Upon hearing that name, Obito Uchiha looked at the familiar face of the man opposite him and couldn't help but pause in surprise.
Although his time at the Ninja Academy was somewhat distant, he still remembered that boy who always scored far ahead in written tests, a score even Kakashi couldn't surpass, and who was always so sunny and gentle no matter who he was with.
His time at the ninja academy seemed to be the best time of his life.
Unfortunately, all of that is gone forever.
Obito Uchiha's gaze darkened slightly, but he showed no intention of reminiscing. Instead, he stepped forward and addressed the group of Kirigakure ninja behind him:
"Kill him."
Then, he walked straight toward the Hokage Building.
Whether in his memory or in the white lab coat Aizen is wearing now, it proves that he is still that somewhat intelligent, but not particularly talented, research-oriented ninja.
As for those past memories that belong only to our recollections...
He had already given up on it.
Almost the instant Obito Uchiha uttered the command.
The eyes of the four Hidden Mist ninja behind him immediately lit up, and their gazes toward Aizen were filled with a hint of bloodlust.
In an instant, four figures shot out from all directions toward Aizen Sousuke like arrows released from a bow, their blades flashing in the air, creating streaks of dazzling light.
"die!"
At this moment, the four Mizukage guards displayed extraordinary combined attack power. Their four ninja swords blocked every possible location from different directions, with the tips of the swords pointing at vital points in different places. Even the voices they made sounded like those of a single person.
The tall figure standing in front of them seemed not to have reacted at all, remaining quietly still in place.
Until the very moment the blade was about to strike.
He suddenly took a step forward.
"Zheng".
The dense, piercing sound of metal scraping together, combining many sounds into one, seemed to be the sound of countless blades colliding in that extremely brief instant.
A barely perceptible flash of light appeared in the air.
Aizen's figure suddenly disappeared and then reappeared.
Just then, he passed by Obito Uchiha, who was wearing a black robe with red clouds.
Obito's gaze, hidden behind his mask, paused for a moment.
Even their steps came to a halt.
"Clang clang"
The broken blade spun around and fell to the ground.
The four figures that had stepped forward initially continued forward a few steps due to inertia, but their roars, which were only half-finished, seemed to get stuck in their throats.
"Hiss hiss hiss."
The sound of gushing blood kept coming from his throat, armpits, heart, and other parts of his body.
Large patches of blood stained the steps of the Hokage Building.
Three of them had only taken half a step when they collapsed to the ground, instantly becoming motionless. Only their eyes, hidden beneath masks, bulged out, and their hands were tightly pressed against their bleeding groins, unable to move any further.
"Gurgle!"
The sole surviving water shadow guard stood frozen in place, eyes wide with disbelief, staring at the figure that had vanished from their sight. Even his voice had become somewhat shrill:
"You bastard, how dare you... how dare you..."
Aizen Sousuke stood quietly in place, slowly sheathing his drawn sword. He turned to look at the Hidden Mist Villager and said calmly, "The corpse is speaking."
"Clang."
The hilt struck the scabbard, producing a slight vibrating sound.
The next moment.
The bewildered Kirigakure ninja suddenly froze in place.
Immediately afterwards, his torso, like a collapsing sandcastle, gushed forth a torrent of blood under the watchful gaze of this calm gaze, splitting into pieces on the spot and turning into a pool of severed limbs.
Only the eyeball protruding from the severed head was still staring intently at the night sky, completely unaware of when it had been stabbed.
In the distance, Zetsu, with his two-faced appearance, narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked at Aizen, a hint of apprehension in them.
"despair."
Obito Uchiha stopped in his tracks, slowly turned his head, and looked at the unassuming young Jonin.
As their eyes met, he suddenly let out a soft laugh, his voice still hoarse and steady.
"Oh."
"Aizen Sousuke?"
"In this ninja world, some unknown but powerful individuals always seem to suddenly appear."
"But, with a nobody like you..."
"You think you can stop me, Uchiha Madara, in my tracks?!"
As he finished speaking, his hoarse voice suddenly rose in pitch.
Almost the instant the sound fell.
Obito Uchiha's figure suddenly transformed into a blurry afterimage. The sand beneath his feet stirred up fine dust under the Body Flicker Technique's detection. He skimmed the ground, drawing long zigzag lines, and shot towards Aizen like a ghost.
"Splash!"
Two coiled chains extended from his wide sleeves.
Aizen simply stood quietly in place, watching the iron chain swirling in his hand, his gaze calm.
His presence here tonight is certainly not due to a momentary impulse.
After Hiashi Hyuga's genjutsu failed, the frequency of White Zetsu's intrusions within his monitoring range became quite high, and the number of intrusions increased over time.
It was only a matter of time before the other party came to Konoha in person; he had long anticipated this.
For Aizen, this was an opportunity.
This confrontation was not only to personally assess the opponent's strength and determine the threat they posed, but also to further guide the assessment of the situation within the Hokage Building for the foreseeable future.
Konoha lost most of the fighting force of the Uchiha and Hyuga clans in a short period of time, and there were also intense internal conflicts. If he did not guide the conflict outward, it would affect his next plan.
In addition, after completing the research project on the Zanpakuto, he finally had some time to continue pushing forward the next step of the plan.
Now, it's time for him to appear in the eyes of Konoha's higher-ups with a completely new look.
Destroy the ninjas and change the world.
How could something like this be accomplished by hiding in the shadows and making small moves, like Danzo Shimura did?
Konoha is not the Soul Society, where order has been stable for a thousand years and is almost unchangeable.
With a whoosh, the distance between Aizen and Obito rapidly closed. Amidst the hissing of the air, an iron chain extending from his sleeve shot out at this almost hand-to-hand distance, aiming straight for Aizen's face.
Aizen Sousuke calmly watched this scene, his feet lightly shifting to dodge the iron chains pointing at him. At the same time, the blade in his hand pierced straight towards the opponent's neck with a speed too fast for the naked eye to follow.
However, at the moment the blade touched Obito Uchiha's neck, he did not feel the sensation of piercing flesh.
Aizen's gaze shifted slightly as he glanced behind him out of the corner of his eye.
Obito Uchiha's lips curled up beneath his mask, and with a tug on the iron chain in his hand, the chain that had already shot behind him was pulled in an arc in mid-air by the immense force, coiling towards the back of his opponent.
However, a soft chirping sound suddenly rang out in the air.
"laugh!"
Uchiha Daiju's eyes widened.
Under the gaze of his Mangekyou Sharingan, Aizen's figure vanished into thin air.
"Instantaneous movement?"
The thought first popped into his head subconsciously, and he tried to catch the direction of the dust kicked up by his feet in order to see which way he was going.
However, apart from the little dust he himself had kicked up, there was no trace of loose soil floating around their feet.
"Space-time ninjutsu?!"
Just as he realized this problem, Obito Uchiha, who was about to separate from Kamui, recalled the scene when he fought Minato-sensei. At an extremely fast speed, he immediately restarted the intangibility of Kamui.
However, they were still a step too late.
"Sizzle!"
It was almost a thousandth of a second before his Kamui became ethereal.
The blade, which had appeared out of nowhere, had already left a short mark on the black robe behind him.
It may have only pierced the skin from the left rib to the spine, but in reality, it was so deep that even the bone felt a deep scraping pain.
The two figures crossed paths and then separated, turning back towards each other.
In that instant, feeling the stinging pain from his back, Obito Uchiha's gaze towards Sosuke Aizen changed completely.
'This guy used to be just a bookworm... but now... he's actually gotten this strong?'
For all ninjas, knowledge and skills are rarely valued. Even Tobirama Senju, who created a thousand ninjutsu, only regarded wisdom as a tool to become stronger.
Only strength is the absolute standard for judging their status.
This is both the foundation of the ninjas' absolute pragmatism and the root cause of the tragedies in their world.
However, Obito Uchiha didn't have time to think about that now.
Bearing the name of Uchiha Madara is both a powerful weapon that instills a sense of oppression in people upon first meeting him, and a burden that needs to be carefully protected and must never be allowed to fall to the ground.
If the golden statue is broken, then it is worthless.
Therefore, even though he was clearly at a disadvantage in the previous exchange, he still had to lower his voice and let out low chuckles, just like before.
"A good young man."
"In that brief exchange, you actually managed to injure me."
"After Namikaze, you are the first person to achieve this level."
Aizen Sousuke, meanwhile, weighed the blade in his hand, gently wiping away the few drops of blood that stained the tip, and observed his figure with interest, his tone calm:
"A decent eye technique."
"Is it possible to switch one's spatial location in an instant, achieving the effect of alternating between reality and illusion?"
"So at this very moment, is your true form here, or... in another space that overlaps with it?"
Upon hearing this, Obito Uchiha was immediately alarmed.
Just what kind of monster is Aizen?
Even Minato, the teacher from back then, had to fight him at least twice before he discovered the pattern of his spatial changes.
As it turned out, he saw through it in just one glance.
Is this the oppressive feeling of an intellectual genius who can crush Kakashi?
He didn't realize it.
At this moment, Aizen's gaze towards him was different.
Based solely on the other party's sudden silence, Aizen had already deduced that the answer must be the latter.
The imposter in front of me, who claims to be Madara Uchiha, has the special ability to travel back and forth between Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, just like a Hollow.
But what exactly is that space he possesses?
Aizen became increasingly curious.
"Heh...hehehe..."
Just as he was thinking this, he heard the other party suddenly let out a series of long laughs.
Beneath the swirling mask, crimson eyes stared directly in Aizen's direction, and a hint of murderous intent finally crept into his voice:
"interesting."
Do you want to know?
As soon as he finished speaking, his hands moved swiftly, forming a cross seal in front of his chest, and a burst of intense flame suddenly erupted from his mouth.
Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!
The wall of fire, which resembled a giant dragon surging forward, reached its peak of intensity the moment it was exhaled from his mouth, transforming into a wave of flames that suddenly traversed a distance of more than ten meters between the two sides, with a plane diameter exceeding thirty meters.
The soil beneath his feet, under the immense force of the fire dragon, trembled and spread wildly as if being pushed by mountains, covering Aizen's entire field of vision at an incredible speed.
Even the night sky was lit up for it.
Aizen Sousuke, however, seemed unconcerned, lightly raising his fingertips forward.
"Binding Spell No. 39: Round Gate Fan".
The light and shadow, which transformed into a circular gate, converged at high speed, completely obscuring the small space in front of Aizen and blocking the flames and impact.
The surging flames crashed against the narrow doorway, but were as if they were repelled from the very beginning. Neither the high temperature nor the impact could get within a foot of the round doorway, and so they swept outwards with a roar.
cleave through the waves.
However, in the brief moment when the flames obscured his vision, Obito Uchiha's figure also disappeared.
The next moment.
Aizen Sousuke seemed to sense something, and without hesitation, he slashed backward with his sword.
"Buzz!"
The blade, carrying extreme sharpness, cleaved through the scorching airflow behind it the moment it hit the ground, leaving a rift over ten meters long on the ground with just the pressure of the sword.
However, this extremely damaging slash easily pierced through the figure that suddenly appeared behind him.
A cold smile suddenly appeared on Obito Uchiha's face beneath his mask.
He raised his head, his Mangekyou Sharingan with its swirling patterns meeting Aizen's eyes behind his glasses.
"That's your biggest weakness." "Aizen!"
"Knowing you're fighting an Uchiha, how dare you meet my gaze? In an instant, the Mangekyou Sharingan genjutsu, imbued with immense ocular power, pierced the space between the two and struck the man's mind directly.
Aizen's figure seemed to pause for a moment the instant his eyes met those gazes.
"it's over!!"
Obito Uchiha shouted, and his hand, which suddenly materialized, gripped Aizen's shoulder tightly.
The space around the two of them instantly twisted into a vortex-like wormhole, enveloping their figures and swallowing them directly into a vast and boundless world.
"Buzz!"
In an instant, the unstoppable sea of fire raged and surged, crashing against the surface of the Hokage Building behind them, turning it into scorched earth.
"We won."
From afar, Jue, who had been watching the battle from the shadows, saw this scene and a mocking smile immediately appeared on his yin-yang face.
I just don't know why.
After a long time, there was still no movement in the same spot.
"Um?"
Almost immediately after swallowing the other's body into the Kamui dimension, Obito Uchiha's heart, which had been slightly pounding, finally relaxed.
Spatial adaptability is an extremely rare talent, even across the entire ninja world.
People who can quickly engage in battle, like Minato-sensei, even after traversing extremely vast spatial distances, are very rare.
Therefore, pulling the enemy into the Divine Might Space and then taking advantage of the moment when the enemy is stunned to deliver a fatal blow has become a very shameless and effective fighting method.
"Die!"
"Aizen Sousuke!"
Almost the instant he was dragged into this space, Obito Uchiha confidently swung his right arm, dragging the light hammer at the end of the chain, and smashed it down on the head he remembered.
However, the moment the light hammer fell...
"Clang!"
Obito Uchiha paused for a moment.
In mid-air, a pale, severed arm spun and danced before gently landing on the ground.
Aizen Sousuke remained standing quietly in the same spot as before, gazing calmly at this strange space as if admiring a rare view.
This is a vast void swallowed by surging chakra currents, and a dark, otherworldly abyss has pressed the sky into a somber curtain.
The two of them were standing on a solitary stone platform, about ten feet in diameter.
Viewed from above, these platforms pierce the chaos like solemn tombstones, outlining a desolate silhouette in the eternal night.
"Is this the world you've built deep within yourself?"
Aizen's voice remained as calm and gentle as ever, without the slightest hint of surprise or astonishment.
"What a monotonous and lonely landscape."
"You're not Madara Uchiha, are you?"
"A man as proud and arrogant as him, if he possessed such a young and strong body, would probably never be able to return to such a cowardly and timid mentality."
"Who exactly are you?"
Each sentence contained no hint of inquiry, only absolute certainty, until the very last sentence, when Aizen's gaze met Aizen's eyes once more.
"Shut up!!"
However, these seemingly ordinary words seemed to tear apart Obito Uchiha's defenses, causing him to lose control of his voice and suddenly roar out.
He stumbled backward, his gaze towards Aizen filled with astonishment and uncertainty.
Only after reattaching the white asteroid cell arm to the severed point did he seem to calm down a little.
However, the way he looked at Aizen Sousuke was completely different.
"Oh."
He was silent for a moment, then laughed, seemingly mockingly:
"Even if you are exceptionally intelligent and have seen through my identity, so what?"
"Your biggest mistake was to appear in this world with me."
"Aizen Sousuke!"
"This is a world that belongs only to me."
"No light, no food, everything is under my control."
"In the long time to come, just wait in despair for your death to come."
"Divine Might!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Obito Uchiha roared and tried to escape from this void world and return to the ninja world.
However, the Mangekyou Sharingan eye technique, which he had long been able to use with ease, suddenly became ineffective at this moment.
His body remains in this void world.
Obito Uchiha was taken aback at first.
Then, he stared in astonishment at Aizen Sousuke in front of him, his eyes filled with terror.
"Tap, tap."
Aizen Sousuke remained calm and composed, gently pushing up his thick glasses with his fingertips, his voice gentle and even:
"You still don't understand."
As he uttered those words, his hand, which had been resting on the hilt of the katana, was slowly withdrawn and held upside down in front of him.
Aizen Sousuke looked at him and spoke softly:
"Shatter, Mirror Flower Moon."
In an instant, the world before Obito Uchiha's eyes was like a suddenly solidified water surface, with a piece of it being gently smashed by a pebble.
Suddenly, a crisp cracking sound rang in my ears.
When all the illusions before our eyes fade away.
The two of them remained quietly standing in front of the Hokage Building.
He didn't move an inch.
Obito Uchiha's pupils suddenly contracted.
Everything that had just happened seemed to be his fantasy.
Only Aizen Sousuke in front of him had two katana, one long and one short, of different styles, in his hands.
A genjutsu that even the Mangekyou Sharingan cannot resist?
What exactly is this ability?
As if reading his mind, Aizen Sousuke carefully explained to him:
"This is my Zanpakuto; you can think of it as another form of bloodline limit."
Their names are...
"Flowers in a mirror, and the moon."
"Jinghua's ability is simpler; she can put everyone who sees me into a permanent, complete hypnosis."
"I suppose it can be considered that some improvements have been made."
Upon hearing this explanation, Obito Uchiha's expression suddenly froze, and he looked at him in disbelief.
Pupil earthquake.