Chapter 67: Kenzō Vs Obito (final part)
forest no longer existed as a forest. What remained was simply terrain, broken and reshaped with every passing second, trees reduced to splinters before they could even finish falling, earth carved open so many times it had lost all original shape, rainwater flooding craters faster than the ground could absorb them. Fifteen kilometers became twelve, twelve became ten, and with every meter gained the rain itself grew denser, heavier, more suffocating, as if the sky itself was pressing downward against the earth with increasing weight.
Kenzo's breathing had become ragged now. Not from panic, never from panic, but from the sheer accumulation of damage spreading across his body like cracks through stone. Small wounds had already begun appearing everywhere, cuts along his ribs, a gash across his outer thigh, his left shoulder where Obito had partially phased through earlier still burning deep beneath the skin, and now newer injuries layered on top of older ones faster than his body could adjust. Blood trickled from multiple locations simultaneously, not enough to be fatal individually but together creating a constant drain that pulled at his stamina with every movement, every twist, every explosive shift in direction.
Obito's attacks had changed. Where previously he fought with calculated pressure, methodically herding Kenzo toward exhaustion, now his strikes carried something entirely different. Viciousness, yes, but more than that, a deliberate sharpness that had been absent before. Each chain curved with tighter precision, each wooden spike erupted at more awkward angles, each activation of Kamui positioned his body at exactly the worst possible moment for Kenzo's rhythm. Obito was no longer simply trying to overwhelm him. He was reading him, adapting to him, dismantling him systematically. The small inefficiencies that Kenzo had exploited earlier were being closed one by one, and in their place new traps appeared, layered over each other like threads in a web being woven tighter with every exchange.
White Zetsu was the true problem now. Not because any individual White Zetsu possessed significant combat power, they were weak, their bodies brittle, their attacks predictable, but their numbers and their unique physiology turned them from minor annoyances into genuine threats. White Zetsu could merge with the earth itself, traveling through soil and rock as easily as a fish through water, their white bodies spreading outward like roots beneath the surface while their chakra signatures remained so faint that even experienced sensory types struggled to detect them. More dangerous was their parasitic ability, the same white substance that composed their bodies could extend outward and attempt to latch onto living targets, draining chakra directly through physical contact while simultaneously restricting movement. Kenzo could not afford to let even a single White Zetsu touch him directly, and that restriction forced additional calculations into already impossibly tight sequences of evasion. If one White Zetsu grabbed his ankle for even half a second, Obito would capitalize instantly and the battle would end right there.
And there were multiple White Zetsu now. Not just one or two but several, emerging from different angles at irregular intervals, never attacking together in predictable patterns, always disrupting Kenzo's rhythm at the worst possible instants. They were not strong enough to kill him, that was never their purpose, but they were perfectly suited to breaking his timing, forcing him to adjust mid-motion, creating fractional delays that Obito could then exploit with terrifying efficiency. The pressure compounded with every kilometer, every minute, every exchange, and Kenzo could feel the weight of it pressing against his mind as surely as the rain pressed against his skin.
Ten kilometers remained until Amegakure's detection zone.
His calculations had been precise but the situation was deteriorating faster than his projections had accounted for. White Zetsu's interference multiplied the difficulty of every defensive maneuver, and Obito's adaptation rate exceeded reasonable expectations. Kenzo's body moved almost entirely on instinct now, conscious thought relegated purely to strategic direction while reflexes honed through years of combat handled the immediate survival calculations. Dodge left, twist right, duck under chain, leap over spike, land, pivot, continue forward, always forward, always toward the invisible line that meant survival.
Then Obito's attack pattern shifted in a way Kenzo had not anticipated.
The gap in his left side had always been the obvious vulnerability. Missing his left arm created an asymmetrical blind spot that Kenzo had compensated for through adjusted movement patterns, wider rotations, and constant awareness of angles of approach. Obito had targeted this weakness repeatedly throughout their battle, forcing Kenzo to defend his left flank with extra attention and motion, but now Obito did something fundamentally different. Instead of attacking the gap directly, he attacked the compensation itself.
Obito suddenly lunged forward with Kamui distorting space around him, chains erupting from multiple directions simultaneously, a spread pattern designed not to hit Kenzo but to force him into a specific dodge trajectory. Kenzo's body responded automatically, twisting right while ducking low, exactly as his adjusted patterns demanded, but the moment he committed to the movement Obito was already there. Not where Kenzo was dodging toward but where the compensation pattern itself would inevitably place him. Obito had calculated not just the gap but the response to the gap, predicting Kenzo's adapted movement with frightening accuracy.
A chain tore through the space where Kenzo's chest would have been had he not registered the trap at the final possible instant. His Sharingan caught the subtle discrepancy in Obito's positioning, the slightly early commitment that betrayed the true target, and Kenzo's body reacted before conscious thought could intervene. He aborted his dodge mid-motion, muscles screaming in protest as momentum was violently redirected, throwing himself backward instead of sideways, sacrificing balance for survival.
The chain still caught him. Not directly through the chest as Obito had intended, but diagonally across the ribs, the edge of the metal links tearing through fabric and skin alike in a deep diagonal gash that stretched from just below his right collarbone down toward his left hip. Blood erupted from the wound instantly, hot against the cold rain, the force of the impact sending Kenzo skidding backward across saturated earth while pain finally broke through his adrenaline in a white-hot wave.
Kenzo's feet found ground again after several meters, his body hunched slightly forward while blood continued streaming from the chest wound, mixing with rainwater into pink rivulets that dripped steadily onto the earth below. His breathing had become audibly heavier now, each inhale pulling against damaged muscle, each exhale requiring conscious effort to maintain steady rhythm. His vision sharpened through the Sharingan's accelerated perception even as his body screamed for rest, cataloguing every detail of Obito's posture, White Zetsu's positions, the terrain, the distance remaining.
The battle stopped for a single moment. Not a pause, not a ceasefire, but a brief stillness that existed between one exchange and the next, the kind of silence that carried more weight than any attack could. Rain fell between them in endless sheets, loud against the broken earth, loud against the shattered trees, loud against the blood still dripping steadily from Kenzo's chest.
A White Zetsu emerged from the ground beside Obito without a word. Its pale featureless face remained expressionless, its yellow eyes empty of any real intelligence, but it understood its purpose. Obito reached out without looking at it, his hand closing around the White Zetsu's arm, and with a single sharp motion he tore it free from the shoulder. The White Zetsu did not react, made no sound, simply stood there with its remaining arm hanging limp while white substance already began regenerating the lost limb slowly. Obito pressed the severed arm against the stump of his own missing left side, the point where Kenzo had struck him earlier, and the white flesh immediately began merging with his own tissue, Hashirama's cells binding to his body with disturbing speed as the new limb took shape, fingers twitching once, twice, then curling into a fist.
Obito's visible eye remained fixed on Kenzo throughout the entire process. There was no satisfaction in that gaze, no triumph, just a cold dead stare that carried neither anger nor pleasure. The mask hid most of his expression but the eye itself said everything necessary. This was not personal. This was simply necessary. And necessary things would be done regardless of cost or difficulty.
Kenzo met that stare without flinching. Blood still dripped from his chest, his body still burned from accumulated damage, his stamina still drained further with every passing second, but his expression remained as calm as it had been at the start of their battle. His Sharingan spun slowly in his eyes, three tomoe rotating at steady rhythm, processing information as methodically as ever. Pain was data. Exhaustion was data. The burning sensation across his chest was simply another variable to be accounted for in the equation of continued survival.
In the silence of his own mind Kenzo calculated. What Obito had just done was not merely a successful attack. It was a demonstration of everything that made him truly dangerous, and understanding that demonstration was essential for what came next. Obito had calculated not just Kenzo's physical vulnerability but his intelligence, his adaptive patterns, his entire approach to combat. He had known that Kenzo would anticipate direct attacks on the left gap, because Kenzo was too intelligent not to. So Obito had layered his trap around that anticipation itself, targeting not the obvious weakness but the compensation for that weakness, predicting the prediction. The timing, the positioning, the specific chain spread pattern, every element had been selected to force Kenzo's adapted movement into a predetermined kill zone. If Kenzo's Sharingan had been even slightly slower, if his reflexes had been even fractionally duller, the chain would have pierced through his heart instead of merely cutting across his chest.
The depth of calculation required to execute such an attack was something only a handful of shinobi in the entire world could achieve. And Obito had done it mid-battle, while injured, while angry, while everything was falling apart around him. That was not merely talent. That was the result of years of combat experience compressed into instinct so refined it had become indistinguishable from thought itself.
Kenzo understood then what he had always known intellectually but was now experiencing directly. In a battle between opponents of relatively equal or near-equal strength, the most important factor was intelligence. Raw cognitive ability, the capacity to process information and formulate strategies faster than the opponent could adapt. But if intelligence was the most important factor, then the second most important factor was battle intelligence specifically, the ability to apply intelligence in real time, under pressure, while bleeding, while exhausted, while the world was actively trying to kill you. Intelligence without battle intelligence was merely potential, unrealized and useless. Battle intelligence without raw intelligence was merely instinct, effective against predictable opponents but helpless against truly adaptive ones. Only the combination of both, high intelligence applied through refined battle intelligence, produced the kind of performance Obito had just demonstrated.
And that same combination was what Kenzo would need to survive the next few kilometers.
Obito's visible eye narrowed almost imperceptibly beneath the mask. For the first time since this battle began, something had changed in his demeanor, something subtle but undeniable. He had thrown everything at this opponent, calculation, adaptation, sacrifice, even self-mutilation to restore his combat effectiveness, and still Kenzo stood there breathing, still bleeding, still calculating, still refusing to die. The invincible image Obito had cultivated for years, the untouchable masked man who could not be hit, could not be stopped, could not be killed, had already cracked when Kenzo landed that earlier blow. Now it threatened to shatter entirely. If Kenzo survived this, if Kenzo reached Amagakure's detection zone and Nagato became aware of what had transpired, then Obito's entire position within the Akatsuki would be compromised. Everything he had built, everything he was still building, would crumble.
He could not allow that to happen.
Obito's killing intent sharpened into something almost tangible, no longer the cold methodical pressure of before but a raw desperate edge that acknowledged the stakes for what they truly were. This was no longer about eliminating a threat to the plan. This was about preserving the foundation of his entire existence. If Kenzo lived, the invincible mask died. And if the invincible mask died, so did everything else.
The brief stillness shattered.
Obito lunged forward without any of the calculated precision from before, abandoning strategy for sheer overwhelming aggression. His body blurred through the rain with Kamui distorting space around him, his newly attached left arm already moving in coordination with his original limbs as if it had always been there, chains and wooden spikes erupting in wilder patterns that sacrificed efficiency for raw coverage. He was no longer trying to outthink Kenzo. He was trying to simply bury him under so many attacks that thought itself became impossible.
And Kenzo responded in the only way remaining to him. He stopped thinking. Not completely, not in the sense of abandoning intelligence, but in the sense of releasing conscious control over his body and allowing something deeper to take over. His brain could only process one thing at this moment, could only maintain one directive against the tide of violence crashing against him from all directions.
Persevere.
Three kilometers became two.
Kenzo's body continued moving even as new wounds accumulated faster than blood could clot. A wooden spike grazed his side, tearing through fabric and skin. A chain whipped across his back, leaving a long bleeding line. His left leg nearly gave out when a White Zetsu's extending tendril caught his ankle for half a second before he ripped free, the contact burning cold against his skin even through the brief instant of connection. The chest wound from earlier never stopped bleeding, the constant motion preventing any scabbing from forming, and now the blood loss was beginning to affect him in ways he could no longer compensate for. His vision blurred at the edges between heartbeats. His limbs felt heavier with each successive movement. The rain against his skin had long since stopped registering as sensation separate from the pain.
His mask had been chipped from the side during some exchange he could not even remember clearly, the porcelain edge broken away to reveal half his face beneath, rainwater streaming directly across exposed skin, mixing with blood from a cut near his hairline that he had not noticed receiving. His clothes hung in tatters, shredded fabric barely clinging to his shoulders and waist, revealing the full extent of damage across his body. Deep wounds and surface wounds blurred together into a canvas of red and purple and the pale white of skin that had lost too much blood. His eyes had become bloodshot, the Sharingan still spinning but with a strained quality that spoke to chakra reserves approaching dangerous lows.
Two kilometers became one.
Obito was not in better condition despite appearances. Blood continued dripping from beneath his spiral mask, the earlier damage Kenzo had inflicted still taking its toll even as Obito ignored it completely. His new left arm moved with slight delays that betrayed its foreign origin, the connection not yet fully synchronized with his nervous system, but he pushed through the imperfection with sheer willpower. His attacks had lost any remaining structure, degenerating into a relentless barrage that relied entirely on the fact that Kenzo was more injured, more exhausted, more drained, and therefore would eventually break first. Obito was no longer fighting like a shinobi. He was fighting like a man who understood that if this opponent survived the next few minutes, everything he had sacrificed to reach this point would become meaningless.
The ferocity of their exchange escalated beyond what the surrounding environment could withstand. Trees did not merely break anymore, they disintegrated. The ground did not merely crack, it cratered. The rain itself seemed to part around the shockwaves of their collisions, creating brief pockets of distorted air where no water fell at all. White Zetsu had stopped interfering entirely, not from choice but from inability, the sheer speed and violence of the two combatants making any external intervention impossible without friendly fire. One White Zetsu that attempted to emerge too close was torn apart instantly by a chain that had been meant for Kenzo, its body bursting into white fragments that scattered across the mud before slowly beginning to reform.
One kilometer.
Kenzo's mind had reduced to a single thread of consciousness stretched impossibly thin across the gap between survival and collapse. Every dodge was slower than the last. Every counter-movement required more effort than the previous. His body was running on reserves that no longer existed, drawing from wells that had been dry for minutes, converting desperation into motion through sheer refusal to stop. There was no strategy remaining, no calculation, no higher thought beyond the primal directive that had been carved into his bones through years of training and reinforced through every battle he had ever survived.
Persevere.
Persevere.
Persevere.
The word repeated in his skull like a heartbeat, like the rhythm of his footsteps against shattered earth, like the pulse of blood still pumping from wounds that should have forced him to stop long ago.
Obito's fist finally connected directly with Kenzo's guard, the impact driving him backward through a half-destroyed tree trunk that splintered around his body, sending him tumbling across mud and rock before he somehow found his feet again, swaying, barely upright, one eye visible through the broken mask staring forward with something that was neither fear nor defiance but simply refusal, absolute and unconditional refusal to fall.
Obito landed several meters away, his chest heaving beneath the cloak, his visible eye wide with something that might have been frustration or might have been something closer to disbelief. How much more could this person take? How much more damage before the body simply stopped responding? Every calculation said Kenzo should have fallen already. Every reasonable estimate had been exceeded minutes ago. And yet there he stood, swaying, bleeding, half-dead, still refusing to die.
Obito gathered himself for the final lunge, the attack that would end this definitively, no more chains or spikes or calculated pressure, just Kamui directly into physical strike that would phase through any final defense Kenzo could possibly mount. He would not give Kenzo another opportunity to exploit timing or gaps. He would end it in a single motion that left no room for calculation.
And then a single raindrop touched Kenzo's shoulder.
Not metaphorically, not symbolically, but physically, a drop of water that fell from the sky and landed against his torn skin, and in that exact instant something changed. The rain itself felt different. Heavier. More deliberate. As if every droplet had suddenly become aware.
One hundred meters.
The distance to Amagakure's detection zone vanished beneath them without either combatant fully registering the crossing. They were inside now, deep inside the sensory umbrella of Pain's Rain Tiger at Will technique, and every raindrop falling across this entire region was now connected directly to Nagato's consciousness.
Somewhere distant, somewhere hidden beneath the tallest tower in Amagakure, within a chamber that no living person outside the organization had ever seen, Nagato's eyes opened.
A sudden stillness.
The rain continued falling but something in its quality had shifted, the temperature dropping almost imperceptibly, the sound against the earth becoming more uniform, more controlled, as if every drop was now falling with purpose rather than merely falling by nature. Obito felt it before he understood it. The faint pressure of foreign chakra permeating the rain around him, not attacking, not interfering, simply present and watching. His lunge stopped before it began, his body freezing mid-motion while Kamui still swirled around him, his visible eye shifting from Kenzo toward the direction of Amagakure with an expression that contained something Kenzo had not seen before.
Unease.
Not fear, Obito was not capable of fearing Nagato in the traditional sense, but unease born from understanding exactly what Nagato's awareness meant for this situation. If Nagato had detected them, then Nagato was already watching. And if Nagato was watching, then intervening was only a matter of time. Not because Nagato cared about Kenzo, but because an unauthorized battle this close to Amagakure involving one of his own organization members would demand investigation regardless of context.
Obito's calculations shifted rapidly behind his visible eye, weighing variables that had not existed moments before. Killing Kenzo now would raise questions he could not easily answer. Not killing Kenzo would leave a witness to abilities Obito had spent years keeping hidden from his own allies. Both outcomes carried risks that extended far beyond this battlefield, into the careful web of manipulation and deception he had constructed around the Akatsuki itself.
The rain continued falling. Heavy. Constant. Aware.
Kenzo remained standing through sheer force of will, his body having long since passed the point where standing should have been possible. Blood pooled beneath him, mixing with rainwater into a spreading stain that grew wider with every passing second. His visible eye through the broken mask met Obito's gaze directly, and in that gaze there was no triumph, no relief, no emotion at all. Just the calm unwavering certainty of someone who had calculated the outcome from the very beginning and had finally, after thirty kilometers of continuous battle, reached the conclusion he had been dragging himself toward since the first exchange.
The detection zone had been crossed.
Pain was aware.
And now everything would change.