Chapter 397: Uchiha Obito vs. Hatake Kakashi
The silver blade of the short sword glided through Obito's neck, meeting nothing but empty air. No blood. No resistance. Just the sickening sensation of striking a phantom.
"It is useless," Obito's voice echoed, hollow and distorted behind his mask. "Physical attacks have no effect on me."
Before the momentum of the strike could settle, Obito retaliated. Capitalizing on his intangible state, his left hand shot forward like a viper. His fingers hooked into claws, aiming to lock onto Kakashi's shoulder and drag him screaming into the cold void of the Kamui Dimension.
But the very instant Obito's fingertips solidified to make contact, Kakashi vanished.
The silver-haired ninja blurred into a stark white afterimage. It was the legendary footwork of the White Fang, the exact sword art that had once etched Sakumo Hatake's name into the nightmares of the Ninja World.
"Behind you."
The cold whisper brushed against Obito's ear. He snapped his head around.
A blinding arc of white chakra was already descending toward his face. It was too fast.
This was not the Kakashi he remembered. The old Kakashi had been shackled by the Sharingan, his chakra constantly drained, his movements overly cautious to compensate for the burden. Unburdened by the eye, the current Kakashi moved with a lethal, unchained fluidity. He was undeniably stronger.
Obito had no choice but to force his body into intangibility once more, letting the lethal white arc pass harmlessly through his skull.
The two clashed furiously beneath the torrential downpour. Steel rang out against hardened wood and bone. Mud exploded outward with every heavy footfall. Ancient trees splintered and collapsed under the sheer kinetic force of their battle.
"Why aren't you using the Sharingan!" Obito snarled, his agitation spiking with every parry. The metallic clashing of their weapons rang out over the storm. "Are you looking down on me? Kakashi!"
Obito thrust his hand forward, his chakra flaring violently.
Wood Release: Cutting Sprigs Technique!
Countless jagged wooden spikes erupted from his palm, multiplying in mid-air into a deadly thicket. The jagged branches tore through the rain, sealing off every conceivable escape route. There was nowhere to run.
Kakashi's visible eye narrowed into a cold slit. He gripped the hilt of his father's blade with both hands. The chakra flowing into the metal surged, igniting the steel with a blinding luminescence.
"Hatake Style: White Light Blade!"
Kakashi swung. A massive, roaring crescent of white chakra tore through the storm. The sheer force of the slash met the incoming wooden spikes, instantly pulverizing the dense timber into a cloud of fine sawdust and splinters.
Using the swirling vortex of dust and rain as cover, Obito's single eye spun wildly. Kamui.
Space twisted. In the blink of an eye, he materialized directly in Kakashi's blind spot. This time, there would be no holding back. A sleek, deadly black chakra receiver slid from his sleeve into his grip. With a vicious thrust, he drove the black rod straight toward the center of Kakashi's spine.
The rod sank deep into flesh.
But there was no blood. Instead, the figure before him crackled with volatile blue energy.
A Lightning Clone.
Violent, high-voltage electricity surged up the black rod, instantly flooding Obito's nervous system. His muscles locked. His entire body went numb, paralyzed by the sudden shock.
Directly beneath him, the muddy earth erupted. The real Kakashi burst from the ground like a predator, the tip of his glowing short sword aimed dead center at the swirling pattern of Obito's mask.
The angle was perfect. The timing was flawless. This strike was unavoidable.
A ruthless, manic glint flashed within Obito's single eye. He did not even attempt to dodge. If Kakashi wanted to cut him, he would let him cut.
At the exact microsecond the blade made contact, Obito forcibly triggered his phasing. The glowing steel slid harmlessly through his brain, slicing through nothing but an illusion. The moment the hilt passed through his skull, Obito solidified his physical form.
His hand shot out like a vice, clamping brutally around Kakashi's throat.
With a guttural roar, Obito lifted Kakashi off his feet and slammed him backward into the trunk of a massive tree. The immense impact shattered the bark, sending a shower of wet leaves raining down upon them.
"Got you," Obito hissed, his voice dripping with a twisted, breathless glee. "Give me the eye... Hand it over!"
His free hand darted up, fingers hooking violently into the fabric of Kakashi's black eye patch. With a savage jerk, he ripped it away, tearing the thick material to shreds.
Obito's gaze burned with feverish anticipation. He was finally ready to reclaim his Mangekyo Sharingan, the ultimate power that belonged solely to him.
However.
The very next second, the world seemed to stop. Obito froze, his muscles locking up as if he had been struck by a physical bolt of lightning.
There, resting in Kakashi's left eye socket... there was no crimson glow. There was no spinning tomoe.
It was just an ordinary, black eye.
The pupil was slightly unfocused, the iris dim and sluggish from being concealed beneath a patch for so long. It was a mundane, utterly normal human eye.
"This..." Obito's hand began to tremble against Kakashi's throat. His mind flatlined, plunging into a deafening, static-filled void. "Where is the eye?"
His grip tightened convulsively.
"Where is my eye?!" Obito screamed, the sound tearing from his throat in a hysterical, ragged shriek.
Kakashi's face flushed a deep, bruised purple under the crushing pressure. He struggled for air, yet he did not thrash. He simply looked down at the masked man pinning him. His gaze held no fear. Only a quiet, heavy pity.
"It has been..." Kakashi gasped out, his voice a raspy whisper. "Gone for a long time."
The storm above intensified, unleashing a torrential deluge upon the forest. Cold rainwater washed over the swirling orange curves of Obito's mask, pooling at his chin before dripping steadily onto Kakashi's flushed face.
Obito's voice shook violently, laced with a terrifying, absurd disbelief. "What do you mean, 'gone'? Did you lose it?"
His fingers dug deeper. Sharp nails broke the skin of Kakashi's neck, drawing thin beads of blood that washed away in the rain. A suffocating fury, a deep, agonizing sense of betrayal, ignited within Obito's chest.
He could have accepted Kakashi using that eye to slaughter his enemies. He could have accepted Kakashi building his entire reputation as the famous Copy Ninja on the back of that borrowed power.
But he absolutely could not accept that Kakashi had simply lost it.
"Cough..." Kakashi choked, his lungs burning for oxygen. Still, he made no move to break the hold. When he spoke, his tone was devastatingly calm.
"It was taken." Kakashi swallowed hard against the pressure. "By... Hokage-sama."
The moment those words registered, something fundamental snapped inside Obito's brain.
Uchiha Akira.
It was Uchiha Akira again.
"When..." Obito's hand went slack. He released his death grip on Kakashi's throat and stumbled backward, his boots sliding in the mud. It was as if an invisible blade had severed the strings keeping him upright.
Kakashi slumped against the rough bark of the tree, clutching his bruised neck. He coughed violently, hacking up rainwater and dragging desperate breaths into his lungs.
"Just..." Kakashi wheezed, slowly regaining his footing. "Just the day after you attacked the Uchiha clan."
Leaning heavily against the trunk, Kakashi slowly raised his head, his mismatched eyes locking onto the utterly distraught figure before him.
"Akira reclaimed the Sharingan," Kakashi said softly. "And... he destroyed it."
That final detail, of course, was a lie fabricated by Kakashi. In truth, the eye had been recycled by the system bound to Uchiha Akira. But the effect of the words was absolute.
"Destroyed..." Obito stood frozen in the mud, a hollow shell.
If anyone else in the world had taken it, he would have hunted them down and carved it from their skull. But Uchiha Akira... Obito knew, deep in his bones, that he possessed zero confidence in wrestling anything away from that monster.
Worse still, Kakashi claimed the eye was already destroyed. Crushed. Disposed of like meaningless trash.
"Heh..."
A low, broken sound escaped Obito's throat. "Hehehehe..."
The chuckle escalated, warping into a shrill, maniacal laughter that echoed eerily through the pouring rain. He had spent years mentally preparing for this exact moment. He had justified every atrocity, crossed every moral boundary, and drowned himself in blood just to achieve his so-called completeness.
And the result? Uchiha Akira had casually crushed his most cherished treasure into dust, treating his sacred bond like discarded garbage.
"Uchiha Akira..." Obito snapped his head up. Thick, dark tears of blood began to weep from his single eye, mixing with the rain as they tracked down the curve of his mask.
"Even the last gift I gave my friend... even the final bond connecting me to Rin." His voice cracked, vibrating with a demonic resonance. "You want to take that away from me, too?!"
A suffocating, almost physical wave of killing intent erupted from his body, surging skyward like a dark geyser. The sheer density of his malice struck the falling rain, instantly vaporizing the heavy drops into a swirling, oppressive mist.
Kakashi watched his former teammate teeter on the absolute brink of psychological collapse. A heavy, complicated sorrow weighed down his chest, but he did not let it dull his blade.
"Obito."
Kakashi tightened his grip on the hilt of the White Fang short sword. His dark eyes hardened, stripping away the last vestiges of hesitation. Since the bonds of their past had already been severed, it fell to him, a lingering ghost of the old era, to personally execute this sin.
"It seems," Kakashi said, his voice cutting through the storm, "there is nothing left to say between us."
Obito stared at him through the mist, his gaze devoid of anything human.
"Without that eye," Obito stated, his tone dropping to a glacial, deadened calm, "you do not even possess the right to be killed by me."
He took a slow step backward. "Since Uchiha Akira destroyed my eye... then I will destroy the village he cares about most. I will burn down everything he has in this world!"
The air behind Obito began to warp and spiral, pulling inward like a black hole. With the eye gone, there was no longer any reason to waste his time tangling with a crippled relic like Kakashi.
Kakashi roared, his chakra flaring to its absolute limit. He launched himself forward, his figure blurring into a streak of pure electricity.
"Hatake Style: Lightning Flash!"
The short sword, wreathed in screaming blue lightning, thrust forward with devastating speed, piercing straight through the center of Obito's chest.
But it met only empty air.
Obito did not even bother to look at Kakashi. He simply stood there, allowing the crackling blade to pass harmlessly through his phantom heart as his physical form slowly sank backward into the swirling spatial vortex.
"Tell Uchiha Akira," Obito's disembodied voice echoed from the void, dripping with absolute venom. "I will make him regret ever being born into this world. I will make him watch with his own eyes... as everything he has built turns to ash."
The spiraling distortion snapped shut.
Obito's presence vanished completely, leaving behind nothing but the howling wind.
Kakashi remained alone in the ruined rainforest, his sword still extended in a lethal thrust, standing in silence beneath the endless, freezing rain.
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