Ōtsutsuki Isshiki clenched his right hand again, and another Black Rod appeared in his palm.
But this time, he did not immediately attack. Instead, he retreated several hundred meters, putting a relatively safe distance between himself and Naraku.
Shihōin Naraku did not pursue him. He simply stood where he was, watching Isshiki pull away with interest.
"Will keeping your distance help?"
He asked, "You saw it just now. I can cut through your Chakra Rods in a single stroke."
Isshiki did not answer.
Gritting his teeth, he thrust his left hand down against empty space.
Daikokuten activated again.
This time, what emerged from the spatial rifts were not cubes, but hundreds of long, thin black spikes. Each gleamed with a dark luster, its tip as sharp as a needle.
These spikes did not smash straight toward Naraku. Instead, they hovered in the air and converged on his position from every direction, forming an impenetrable net around him.
Naraku looked around.
Hundreds of black spikes pointed at him from every angle, cutting off almost every route of escape.
"Pretty clever."
He remarked, "Overwhelm me with numbers, force me to cut down most of them, then use the gaps left over to launch a surprise attack."
Before he had finished speaking, Isshiki had already attacked.
This time, Isshiki's movements were even more elusive than before, his body constantly changing size as he moved.
Using Sukunahikona, he sometimes shrank to the size of a speck of dust, darting at high speed through the blind spots in Naraku's vision.
At other times, he returned to his original size the instant he closed in on Naraku and thrust at him with a Black Rod.
Naraku's eyes tracked the shifting course of Isshiki's high-speed movements.
Kurikara became a pitch-black whirlwind in his hand. Wherever its blade