The guy had arrived far too quickly. Although Naruto had sent Shadow Clones outside the village to make preparations as soon as he learned Urashiki was coming.
Actually facing Urashiki Otsutsuki still proved difficult.
Naruto glanced toward the Hokage Building, where Jiraiya was preparing to enter Sage Mode.
People were fleeing frantically through the streets below.
The gold dust beneath Hikari's feet lifted her up beside Naruto.
Yet only Urashiki knew that beneath his seemingly relaxed exterior, his vigilance had already reached its limit.
Fast. Far too fast.
From his sudden arrival to their brief exchange, his opponent's reaction speed and execution of tactics had far exceeded his expectations.
"You're becoming harder and harder to figure out."
Urashiki spoke in an airy voice, his gaze sweeping back and forth between Naruto and Hikari before finally settling on Naruto.
"Sand manipulation like that tanuki's... and speed that barely leaves any time to react."
He spoke casually, but only he knew what lay behind the words "barely leaves any time to react."
Just moments earlier, as Naruto's Flying Thunder God Slash from his blind spot was about to strike the back of his neck, Urashiki's Rinnegan had changed into the blue Rinnegan, quietly invoking the power of time.
In a dimension imperceptible to ordinary people, time had "rewound" by a mere few seconds.
He had "seen" the trajectory of the descending Wooden Sword and attempted at least three slight dodges or blocks within that tiny window.
But every fragment of the "future" showed him either losing his head or suffering a severe injury.
The speed of the Flying Thunder God's surprise attack, combined with Naruto's control of timing and angle, had created an almost inescapable sense of a guaranteed hit.
An ordinary dodge would not let him evade it completely.
That conclusion