accuracy, but every time he did, the others reacted with clockwork synchronicity. Their teamwork was a wall—tight formation, instant responses, no ego. Every assault was followed by a disruption: Hiruzen shifting position, Obito flickering across angles, Danzo testing ranges with Izanagi in hand, Itachi and Fugaku creating mirrored pressure.
They were battle-forged. And their strategy was clear.
Drain him. Bleed his stamina. Corner the storm, don't stop it.
Kaito's frustration curdled in his gut.
Their jutsu remained tight. No grand Firestorms, no sprawling Wind jutsu—just controlled, honed death. Even a minor strike from them could cripple. He couldn't afford to face them all head-on. So he danced—flickering, weaving, striking and vanishing.
They knew it. Hiruzen knew it.
They weren't trying to win with force.
They were trying to wait him out.
To test if God's Presence really was infinite.
Kaito's smirk twisted—not out of humor, but contempt. His voice came low and bitter, cracking the silence like a whip."Pitiful fools... You think this is enough to wear me down?"
His eyes burned cold—a deep, seething red beneath the swirl of chakra.
"Let me show you how wide the gap is."
He raised his right hand.And the air itself screamed.
A colossal Spiral Shuriken spun into existence—raw, unstable, monstrous. Chakra gathered in a vortex of searing wind and violent motion. The entire battlefield tilted, space rippling outward like a gravitational pull.
Static surged through the air. A faint whine echoed in everyone's ears, like pressure inside the skull.
Obito's reaction was instant."Move!" he barked.
In a blur, he vanished backward—space cracking around him. The others followed, not with panic, but discipline. They read the stakes—and knew this wasn't a bluff.
That jutsu could kill all five of them if they miscalculated.
But even as they split formation, Kaito's gamble was clear: high chakra cost, high risk, high reward. That level of compression would hurt him as much as it hurt them if it failed.
Still, he launched it.
And then—the battlefield changed.
Fugaku's eyes snapped wide.
A cold chill shot up his spine. Something had shifted. He couldn't explain it—his Sharingan only barely caught it—but the dimension had… tilted.
Time? Space? He didn't know.
But instinct screamed. Something was wrong.
"Itachi—look out!" he roared.
His voice cracked across the battlefield like a thunderclap.
But it was already too late.
The battlefield warped again—Mirror Space folding subtly under Kaito's control. Just enough. A twist of distance. A soft recalibration.
And now—
Itachi was directly in the Spiral Shuriken's path.
"What?!" Hiruzen's pupils narrowed. His aged face tensed.
Even Itachi didn't understand at first. One moment, he was thirty meters to the left. The next—The vortex was tearing toward him.
He froze for a half second—not from fear, but calculation. There was no dodge. No jutsu that could withstand it.
The Spiral Shuriken devoured chakra like a black hole. Its howl was deafening now, its edge blurred from speed, trailing a gale of destruction.
And then—Fugaku moved.
Faster than anyone expected. Faster than anyone could react.
A black streak.
He slammed himself between Itachi and death, arms raised, body charged with chakra—no hesitation.
A father before a shinobi.
"Father—!" Itachi's voice cracked, raw, horrified.
The Spiral Shuriken struck.
Reality fractured.
Light exploded in a searing flash.
Chakra tore against chakra.
Fugaku's body convulsed under the impact.
And then—he was gone, swallowed by the storm.
The battlefield fell silent.
Only the dull whine of dissipating chakra remained, like the ringing after a bomb.
And standing at the center, Kaito's eyes lowered.
Expression unreadable.
But behind his calm, something flickered—
Something broke.