"It's an opening!"
"Obito, why aren't you moving?"
"Wasn't that guy Chizumi already pinned down by Nagato's puppet?"
White Zetsu looked at the unmoving Obito beside him and couldn't help voicing his confusion.
"It's not that I'm not moving. It's that I'm moving slowly, carefully, methodically. Uchiha Chizumi may look pinned down, but his Susanoo isn't going to be easy to break through."
Obito shot White Zetsu a glance. He didn't think he'd ever offended this guy, had he?
Lately, though, it really felt like White Zetsu was constantly egging him on to go get himself killed. Had White Zetsu already finished researching poop and now decided it was time to experiment on something else instead?
Like whether Obito's corpse could be stitched back together and revived, maybe?
"Black Zetsu, are the Six Paths Nagato is controlling really a match for Uchiha Chizumi?"
Obito stopped bothering with White Zetsu and turned to Black Zetsu instead.
"If Nagato's body were in better condition, defeating Uchiha Chizumi—or even killing him—wouldn't be that difficult."
"But you know what Nagato's body is like. The Rinnegan puts too much strain on him. Killing Uchiha Chizumi will be hard for him. As for his odds… maybe sixty to seventy percent."
Even Black Zetsu sounded uncertain.
There were simply too many strange things about Uchiha Chizumi.
The only good news was that Black Zetsu had more or less figured out the power of one of Chizumi's Mangekyō eyes. The Flames of Judgment were absolutely inescapable for sinners—but if the target carried no sin, then the flames were practically useless.
But even setting the Flames of Judgment aside, Uchiha Chizumi's Susanoo and Wood Release alone were already enough to let him rampage across the shinobi world, not to mention his Lava Release and other bloodline abilities.
Black Zetsu estimated Nagato's chances at sixty to seventy percent because Nagato's intel had never been leaked. Against anyone unprepared, the Six Paths' abilities were overwhelmingly oppressive.
"Only sixty to seventy percent?"
"That's nowhere near high enough."
Obito frowned. What he wanted was for Uchiha Chizumi to die for sure—not some vague probability.
"But Uchiha Chizumi isn't without weaknesses."
You could say Obito wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but you definitely couldn't say he lacked talent when it came to dirty tricks.
At that moment, Obito had clearly set his sights on Uchiha Izumi and Kitsujiro, who were watching from the other side.
His thinking was simple: if Uchiha Chizumi was the executor of justice, then surely he wouldn't want to watch his subordinate and his ninja cat die right in front of him.
"Come on. Let's go grab that Uchiha Izumi and that ninja cat."
Obito didn't hesitate much. As Kamui activated, Black Zetsu and White Zetsu were pulled into the Kamui dimension along with him.
Farther away on the battlefield, Uchiha Chizumi had no idea what Obito was planning. As the rest of Nagato's Six Paths joined the battle, the fight was becoming more and more intense.
The Asura Path's countless mechanisms began activating, and missiles started bombarding Uchiha Chizumi from its body.
The Animal Path controlled its three giant summons, constantly harassing him. They couldn't break through his Susanoo, but they could still tie up part of his attention.
As for the Naraka Path, its biggest role on the battlefield was simply reviving those three giant summoned beasts.
The Preta Path kept absorbing Uchiha Chizumi's chakra in an endless stream. But what left it baffled was that Chizumi's chakra seemed bottomless—no matter how much it absorbed, it had no real effect on him.
Against any normal shinobi, the Preta Path would've been horrifyingly effective.
After all, it could not only devour an opponent's chakra, but even absorb their ninjutsu.
But against Uchiha Chizumi, it was pointless. He simply stood on top of his Susanoo, and all of his attacks were crude, overwhelming force smashing through technique.
Neither the Susanoo itself nor the sword-light it unleashed counted as ordinary chakra-based ninjutsu. The Preta Path had nothing it could actually absorb.
The Human Path was even more useless—practically just there to make up numbers. It could rip out an opponent's soul, which was normally a terrifyingly effective ability. Even supposed immortals like Kakuzu and Hidan would die if the Human Path got its hands on them.
But Susanoo was the manifested power of the Mangekyō Sharingan, the ultimate expression of Yin Release. To tear out someone's soul, the Human Path first had to physically touch them—and Uchiha Chizumi, standing inside the Susanoo, was completely out of reach.
As for the Six Paths' shared Rinnegan vision?
There was only one enemy to begin with. Sharing vision didn't really change much.
"This is getting bad…"
Farther off, Konan, Kakuzu, and the others had managed to hold the rampaging Wood Dragon in place. By now, even Konan could see Nagato's dilemma. The Six Paths of Pain, in their first real outing, had failed to produce much of an effect.
"If this keeps going, Nagato will be forced to use those forbidden techniques…"
Konan sighed inwardly.
The whole Akatsuki was here this time. In terms of pure combat power, they could have stormed any of the Five Great Villages head-on. Yet Kakuzu and the others still hadn't truly entered the main battlefield.
As for Konan, even though she could summon explosive tags for a short time, the equivalent of three hundred million normal explosive tags still hadn't so much as dirtied Uchiha Chizumi's clothes. She knew very well that this battle was beyond her.
"Universal Pull!"
Just as Konan feared, Nagato was fighting in an incredibly frustrating situation. Even the Deva Path, which was the main attacking force, couldn't break through Uchiha Chizumi's Susanoo in a short time.
All he could do was repeatedly use Universal Pull mixed with Shinra Tensei, constantly trying to wear down Chizumi's Susanoo and redirect the sword-light he unleashed with attraction and repulsion.
And as for Uchiha Chizumi, he was beginning to understand why Uchiha Madara had developed such an arrogant personality.
Once the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan's Susanoo was fully deployed, the opponent could exhaust themselves to death and still never even touch the edge of his clothes. In a battle this one-sided, anyone would start to feel like ordinary ninja were nothing more than jumping clowns.
"Will he summon the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path?"
"Nagato's Shinra Tensei and Universal Pull can interfere with me, but defeating me is almost impossible."
"If he wants to beat me, then the only option left is to summon the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path."
For once, a flicker of tension passed through Uchiha Chizumi's eyes.
The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path—or rather, the Ten-Tails—was an Ōtsutsuki creation that had once drained the planet's natural energy dry. It was also the reason the shinobi world had ended up in its current state.
Uchiha Chizumi didn't even dare imagine what would happen if he were to completely erase the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path…
~~~
Thank you!