"Phew…"
Several meters away, Obito finally let out a slow breath. Only now did he realize he was drenched in cold sweat.
For a moment, he had nearly believed he had fallen prey to Keizumi's Mangekyō technique.
No—that wasn't right. Since when had he ever lacked confidence in his Kamui?
Damn it.
It must be because this man, Uchiha Keizumi, knew too many of his secrets—that was why doubt had suddenly crept into his heart.
"Tch!"
Obito forced down his unease. The corner of his mouth twisted into a mocking sneer as he tried to rebuild the aura of "Uchiha Madara."
"Uchiha brat. It seems, after all, that my ocular power surpasses yours."
"Then why did you flinch just now?"
Keizumi's calm, unruffled question froze the muscles on Obito's face.
His expression wavered between dark and pale, unsettled.
For a moment, he had no idea how to deal with Keizumi.
The intel on his right eye's Kamui was completely exposed. So long as Keizumi wasn't an idiot, he would never allow Obito any chance to exploit it.
And if he didn't use Kamui, Obito found he had no real way to deal with him. Keizumi's Lava Release elementalization was just as troublesome, leaving Obito at a loss.
On top of that, Keizumi had just displayed what seemed to be a Wood Release ability, making the situation even more difficult.
"Hehe…"
Obito let out a cold laugh. "Looks like we've reached a stalemate. You can't do anything to me, and I can't take you down quickly either, brat. Tch… it seems the Uchiha clan has finally produced a genius second only to me—and one other brat."
"The brat you're talking about is yourself, isn't it?" Uchiha Keizumi's calm words punctured Obito's boast in an instant.
Obito: "…"
Damn it. Why did this guy, just like Zetsu, always have to ruin his lines?
"Madara-sama, he's calculating the duration of your ability."
At some unknown moment, Zetsu had appeared at Obito's side and whispered, "He likely already knows exactly how long your power lasts. Within the timeframe your Kamui is active, his Mangekyō can't affect you. But if even two more minutes pass, I fear you won't be able to withstand his dōjutsu."
"I told you long ago—we aren't prepared to deal with him yet. From the very beginning, across all our plans, the scheme to kill Uchiha Keizumi was ranked last. That alone shows just how difficult it is to carry out."
Obito's face twisted with frustration, a suffocating humiliation he had never felt before. "The question is—how the hell does he even know this?!"
Back on the night of the Nine Tails' attack, during his battle against his sensei Minato, only then had Minato managed to catch one flaw in his right eye's Kamui.
But Uchiha Keizumi…
Obito couldn't fathom where he could possibly have learned such things!
Zetsu shook its head. "No idea."
It paused briefly, then added, "It wasn't me."
Because it noticed the suspicious glare Obito had just shot at it.
"Hm?"
Suddenly, Zetsu's brow furrowed, as if sensing something. "Madara-sama, we mustn't linger any longer. A White Zetsu just informed me—Jiraiya is on his way. He'll be here in less than half a minute. And there's a toad perched on his shoulder—likely one of the Mount Myōboku toads."
Obito felt as if the entire world was conspiring against him.
Ever since crossing paths with Uchiha Keizumi, not a single day had gone his way!
He was even beginning to question his own existence.
"…Retreat!"
When Obito clenched his teeth and forced out the word "Retreat," he could only swallow the bitterness in his chest. Unwillingly, he shot Uchiha Keizumi a fierce glare, then swept his palm lightly across the air before him—his body was instantly pulled into the distorted space of Kamui.
"What a bizarre ability…"
Watching "Uchiha Madara" vanish before his eyes, Jūzō couldn't help but click his tongue. "So that's a dōjutsu tied to space-time… what a shameless power."
"Ah! Why'd he leave so quickly? Didn't even give me a heads-up?" the whirlpool-faced White Zetsu grumbled as soon as Obito disappeared. He immediately put distance between himself and Tachibana Jirō, dispelling the giant wooden figure in the process.
Then, by accident, the whirlpool-faced White Zetsu stepped on a round branch, stumbling comically as if he were about to fall flat on his face.
With an exaggerated "Ah-yah!" it seemed ready to crash to the ground—only to suddenly steady itself at the very last instant.
Straightening back up, its feet sank gradually into the earth as it spoke in its mocking tone to Tachibana Jirō: "You didn't fall for it. I thought you'd take the chance to strike at me!"
"Next time I see you, I'm going to compare a cat taking a dump to a person taking a dump. After all, I've got plenty of experience peeking at Madara-sama when he goes!"
With that, the whirlpool-faced White Zetsu gave Tachibana Jirō no chance to react, merging its entire body into the ground.
"Uchiha Keizumi."
The only one left, Black Zetsu fixed its gaze deeply on him. At the bottom of its eyes flickered a heavy wariness. "The next time we meet will be when we've planned your death. You walk in the light, we move in the dark—you'll never know when we'll make our move."
"In this shinobi world, knowing too much is never a good thing. And sometimes, repeating what you know… that's just begging for death."
"Then…"
Just as Black Zetsu's body sank into the ground, with only half its head still exposed, about to vanish completely—Uchiha Keizumi's left eye suddenly locked onto its gaze.
Black Zetsu's heart lurched violently. Shocked, it saw scarlet blood spilling once more from Keizumi's left eye.
In that eye, the sinister Mangekyō Sharingan rotated faintly.
"Judgment."
Black Zetsu's pupils shrank sharply. In the depths of its eyes, the shape of Keizumi's Mangekyō Sharingan slowly reflected back at it. The world before its sight was suddenly drowned in crimson.
The entire heavens and earth seemed shrouded in scarlet. When its gaze drifted upward, even the full moon above had transformed into a vast Mangekyō Sharingan.
Abruptly—
Scene after scene of memories spanning over a thousand years rushed through its mind like a revolving lantern. But these memories were not its own; they belonged to all those it had wronged.
Countless individuals—despair, grief, struggle, hatred, fury—all their dying emotions, every last ounce of anguish from those it had destroyed, surged into Black Zetsu's consciousness in an instant.
Even for such a strange, inhuman being—one that had survived in the shinobi world for a millennium—its mind and awareness now felt as if they had detonated in a deafening explosion.
As if six hundred billion explosive tags were detonating endlessly inside its mind.
The searing, piercing agony was something Zetsu had never felt before—so blinding that its thoughts went blank.
It was its consciousness, its very soul, under attack!
This was the hellish judgment of Absolute Justice!
"Shhhhaaaahhh!!!" The indescribable, rending pain forced both of Zetsu's hands out of the ground, clutching at its own head. Its fingers gouged into its flesh with such force that they pierced through, stabbing directly into its brain. The black-and-white face twisted into an expression of sheer torment.
The physical agony, the mental torture, the despair and anguish of all those it had persecuted in their final moments—every shred of suffering was replayed in its mind. And it was made to experience it all firsthand, to feel the hopelessness as they had.
The heavier the sins borne by the victim, the longer the dōjutsu's effect would last—sometimes stretching on for weeks.
For something like Zetsu—more precisely, Black Zetsu, the shinobi world's most ancient schemer—it would undoubtedly endure the full extent of weeks-long torment.
When Shimura Danzō had once taken the full brunt of Keizumi's Judgment Eye, he had been reduced to such misery that he soiled himself on the spot, stripped of every shred of resistance.
Of course, Black Zetsu had no such bodily functions. It could not suffer that kind of humiliation. But the pain it displayed now was dozens of times greater than what Danzō had endured.
Across a thousand years, how many atrocities had Black Zetsu committed? How many lives had it torn apart, how many families had it destroyed, how many deaths had it caused—directly or indirectly? Perhaps even it could no longer remember.
But now, all the pain it had once inflicted upon others—it bore alone.
"This is…"
Jūzō was stunned by the scene. From his perspective as a bystander—Uchiha Keizumi had merely glared with those scarlet eyes at that bizarre plant-like creature, and it instantly lost all ability to fight.
This was a suspected Wood Release user, likely a core member of Akatsuki.
Yet before Uchiha Keizumi's eerie eyes, it appeared utterly powerless.
"This is the Judgment Eye of Hell." Uchiha Keizumi did not wipe away the blood trickling down his face. His tone was ice-cold. "Against those who have never committed evil, it is useless. Even if I use it hundreds of times, it has no 'judgment' effect on the innocent."
"But for a villain like you, it is hell's retribution for your sins. As long as you have consciousness, as long as you have a soul—even if you are not a living being—you will be judged by me."
Amid endless pain and despair, the last sliver of Black Zetsu's awareness no longer dared to recklessly expose its head above ground.
With the scraps of consciousness it had left, it frantically sank back into the earth, fleeing in utter disgrace.
Yet it failed to notice—just before it disappeared underground completely—several blood-red veins crawled across Uchiha Keizumi's right eye.
A thin stream of scarlet blood trickled slowly from his right eye as well.
"Heaven's Punishment."
The Heaven's Punishment Flames would brand a deep mark upon some random place within the soul of an evildoer. Unless Uchiha Keizumi himself chose to remove it, the fire of Heaven's Punishment would pursue the marked one to the ends of the earth, until their body was reduced to ashes and their soul cast into the Pure Land's hell!
Even after the soul had fallen into that hell, the fire of Heaven's Punishment would cling to it still, burning and punishing endlessly for all eternity.
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