"Shinra Tensei."
Once again, Izayoi unleashed a repulsive force wave, scattering the Five-Element ninjutsu coming at him from all sides.
It was at that moment he sensed something amiss. He stopped watching the Kurotsuki clan's skirmish in the distance and glanced to his left, into the dimly lit area. A figure wearing a black cloak and a half-face mask leaped out from the shadows, rushing straight for Izayoi at extreme speed.
"Earth Style: Swamp of the Underworld!"
As if following some plan, the Root shinobi abruptly halted their ranged bombardment. One of them cast another Earth Release, turning the ground beneath Izayoi's feet into a mire. Two muddy hands shot up, trying to grab him by the ankles and drag him into the sludge.
They'd used this trick repeatedly. Under normal circumstances, Izayoi would dodge it the same way: floating upward and blasting them all away with repulsive force.
Indeed, just as before, Izayoi, who'd finished his cooldown from the last Shinra Tensei, levitated off the ground, avoiding the mud hands and hovering midair with arms spread wide, calmly intoning:
"Shinra Tensei."
That invisible wave instantly shattered the mud hands clawing upward, also slamming into Aburame Torune. Except, when the shockwave hit Torune, his body disintegrated into countless black insects whipped away by the force – the Insect Clone Technique of the Aburame clan.
The wave dissipated only a few meters beyond Izayoi when another figure, Yamanaka Fū, suddenly rose from the swirling mire below. He lunged at Izayoi, covered in flames, his entire body plastered with explosive tags.
"So they've found Shinra Tensei's weakness, huh?" Izayoi mused softly, seeing Yamanaka Fū apparently launch a suicidal charge to blow them both to bits. "Right – after this many exchanges and so many elites on their side, it'd be incompetent not to figure something out. Let's see what you're up to."
With that, he released another invisible wave – but this time, it was weaker than before. Compared to the earlier Shinra Tensei that battered everything in range, it was merely a downgraded pulse of repulsive force.
After all, no jutsu in this world is perfect, not even Kekkei Tōta or god-tier techniques. Izayoi's "push" and "pull" had only one advantage over the real Tendo Pain: a shorter cooldown.
Nagato needed to channel chakra via black rods to let Pain's Tendo use Shinra Tensei, requiring at least five seconds to re-convert his chakra into that repulsive wave. So Tendo Pain always had a five-second cooldown before he could do it again.
If Nagato himself used Shinra Tensei directly, maybe the cooldown would be shorter, maybe not. Izayoi didn't know. He needed two seconds. Specifically, it took him two seconds of charge time to generate a Tendo-Pain-level repulsive shockwave.
If he did it instantly, it was just a powerful gust of wind – but still "rule-based" force. Only those with decent prowess could stand against it. Clearly, Yamanaka Fū wasn't one of them.
The shockwave swept Fū out of the air like an invisible carriage striking him head-on.
Boom…
Before he even hit the ground, he exploded like a human bomb, the explosive tags erupting in a half-formed mushroom cloud. Izayoi gently descended while conjuring another quick Shinra Tensei, blowing away the incipient smoke and flames. Glancing at the crater where Fū supposedly died, he only saw a puppet's remains. No flesh or bone fragments whatsoever.
"So that was just a puppet," Izayoi noted impassively, having expected as much.
Then, from out of nowhere, Danzo Shimura emerged – blinking like a flicker beside Izayoi – aiming two fingers at Izayoi's left eye. As Tendo Pain, Izayoi feigned an aloofness, coldly remarking:
"Finally decided to show yourself, Danzo Shimura… Today you die."
Even as Izayoi spoke, Danzo's fingers froze a mere few centimeters from Izayoi's eyeball. Staring at this Pain with black metal piercings across his face, Danzo's expression shifted slightly, seemingly recalling something.
"No, you're not the brat with the Rinnegan from back then. I see – that redhead must have died, and you took your comrade's eyes…"
He scoffed. "Hanzō told me everything before he croaked; now Amegakure belongs to the Akatsuki, does it?"
With that, Izayoi simply narrowed his eyes, unleashing another invisible shockwave that sent Danzo flying. Danzo, however, sneered even as he was flung backward.
In the very next instant, his body vanished like a mirage, reappearing directly in front of Izayoi – again stabbing at his left eye. Izanagi had negated his apparent defeat and let him rewrite reality.
During the fight with Shisui, Danzo had already scored victory with this tactic. Even Shisui of "The Body Flicker," lauded for his speed, couldn't react in time. Now Danzo was trying it again. From his perspective, Izayoi had no chance, having just used a Shinra Tensei, so he couldn't instantly do it again.
Faced with those purple ripple eyes, Danzo's gaze blazed with greed. The Sage of Six Paths' eyes are mine!
He was quick—but Izayoi was quicker. Having suspected something was off, Izayoi lifted an arm in a blink and gripped Danzo's wrist, halting his strike.
"You've done well detecting the flaws of Shinra Tensei and devising a suitable tactic," he intoned, meeting Danzo's stunned stare. "But the gap between our strengths is far too large."
"Farewell, Danzo…"
"Kotoamatsukami!"
Panicking as Izayoi prepared a finishing move, Danzo – fully exploiting Izanagi – invoked his ultimate card without hesitation. His right Mangekyō Sharingan, long nurtured with Hashirama cells, spun wildly, the three tomoe merging into a black pinwheel. He glared at Izayoi with that pinwheel eye, unleashing the ocular power he'd cultivated for so many years.
In an instant, both men's consciousnesses dropped into a blood-red space reminiscent of Tsukuyomi's realm. A moon-sized eyeball, its pupil the shape of a black pinwheel, floated overhead. That giant eyeball surveyed the realm like a living creature, searching for a target's manifested will to destroy.
But in short order, it fixed on a single figure…which turned out to be Danzo Shimura himself.
"W-why am I here?" Danzo stammered, baffled to discover he had physically manifested in the blood-red space. "Did Kotoamatsukami fail? That's impossible!"
Usually, with Kotoamatsukami, you haul your enemy's mind into that illusory domain and alter or destroy their consciousness. But instead of Izayoi being forcibly pulled in, it was Danzo himself who got dragged into some dreamlike dimension with no sign of Izayoi anywhere. Worst yet, Danzo couldn't rejoin the vantage point of that giant eye floating above.
Alarmed, he quickly tried weaving signs to break the technique. But the next moment, his face contorted in shock. "Why can't I release it? Isn't this the Kotoamatsukami illusion space? Don't tell me—"
Shhhhp—
As if answering Danzo's question, two long cracks appeared in the bloodred sky above Kotoamatsukami's giant eye, splitting open to reveal blue-white light flooding the chamber. That intense radiance dispelled the oppressive red gloom, transforming the entire realm into a gorgeous paradise bathed in azure-white glow.
When the rifts reached their widest, a pair of colossal, azure-white eyes gazed down at Danzo and the black pinwheel. White halos danced around the pupils like flowers in the wind—magnificent in beauty, yet emanating a supreme ocular force.
Gone was any "Tendo Pain" tone. Instead, a youthful voice echoed through the azure-white void:
"Your dōjutsu is worthless before these eyes."
With those words, the mesmerizing azure-white eyes flared. Blinding white radiance swallowed the space. The first thing obliterated was the moon-like Kotoamatsukami eye overhead. It disintegrated to dust at mere contact, without even a sound.
"Th-those aren't Rinnegan. You're not the Rinnegan brat—who are you?!"
Even as a mere spirit entity here, Danzo could feel death looming. He bellowed: "I'm certain I've never heard your voice! Whose orders are you following? If we have no grudge, spare me—augh—no!!"
His final plea was cut off as white light consumed him. Like Kotoamatsukami itself, Danzo vanished into nothingness. In fact, the entire illusionary domain was annihilated.
…
Though time in that space seemed long, it all happened in an instant to outside onlookers. The Root members still saw Lord Danzo pinned by the enemy's grip, glaring fiercely with a pinwheel Mangekyō in his right eye.
Yet a couple of them, who possessed keen eyes or strong sensory abilities, noticed the pinwheel revert to a three-tomoe Sharingan. Right before their eyes, the light in Danzo's gaze—and the Yin Release chakra in his brain—vanished.
In tandem, the Izanagi on his body canceled, the Sharingan in his arm all shutting their lids. Without that ocular suppression, the Hashirama cells in his grafted arm began squirming uncontrollably, as though something inside was trying to tear out but couldn't, so it turned inward to devour his body instead.
Riiiip—
Izayoi tore the entire arm off Danzo with one swift yank. Danzo did not so much as scream. He was still alive, technically, but had become little more than a mindless husk—a "vegetable." Gazing upon his lifeless stare, Izayoi sighed softly:
"So that was 'the strongest genjutsu'? It lived up to its name, I suppose…"
No one else knew what had just transpired. Yamanaka Fū's Yin chakra had never even entered Izayoi's body, forcibly ejected by the Ōtsutsuki's resistance and ultimate dōjutsu.
But Danzo's Kotoamatsukami had, in fact, broken through that first layer of defense—and immediately encountered Izayoi's Tenseigan, an ultimate eye.
Danzo tried to destroy or rewrite Izayoi's mind, but instead the Tenseigan obliterated his spirit in the illusion space. Izanagi couldn't alter that outcome. This was an absolute suppression of levels—a dimensional "mismatch" in power.
"It's over," Izayoi said, stepping away from Danzo's half-dead form and glancing into the deep shadows. The remaining Root shinobi, still dazed at their leader's downfall, froze uncertainly.
At Izayoi's signal, several figures flickered into place around him—human puppets controlled by his shadow clone, all capable of wielding Izayoi's Five-Element ninjutsu to a degree far beyond what they had in life.
Now, instead of playing it safe on defense, Izayoi took the offensive, using Banshō Ten'in (Universal Pull) and Shinra Tensei to assist these puppets in battle.
Protected by an omnidirectional repulsive force that nullified enemy ninjutsu, and pulled foes in range, the puppets could focus on butchering Root. Izayoi's lips curled upward.
He'd watched them long enough to confirm why normal puppets didn't raise his "drop rate," while human puppets did. Because normal puppets were purely his jutsu. Shadow clones, too, wouldn't help, even if the chakra was minuscule—the System recognized them all as Izayoi's direct jutsu.
Human puppets were unique. They still had a corpse and intact heart, allowing them to replicate their old Kekkei Genkai or abilities. The heart served as a "chakra core," turning Izayoi's chakra into the transformations needed for the puppet's inherited special skills.
In gaming terms, you could call this a "co-op system."
~~~
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