Chapter 91 — You guys are… truly awesome
The air shimmered where fire had passed moments ago. Trees stood half-burnt, leaves glowing faintly from heat, their shapes bent by the shockwaves Diana and Gaius had created. Smoke clung to the wet air, refusing to rise.
Obito stood alone now.
Kisame's crushed body lay behind Gaius. Itachi had been taken. And Obito's single eye glowed brighter than before, the Mangekyō spinning with a sharp, feverish speed. He wasn't angry. Not anymore. What they learned about his power was far worse than wounds or insults.
It was dangerous.
And he could not allow it to continue.
Obito inhaled deeply.
Then he formed hand seals, faster than anything he had done so far.
Some shinobi used speed to overwhelm.
Some used strength.
Some used chakra volume.
Obito used distortion.
Space bent slightly with each seal, a faint warping of the air around him. Even the falling rain bent unnaturally, slipping sideways for a moment before continuing their descent.
Gaius tightened his grip on his hammer.
Diana steadied her stance.
Both sensed it at the same time
Obito's chest expanded.
But this was no normal Fire Release.
The space inside his lungs bent, folding and twisting under Kamui's influence. It was as if the fire had no stable shape yet, being pulled apart and reforged inside him.
When he exhaled
The world turned orange.
A warped spiralling inferno burst outward. The heat was scorching enough to evaporate the rain instantly.
The flames didn't aim at Gaius or Diana directly.
They swept across the whole battlefield.
A giant, distorted arc meant to reduce everything to burning mud.
Obito didn't want to fight anymore.
He wanted the entire fight erased.
"Gaius!" she called, only to confirm their coordination, not in panic.
She didn't wait for an order.
Diana sprinted forward, directly into the storm of warped fire. Her boots sank a little in the mud, but she forced her legs through the resistance as if the ground wasn't there.
The heat lashed at her armor, burning the air around her. The temperature climbed so fast her armor edges glowed faintly, white from heat.
She crossed her bracelets.
Braced her stance.
And slammed them together with all her strength.
BOOOOM—!
A sonic shockwave erupted outward, clean and massive. It cut through the warped flames like a blade, splitting the firestorm down the middle. The parted flames spun off into the trees, burning them into drooping husks.
The shockwave didn't stop, it rolled forward toward Obito in a wide, focused arc.
The moment Diana created that shockwave, steam burst around them, thick, billowing clouds that blocked sight and reduced angles.
But Gaius didn't need perfect vision.
He stepped into the steam, his heavy footfalls impossible to track through the dense haze. The weight of his steps was silent, not literally, but deliberately suppressed. He selected each placement of his boots with precision, letting the steam swallow the sound.
While Obito braced himself against Diana's shockwave, Gaius emerged silently behind him.
He raised his hammer.
Not at Obito.
But at the ground beneath him.
Diana's shockwave pushed Obito back.
Gaius struck downward.
The hammer hit the ground like a falling star.
CRACK--THOOOM!
Earth exploded upward in a violent column. Mud and stone blasted into Obito's legs, knocking him off-balance. Even intangible, the sheer displacement of ground forced him to adjust his footing instinctively.
That instinct cost him precious seconds of Kamui time.
Diana was already there.
She blurred forward through the leftover shockwave, sword slicing in a clean arc. She wasn't aiming to cut him, she was aiming to force him intangible longer.
Obito phased
But he could feel it now.
His time was running out.
Inside the mask, sweat mixed with the rain.
A sudden throb exploded behind his eye, sharp and white-hot. He dropped one knee into the mud for a brief moment, forced by the strain of maintaining Kamui while dodging two opponents who worked as if they'd trained together for years.
His breathing grew uneven.
And Gaius stepped forward again, hammer steady.
"If you stay intangible, you cannot attack us."
Diana lowered her sword to her side, ready to move again.
"And every time you attack," she added calmly, "you become solid."
Obito froze.
They'd figured it out too well.
Too fast.
A faint bubbling rose from the broken ground.
Then another.
Then dozens.
White hands burst from the mud. Blank faces surfaced next, smiling in that eerie, empty way they always did. White Zetsu clones climbed out in waves, dripping with mud and water, forming a shifting circle around Gaius and Diana.
One spoke with a cheerful tone.
"Obito, you're pushing your limit."
Another chimed in.
"You should retreat. Madara won't like this."
Gaius moved first, hammer sweeping through the first Zetsu wave with a single arc. Their bodies snapped like wet branches.
Diana carved through the next, sword strokes crisp and controlled, cutting down three clones before they even reached her.
The Zetsu weren't strong individually, but they were numerous, and their goal wasn't to win.
They were buying time.
A thick wall of bodies swarmed between Obito and the two warriors.
Obito didn't need more than a second.
He phased fully, his form dissolving like smoke.
His last look at them.
Only thought.
Pure calculation.
Then he vanished into Kamui.
Silence.
The kamui dimension stretched endlessly, flat stone, and blackness around.
Itachi lay on the ground, breathing shallowly, hair damp with sweat and rain. His skin was pale, his expression calm even in unconsciousness.
Obito dropped to one knee beside him.
Not from concern.
From strain.
His breathing rasped through the mask.
He removed his hand, and blood poured freely from his eye, dripping steadily onto the stone floor of Kamui.
He pressed his palm to the ground, steadying himself.
"Don't misunderstand…"
His voice was quiet, steady despite the pain.
"I didn't save you out of kindness."
He forced himself to stand straight, wiping blood from his eye with the back of his glove.
"I still need you."
His breathing slowed.
His vision stabilized.
He glanced at Itachi.
"It's not time for you to die."
The last White Zetsu fell at Gaius' feet.
Diana ended the final one with a clean downward slash. Its half-formed body collapsed into the mud with a soft splash.
Silence settled.
Rain continued falling, steady and cold.
Steam drifted upward from melted earth where Obito's warped fire had struck. Trees were half-gone, burned into black, sagging shapes. The clearing looked like it had been struck by a storm and a wildfire at the same time.
Gaius scanned the area for any lingering threats.
None.
"If we fight him again," Gaius said, voice firm, "we'll win."
Diana's lips curved into a small, satisfied smile as she brushed rain from her hair. The exhilaration of the fight still lingered, decades had passed since she'd faced an opponent who pushed her this hard, Like Ares. For the first time in years, she felt fully alive, testing her strength and skill to their limits.
"Agreed," she said, her tone bright and almost laughing, the joy of exertion clear in her voice.
They turned toward the forest path where Titus, the Bladeguard, and Naruto were handling ROOT.
ROOT operatives moved like ghosts through the rainy forest. Silent, disciplined, coordinated.
But even ghosts make noise to giants.
Titus stood at the front, bolter lowered but ready. Behind him, the Bladeguard formed a triangle: shields strapped to their backs, heavy swords drawn, pistols holstered at their hips.
Rain dripped off their armor in steady streams.
ROOT made the first move.
Five operatives flickered into view around Titus, striking all at once, aiming at weak points that can be seen in the gaps between their Thick Armor.
• Underarm
• Helmet seam
• Knee gap
• Ribs
• Neck collar
Every strike was perfect.
Every strike failed.
Kunai snapped like twigs.
Poisoned blades shattered against ceramite.
ROOT didn't even have a second to react.
Titus raised his bolter.
THUMP.
A ROOT shinobi died instantly, chest caving inward.
The Bladeguard stepped in like a wall.
One cut down a ROOT with a clean horizontal slice.
Another fired his heavy pistol, one shot blowing through mask, skull, and three trees.
The last drove his knee into a ROOT's ribs, broke several on impact, then pinned him to the ground with a downward thrust.
ROOT's morale cracked on the spot.
"Long-range jutsu! Now!"
A barrage of ninjutsu filled the forest:
• Wind blades
• Fireballs
• Water bullets
• Lightning bursts
• Earth spikes
They all hit the Marines.
They all fizzled or shattered on contact.
The armor didn't even flinch.
ROOT operatives stared, stunned. If it had been ordinary metal, it would have been torn apart, but the Space Marine armor was made of ceramite, far stronger than any metal. Nothing they struck could even scratch it.
A water dragon surged toward Metaurus.
A Blade Guard beside Metaurus, just shot it down with a Bolter.
The water splashed uselessly, scattering into the rain.
Metaurus charged.
His axe rose.
His axe fell.
A ROOT operative was split cleanly in two.
Three ROOT operatives struck almost simultaneously, from behind, above, and the side, their movements like shadows flickering across the rain-soaked clearing with the use of Body Flicker Technique.
Titus didn't flinch. A Primaris, stronger and faster than any normal Astartes, he struck with deadly precision and unerring reflexes.
The first operative lunged from behind, knife grazing his armor. Titus twisted, grabbed the man's face, and crushed his throat. A wet snap echoed as the operative collapsed into the mud, gurgling cut short.
The second dove from above. Titus fired mid-air, the round striking the chest and sending him tumbling into the mud.
The third flanked from the side. Titus pivoted and drove a bolt round into his spine. The body went limp instantly.
By the time Titus straightened, the three were neutralized. Seconds later, Naruto arrived, spinning a Rasengan into another ROOT operative, sending him flying into a tree. Titus' gaze remained calm, ready for whatever came next.
One Bladeguard knocked aside a kunai that were thrown at Naruto by a root.
"Good job, boy," he said simply.
Naruto grinned a little, despite the chaos.
Danzo appeared with precision and urgency, sprinting toward the clearing.
The three ROOT operatives lay motionless in the mud. Titus stood among them, calm and unshaken, radiating lethal power.
Danzo's eyes narrowed, Angry at the scene before him. "Hmph…"
as he assessed the gap between them and the survivors. "Enough of this… retreat!" he barked, and without waiting, he and the surviving ROOT fled through the trees.
Titus and the others didn't move. They let them go.
The forest fell silent once more.
The Bladeguard reloaded calmly.
Titus scanned the tree line.
he said in his steady voice. "Next time, the old one dies."
They didn't try to chase them; the enemy's burst speed was far faster. Besides, Gaius's mission was clear, they were to stay in the area and handle any variables that might arise.
Naruto swallowed. He had seen it firsthand in Gaius's Broadcast before, but seeing it now in his own world, with his own eyes… it was completely different.
"You guys are… truly awesome"
~~~
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