'The counterattack starts now.' Shiki inwardly declared.
He smashed his palm onto the ground.
'Dragon Gate Sealing Style: Coiling Dragon Seal'
A coiling dragon image, made up of dense sealing script, rapidly spread across the ground of the chamber.
Indiscriminate area suppression.
Within it, every enemy would be physically and spiritually weighed down.
Their bodies turning heavy and their minds sluggish while their chakra struggled to flow.
Madara frowned.
'As expected of Mito's ward, full of nasty fuinjutsu tricks.' He internally, even if begrudgingly, praised.
The Gedo Statue's flow of power ensured his main body barely felt the effects but the seemingly invincible and untouchable Limbo Shadow was noticeably slowed down.
Not by much but still . . .
'Flicker Phantom'
With a burst of blinding speed, Shiki finally managed to avoid the shadow for the first time.
He had to preemptively dodge extremely wide since he could only vaguely sense it but the seal made dodging it possible.
'Fuinjutsu can turn the Shinigami itself into a mere summon, even the Ten Tails can be restrained and sealed by it. A mere Limbo Shadow, what does it amount to before that?' Shiki triumphantly thought to himself.
The boy found at least one reliable method to counter Limbo though besides him who could sense the Shadows and Mito who could indiscriminately suppress a large area, he imagined few would be able to actually use fuinjutsu as a means to fight back.
With Flicker Phantom, Shiki's burst speed was now enough to cleanly dodge the slowed Limbo Shadow.
He flashed around in a game of cat and mouse, not having any means of damaging or completely immobilizing his shadow opponent but no longer taking a one sided beating either.
And that became his opening.
Dodging yet another invisible charge from the Limbo Shadow, Shiki rapidly weaved three hand seals.
'Earth Release: Earth Flow Spear'
This jutsu could form earthen spikes from the ground beneath a target . . . or from a stone throne right under a troublesome old man's ass.
Of course, with his anus on the line, Madara noticed the chakra fluctuations immediately but by that time, with the connection to the Gedo Statue hampering his already degraded agility from old age, he could not possibly dodge the sneak attack in time, not without showing further openings.
Alas, Shiki still underestimated the might of a living legend.
The old man's Rinnegan reverted to a crimson Eternal Mangekyo, the Limbo Shadow was forcefully shunted back into his body and a jarring sensation overcame the boy.
Before he realized, Madara had weaved a sequence of hand seals and infused earth release chakra into his throne, preventing the earthen spikes from forming and subsequently impaling him.
'Earth Release, he did not show it directly in the series but of course he can pull tricks like this, this is a real world, even future Kakashi would use more of his thousand jutsu repertoire than in the original works. But that isn't the issue . . .' Shiki analyzed.
His higher dimensional perception was triggered.
'Time manipulation . . . If that game cutscene is to be believed, Madara's original Mangekyo ability, one of them at least, was time related.' The boy remembered.
The biggest proof of all is how Madara's eyes reverted to the Mangekyo. Unlike Sasuke, and possibly Hagoromo, Madara does not have access to his Sharingan abilities while using the Rinnegan.
Forget about unique Mangekyo Dojutsu, even casting ocular genjutsu cannot be done since he reverted back to the Sharingan to genjutsu the Raikage.
In fact, if Obito and Nagato were to be taken in consideration, in terms of pure perception and dynamic vision, the Rinnegan is inferior to the Sharingan.
When the Edo Tensei Jinjuriki were turned into the new Six Paths of Pain, it was clearly stated that their superior dynamic vision, tracking and reflexes came purely from the Sharingan in their right eyes.
In the mere instant while Shiki made these judgements, Madara's eyes reverted into the Rinnegan and, the Limbo Shadow that had vanished, manifested once more.
'Each Limbo Shadow has an individual cooldown. In his weakened state, Madara can only keep one shadow active but with both Rinnegan he still has access to four.' Shiki deduced in response.
'So when Shadow 1 is recalled, he can immediately manifest Shadow 2 to avoid the first Shadow's cooldown period and so on.' He concluded.
Back to reality however, the old man appeared far more serious than before.
"Time to step up this game." Madara taunted.
'Time to employ the ultimate secret technique.' Shiki thought in response, he had already pushed his luck far enough today.
The Limbo Shadow body flickered at him.
'Nirvana Art: Underworld Shadow - Void'
A black wall of shadow rose before the boy and the Limbo clone smashed right into it . . . or not.
Instead it sank into it and vanished, as if falling into a pool of pitch.
Then the shadow wall vanished and with it, Shiki was gone.
Madara blank stared at the empty air before him.
'FUUU-'
*
Black in the Land of Fire, Shiki stepped out of a dark shadow portal.
"My mastery of "NIGERUNDAYOO!" is flawless." The boy bragged out loud, smirking at the thought of how pissed Madara must be.
'No nearly as pissed as he will be once he finds out what my sneaky shadow clones were up to during our clash.' He gleefully added in his thoughts.
Once Shiki realized he had only been discovered because his gaze was traced back, he figured that the shadow clones he made to more efficiently search the area had likely not been discovered and thus, had likely succeeded in his side objective.
And just on cue . . .
The particular rush of information that flows into one's mind as a shadow clone is dispersed, assaulted the boy's mind with the news and details of a very successful heist.
Before that though, Shiki cast his gaze into a piece of Void he partitioned beforehand.
Within it, a trapped Limbo Shadow floated in the emptiness, completely helpless.
Shiki lacked any way to harm it but the Shadow was helpless as well.
'Madara has no way to recall trapped Shadows unless he's willing to switch its position with his real body which would only make things worse.' The boy thought.
'So if he is truly limited to one manifested Limbo Shadow in his current state and can't recall this one, Limbo is effectively neutralized for the time being' His eyes gleamed with victory.
Limbo's nature made it nearly impossible to deal with even if someone like Mito could overwhelm the current Madara, giving the old man a dangerous advantage if he and the Uzumaki matriarch came to blows, something which Shiki feared.
The boy honestly did not know how he would react if he lost her.
Would his hollow nature save him from breaking . . . or would it ensure he became a monster so utterly inhuman he would be unrecognizable, once he did not have that anchor in his life that Mito represented . . .
Sincerely, Shiki did not wish to contemplate it.
Now thought, with a spacetime ninjutsu trap, the boy had managed to capture Madara's shadow, sealing Limbo owing to the old man's current limitations.
'Not only can Mito-sama likely beat him without much trouble now, I obtained valuable information on Madara, got a taste of that legendary power and also, great spoils from his hideout.' He thought to himself.
Shiki turned his perception to yet another partition of his Underworld Shadow - Void.
+++++
Hey, Author here!
To promote the novel I will be releasing BONUS CHAPTERS on SUNDAYS based on the previous week's power stone count.
100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
500 Power Stones = 2 Bonus Chapters
1000 Power Stones = 3 Bonus Chapters
Every earned BONUS CHAPTER on Webnovel will also be posted on Scribble.
Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.
I'm trying to become a full time Author now and I'm not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.
Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -