"Yuki Yoru—this round belongs to me!"
Beneath the Blood Moon, Obito Uchiha proudly declared his victory to Yuki Yoru, a look of anticipation even flashing in his eyes.
He was waiting—waiting to see something in Yoru's eyes.
But to his disappointment, it never came.
The Yuki Yoru before him showed no fear, no grief, no anger—not even the faintest ripple of emotion.
"That's impossible."
Obito's expression darkened, his voice a low growl.
"How can you look like that? How can you wear that expression?! I succeeded! I destroyed everything you ever had! I overturned all your schemes!"
"I know." Yoru smiled and praised him.
"I already said it—you've done well. Truly impressive. Of all the countless people I've met, you are the strongest, the one with the greatest resilience and talent."
"Whether it was Uchiha Shisui or even Uchiha Madara, none of them compare to you, Obito. Even your ancestors, in terms of vision and breadth, fall far short of you."
Instead of anger, instead of breaking down, Yoru actually praised him with a smile.
The bizarre reaction left both Obito and Black Zetsu stunned. Black Zetsu even wondered if Yoru's mind had snapped—had the shock driven him mad?
In a moment like this, instead of fighting back against Obito—the ultimate villain who overturned everything—he was praising him?
"You can't deceive me."
Though Obito didn't understand, he no longer cared to. He didn't want to think, didn't want to analyze.
As long as Yoru knew—as long as Yoru saw what he had accomplished—that was enough.
And now… it was time to end him.
"Die, Yuki Yoru!"
Obito's Rinnegan eyes widened, a violent, feral aura erupting outward like a flood. The crushing pressure turned everything around him into dust.
The Eye of the Moon radiated its sinister power. In the next instant, Obito's figure shot forward like a cannonball, hurling himself at Yoru.
BOOM!!
It was pure explosive speed. By now, Obito's body had already reached the level of the Kekkei Mōra, his strength fully rivaling that of the two Ōtsutsuki Yoru had once fought in the cosmos.
In fact, with the boundless chakra bolstering him, his power even exceeded theirs.
In an instant, he appeared behind Yoru, lashing out with a whip-like kick.
VMMM!!
The air itself shuddered.
It wasn't only the sound of Obito's body tearing through space—it was also the vast surge of spiritual power that erupted behind Yoru the moment Obito appeared, forming a barrier that stopped the attack in its tracks.
Obito did not flinch. He charged straight into it.
The clash between a body of Six Paths level and that overwhelming spiritual power shook the air. The barrier held for a brief moment—then shattered with a resounding crack, the backlash hurling Obito away.
"This… impossible."
Obito steadied himself, his brow furrowing deeply.
In just a few months apart, Yuki Yoru's spiritual power had grown far beyond his expectations. At this level, Yoru's strength was already no weaker than his own.
But how could that be?
He himself was already a being of the Six Paths, having devoured the Ten-Tails, the giant Tenseigan, and countless other vast sources of power.
With the power he now possessed, Obito could casually create stars, or unleash Infinite Tsukuyomi to control the entire shinobi world. If he wished, he could even overturn reality itself and remake it anew.
At this point, he could only be described as godlike.
Yet the power Yuki Yoru was displaying—the energy Obito felt radiating from him—was in no way inferior to his own.
What the hell did this guy do in just a few months?!
Obito's mind was clouded with doubt as he prepared to test Yoru further—
But in the very next instant, Yoru's face suddenly appeared before him, a strange, faint smile curling across his lips.
Then, before Obito could fully react, the space around him began to ripple. The air compressed violently, forming a faint luminous halo.
Shinra Tensei?!
BOOM!!
The overwhelming repulsive force exploded outward. Obito had only enough time to recognize the technique's name before the blast hurled him away, sending him crashing through the sky. Only by forcefully suppressing it with his own Rinnegan's power did he manage to regain control and steady himself.
The attack hadn't injured him—but Obito's eyes were filled with suspicion.
If it had been an ordinary repulsion force, he wouldn't have been so shaken. But in that instant of impact, he had clearly felt it: a familiar, kindred energy.
It was the unique repulsive force that only the Rinnegan could unleash—completely different from the Tenseigan's.
When… when did Yuki Yoru gain the power of the Rinnegan? When did he learn Shinra Tensei?!
Before he could think further, Yoru appeared behind him in a flash—
BOOM!!
A devastating Sacred Destruction Arrows tore straight through Obito's back, slamming him violently into the ground below.
"…Not very impressive."
Yoru flexed his hand with a faint look of dissatisfaction. "The Rinnegan's abilities are versatile, but in terms of pure combat, it's not particularly outstanding. Compared to the powers of the Shinigami, or even the Tenseigan, it falls short."
But those words only deepened Obito's certainty.
"You… You can't possibly have the power of the Rinnegan!"
Obito rose from the smoking crater, his body briefly marked by the strike—but those wounds vanished in an instant, healed by his boundless power. His eyes locked onto Yoru, burning with disbelief.
"You never had the Rinnegan!" he roared.
"Tch. Who knows?"
Yoru shrugged casually. With a twist of his wrist, his spiritual power condensed into a long blade of dark crystalline brilliance.
Seeing this, Obito drew in a deep breath, then curled his hand into a grasping motion. A Truth-Seeking Orb shifted into the form of the Sword of Nunoboko, which he gripped tightly.
No more words were exchanged.
The Quincy Black Blade and the Sword of Nunoboko clashed again and again, each collision shrieking with a piercing, metallic wail. Every strike shattered the air, producing detonations powerful enough to crush the world itself.
From a distance, Kimimaro could see clearly—it looked like nothing more than simple taijutsu exchanges. But each impact twisted the very fabric of space. The shockwaves from the collision of chakra and reishi tore across the battlefield like a storm.
Wasting no time, Kimimaro rushed to evacuate the comrades still trapped in Infinite Tsukuyomi.
But even then, the sheer scale of the battle's aftershocks was too great—countless people perished under the overwhelming collateral force of the clash.
"They've already reached this level…?"
From the shadows, Gamamaru's face was filled with gravity. The power of the two before him—Uchiha Obito and Yuki Yoru—had completely surpassed his own.
"Their strength, Brother," Ōtsutsuki Hamura said slowly, "has already reached the same degree as Mother once had. Both in raw power and in the intensity of their energy, they've stepped firmly into the advanced stages of Kekkei Mōra. If anything goes wrong…"
"There won't be any mistakes."
Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo's gaze remained calm as he watched the world-shaking battle unfold before him. He admitted it—both Ten-Tails Obito and Yuki Yoru had grown to an extreme peak. But if it was only to this extent, he held no fear.
For their mother too had once possessed this very level of power. And the one who emerged victorious back then—was him.
A thousand years had passed since then, and he was no longer the man of that era. Beyond his current strength, he also had layer upon layer of contingencies laid down. Against opponents of this magnitude, he saw no possibility of failure. Especially not while the two of them were tearing each other apart like clashing titans.
"As the fisherman, one must be patient. Even if the shinobi world itself were destroyed, the power stored within the Pure land would be more than enough."
"When this play concludes, all will settle into dust."
The three watched quietly from the dark while the clash between Uchiha Obito and Yuki Yoru raged fiercer and fiercer. Finally, after another earth-shattering collision, the two fighters pulled apart, hovering at a distance from one another.
But the devastation they left behind was already beyond repair. Their battle had not only scarred the land in visible ways—it had annihilated the very natural energy that sustained the environment. Chakra and spiritual power clashed so violently that the foundations of nature itself had been erased. Without some external force to intervene, this place would never again nurture life—not even after a thousand years.
Staring at Obito, Yoru's heart tightened with surprise.
By his estimation, even as the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, Obito's strength should have been on par with Momoshiki after absorbing Kinshiki—perhaps even a touch stronger.
But what Obito was displaying now… was far beyond that. It wasn't just a Ten-Tails' power—his body contained an energy even vaster and more terrifying.
"…Interesting," Yoru said with a faint, almost amused smile, glancing at the ruins of Kirigakure around them. "But this is as far as you go."
"Obito, did you know? The Mist's research into chakra, the Tailed Beasts, and the Ōtsutsuki runs deep. Which means, in certain ways, I may actually understand your current condition even better than you do yourself."
"What are you talking about?"
Obito's heart lurched. Instinctively, he began furiously channeling more chakra through his body, reinforcing his strength as he lunged toward Yoru.
But unlike earlier, Yoru didn't meet his ferocity with equal force. At the instant of collision, his right hand slipped forward and pressed gently against Obito's abdomen.
From his palm burst a strange and eerie energy.
"This—!"
Obito's pupils contracted sharply.
"That power?!"
Even the three hidden observers—Hagoromo, Hamura, and Gamamaru—momentarily lost composure, their faces struck with disbelief.
A brilliant golden radiance suddenly flared from Yoru's hand—
And Obito's body froze in place.
He felt a strange energy surge into his body, continuously draining and stripping away his power.
Obito's eyes widened as he instinctively tried to erupt with chakra to resist, but the suction force seemed endless. At the same time, several prison-like bindings of spiritual power materialized in the air, shackling all four of his limbs.
With his own domineering spiritual power, Yuki Yoru broke through Obito's defenses. Then, activating the ocular technique Takamimusubinokami, he began to forcibly draw out the chakra within Obito. In just an instant, the Ten-Tails' chakra inside Obito roiled violently, boiling like water brought to a frenzy.
"What?!"
"Exactly what it looks like," Yoru said calmly. As he pulled at Obito's chakra, a portion of it was already ripped from his body and swallowed into Yoru's technique.
And as that portion of chakra drained away, the Moon's Eye at the center of Obito's brow began to close.
"No… don't…!"
Obito muttered in a daze, his eyes widening uncontrollably as he struggled with all his might against Yoru's suction. But what greeted him was an even more terrifying pull, and an even greater suppression of overwhelming spiritual power.
In that moment, he understood why Yoru had said he understood Obito's current state even better than Obito himself.
Right now, his strength was immense, yes—but at its core, it all came from the Ten-Tails' power. He was only strong because he was a jinchūriki—a sum of one plus one. And if just one of those "ones" was stripped away, his strength would plummet. It was no different from any other jinchūriki having their Tailed Beast ripped out.
The only difference was that Obito was the jinchūriki of the Ten-Tails. His power was so immense that normally, no one in the world could ever hope to separate the beast from him.
But Yuki Yoru could.
"Obito, you are the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki—you are the rightful master of that chakra!"
A slithering, tar-like figure stumbled desperately into the battlefield—Black Zetsu. He shouted frantically to the suppressed Obito:
"The principle of his technique is to throw your chakra into disarray before extracting it! Use your willpower to resist that force—force the Ten-Tails' chakra back under your control!"
But Obito's chakra was already surging chaotically, his consciousness fragmenting in the storm. He could no longer hear Black Zetsu's words.
"Damn it."
Black Zetsu cursed under his breath. Obito could not afford to falter—he was the absolute key to breaking his mother's seal. No matter what, he could not be allowed to lose here, not to Yuki Yoru.
"Show your resilience, Uchiha Obito!"
Silently, an unknowable power of Shinra Banshō seeped into Obito's body. Stirred by that force, his consciousness, dulled by the disrupted chakra, suddenly sparked awake.
Within Obito's mindscape, a single beam of light pierced through the oppressive darkness.
It revealed a bright, gentle face—a lovely young girl with soft features, markings like camouflage on her face, and a warm, sweet smile.
Her smile was like a ray of light. Obito's dazed eyes slowly regained clarity, slowly steadied into focus.
"…Rin…"