Tōma didn’t rush after him.
Instead, the nine golden chakra tails behind him sharpened like blades and plunged straight down into the settling smoke.
At the sa instant, his expression changed.
He vanished.
A split second later, an explosion detonated at the very top of the smoke cloud.
A Truth-Seeking Orb had self-detonated.
Obito hadn’t even tried to let it get close.
Fearing that Tōma would teleport it away again, he had triggered the blast early—so early that the explosion swallowed even himself.
When it ended, there was no smoke.
No debris.
Nothing remained within the blast radius.
Everything had been erased.
Tōma reappeared near one of his marked kunai and finally saw Obito clearly.
The sight was grim.
The Sage Staff hadn’t fully blocked the Great Fla Rasengan. Patches of Sage fire still burned across Obito’s body. But worse than that were the injuries caused by his own Truth-Seeking Orb explosion.
He was breathing hard.
Two of his orbs were gone.
Only six remained.
They hovered tightly against his wounds, releasing pale vapor as they reconstructed his body.
Self-repair.
Obito had been willing to injure himself just to force Tōma back.
And Tōma understood why.
If he let Tōma continue pressing, it was only a matter of ti before a Flying Thunder God mark landed directly on his body.
That was unacceptable.
At this level, thrown kunai were no longer reliable. No tal could survive contact with Truth-Seeking Orbs, and Obito’s eyes made stealth nearly impossible.
Which left only one option.
Mark the body.
Obito’s current form wasn’t Edo Tensei. He couldn’t shed markings through death and regeneration.
And he wouldn’t get another transformation like the one that had erased Minato’s seal.
Tōma knew this.
Obito knew this too.
Their eyes t.
Neither looked away.
There was no retreat left for either of them.
Tōma summoned the Inkshadow Blade into his hand.
The next mont, both moved.
At this level, conventional ninjutsu was aningless. Only direct combat could decide anything now.
Steel t staff.
Inkshadow Blade, wrapped in Sage Fox chakra, collided with the Sage Staff in a shower of sparks.
At the sa ti, nine golden tails clashed repeatedly against six Truth-Seeking Orbs.
Earlier, the orbs had cracked only because nine Wind Sever strikes had hit the sa point at once. Now that the attacks were spread out, the orbs held the advantage.
And yet—
Six was still fewer than nine.
The result was an unstable balance.
From a distance, it almost looked like primitive weapon combat.
Up close, it was anything but.
Even the finest samurai from the Land of Iron would have gone pale watching this. Multiple attack vectors. Simultaneous engagents. Movents far beyond visual tracking.
Every missed tail strike carved trenches across the battlefield like canyons.
And yet, a single tail still couldn’t overpower a Truth-Seeking Orb head-on.
If a tail landed cleanly, Obito would be torn open.
If an orb struck Tōma, his body would be erased.
There was no margin.
"Bang!"
Another collision shook the air.
Then—two of Tōma’s tails withdrew.
They shifted shape.
Hands.
While Obito hesitated, those hands flashed a single seal.
"Water Style. Water Prison Jutsu."
Before Obito could react, torrents of water erupted from Tōma and the remaining tails, forming a massive sphere that engulfed Obito and his orbs entirely.
"This won’t work," Obito said calmly. "I can break out instantly."
Tōma never argued.
He slamd his palm against the water prison.
Chakra surged.
The water compressed, hardened, reinforced beyond normal limits.
Obito frowned.
Even so—what was the point?
External attacks would collapse the prison. Internal summons wouldn’t hurt a Ten-Tails Jinchūriki anyway.
Then Tōma moved again.
"Water Style. Rasengan."
Inside the prison, the water began to spin.
Violently.
High-pressure currents turned into countless invisible blades, slicing and tearing from every direction while the Rasengan’s rotational force shredded from within.
This wasn’t a normal technique.
This was a killing chamber.
The water turned red almost instantly.
Obito scread.
Even for a Ten-Tails Jinchūriki, having every inch of his body simultaneously cut, twisted, and crushed was unbearable.
The sphere pulsed.
"Did that finish it?" Tōma wondered.
His instincts scread.
He vanished.
Another Truth-Seeking Orb explosion detonated where he had stood.
This ti, Obito had wrapped himself in a black orb, stained the water red with blood, then detonated outward.
It should have worked.
It didn’t.
When the black sphere partially opened, Obito’s condition was horrifying.
There was no uninjured flesh left.
He was alive only because the Ten-Tails refused to let him die.
The remaining orbs struggled to repair him, but the damage was too extensive.
And Obito knew it.
If he stayed sealed, Tōma would find a way to break in or seal him permanently.
This was the endga.
Tōma raised his hand.
Light gathered.
Space twisted.
This was his strongest single-target technique.
One that couldn’t be infused with Sage chakra.
"Space-Ti Ninjutsu. Dinsional Blade."
A distorted edge ford in his palm.
It moved slowly.
Or impossibly fast.
Obito recognized it instantly.
A space-cutting attack.
Intangibility wouldn’t save him. His Ten-Tails immunity nullified normal ninjutsu—including his own Kamui-style evasion.
"Damn it..." he thought bitterly.
He threw every remaining Truth-Seeking Orb forward and raised the Sage Staff defensively.
Tōma smiled.
"Against the Dinsional Blade," he said quietly, "all physical defenses are aningless."
The blade passed through the orbs.
Through the staff.
The Sage Staff split in two.
Obito stared at it.
Then the blade passed through him.
And beyond him.
Cutting the world behind him apart.
"...Why," Obito whispered, finally breaking. "Why are you this strong?"
"Because everything you’ve done," Tōma replied calmly, "has always been within my calculations."
Obito’s eyes widened as mories rushed back—the Nine-Tails chakra bead, Nagato, every ’coincidence’.
Fear took root.
"So you were always—"
He never finished the thought.
The Truth-Seeking Orbs vanished.
His body separated cleanly from shoulder down.
One half still held a face.
The other did not.
Both fell.
The ground shook.
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