Chapter 90
2-in-1-chapter
----------------
"Obito, the fish has taken the bait." Zetsu, shaped like a pitcher plant, poked its head up from the rooftop. White Zetsu was the first to speak excitedly, a grotesque smile stretching across the pale half of his face.
"But aren't you being too hasty, acting this fast?"
"This is just a greeting."
Uchiha Obito sat on the rooftop, elbows resting on his knees, chin in his hands, gazing down at the ground below as it turned crimson. The Fourth Mizukage and his shadow guard were carrying out a massacre. Konoha shinobi, bearing the leaf forehead protector, were falling one after another. The remaining chakra signatures in the castle were rapidly disappearing.
Once the last supply officer at the border command post was eliminated, the Eastern Border Defense Command of Konoha was completely annihilated. A suffocating stench of blood filled the entire castle.
Above, vultures drawn by the smell of blood circled, yet did not dare descend. Their instincts warned them of great danger below, but their gluttonous nature kept them lingering, unwilling to leave behind such a rare feast.
"It's bad manners not to greet your host properly when visiting for the first time. I remember my teacher once told me that you should never show up empty-handed when visiting someone's home. So I specially prepared this gift for our clan head. What do you think? Isn't it thoughtful?"
Below, the Fourth Mizukage and his shadow guard were piling corpses at the castle gate. The grotesque mound of bodies was Obito's carefully prepared gift.
"Uchiha Rēn probably won't like your gift," White Zetsu said, for once quite sincerely.
"No matter. If he doesn't like this gift, then let Yagura go ask what kind he does prefer. If he thinks this one's too light, we can add more. Once the war starts, these things will be in endless supply," Obito replied calmly.
White Zetsu curled his lip but said no more.
The topic seemed exhausted.
Then Black Zetsu opened his mouth.
"You're using your trump card too early..."
His voice hoarse, Black Zetsu looked at the Fourth Mizukage busy below. "Obito, you're being too reckless. Uchiha Rēn isn't that easy to deal with."
It wasn't just White Zetsu who thought Obito was rushing. Even Black Zetsu felt this move was too risky. Who plays their trump card at the opening? If Uchiha Rēn survived and word got out that the Fourth Mizukage had personally taken the field, Konoha would likely send even more reinforcements.
And then, maneuvering space would drastically shrink.
Kirigakure had no more troops to spare. Even with the Fourth Mizukage as a strong piece, pushing the Mist too far, and those lunatics might just turn on their own leader. Obito's hand was fixed from the start—each card used was one less to play. Unlike Uchiha Rēn, backed by Konoha with a constant stream of reinforcements, this was all they had.
"This is the best chance."
Obito's view was the opposite.
"Compared to waiting for Uchiha Rēn to be guarded by thousands, this is the best moment. Konoha's forces haven't consolidated. If there's a chance, we take him out now."
Black Zetsu furrowed his brow—
though he had no eyebrows to begin with.
Even so, he remained unconvinced. In his thousand years in the shinobi world, he trusted his judgment. Among the many outstanding members of the Uchiha clan he'd seen, Uchiha Rēn ranked in the top ten. Someone so deeply rooted in power wasn't easy to trap.
But—
Obito was set on this path. Black Zetsu saw no point in arguing further. At worst, they'd abandon Kirigakure altogether—a piece that had become increasingly useless. When Uchiha Madara once extended his hand into the Mist, it was only to temper his chosen successor.
Once Obito put on the mask and accepted Madara's mantle, Madara, with Zetsu's help, erased all traces of his influence in Kirigakure and decisively discarded the Mist.
Obito, however, bore lingering hatred toward Kirigakure. Unable to let go, he took up Madara's place and continued to torment the village.
So,
Since Obito had made his decision, Black Zetsu would let him carry it out.
After all, he was merely the embodiment of Madara's will—an assistant, not a commander. Offering advice was his role; anything more would be overstepping.
Just then, another White Zetsu poked its head from the rooftop, grinning broadly. "Obito, he's coming! Your guest is about to arrive."
To track Uchiha Rēn's movements precisely, Obito had mobilized a large number of White Zetsu to monitor the forces departing from Konoha. These spies, able to merge with trees and grass, were what allowed him to time this setup so perfectly.
At the right moment, he struck the command center of the Eastern Border Defense, letting a few patrol units escape "coincidentally." Those survivors then encountered Uchiha Rēn en route to the front lines.
All of this was staged to lure Uchiha Rēn here.
It wasn't even that clever a plan. So many coincidences would arouse suspicion. But Obito wasn't worried about the flaws—it was all out in the open. Unless Rēn was willing to abandon the command post at Black Tide Mountain, he would have to come investigate.
And the longer he waited, the greater the risk to the command center. That left Rēn no time to gather sufficient forces.
"So he's here at last? Pretty fast," Obito muttered, raising his head. Narrowing his one visible eye, he looked far down the gentle slope leading up to the castle, where Uchiha Rēn was walking at a measured pace. Crimson plated armor, black combat attire—the sight stirred something in Obito's half-ruined face beneath the mask.
If memory served—
Uchiha Madara had worn a similar outfit. He'd also left behind some of his old weapons—scythes, war fans, and so on.
"Interesting. Trying to imitate Madara?" Obito chuckled low and hoarse. Behind the mask, his lone Sharingan eye gleamed with a sinister red glow. "Well then... let's see, Uchiha Rēn—do you have Madara's strength?"
Before his words had even faded,
His body vanished into the void, as if he'd never been there. Zetsu, shaped like a pitcher plant, had already used Mayfly Technique to retreat earlier, hiding somewhere nearby to watch the show.
Inside the castle,
The Fourth Mizukage, just lifting a corpse, suddenly froze. He dropped it like garbage and looked toward the front gate.
"Prepare for combat."
"A new prey has arrived."
The command was issued.
The remaining fourteen members of the shadow guard moved immediately.
Originally, the Fourth Mizukage's shadow guard had twenty members. But in the brutal battle to take this castle, they encountered fierce resistance. Even with the Mizukage himself leading the charge, six elite jōnin—completely loyal and ready to die for him—had been taken down by Konoha shinobi in suicidal counterattacks.
This loss was enough to make any Kage wince.
But the Fourth Mizukage was no longer his own master. Even his life was in another's hands. The fates of his guards meant nothing to him. Or rather, under Obito's genjutsu, he wasn't even aware that he'd just lost six of his most trusted subordinates.
Under the command of the cold, unfeeling Fourth Mizukage, the group swiftly reached the castle gates—where Uchiha Rēn stood waiting.
....................
.........
.
This was a trap.
Based on the memories in his mind and an overall assessment of the current situation, Rēn concluded that Kuroshio Mountain was a trap. It was quite possible that by the time he rescued Uchiha Akifusa and the others, the command center at Kuroshio Mountain had already been completely wiped out by Uchiha Obito.
If the Mangekyō Sharingan's dōjutsu, Kamui, couldn't be countered,
Then as things stood in the shinobi world, Rēn believed that Uchiha Obito was nearly unbeatable in one-on-one combat—at the very least, he stood on unassailable ground.
With only the limited manpower stationed at the border defense command in Kuroshio Mountain, Rēn doubted they could even manage to scratch a single thread of Uchiha Obito's cloak, no matter how hard they tried.
However,
"I still came."
Standing before the castle gate of Kuroshio Mountain, Rēn looked up at the ancient stronghold that had stood for nearly a century, said to have been built by a feudal lord of a small nation during the Warring States period who had poured the entire country's resources into its construction. The original rulers of this fortress had long since been destroyed—during the era when Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara united to sweep across the shinobi world and end the chaos. At that time, Sarutobi Sasuke, together with the three ninja clans who had served that small nation, annihilated them all.
Truth be told, reading Sarutobi Sasuke's name in the historical documents gave Rēn a strange feeling. The brilliance of Hashirama and Madara was simply too overwhelming, casting a shadow over all other powerful shinobi of their time.
Later, during the founding of the Land of Fire and Konohagakure, the abandoned castle was repurposed by Konoha's shinobi in the Second Hokage's era, becoming one of the border outposts in the east.
Now, it had been overrun again.
The blood of the corpses piled at the gate had formed a small crimson stream, dyeing the earth red before trickling down the gentle slope.
"Tch. As expected, I arrived too late."
This grim scene—Rēn had already mentally prepared himself when he saw the vultures circling above the mountain's peak. But still, upon seeing it with his own eyes, he couldn't help but feel a trace of disappointment. The command center of the eastern border defense had been wiped out. Just restoring the defensive line stretched along the long coastline would be a monumental task.
"Always causing trouble."
Rēn was deeply displeased. His gaze locked onto the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura Karatachi, now visible in the distance.
This man was no stranger to him.
During the Third Shinobi World War, when he had yet to become Mizukage, Yagura had already been a high-ranking frontline commander of Kirigakure. Even then, though not yet a jinchūriki, his strength was undeniable. With exceptional Water Style techniques and the deadly Coral Palm—a jutsu developed from Kirigakure's research on the Three-Tails—he had caused no end of trouble for Konoha's shinobi.
Yagura Karatachi had been Konoha's most troublesome enemy from Kirigakure at the time.
Anyone else from Kirigakure paled in comparison.
At that time, Rēn, newly known as the Flame Demon, had once fought a fierce battle against Yagura together with Shisui, then rising to fame as the Body Flicker. In the end, the two had retreated safely.
But if they couldn't defeat him even together, it meant they had lost.
Behind that youthful and delicate appearance was the heart of an uncompromising warrior.
"Long time no see, Yagura Karatachi. Or should I call you Mizukage?"
"Uchiha... Rēn?"
The Fourth Mizukage Yagura stared at the black-armored Rēn, a trace of recognition flickering in his eyes.
There was nothing secretive between them.
But the battle had already begun in silence.
Rēn's eyes turned crimson, the three black tomoe spinning. While speaking, he activated a genjutsu, projecting his dōjutsu onto Yagura. Unsurprisingly, he encountered a black box—his probing ocular power was swallowed into a murky abyss, unfathomably deep.
"Incredible..."
Rēn sincerely praised.
Putting aside character, in terms of talent alone, Rēn had to admit Uchiha Obito was monstrously gifted. As a teenager, he had controlled the Nine-Tails as easily as playing with a pet. The dignified Fourth Mizukage had been reduced to nothing more than a puppet in his hands.
His mastery of genjutsu had reached a terrifying level.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can read 40 high quality advanced chapters as well as 2 daily chapters on!
Patreon(.)com/IDKjust