"B-otchan! I'm leaving Kanon to you! We're going after the masked man!" Naruto bellowed to Killer B.
"Wait, what?! Me against Kanon?! Are you for real?!" Killer B pointed a finger at himself, but there was no turning back now. They had to push forward.
Kanon cast a disdainful glance toward the Eight-Tails' Jinchuriki.
"Just you?"
"Fine then. I'll be taking the Eight-Tails now."
The masked man turned slightly to Kanon and said, "Go capture the Eight-Tails. I'll handle the Nine-Tails here."
"Understood."
With that, Kanon lunged straight at Killer B. By this point, B had already deactivated his Full Tailed Beast Mode; he knew that relying on his swordsmanship was his best bet to stall her.
Though his Seven-Swords Style was no match for Kanon's mastery, it should at least buy them some valuable time.
In an instant, B and Kanon clashed in a furious flurry of steel. Blades met blades, sending a relentless torrent of sparks flying into the air.
Seeing B lock down Kanon, Kakashi, Naruto, and Might Guy charged forward as a unit, launching a coordinated assault against the masked man.
"Naruto, you already know his ability, right?!"
"The exact moment he tries to absorb something is our window! He has to materialize his own body to do it!"
"Blindly attacking will only cause us to pass right through him!"
Building upon Kakashi's warning, Might Guy added with a grim expression, "It looks like we have to make it a one-hit kill."
"We'll use feints as a foundation and draw out a flaw using close-quarters combat!"
Naruto immediately hurled a Rasengan forward, only for the masked man to deflect it away. Simultaneously, Naruto manifested a massive chakra arm, lunging forward to seize him.
Predictably, the masked man activated his intangibility, letting the attack slide right through his body. Yet, the exact moment his hand reached out to touch Naruto, Guy's nunchaku swept aggressively across the space above his head.
The timing was impeccable. Dropping into close quarters, Guy instantly engaged the masked man in a fierce exchange of taijutsu.
Watching Guy rush him, the masked man said coldly, "First, I'll eliminate you."
He extended his hand, preparing to pierce Guy through with the Wood Release: Cutting Technique the very instant he made physical contact.
But Guy's reflexes were peerless. The moment he swung his nunchaku down past his feet, he delivered a sharp kick that snapped the weapon right back up.
Seeing the incoming counter, the masked man was forced to shift back into his intangible state to evade the damage.
Engaged in her own duel with Killer B, Kanon watched the exchange from afar and shook her head indifferently. It brought back a memory from her childhood, of words spoken by Konin.
"Your abilities surpass his."
Looking at it now, that assessment was entirely correct. Having to materialize to attack was a fatal flaw. Leaving Guy aside, even her six-year-old self had managed to injure him. While such an ability was undeniably terrifying on paper, it was far from invincible once its underlying mechanics were fully exposed.
Especially when dealing with someone like Might Guy, whose taijutsu and reaction speeds were honed to the absolute limit, the masked man would find no easy answers.
Seeing Guy and Naruto successfully pinning down the masked man, Kakashi nodded subtly. He had finally amassed enough chakra.
"Perfect. With this much chakra built up, it should work."
"Sorry about this, but my target is the Gedo Statue."
Indeed, Kakashi was preparing to unleash Kamui to warp and sever the head right off the Gedo Statue!
'If I tear its head off, no matter how powerful the statue is, it won't be able to survive.'
Naruto seemed to read Kakashi's intentions. He immediately began compressing a Tailed Beast Bomb in his hands, launching an attack toward the Ten-Tails' vessel to create an opening.
A faint smirk played on Kanon's lips. She had discerned Kakashi's strategy long ago; after all, he was the only one playing a supportive, observant role on the battlefield, and a shinobi like Kakashi could never be left unaccounted for.
Thus, while trading blows with Killer B, she had kept a sharp eye on the broader battlefield. If Kakashi thought he could freely hurl things into Obito's space, he would have to see if she allowed it.
As the space around the Gedo Statue's head began to warp and distort, the masked man slammed his Gunbai into the ground, flipping backward through the air to evade Naruto's grasping chakra arm.
In that exact split second, the distortion around the Gedo Statue's head snapped back to normal. Kakashi's face paled in sheer disbelief.
"Too naive," the masked man remarked calmly.
Having exhausted his remaining chakra on the massive distortion attempt, Kakashi sank to one knee, completely spent.
He fell deep into thought, staring at the masked man in growing shock.
'What happened? Could it be...'
While Kakashi was lost in deduction, disaster finally struck on Killer B's end. Kanon spun gracefully, her blade carving a luminous arc through the air as the skeletal chakra blades of her Susanoo cleaved outward.
In a fraction of a second, the strike tore through B's defenses, followed immediately by her sword piercing clean through his chest. Killer B coughed up a violent spray of blood.
An ordinary shinobi would have died instantly from such a wound, but a Jinchuriki's biology was entirely different; even a pierced heart wasn't immediately fatal.
Before he could recover, Kanon's crimson Susanoo manifested a massive hand, pinning B's body firmly in its grasp. The Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in her eyes spun relentlessly.
Like a small, helpless octopus, Killer B found himself completely immobilized within the Susanoo's grip.
"With this, the Eight-Tails is successfully captured."
Yet, at that critical moment, B gritted his teeth. A massive shroud of Tailed Beast chakra erupted around him as his body began to spin at a violent speed.
"Lightning Release: Lariat!"
Boom!
A tremendous explosion ripped through the clearing, instantly shattering Kanon's red skeletal Susanoo.
Leaping clear of the blast, B immediately began using his Tailed Beast shroud to charge a massive Tailed Beast Bomb.
"A Tailed Beast Bomb, huh..."
"If you don't run, you're going to die!" the Eight-Tails warned from within.
Kanon calmly entered Sage Mode. The Rasengan Fire Dance in her hand was instantly compressed down to the size of a standard Rasengan, encircled by a brilliant, crimson celestial ring.
"As a member of the Uchiha, I do not flee. I will defeat you in a fair and honorable clash."
"Big words for a fool, bakayaro, konoyaro!" B bellowed in his signature rap.
On the other side of the battlefield, Kakashi used Kamui to warp away a kunai that the masked man had hurled at Naruto, providing vital tactical cover for the boy's assault.
Naruto's follow-up strike forced the masked man to turn intangible once again. After this intense sequence of exchanges, the combined efforts of Kakashi, Guy, and Naruto had yielded absolutely no visible damage.
"He really is tough! We can't land a single hit!" Naruto yelled, glaring at their opponent.
"Are you alright?!" Guy asked, checking on him.
"Yeah. But if even an attack like that does nothing..." Kakashi's words trailed off as he noticed a faint, crisp sound. A thin hairline fracture had suddenly materialized on the surface of the masked man's mask.
In an instant, a spark of realization ignited in Kakashi's mind. Hearing Guy trying to lift Naruto's spirits next to him, Kakashi spoke up, tossing a wet blanket over their optimism.
"No. To be perfectly honest, I don't think it was Naruto's attack that hit him."
"The crack on his mask doesn't look like it was caused by the blunt force of Naruto's fist. It looks exactly like a clean slice from a sharp object."
Suddenly, Kakashi's pupils dilated in sheer shock. He stared intently at the masked man's Sharingan, completely stunned.
As the Ten-Tails continued its revival process, Killer B miraculously managed to break away from his skirmish with Kanon.
Seeing B enter his Full Tailed Beast Mode to launch an assault directly at the Gedo Statue, Kanon's expression remained entirely unbothered.
"Deploy the barrier," Kanon said quietly to the masked man.
"Right! Uchiha Flame Battle Camp!"
Massive torrents of solidifying flame shot up into the sky, completely isolating the Gedo Statue from the outside world. The realization finally dawned on the rest of the Allied forces.
"Now that he's thrown up a barrier, our only option is to take down that masked man and Kanon first!"
"He's been my target from the absolute beginning, bastard!" Naruto growled.
Kakashi's eyes trembled violently as he stared at the masked man's Sharingan. 'It really is... No, that's impossible...'
'But... aside from Kanon, I've never seen anyone capable of halting my Kamui...'
'Yet the Kanon before us is just a Shadow Clone; she shouldn't be able to deploy the Flower Realm... Then how is this possible?'
'If the crack on his face was made by the kunai I warped away with Kamui... then his ninjutsu...'
As his deduction reached its logical conclusion, Kakashi finally understood the staggering reality.
'There's no point in just standing here agonizing over it. Even if this hypothesis sounds utterly absurd, it isn't entirely impossible.'
"Guy, Naruto, B-sama. I want to run a small experiment. I'll need your help," Kakashi said calmly, reaching up to adjust his headbands.
Sensing a subtle shift in the flow of battle, Kanon turned to Obito and spoke softly, "Hey, I'm going to disperse now. Reinforcements are about to arrive."
"Reinforcements?!" Naruto and the others caught the word, thoroughly confused.
"Understood," the masked man nodded. Kanon's Shadow Clone had already provided immense assistance in managing the battlefield.
From her words, it was clear that the situation on the other front had drawn to a close. Was her main body finally arriving to reinforce him?
Poof!
With a small cloud of smoke, Kanon's Shadow Clone vanished.
Left alone, the masked man watched as Killer B, in his Tailed Beast form, scooped up the remaining three shinobi and hurled them directly toward him like living projectiles. He braced himself, ready to receive them.
As the massive, weightless boulders shattered around them, Kakashi and Naruto vaulted off the debris, splitting off to the left and right. Meanwhile, Might Guy relied on his sheer physical prowess and nunchaku to smash through the incoming rocks ahead.
"The destructive force is certainly impressive..." the masked man noted. As the storm of dust and debris enveloped him, he instantly activated his intangibility.
In the next heartbeat, Guy used a Body Flicker Technique, appearing directly beside the masked man.
"How's this? You don't have enough time to absorb me, do you?!"
The three tomoe within the masked man's Sharingan spun rapidly as he replied indifferently.
"You underestimate the Sharingan. I've already read your movements perfectly."
Guy had anticipated that the masked man would have to materialize the exact instant he tried to absorb the weapon. Sure enough, coming from his left flank, Naruto came barreling in, thrusting a glowing Rasengan directly toward him.
"It's useless. When will you learn?!"
Predictably, the moment the masked man absorbed the nunchaku into his spatial void, he extended his hand to seize Naruto's throat.
But at that exact microsecond, Kakashi unleashed his Kamui, warping the Rasengan clean out of Naruto's hand!
The masked man turned his head in slight confusion, looking at Naruto. Naruto simply gritted his teeth, glaring right back at him.
In the next instant, the incomprehensible occurred!
Boom!
A violent explosion erupted. A Rasengan had detonated directly against the masked man's right shoulder! Kakashi's eyes lit up in complete confirmation, his theory was correct!
The usually proud and untouchable masked man was sent rolling violently across the dirt, looking utterly disheveled and pathetic.
Only now did the full realization dawn upon him. 'So that's what happened... Naruto didn't dispel the Rasengan. Kakashi used Kamui to warp the attack into the other dimension!'
Naruto and Guy flanked Kakashi, standing firmly by his side. Kakashi leveled a calm look at the masked man and spoke aloud.
"It's exactly as I suspected. Originally, I believed you possessed two distinct techniques: a phase-through technique, and a technique to absorb and release objects."
"But you only have one jutsu!" Kakashi declared, pointing directly at the masked man.
Guy was visibly stunned by the revelation. "Only one?!"
"Kakashi, when it comes to analyzing abilities, nobody's better than you."
"Please, give us a quick breakdown of his jutsu."
"Whether we understand his technique or not is going to completely change how we fight this battle."