In the real world, only a few dozen seconds had passed.
"Why did they suddenly stop moving?"
Yahiko looked at Uchiha Ren and Uchiha Obito, who had abruptly frozen in place and begun silently confronting each other. He felt confused.
But he didn't dare interrupt them recklessly, worried that doing so might cause an unexpected accident.
"Ugh—!"
Suddenly, Obito dropped to one knee, clutching his stomach as he began to retch violently. The aura around him instantly weakened.
Almost at the same moment, Ren reacted.
His eyes quietly transformed into a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan, sending a chilling aura through the air.
"So… Mangekyō…"
Obito forced out the words.
"Fine. Today I'll admit defeat. We'll meet again."
As he spoke, Obito activated the power of his Mangekyō Sharingan—
Kamui.
Ripples spread through the air, centered around Obito's right eye. His body began twisting as it was drawn toward the Kamui dimension.
"Trying to run? Fire Fist!"
Ren threw a punch.
A massive flaming fist erupted forward, exploding toward Obito with terrifying force.
Obito's pupils shrank. He was forced to cancel the transfer of his body and instead activated Kamui intangibility, allowing the flaming fist to pass harmlessly through him.
"Flame Commandment!"
Ren spread his hands.
Endless flames burst from his body and surged outward.
Within moments, four towering walls of fire formed around them, sealing off hundreds of meters of space. The inferno burned fiercely without fading.
"Hmph. Just firewalls. They can't stop me!"
"Earth Release: Hiding Like a Mole Technique!"
Obito burst out from the remnants of the flames and immediately dove into the ground.
"Fire Release: Scorching Hell!"
Ren's gaze remained calm.
He clasped his hands together, raised one foot high, and slammed it down onto the ground.
An enormous amount of thermal energy surged into the earth beneath his foot.
BOOM!
A thunderous explosion erupted.
Several gigantic pillars of fire—each more than ten meters wide—burst from underground into the sky.
The surrounding ground melted under the extreme heat, turning into a flowing sea of magma.
Obito was forced out of the ground by the eruption.
At the same time, another pitch-black figure nearby was also forced to reveal itself.
"There's another one?"
Ren glanced at the jet-black figure whose expression couldn't even be seen clearly.
"Leave first."
"Fire Release: Flame Cyclone!"
He swung a palm backward toward Yahiko and Konan.
Before Yahiko could react, he found himself and Konan wrapped in a spiraling vortex of flames that carried them straight through the fire wall and out of the sealed battlefield.
"You look pretty miserable," the black figure said as it approached Obito.
It was Black Zetsu.
Its tone carried a trace of dissatisfaction.
"If you hadn't acted on impulse, we wouldn't have ended up in this situation."
"Who would've expected him to appear here—with a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan?" Obito replied irritably.
Black Zetsu looked toward Ren's eyes and muttered quietly,
"This pattern… I've never seen these eyes before."
Although the Mangekyō Sharingan was extremely rare, several had appeared throughout the Uchiha Clan's thousands of years of history.
Some even possessed similar abilities.
For example, both Sasuke Uchiha and Itachi Uchiha possessed the ability to summon the black flames that could burn anything to ash—
Amaterasu.
Having secretly observed the Uchiha Clan for centuries, Black Zetsu had seen many Mangekyō abilities.
But Ren's eyes…
These were completely unfamiliar.
"Be careful," Obito warned quickly.
"Don't make eye contact with him. His Mangekyō ability is genjutsu-based—and extremely powerful."
"Understood."
Black Zetsu's heart skipped a beat as it immediately withdrew its gaze.
Of course, it wasn't actually afraid of Ren's genjutsu.
After all, Black Zetsu was the embodiment of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's will. Its spiritual power was extraordinarily strong, and most of its abilities were mental in nature.
Because of that, Black Zetsu had extremely high resistance to genjutsu.
In the original history, it had even remained unaffected by the Infinite Tsukuyomi cast through the Rinnegan.
So it wasn't afraid of Ren's Mangekyō genjutsu.
What it feared was Obito discovering this abnormality.
Fortunately, Obito was currently staring at Ren with complete tension.
Black Zetsu quietly let out a breath of relief.
Obito is still easy to deceive.
"The temperature here is too high. White Zetsu probably can't enter," Obito said.
"Can you buy me some time to transfer my body?"
His Kamui intangibility only temporarily shifted parts of his body into the Kamui dimension. Once the time limit ended, they would return to reality.
But to fully teleport his body, he needed time.
And during the transfer process, he couldn't use intangibility to avoid attacks.
So someone had to stall Ren.
"You really are—"
Black Zetsu almost cursed.
If Obito escaped, what about him?
Ren had already turned the underground into a magma field, preventing him from escaping through the earth.
Was Obito planning to use him as disposable cannon fodder, just like White Zetsu?
"It's not that bad yet," Black Zetsu said, suppressing its anger while its mind raced.
"His speed is extremely fast. You definitely can't outrun him."
"But with your ability, escaping this fire domain shouldn't be a problem."
"As long as we break out of the fire zone, the White Zetsu outside can support us."
"So—"
Stab!
Before Black Zetsu could finish speaking, Obito suddenly raised his hand.
A black chakra rod shot forward and pierced straight into Black Zetsu's body.
This was an application of Yin–Yang Release taught to him by Madara Uchiha.
Although Obito hadn't fully mastered the technique yet, the rod already resembled the later black receivers, capable of disrupting chakra.
"You—!"
"Sealing Formation!"
Black Zetsu stared at Obito in disbelief.
But before it could finish speaking, Obito activated a sealing technique.
Since Ren had chosen to reveal the truth to Obito, there was no way he would let Black Zetsu, the ancient manipulator lurking for millennia, escape.
To lower Black Zetsu's guard, Obito and Ren had staged this entire confrontation.
Four sealing tags inscribed with complex formulas flowed from the black rod and attached themselves to Black Zetsu's body.
Its movements were instantly bound and suppressed.
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