Moke had no habit of educating his enemies. The instant the chant left his lips, he let the zanpakutō hang loose at his side, rose higher into the sky, and looked down on the Wood Human. His left hand lifted, index finger pointing to the heavens.
The Stormblade of the Grand-World would make carving easy, but today he wanted to test something else, a home-forged finisher that burned in his mind like a sun.
"Nice toy, that wooden giant. I'm done playing. This ends now. I've measured the gulf between your tier and mine."
"Then hear me, the man who brags he is Uchiha Madara. Take this. If you survive, you will have earned the right to know my name."
"Crimson Requiem, Nova."
Above his fingertip, a black-crimson sphere bloomed, ten meters across, its skin alive with crackling midnight lightning. In the next heartbeat it collapsed, compressing into a star no larger than a palm. The rind of space around it warped into a luminous haze, bleaching the eye with blue-white glare.
For a breath, it truly looked as if he balanced a newborn star on one finger.
He twitched. The star drifted. To the eye it floated like a petal; in truth it lanced forward, dragging a black seam through reality, and in a flicker hung before the Wood Human's chest. That black wake was broken space. It sealed itself a moment later, yet to the watchers at the forest's edge it felt like witnessing a miracle with no priest.
Hiruzen alone sensed the wrongness the instant the star began to shrink.
"Barrier Corps, full containment. Everyone, eyes shut."
He got half the warning out. Daylight tore itself into a pillar. Those who failed to close their eyes cried out as blood spilled down their cheeks and the world went winter white.
Obito's sixth sense shrieked as soon as the star kindled. His chakra was already past redline. He had only seconds of intangibility left.
"Obito-san, run. That energy is terrifying. If you don't move, you'll never get to feel what poop feels like again."
"Shut up. I know. Refine chakra, now."
He spat a curse, abandoned the Wood Human without hesitation, and spun his eye into a spiral of warped space. His body leaned into the vortex.
Moke's strike was faster. With one eye, phasing himself required a blink of re-materialization. The pillar of blue-white cut earth and sky. In the furnace at its core, the Wood Human lasted less than a half second. It transmuted to nothing.
Obito shoved every scrap of chakra into his lower body. It didn't matter. Against that star, even his purity of chakra shattered the instant it touched the light. At the last moment a black seam ripped open by his legs and split the pillar, buying him the sliver he needed to pull his hips into the Kamui dimension and spare the family jewels.
He had no time to exhale. Pain bit. Then nothing.
The seam snapped shut and swallowed both legs at the thigh.
High above, Moke reached into emptiness. His arm vanished to the elbow. He hauled back and came away gripping a pair of legs by the trousers, two neat stumps already cauterized by cosmic heat.
The black seam had been his. When Obito dared to run the instant the nova bloomed, Moke actually blinked. To hold that star long enough to matter, he had poured nearly every drachm of his crimson force and spatial power into it and had even used his World-Lord's authority to chain the explosion into a single column.
Then the man refused to trade and bolted.
Seeing chakra flare from the severed half as it fought the star, a thought flashed. Kamui demanded the user's body be tangible at the moment of transition. Decision made. A single, surgical tear through space, a sweep of the blade, and the prize was his.
The limbs were more than trophies. Spiral Zetsu's flesh was treasure. Shaped from Hashirama's cells and the Gedo Statue's womb, it blunted the wood cells' corrosion yet burned with obscene vitality. If it could patch any body at will, it meant almost no rejection in other hosts. Even if it exposed a little of his spatial art, he could live with that. In this domain, he was king.
He looked at the ongoing pillar and flicked his hand. The star unraveled on command, blue-white fury dissolving into dust-fine motes. Within the Grand-World, even released power bent to his word.
Outside, the barrier shattered like a soap bubble under a razor. Moke's prison of light had already strangled most of the blast, but the residual edge still sliced through Konoha's ward like a dimensional cutter. Shinobi on the perimeter locked knees just holding the echo at bay. The brilliance paid the barrier no mind and forced more than a few to turn their backs. In the village proper, the sky-spear sent birds and humans alike into chaos. If not for the Police and the guards, half the town would have run for the gates.
A gesture ended it. The pillar winked out. In its place lay a desertized forest and a basin gouged dozens of meters deep, glassed at the bottom. The shinobi opened their eyes. They looked up at the youth in the sky and felt the same thing.
Unfathomable.
Most of them only knew a new red-haired Uzumaki had moved into the village and that orders said not to provoke him. Seeing him erase the intruder, they whooped. To them, he was Konoha's newest ally, the red comet that had chosen their sky.
Danzō met Hiruzen's eyes again. Earlier, he had been willing to support the boy to stop the masked man. Now his gaze was full of murder.
He would wager that even an Uzumaki had to be empty after a battle like that.
He wanted to push his luck.
Hiruzen read the blade behind the stare and hesitated.
He had just watched the boy erase a forest and pocket two legs out of a separate dimension. Even the Strongest Hokage of All Generations was allowed a heartbeat of doubt.
______________________________
If you're enjoying this story and want to read more advanced chapters, you can support me on Patreon: patreon.com/PurgatorialPoet. Your support helps keep the translations coming faster.