"One down." Sasuke muttered as he looked at Madara, who had just been run through the chest by his own hand, and simultaneously activated the Rinnegan's Preta Path to absorb Madara's chakra.
In this way, Madara wouldn't have the chance to use ninjutsu, and with his Rinnegan abilities being completely suppressed by Sasuke, his defeat seemed inevitable.
However, Sasuke quickly frowned. The Madara in front of him suddenly smiled, and then turned into wood. Sasuke's pupils shrank.
"A Wood Clone? When did he—?" Sasuke muttered. With a flash of lightning in his hand, he split the clone in half and saw Madara had already finished weaving hand signs.
"Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!" Madara exclaimed. In an instant, enormous trees burst from the earth all around them, wildly growing and swallowing up both their figures.
Under the shelter of the giant trees, Madara was deep in thought. He had created a Wood Clone at the moment Sasuke did something bizarre, using his black-flame Chidori against a mere kunai. That strange sense of danger had surged within him.
So Madara had substituted himself with a Wood Clone, slipping behind it while hiding his real body. The clone acted as a decoy and shield, hiding his presence.
Sure enough, Sasuke used the same mysterious ability, one that still made Madara break into a cold sweat. A space-time jutsu capable of forcibly switching positions with the enemy?
But Madara had gleaned valuable intel from the encounter.
First, Sasuke's technique was nothing like the Flying Thunder God, it didn't require a seal. His spatial transference seemed to be a unique Rinnegan ability, likely allowing him to swap the positions of two objects within his field of vision.
Because if this ability required a seal to activate, then even if Madara had detached from his Wood Clone, Sasuke would have noticed that both targets were marked and figured it out…
But Sasuke hadn't noticed. That proved that Madara himself wasn't marked and that Sasuke's ability relied solely on his sight. When Sasuke didn't spot Madara behind the Wood Clone, he could only swap the clone, not the real Madara.
That's why Madara had immediately activated Deep Forest Emergence, to block Sasuke's line of sight.
He hadn't expected the Wood Clone to be exposed so quickly. Sasuke must have used the Preta Path to instantly reveal it, otherwise, the clone should have lasted a bit longer.
But perhaps that was a good thing, because at the moment Madara used Deep Forest Emergence, his real body had been exposed to Sasuke. Yet Sasuke hadn't used that ability again. This indicated that Sasuke likely couldn't use the technique in rapid succession.
And yet… Madara clearly remembered Sasuke using the technique twice. Why was that possible?
There were still too many unknowns about Sasuke's ability, it could only be unraveled gradually.
But now what?
That space-time ability was too dangerous. If Sasuke could forcibly switch places with Madara, it meant Madara couldn't appear directly in front of Sasuke.
How was he supposed to fight a battle like this?
Would he have to rely on Wood Clones to slowly wear him down?
Madara never imagined he would one day be pushed into such a situation.
As Madara was fretting over the next move, Sasuke was also analyzing the thick forest around him. He understood this was a deliberate move to restrict his Amenotejikara.
He had to admit, Madara truly lived up to his legend. In that fleeting moment, he had made the right judgment and successfully executed it. Otherwise, he'd already be sealed.
It was easy to guess what would happen next. There was no way Madara would let his real body appear in front of Sasuke again.
Inside this forest, any attacker would most likely be a Wood Clone sent to wear Sasuke down.
Of course, Sasuke also had to be wary of the real Madara disguising himself among the clones…
After all, no matter how you looked at it, an ability that swaps positions directly must consume a significant amount of ocular power.
And indeed, that was the truth. Had he not been concerned about chakra cost, Sasuke would have used Amenotejikara again the moment he spotted Madara's real body. But he simply couldn't.
The essence of Amenotejikara wasn't merely swapping two objects, it was swapping two spaces.
The prerequisite was that the Rinnegan had to lock onto both spaces. If a target moved too fast to be locked, the technique couldn't be activated.
So far, Sasuke hadn't encountered anyone fast enough to break the lock, not even Madara.
Also, the chakra consumption varied depending on the target and usage scenario.
The least taxing use was swapping Sasuke himself with one of his marked kunai. Because his own body was always under the Rinnegan's lock, and the marked kunai were treated the same, this kind of switch required minimal power—and wasn't restricted to line of sight.
Unfortunately, marking a living being required consent, unlike the Flying Thunder God seal which could be placed by contact. If Sasuke could mark enemies like that, he'd essentially have a low-cost space-time technique capable of enemy displacement.
In theory, that's what one of Sasuke's genjutsu abilities aimed to achieve, a kind of "mark." But against enemies like Madara, even Tsukuyomi would likely be ineffective.
The next level of consumption came from swapping a marked object with something within his line of sight, like what he had done earlier, switching the kunai with Madara.
That's why he could use Amenotejikara twice in a row earlier: first to swap with a kunai, and then again to swap the kunai with Madara. But once Madara dodged, he couldn't afford to use it a third time.
Because Madara wasn't marked, the cost to displace him was high.
A greater cost came from swapping two unmarked objects within Sasuke's vision. This consumed a huge amount of chakra, so Sasuke rarely used it.
The most taxing variant was swapping a marked or unmarked object with empty space, like teleporting Madara to an unoccupied spot within view.
Sasuke believed he could pull this off if his chakra reserves were full, but it was still an extremely heavy burden. If the target was moving, the technique could even fail.
As for swapping two empty spaces? That was the highest cost of all, something even Sasuke couldn't manage at full strength. Not that it had any real tactical value.
Moreover, a swappable object had to be fully visible.
For example, a sword lying on a rock could be swapped, but one embedded in a rock couldn't, unless the entire rock was moved along with it.
Sasuke sighed.
Amenotejikara…
It was powerful, but its cost was simply too great. He couldn't afford to use it often.
For now, unless he was swapping between himself and a marked kunai, or kunai-to-kunai, he couldn't use the ability lightly. He would need another quantum leap in ocular power to freely wield its full potential.
But how?
He had already integrated Itachi's eyes. He had fully absorbed his father's ocular power. That left… maybe his mother?
Yet Sasuke knew his mother's Sharingan had never awakened to Mangekyō. So that possibility was essentially ruled out.
Meaning his only option was to gradually grow stronger over time.
Which also meant, as long as Madara stuck to using Wood Clones to wear him down, Sasuke couldn't afford to waste Amenotejikara on them.
At that moment, Sasuke's ears twitched.
He heard several movements closing in, exactly what he expected. Madara had indeed sent clones to exhaust him.
"Wood Release… what a troublesome technique," Sasuke muttered.
The difference in strength between these Wood Clones and the original wasn't as vast as with Shadow Clones. And in this forest, where large-scale ninjutsu was nearly impossible, Sasuke would have to rely on taijutsu, where he was already at a disadvantage.
Especially… since this entire forest was Madara's domain.
So, Sasuke formed a series of hand seals, and in the next moment, a swirling energy mass—resembling a black hole—appeared in his hand. He then hurled it into the sky.
The moment the black-hole-like sphere rose, it began to emit a powerful gravitational pull. Under this force, the earth itself began to tremble and crack apart. Massive chunks of land, along with the trees rooted in them, were pulled upward toward the growing sphere.
"Chibaku Tensei!"
Sasuke had activated a powerful ocular jutsu belonging to the Rinnegan. Since Madara had chosen to obscure Sasuke's vision with Deep Forest Emergence, Sasuke decided to rip up the battlefield itself.
After all, if this became a battle of attrition, Madara—whose body was sustained by Edo Tensei—would outlast him. Sasuke understood that clearly.
Soon, what had once resembled a vast primeval forest was reduced to bare earth. Floating in the sky above were giant chunks of torn-up land, entire trees, and numerous Wood Clones.
Unfortunately, Madara's real body also possessed the Rinnegan. Even though its abilities were incomplete due to Edo Tensei, resisting the gravitational pull of Chibaku Tensei was relatively easy for him.
However, this resistance also confirmed something: this was the real Madara.
So ultimately, Sasuke's Chibaku Tensei accomplished two things: destroying the Deep Forest Emergence terrain and wiping out Madara's Wood Clones. Beyond that, it couldn't do much.
At that moment, Sasuke spotted Madara in the distance, but the gap between them was so vast that his Amenotejikara couldn't reach.
Madara, on the other hand, looked at Sasuke calmly. His severed arm had already regenerated. As expected, Sasuke hadn't given him the chance to wear him down with the forest terrain.
A reasonable move, Madara himself would have done the same.
But now, a contemplative smile appeared on Madara's face. He had been bracing himself for Sasuke to use Amenotejikara again and forcibly teleport him.
Yet it didn't happen.
There were two possibilities...
Sasuke no longer had the chakra or ocular power to use that technique or the technique had a range limit.
Madara leaned more toward the second theory, Sasuke didn't seem to show any signs of chakra depletion.
But that led to a new dilemma..
How was he supposed to fight now?
How could he defeat an enemy at this distance?
Madara sighed in frustration.
If he got close, Sasuke's space-time ability made it nearly impossible to win. But from afar, he could only use long-range ninjutsu, yet Sasuke also had a Rinnegan and could absorb any ninjutsu thrown at him.
So now he couldn't use taijutsu. And his ninjutsu was essentially useless.
This time, he couldn't even get close to fight.
Madara let out a long sigh. He had thought his battle with Natsuro was frustrating enough, but this fight with Sasuke was even worse.
Meanwhile, Sasuke remained silent as well.
Madara made no move to attack, clearly, he had no intention of closing the distance. Just like Madara, Sasuke understood that even an incomplete Edo Tensei Rinnegan could still absorb ninjutsu.
Madara's ninjutsu were useless against Sasuke.
Sasuke's ninjutsu were just as useless against Madara.
Should he abandon the battlefield and go help Naruto instead?
Sasuke considered it, but that would mean leaving Madara unchecked. Even if Madara, out of pride, chose not to target the remaining Allied Forces, he could still keep an eye on both him and Naruto…
An opponent of this caliber, if left alone and given time to prepare, who knew what kind of havoc he could unleash?
Failing to finish Madara when Amenotejikara was first revealed had cost Sasuke dearly. Now that Madara had identified some of its limits, taking him down again would be nearly impossible, at least not in the short term.
So now what?
For the first time, Sasuke found himself at a loss too....
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Currently on Chapter 417 - Natsuro's Shikai