Inoiki acted without delay.
With a single focused thought, lightning surged across the surface of his airborne blades. Sparks crackled through the mist, illuminating the fog with a ghostly blue glow. The air around him hummed with static, and the sight was nothing short of spectacular—a storm of steel wrapped in lightning, hovering with deadly intent.
Then they moved.
Like a swarm of guided missiles, the blades launched forward in perfect synchronization, racing toward Obito, who had returned again to the same location where he had been standing a minute earlier, at blistering speed.
Obito, standing amidst the fading mist, spotted the incoming barrage with his Sharingan. His expression didn't change. Despite the sheer number of weapons aimed at him, his vision tracked their every movement with eerie calm. He sidestepped, ducked, and twisted with minimal effort, avoiding each blade by the narrowest of margins.
At first, it was almost effortless.
But then—the pattern changed.
Mid-flight, the blades shifted direction, becoming erratic and unpredictable. Their paths bent, looped, and curved—but they all still sought the same target: him.
Obito's movements grew sharper, more urgent. Dodging became a dance of desperation. With every blade that curved back, the space around him narrowed. Finally, with no room left to maneuver, he phased, using Kamui to escape the edge of death once again.
This deadly exchange dragged on for over three minutes. Inoiki pressed the assault, controlling the blades with relentless precision, forcing Obito to remain intangible longer than he wanted.
As the limit of Kamui's duration drew near, Obito didn't risk it.
Without warning, he phased into the earth and vanished underground, disappearing from the battlefield.
Inoiki stood silently, the mist curling around his form. His blades slowed and hovered, ready—but there was no target.
"Tch… Still no opening," he thought, eyes scanning the empty terrain. "He didn't attack even once. That's why I couldn't land a hit. If he doesn't commit—doesn't make a mistake—there's nothing to exploit."
He clenched a fist, the blades returning to orbit protectively around him.
"A ghost who refuses to fight is the hardest enemy to kill."
----
The clash dragged on.
For fifteen relentless minutes, the pattern repeated like clockwork.
Each time Inoiki launched his deadly assault, Obito would hold his ground, calmly avoiding the attacks with his Sharingan. And just when the pressure mounted too high—when the five-minute limit on his phasing ability approached—he would slip away, intangible, vanishing underground or into the folds of space.
It was a cycle. A stalemate. A waste.
And finally, Inoiki had enough.
He stopped.
The blades—charged with lightning and circling like vultures—suddenly froze midair.
Obito, emerging from the earth nearby, raised a brow behind his mask.
"Oh? Tired already?" he asked, voice mockingly casual.
Inoiki didn't rise to the bait.
"Not tired," he said, his voice calm but sharp, "If anything, I'm just getting warmed up. But let's not kid ourselves—you're not here to fight me. You're here to stall. Waste my time. You've got no intention of putting your life on the line."
He stepped forward as the crackling lightning faded from the blades. One by one, they began to reform, floating toward each other and locking into place like magnetic puzzle pieces. Within seconds, the massive sword reassembled—whole again and gleaming.
Inoiki didn't wait.
The sword hovered horizontally just above the ground. In a single motion, he leapt onto it. The moment his feet touched the flat surface, the sword ignited in a streak of blue light and launched forward, cutting across the mist like a meteor.
Obito stepped forward, hand extended, shouting after him:
"You can't just leave the fight in the middle!"
But the only answer was silence—and the faint hum of lightning fading into the distance.
Inoiki didn't even look back.
The battle wasn't worth finishing. Not like this.
And with that, he disappeared into the horizon, trailing a ribbon of blue light behind him like a shooting star vanishing from the sky.
----
Deidara soared through the sky atop his clay bird, its wings flapping in rhythmic bursts of chakra-infused propulsion. Below him, Kakashi and Naruto gave chase, leaping swiftly from branch to branch. The trees blurred past beneath their feet, and far below, a winding river glinted in the sunlight, reflecting flashes of the chaos above.
With a smirk curling under his scope-covered eye, Deidara reached into his pouch and tossed down a handful of clay—shaped like tiny spiders. The moment they touched the branches, cliffs, or even midair—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions rocked the area, sending bark and smoke flying in all directions, forcing Kakashi and Naruto to swerve, flip, and weave through the blast radius.
"Art is an explosion!" Deidara cackled gleefully, savoring the symphony of destruction echoing behind him.
But then his laughter faltered.
Up ahead in the sky—cutting through the clouds like a comet—came a brilliant streak of blue light. It closed the distance in a blink, too fast to be a bird, too powerful to be anything natural.
And then Deidara saw it clearly.
A teenager, maybe sixteen or seventeen, blonde hair whipping in the wind, stood balanced atop a massive sword flying horizontally through the air. His sky-blue eyes locked forward with unshakable focus.
The living projectile was headed straight for him.
"Inoiki…" Deidara muttered, lips tightening into a grim line. "Tch. Of course, its him."
Down below, Kakashi glanced skyward and saw the radiant streak blazing toward them. His eyes narrowed.
"He's here."
There was no mistaking it.
Inoiki had entered the battlefield.
----
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