Wood Release: Cutting Technique, Neji's Death

The Ten-Tails' single eye suddenly turned toward Obito. In that enormous eye, covered in ripple-like rings, Obito's raised hand was reflected. The Ten-Tails' instincts told it—this human was trying to control it. The Ten-Tails did not like being controlled.

It opened its mouth and let out a low, scalp-crawling hiss.

That hiss was not an attack, nor was it ninjutsu. It was simply a pure, primal expression—a prey's warning to a hunter, a beast's resistance to a tamer, a monster awakening and rebelling against its fate.

"The Ten-Tails should be able to use Wood Release: Cutting Technique, right?" Obito did not lower his hand. His Sharingan stared fixedly at the Ten-Tails' lone eye. "Then use this to completely wipe out the Shinobi Allied Forces' hope—"

Inside the Ten-Tails' mouth, Chakra began to gather in an entirely different manner. Not as a compressed sphere like a Tailed Beast Bomb, but as countless dense wooden spikes, like a rain of needles. Each spike was longer than a person, sharp as a needle at the tip, with the Ten-Tails' distinctive dark-red Chakra flowing across its surface. The spikes hovered before the Ten-Tails' mouth for a moment, forming a deathly cloud that blotted out the sky.

Wood Release: Cutting Technique.

"—It's coming." Obito's voice carried no emotion, as if he were merely stating a fact.

The Ten-Tails' hiss became a roar.

That cloud of countless wooden spikes burst from the Ten-Tails' mouth and poured down toward the Shinobi Allied Forces.

On the battlefield, the shinobi still regrouping looked up at the rain of wooden spikes that covered the sky, so dense that even sunlight could not penetrate it, and their faces went pale.

Shikamaru gritted his teeth, his voice coming through the communications earpieces. "Everyone—scatter! Find cover! Don't take it head-on!"

It was too