"Izumi, someone's coming for us!"
Farther from the battlefield, Kijiro stood on Uchiha Izumi's shoulder, watching the distant battle.
He knew Uchiha Chisen very well and could tell that Chisen still had everything well in hand, so he wasn't worried about his safety.
But as Kijiro's ears pricked up, he keenly sensed a wave of malice descending upon him and Izumi.
"Is it another member of the Akatsuki Organization?"
Uchiha Izumi also turned her gaze toward the Akatsuki Organization's battle on the other side. The woman who could turn into sheets of paper and scatter on the wind at any moment made Izumi feel some pressure too.
She knew her own limits well enough to realize that if she faced Konan alone, she would almost certainly be no match for her.
"No-"
Before Kijiro could finish, his body abruptly swelled.
The enormous ninja cat shielded Uchiha Izumi behind him and viciously clawed at an arm reaching out of thin air.
"Uchiha Obito!"
Kijiro's fur bristled all over. Uchiha Chisen had told him a few things about Uchiha Obito, so he knew that Obito's Mangekyō Sharingan possessed a special space-time dōjutsu.
"You actually blocked it?"
Obito emerged from the vortex, looking at the enormous ninja cat before him with a frown.
Information about Uchiha Chisen was hardly a secret anywhere in the shinobi world now, but Obito knew next to nothing about Kijiro, Chisen's ninja beast.
At the very least, he had never imagined that an ordinary ninja cat could block his surprise attack.
"I blocked your attack. Did you ever block Kakashi's?"
What he knew about Uchiha Obito flashed through Kijiro's mind. Remembering Chisen saying that Obito had watched Kakashi kill the girl he loved during the Third Shinobi World War, he couldn't resist needling him.
"You're asking to die!"