Dead silence.
Suffocating dead silence.
A second ago, battle cries had shaken the wasteland on the Land of Fire's border. Now, all that could be heard was the wind moaning across scorched earth.
Chiya Uchiha hovered in midair, the lingering golden afterglow behind him and thousands of abyssal fissures beneath him, still flowing with lava.
He had just cleared half the battlefield with a single Flame Inferno. Now, his declaration-"Not a single one of you dares answer"-was a resounding slap across the faces of the two hundred thousand below.
The shinobi of the Five Great Nations' allied forces trembled as they gripped their kunai. Many had teeth that chattered audibly.
How were they supposed to fight this?
This battle was not even on the same plane.
If shinobi were mortals, the man above them was a god who meted out punishment.
Gulp.
Raikage A swallowed with difficulty. Cold sweat ran from his forehead into the wound of his severed arm, but he did not even dare wipe it away.
The Lightning Release Armor he had taken such pride in was more fragile than paper before that blade.
"Bastard..."
Obito hid at the edge of the battlefield, concealing himself behind several shattered boulders.
His mask had long since broken, and his exposed, half-disfigured face twisted with vicious resentment.
Fear?
Of course he felt it.
But more than that, he felt the madness of a gambler driven wild by his losses.
"I don't believe it..."
Obito stared fixedly at Chiya in the sky, his eyes bloodshot and his teeth clenched hard enough to shatter.
"I don't believe your chakra is infinite!"
"Even the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki couldn't unleash Fire Release on that scale over and over!"
"You must be running on fumes! You're bluffing!"
The more Obito thought about it, the more sense