{Read Yoru's fights right, don't just skim through them, though I'll explain his ability later too, you'd enjoy it more if you figure things out on your own.}
~Danzo vs Yoru~
Two figures moved through the broken training compound like ghosts, their presence felt only when something died.
Steel rang once, just once, before the clash dissolved into motion.
Danzo's blade slid forward in a low, economical arc meant to open an artery. Yoru's sword was already there, intercepting at the flat, twisting just enough to deflect the edge past his ribs. There were no wasted movement, no pause. Danzo's off-hand snapped upward, fingers forming seals mid-step.
[Wind Style: Wind Bullet]
Compressed air screamed forward and met a wall of water that had already surged up.
[Water Style: Water Rampart]
The collision detonated in a burst of vapor. Danzo had already moved, feet sliding sideways as kunai flashed from his sleeve. Three blades, staggered, angled to herd rather than kill.
Yoru's body slipped between them, sword flicking once, twice. Two kunai shattered. The third scraped along his shoulder guard and bounced away harmlessly. In the same breath, his free hand snapped forward.
[Fire Style: Flash Ember]
A narrow jet of flame lanced toward Danzo's chest. Danzo twisted, cloak catching fire instead of flesh. He severed the burning fabric mid-spin and countered before his feet even settled.
[Wind Style: Vacuum Blade]
Invisible pressure tore across the ground, carving trenches through stone. Yoru leapt, not upward, but forward, closing distance as the blade passed beneath him. His sword came down in a brutal overhand strike.
Danzo raised his weapon just in time. Steel met steel. The impact sent a shock through both arms, neither yielding. They separated instantly, already moving again.
Danzo vanished into the shadows, reappearing at Yoru's flank with a thrust aimed at the kidney. Yoru pivoted, the attack scraping armor instead of flesh, and answered with a knee that Danzo narrowly avoided by bending backward at an inhuman angle.
They reset without thinking.
Danzo's fingers blurred.
[Wind Style: Great Breakthrough]
The air itself surged, a crushing wave meant to pulverize anything in its path, however, Yoru's response came first.
[Earth Style: Rising Bastion]
Stone erupted upward, angled, redirecting the force skyward. The backlash tore the roof apart. Danzo used the debris as cover, springing through falling stone with a flurry of shuriken wired together.
Yoru cut the wire mid-flight and let the shuriken pass. His sword dipped, then thrust.
[Lightning Style: Piercing Current]
Electricity crawled along the blade and leapt outward. Danzo ducked, felt the static burn across his scalp, and retaliated instantly.
[Wind Style: Vacuum Sphere]
A rotating orb of compressed air formed between his palms and hurled forward. Yoru slid aside, cloak fluttering as the sphere smashed into the wall behind him and erased it.
The ground trembled.
They closed again.
Taijutsu now, elbows, knees, short kicks aimed at joints and throat. Danzo struck first; Yoru blocked. Yoru countered; Danzo evaded. A forearm caught a wrist. A shoulder slammed into a chest, yet neither gained ground.
Hidden blades snapped out from Danzo's sleeve. Yoru caught one between his fingers, twisted, and flung it back. Danzo swayed just enough for it to miss his eye by a hair's breadth.
Danzo's gaze sharpened. The three tomoe in his visible eye spun faster as his perception tightened. He pressed harder, faster.
[Wind Style: Vacuum Barrage]
Dozens of compressed air shots fired in rapid succession. Yoru was already weaving through them, steps precise, almost pre-planned. He raised one hand.
[Water Style: Flow Sever]
Water condensed into razor-thin arcs that sliced through the incoming barrage, neutralizing it piece by piece.
Danzo landed and formed seals again but a torrent of water crashed down on him before he could finish.
[Water Style: Descending Torrent]
He aborted, rolling through the flood, emerging soaked but alive. His counter came instantly.
[Wind Style: Wind Scythe]
Yoru ducked first, the scythe passed where his neck had been a heartbeat earlier. His blade was already moving toward Danzo's thigh.
Danzo jumped back, barely avoiding it.
Again.
And again.
Minutes stretched. Cuts accumulated, blood spotted the ground. The compound was unrecognizable, walls shredded, earth torn open, water steaming where fire had touched it.
Danzo struck from above, blade plunging downward. Yoru sidestepped and answered with an upward slash that forced Danzo to retreat mid-air.
Danzo landed, breathing heavier now.
Something was wrong.
Every exchange, every single one, ended the same way. His attacks never quite landed cleanly. His counters were always met. His openings closed a fraction too fast.
He narrowed his eye.
Another charge.
[Wind Style: Vacuum Wave]
Yoru's response came before the jutsu finished forming.
[Fire Style: Scattering Flame]
Danzo abandoned the technique and dodged, flames licking past his shoulder. His foot slipped slightly on wet stone.
That was when it clicked.
Danzo froze for a fraction of a second too long.
It wasn't speed.
It wasn't raw power.
Yoru wasn't reacting.
He was already there.
Every counter, every defense, every interruption, always just ahead of Danzo's intent, not his action. As if his movements were being answered before they fully existed.
Danzo's grip tightened.
The realization hit him like a blade between the ribs.
He's reading the moments before they happen.
Danzo moved again, but the certainty was gone now. His timing once flawless, was off by a hair.
Yoru capitalized instantly.
With a feint left, he did a real strike on the right.
Danzo blocked too late. The blade cut across his side, shallow but burning. He staggered back, forced to disengage.
Yoru advanced once more, there was no flourish or hesitation.
Danzo steadied himself, eye spinning, mind racing. Whatever this was, instinct, prediction, something else, it had been there from the start.
And now that he saw it, it was already too late.
Steel flashed again.
The night swallowed the sound.
~~~
~Uchiha Compound~
Ren and Obito stood several meters apart, neither bothering to hide their presence.
Ren's posture was loose, almost casual, hands at his sides, weight balanced on the balls of his feet. His eyes tracked everything at once, the rebels, Itachi, Fugaku, the subtle distortion in space around Obito that never fully vanished. He could feel it, see it even, the warped flow, the places where reality bent inward before snapping back.
Obito, cloaked and masked, was perfectly still.
Not relaxed, just still.
Both of them knew the truth. If they fought seriously here, nothing would be decided quickly. Ren could avoid Obito. Obito could ignore Ren. It would be a waste of time, and time was the only thing neither of them could afford.
That was why neither moved.
The silence stretched.
On the other side, Kyoshiro laughed.
It wasn't loud, but it cut through the tension like glass scraping stone.
"You two," he said, voice hoarse yet sharp, eyes locked on Fugaku and Itachi. "You stand there like judges, like saviors, but all I see are dogs who learned to sit when the Hokage told them to."
A murmur rippled through the rebels.
Kyoshiro took a step forward. The ground crunched beneath his sandal.
"You wear the Mangekyo," he continued, sneering, "and yet you bow your heads. You let outsiders decide our fate. You let Senju blood dictate what the Uchiha can and cannot be."
His finger rose slowly, trembling not with weakness but with restrained fury.
"I will show you," Kyoshiro said, voice rising, "that true Uchiha do not beg. True Uchiha do not compromise. Even if the village calls us traitors, even if we die, we will take back what was stolen from us!"
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then Kyoshiro's arm snapped forward.
"GO!"
The rebels surged.
Sharingan flared brighter as bodies exploded into motion. Flicker after flicker blurred the air, red eyes locking onto targets they had known since childhood. The first wave crossed half the courtyard in an instant, steel flashing, fire already blooming in their lungs.
Fugaku exhaled slowly.
"So it comes to this," he said, more tired than angry.
Itachi stepped forward.
In that single step, the temperature dropped.
The world tilted.
Mangekyo presence completely unfurled with terrifying control. It pressed down like an unseen hand on the rebels' minds, not attacking, not overwhelming, but demanding awareness.
The first rebel reached them.
Itachi moved.
His blade slipped between ribs before the man's Sharingan could finish tracking the motion. The body folded soundlessly, never even realizing it had been struck. Itachi didn't pause. He stepped past the falling corpse, already inside the next attacker's guard.
Fugaku mirrored him on the other side.
Where Itachi was surgical, Fugaku was absolute.
A sweeping kick shattered one man's knee. His sword followed, clean and precise, severing the spine before the scream could finish forming. A fireball bloomed from Fugaku's mouth the next instant, it was compressed and refined. It detonated in the midst of three rebels, the blast throwing burning bodies backward.
The courtyard erupted.
Fire Style clashed with Fire Style, flames colliding midair and canceling in violent bursts of heat. Shuriken storms crossed paths, clanging and sparking as chakra-enhanced steel met steel. The Sharingan turned the battlefield into a kaleidoscope of predictions and counter-predictions, feints layered atop feints.
Clan leader fought his own clan.
The same blood battled with their lives on the line.
Old comrades met with killing intent sharpened by years of silence.
Above them, Ren watched it all without moving.
Obito's head tilted slightly, as if amused.
"Not stepping in?" Obito asked calmly, voice echoing faintly behind the mask.
Ren didn't look at him.
"They made their choice," Ren replied. "Interfering now would just cheapen it."
Obito's eye narrowed.
Below, Kyoshiro entered the fray.
He moved with the experience of a veteran who had survived by being ruthless. His blade lashed out, parrying Fugaku's fire-enhanced strike, sparks spraying as steel screamed against steel. Kyoshiro twisted, his Sharingan predicting the counter, but Itachi was already there.
Their blades met.
Kyoshiro recoiled as if struck by lightning, forced back several steps, boots scraping against stone.
"So this is the Mangekyo," Kyoshiro spat, breathing hard. "Hah! Is that all?"
Itachi said nothing.
His eyes burned.
Around them, the rebels began to falter.
Not because they were weak, but because the gap was undeniable. Fugaku and Itachi didn't fight like clan members.
They fought like executioners.
Every movement was final. Every strike removed a combatant from the battlefield permanently. No wasted effort. No hesitation born of sentiment.
The next moment world snapped back into motion.
Steel whispered past Ren's ear, close enough that he felt the displacement of air brush his skin. He didn't flinch. His head merely tilted a fraction, spine relaxed, posture loose, almost lazy.
In the same heartbeat, his hand shot out.
Fingers locked around Obito's wrist and his claws shot out.
For an instant, just one, Ren felt it. The texture of cloth, the resistance of muscle beneath, the certainty that if his claws extended a second earlier, blood would have followed.
Then reality betrayed him.
Obito's arm lost substance, phasing through Ren's grip like mist dispersing in sunlight. Ren's claws snapped shut on empty air as Obito's body slid through him, passing cleanly through Ren's chest without resistance.
Obito reappeared several meters away, boots skidding across stone as he widened the distance with a sharp backward stride. He straightened, blade low, posture guarded.
Silence reclaimed the space between them.
Once again, they stood facing each other beneath the broken torchlight, chakra humming but restrained.
This was the problem.
Ren could see it clearly, break it down in perfect, ruthless clarity.
Obito's advantage was absolute intangibility, Ren's attacks could not land as long as that cursed technique remained active. But the inverse was equally true. Obito's attacks required contact, timing, and surprise, and Ren denied him all three.
Hyperfocus peeled the battlefield apart layer by layer.
Ren's perception tracked micro-distortions in space whenever Obito phased. His sensory field mapped airflow changes, chakra pulses, even the faint hesitation before Obito committed to an attack. There were no blind spots. No gaps.
Every time Obito struck, Ren was already moving.
Every time Ren countered, Obito was already gone.
A perfect stalemate.
And yet, Ren smiled.
It was small, barely there, but it was enough.
Obito felt it immediately.
A cold prickle crawled up his spine.
His Mangekyo spun faster as he analyzed Ren, searching for the source of that smile. No chakra spike. No obvious hand seal. No weapon drawn.
Then why…
'What is this bad feeling? Does he have something up his sleeve?'
Obito tightened his grip on his blade, instincts screaming. Ren was too calm, too relaxed. There wasn't a hint of frustration or impatience.
It was anticipation.
Ren's gaze never left him, light blue eyes sharp, amused, almost pitying.
Obito shifted, preparing to phase again, to reset the distance, to regain control.
Then, pain detonated across his back.
Pain.
Raw, concussive force slammed into his spine, driving the breath from his lungs. His Mangekyo stuttered for half a heartbeat as his body was violently propelled forward.
"-gh!"
The world flipped.
Stone rushed up to meet him as he was blasted headlong into the ground, earth exploding outward in a violent crater. Dust and debris roared skyward as his body skidded and rolled, finally coming to a stop in a spray of shattered stone.
Obito lay there, stunned.
For the first time since this fight began, no.
For the first time in years six years.
His mind lagged behind reality.
His eye widened behind the mask as the sensation caught up to him. The spiraling pain. The residual chakra tearing through his back. The unmistakable signature still burning into his nerves.
Rasengan.
He twisted sharply, forcing himself upright, cloak torn, chakra flaring instinctively as his gaze snapped back toward Ren.
Ren stood where Obito had been a moment ago.
Right behind him.
One foot planted forward, body angled slightly from the follow-through, chakra still swirling faintly around his palm before dissipating into nothing.
And suddenly, everything made sense.
"I don't have anything up my sleeve," Ren said calmly, voice carrying through the settling dust, utterly unhurried.
"You do."
Obito's thoughts slammed together.
That instant earlier, the wrist grab.
'No.'
His Mangekyo spun violently as realization hit him like a second blow.
'Flying Thunder God!'
~~~~~
{Excited to finally write FTG in action and also give Obito some PTSD, though it won't be much, but from now on, the FTG would be used quite openly, not always, but still.
Also, he hasn't perfected it yet, just keep reading and things will become clearer.}
{Also, any speculations about Yoru's abilities are welcome, go wild.}