The Uchiha's shuriken-throwing technique was practically an art, with a delicate, efficient beauty to it.
Obito stared at the Rock Ninja charging toward him and began forming hand seals. They were the seals for his most familiar jutsu, the Great Fireball Technique, but he wasn't actually channeling any chakra.
Snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Rooster, Tiger... Obito's hands moved at no great speed, but his seals were steady. The Rock Ninja charging at him felt a heavy pressure from those hand seals. A comrade had died after this Fire Release turned his body, hardened by Hardening Jutsu, to glass; once the jutsu took hold, there had been no reversing it. That memory made Obito's every movement seem oppressive.
With each additional seal, their steps slowed a little more. When Obito formed the Boar seal, they instinctively stopped in their tracks.
Retreat!
The warning bells in their hearts sent them scrambling backward. Firelight, who was among them, couldn't help but use Earth Release: Subterranean Voyage, sinking into the ground and quickly retreating.
Obito finished the final seal, puffed out his cheeks, and blew, but there wasn't so much as a flicker of flame.
"Run!" he shouted. Kakashi and Nohara Rin immediately took off, with Obito bringing up the rear. He didn't forget to turn back and taunt them. "I tricked you, idiots! You fell for the great Obito's plan, didn't you?" He thought smugly, The teacher and Kakashi both call me an idiot, but I can be sharp when it counts! With quick thinking like that, could Kakashi ever come up with it?
The Rock Ninja seethed with rage. One of them shouted, "After them! I'm going to wrap that kid up in an Earth Mound Ball and use him as a bowling ball!" Another yelled, "I'm going to kill him!"
The group charged after them again, and Obito tried the same trick once more. When the Rock Ninja saw him doing it, they all hesitated—
None of them wanted to bet on whether Obito would actually unleash a Great Fireball this time.
The result—
Was still nothing at all.
The maze-like terrain the Rock Ninja had created restricted Kakashi's team, but now it was restricting them too. In a passage this narrow, Obito's Fire Release was practically a sure kill—it could fill the entire space, leaving nowhere to dodge.
Then, for the third time...
"Damn it! That brat's bluffing. He must be out of chakra." They stopped paying attention to Obito's hand seals and charged at him, kunai clenched in their fists.
Obito grinned. He opened his mouth and spewed a massive torrent of flames that filled the space ahead, stretching a full three yards. The thousand-degree heat licked at them, and half the charging Rock Ninja disappeared in an instant.
Black, twisted bodies lay everywhere, like Sheep's corpse. The men who had once been so tall and broad had all been reduced to this.
Farther back, the bodies were much larger. Some had only been burned in places, with parts of their limbs still intact.
After using the jutsu, Obito braced his hands on his knees and gasped for breath. Yet his eyes gleamed with fierce excitement. "Heh, heh-heh! You fell for it, didn't you? The great Obito's Fire Release still has... Come on, then! Keep chasing me!"
Nohara Rin's expression suddenly changed. She threw herself forward and shoved Obito aside. A blade burst out of the ground, followed by a man.
Firelight!
Obito had been Firelight's original target, but Rin had foiled his plan. He turned his head, fixed his gaze on her, and swung his blade. Obito pulled out a kunai and blocked the strike, roaring inwardly, If you want to hurt Rin, you'll have to get through me first.
A flash of white shot out from behind Firelight. It was Kakashi. The swordsmanship passed down through his family was as swift as lightning.
Like thunder crashing from the sky, like the savage fury released from the mouth of a crow tengu in myth—an unstoppable White Fang.
Firelight felt something prick at his back. A chill spread down his spine, and every hair stood on end. He could no longer concern himself with Obito and Rin. He turned to meet the strike.
The long sword met the short blade.
"Clang!"
Firelight retreated at once. His body sank into the ground, then appeared three yards away in an instant. He glanced at his long sword and saw a sizable notch in its blade. Wariness crept into his eyes.
"Hatake Kakashi? The White Fang's son! So you're Hatake Kakashi. You truly live up to your reputation as a young prodigy... The speed and force of that strike are astonishing. And what's especially astonishing is the killing intent behind it—
"It's hard to imagine how many people you've killed to hone such killing intent. Or perhaps it's simply a gift that comes with being a genius."
Firelight spoke, his gaze dark. Kakashi said nothing. He stood with Obito and Rin, the three of them forming a back-to-back triangle as they watched their surroundings.
Several dozen seconds passed before Kakashi finally spoke. "Too bad I didn't kill you."
Firelight said, "Your sword still isn't good enough... That strike came from behind. You should have concealed your killing intent and let it erupt at the last instant. But you were still far away, and your killing intent was already overflowing. It made my back ache."
Kakashi's voice was calm. "Is that so?" There was a hint of mockery in his tone—because Firelight truly shouldn't have said that.
He was wrong!
The White Fang's blade had always sent its killing intent ahead of it, striking terror into the opponent's heart and leaving them frozen in place. Then the blade would follow, and nothing could stand in its way.
Konoha's White Fang had once ranged across the battlefield, leaving puppet masters wailing in his wake. This was how he did it.
Once his killing intent had pinned them down, the puppet masters' hands would falter. How could they manage the delicate movements needed to control their puppets? Unable to use their puppets calmly, they would end up being sent to the Pure Land by the White Fang, one at a time, with a single slash each.
Kakashi tightened his grip on the short blade. His wavering confidence steadied somewhat—this Rock Ninja was all bluster and no substance, not nearly as strong as he'd imagined.
"Brat..." Firelight seemed to be enraged by Kakashi's attitude. Suddenly, he leaped into a downward slash—a move from the Shinkage-ryū style—and let out a harsh, piercing shriek.
Kakashi focused and moved to meet him. His figure flickered, and he used the Body Flicker Technique to appear at Firelight's side, thrusting his blade toward his ribs.
Meanwhile, Nohara Rin handed Obito a weapons pouch. The moment Obito felt it, he sent two more shuriken flying to keep Firelight at bay. Just then, something unexpected happened: the maze passage suddenly collapsed, sealing off the ceiling as rocks came tumbling down.
Firelight sank underground in an instant and vanished. Kakashi shouted, "Go!" He formed a hand seal and used Chidori.
Lightning illuminated the darkness. Kakashi picked a direction and charged out.
Chidori struck the rock wall. It collapsed with a roar, revealing a huge opening.
The three of them burst out. Behind them, a mound formed from the fallen rock wall collapsed and became solid. It turned out that Demon Leech had been hiding in the shadows and used Rock Dwelling Collapse to bring down the maze walls. He hadn't expected that even from such a desperate predicament, the three of them would still manage to break out.
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