What a move!—Fire Release: Blast Wave Wild Dance!
The masked man looked like he had just mastered Sage Art: Goemon!
The flames from his Fire Release got sucked right into a spiraling hurricane by Kamui's spatial distortion, and that hurricane had already dragged up the massive sludge-spout.
The fire spread across the entire spout in an instant, turning it into a blazing, toxic fire tornado.
The original geyser had been blasting toward the sky, like a dragon sucking up water... or rather, like a dragon sucking up chunky coffee.
After hitting a certain height, the sludge plummeted back down, crashing into the Earth-Style Wall pit Kakashi had prepped like a cursed Yellow River tumbling from the heavens.
But now, the flames followed it right down.
The pit instantly ignited with a roaring fire, turning the entire crater into an enormous, foul-smelling oven.
Tsunade, currently in the middle of hauling ass back home, felt a massive wave of heat smack her back.
She turned around, and for a second, it felt like the sky itself was collapsing.
At this point, she had no choice but to deal with the damn thing.
If the original sludge had just been left alone, it would have been purely disgusting.
But if they ignored this raging fire, Konoha was going to burn to ashes.
So Tsunade had no choice but to summon the ANBU, send them to scope out the situation, dump the entire mess fully onto their plates, and then slip away.
Sometimes, Tsunade truly hated knowing too much.
What exactly was the curse of knowledge?
It was the biological fact that when you smelled something, it was basically the exact same mechanism as already having tasted it.
After Kakashi's side entered fire-roasting mode, the molecular motion cranked up, and the stench became insanely violent.
Even the few quick breaths she took while barking orders nearly made her lose her lunch.
If even she was reacting like this, wouldn't the nearby Konoha villagers all passed out?
...
Back on the battlefield.
The masked man checked the situation inside the Kamui dimension.
White Zetsu was wrapped tight around his grandmother, happily swimming through the muck.
Because the masked man hadn't expected to get dunked back in the second he popped out earlier, his makeshift glass lens was gone.
Now White Zetsu had to constantly tread water, keeping its head above the surface so the sludge wouldn't pour right into the suit.
As for why it didn't just seal itself completely shut? White Zetsu hadn't thought of that.
Neither had the masked man.
However, the liquid level inside was almost completely drained now, so there was no need to stress over it anymore.
"Kakashi, I'm taking her with me. If you want to get her back, meet me in ten days at the exact place where you committed your unforgivable crime. We'll settle this there."
Amid the falling yellow waterfall and the roaring flames, the masked man popped his intangibility and challenged Kakashi with a dead-calm voice.
At this point, the masked man couldn't care less about what he touched.
Even if the Kamui dimension hadn't been fully flushed out and still had sludge up to his ankles, it didn't matter anymore.
'Ten days later?'
Kakashi caught the words and locked them into his memory.
At the same time, it fully confirmed his suspicions.
The mystery guy was absolutely Obito.
Unfortunately, he had no ways to stop the guy from bailing right now.
Only a good while after the masked man warped away did Kakashi's Kamui finally recover just enough for him to snap it shut.
Kakashi dropped to his knees, completely drained.
He was way too tired.
In the past, Kamui usage was always tracked by the number of shots.
This time, it was counted by sheer duration.
But compared to the physical burnout, Kakashi's heart felt even heavier.
'If the masked man really is Obito, why the hell did he say that?'
'Why is he using his own grandmother as a hostage and telling me to come win her back? Even without a hostage, I would've tracked him down anyway to demand answers face-to-face. But why? Could Obito actually believe that I, Kakashi, genuinely have a thing for old women?'
While Kakashi hung his head and questioned his life choices, the ANBU squad Tsunade summoned finally arrived.
The squad that rushed over froze dead in their tracks the second they saw the scene.
"As expected of Kakashi, Konoha's number one technician! With a single move, he stole our job and solo'd a combo ninjutsu we usually need a whole squad to pull off." Morino Ibiki let out a sigh of pure admiration.
The ANBU squad under his command nodded in total agreement.
In the original timeline, during Pain's invasion, this specific ANBU squad had faced down the endlessly splitting Giant Multi-Headed Dog summon.
Each of them fired off their own jutsu, eventually chaining them together into a massive "oven" and roasting the dog alive like a cheap rotisserie chicken.
How many jutsu did that combo demand from start to finish?
Lightning Release: Four-Pillar Bind, Earth Release: Sticky Earth Drop, Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique, and Fire Release: Plain Grilling Technique.
Just looking at the sheer number of chakra natures involved, you'd need a freak like the Third Hokage to pull it off solo.
Seeing that Kakashi already had the situation on lock, and spotting no hostile enemies nearby, Morino Ibiki ordered his ANBU to start running crowd control for the civilians.
"Everyone, do not panic! Jonin Kakashi has already trapped the target and is currently neutralizing it!"
"Mm... Based on the current intel, the target appears to be a monster summoning beast that has lived inside raw waste for many years..."
Morino Ibiki firmly believed that the boiling pool in the pit was just like the target of the "oven" ninjutsu they usually practiced on—either a massive summoning beast or a Tailed Beast.
It definitely couldn't be a Tailed Beast.
No Tailed Beast lived in that kind of filth, and even if one exploded, it wouldn't pop into a shower of raw sewage.
Then it had to be a summoning beast.
The world was massive and full of weird shit. A gross-ass summoning beast like this wasn't exactly shocking.
"Don't just stand there gawking! Help me put out the fire!"
Kakashi caught the chatter from below, whipped around, and frantically called for backup.
If this inferno wasn't contained soon, then he, Hatake Kakashi, was going to go down in history as the mastermind behind this bio-terror disaster!
Woof, woof!
Members of the Inuzuka clan bounded onto the scene with their ninken.
"Kakashi, we're here to help!" Inuzuka Hana and Inuzuka Tsume stood at the front of the pack with their respective dogs.
They claimed they came to help, but in reality, their dogs caught a whiff of the stench and thought the all-you-can-eat buffet had just opened.
"Water Release..."
Pffft—
One ANBU member suddenly popped a Water Release, blasting a high-pressure stream straight into the burning pit.
Kakashi, who had literally just breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the ANBU, felt his face instantly drop.
"Stop! Hurry up and stop, you idiot!"
His Earth-Style Walls were already enduring intense thermal stress from the flames.
If they got blasted with cold water on top of that, the walls—which were no longer being reinforced by his chakra—would crack and shatter in seconds.
And if that happened, wouldn't the entire shit wave come pouring right out into the village?
Under normal circumstances, they were supposed to use sand, soil, or similar materials to smother the flames.
Unfortunately, Konoha's only formal education facility was the Ninja Academy, and graduating from that place definitely didn't require basic physics knowledge like thermal shock.
As for the Chūnin Exams, the core curriculum was basically just glorified cheating.
So it wasn't a shocker that this random ANBU completely lacked common sense in this specific area.
ANBU wasn't a rank above jōnin.
ANBU was just a job title.
The roster was padded out with jōnin, special jōnin, and regular chūnin.
Crack.
Kakashi heard the sickening sound of the Earth-Style Wall beneath his feet starting to split.
He still had a little chakra left in the tank.
'Should I pop another Earth-Style Wall?'
No. If he cast it again, it would have to be way bigger than the current one just to wrap around the existing walls.
It would also need to be significantly wider and thicker, durable enough to tank both the water pressure and another round of massive fire damage.
Rather than attempting that impossible feat...
"Sorry, Obito. I have to protect Konoha!"
Kakashi leaped off the wall and landed squarely in front of the fractured section that was about to collapse.
He stood his ground with the grim aura of a man fully prepared to die!