At this moment, Raikage Ay, his entire body wreathed in violent Lightning Release, showed not the slightest hesitation in his charging momentum!
Seizing the perfect opportunity created by Kakashi, a fearsome gleam erupted in his eyes:
"Well done, Kakashi of Konoha!"
The Raikage's roar was like rolling thunder as he poured all his remaining strength into his tightly clenched iron fist.
A force of ten thousand pounds concentrated into a single point, finally and precisely striking the tiny opening exposed by Kakuzu's hasty defense.
The weak point on his chest, momentarily vulnerable due to the imbalance in his chakra flow!
"THUD!!!"
A dull impact sound, heart-stopping in its intensity, rang out!
Kakuzu's body, covered in bizarre tentacles, was sent flying backwards like a cannonball as if struck head-on by a battering ram, crashing hard into the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.
Even the Earth Grudge Fear tentacles covering his body twitched and spasmed violently as if electrocuted.
As the dust settled slightly, the figure of Kakashi landed steadily like a spear.
He lowered his stance slightly, his single crimson Sharingan beneath his forehead protector coldly sweeping over the fallen Kakuzu and the restless mask monsters beside him, his gaze sharp.
Both experienced warriors understood that this mountain-shattering punch was still insufficient to truly end this monster.
Sure enough, the next moment, the mask monster with the "earth" character pattern swiftly burrowed into Kakuzu's fallen body like a loach.
Immediately after, a series of crackling sounds of bones dislocating and reassembling echoed.
Kakuzu's body twisted in an extremely grotesque manner. Accompanied by the frenzied writhing of the Earth Grudge Fear tentacles, he actually stood up once again with tenacious resilience!
His scar-covered face revealed clear astonishment for the first time, his gaze locked on Kakashi.
"Reinforcements from Konoha? Since when?!"
In his previous intelligence analysis, he had never listed Kakashi as a possible interceptor.
Just as he was shocked and suspicious, his peripheral vision caught sight of Kushina and Shisui fiercely battling enemies on another side of the battlefield!
Kakuzu's heart sank heavily, instantly understanding.
"Brought by the Hokage?"
His brow furrowed, a flash of gravity appearing in his eyes. "What a troublesome person..."
A calculation born from the instinct of a veteran bounty hunter rapidly swirled in his mind.
Looking at the Raikage before him, Kakashi watching intently from the flank, and those two powerful reinforcements in the distance...
Continuing this entangled fight, the risk soared dramatically. It seemed... it was becoming less "cost-effective"!
The tide of the battlefield reversed instantly!
Kushina's Adamantine Sealing Chains successfully restrained Kisame and his bizarre Samehada, creating a window for the exhausted Mei Terumī to counterattack.
Shisui's illusionary body flickers and precise Sharingan insights forcibly broke Scorpion's absolute control chain over his puppet army, allowing the cornered Darui to escape and join the counterattack.
Kakashi's Lightning Cutter disrupted Kakuzu's deployment at the most critical moment, creating a perfect offensive opportunity for the Raikage, whose power had waned but remained ferocious, dealing a heavy blow to Kakuzu in one strike.
At the edge of the battlefield, the fierce struggle between Iwagakure's Kitsuchi and the Akatsuki's artistic Deidara remained deadlocked, the roar of explosions interwoven with the sound of shattering giant rocks.
Not far away, Gaara, commanding a sky full of sand, was nearing the end of his suppression of the immortal Hidan, victory within sight.
However, the core focus of the entire battlefield, the peak showdown between Minato and the Six Paths of Pain, remained in a stalemate.
Their speed, power, and wisdom clashed, producing blinding sparks. Neither could completely overwhelm the other in a short time.
Now, looking at the overall situation, one could no longer claim the Five Kage Alliance held an absolute advantage, but the battle had undoubtedly undergone a decisive reversal. The scales were clearly tipping in their favor.
Only Hoshigaki Kisame, the "Tailless Tailed Beast" who single-handedly contended with two top-tier powerhouses, Kushina and Mei, still seemed at ease.
But given Kushina's immense chakra reserves, it would be far from easy for him to crush their combined efforts.
On a distant cliff, the figure of Obito quietly hid within a spatial vortex. Beneath his cold mask, a pair of Sharingan gazed down indifferently at the brutal slaughter below.
He shook his head slightly, letting out a low sigh tinged with regret.
"A pity... If only we could have taken this chance to eliminate a few Kage, how good that would have been."
The individual strength of these Kage-level powerhouses might not be top-tier, but as the spiritual leaders and highest symbols of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, the shockwaves and chain reactions caused by their fall would be far more valuable than their individual combat power.
The development of the situation before him made him realize this goal had turned to bubbles.
"Continuing this pointless attrition is meaningless," Obito thought to himself.
His gaze, almost involuntarily, focused with an indescribable complexity on that vibrant red-haired figure on the battlefield below—Kushina.
"Black Zetsu," Obito asked in a low voice to his companion hidden underground, "can you... sense any trace of the Nine-Tails' Chakra on Uzumaki Kushina?"
In truth, Obito already had his answer the moment Kushina appeared on the battlefield.
Unless he had confirmed Nagato's intelligence that Kushina was no longer the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, Minato would never have allowed his wife, who once bore a Tailed Beast, to personally enter such danger.
After all, the goal of the Akatsuki was the Tailed Beasts!
A long silence followed in the darkness before Black Zetsu's hoarse, eerie voice drifted forth.
"...Not a single fluctuation of Nine-Tails chakra is detectable."
This definitive answer also stirred up a tempest of shock within Black Zetsu, hidden in the shadows.
Shocked, he could only forcefully reassure himself, 'Konoha... is, after all, the Shinobi World's top village with a thousand-year heritage. Perhaps they possess some forbidden life-for-life secret technique to forcibly separate the Nine-Tails?'
He subconsciously resisted the unsettling, opposite possibility—the one that could overturn his thousand-year scheme. That absolutely could not be accepted!
Upon hearing this, Obito fell silent briefly.
Then, a sigh escaped from behind his mask. His figure suddenly grew indistinct, as if merging into the ripples of space.
Surveying the fiercely contested battlefield, the Tendo Pain controlled by Nagato still had room to maneuver. But the other core members of the Akatsuki—Hidan, Deidara, Kakuzu, Scorpion, and Hoshigaki Kisame—were tightly entangled by their respective powerful foes, utterly unable to disengage and escape.
At this moment, only he could intervene.
In a flash of thought, Obito's figure appeared, utterly without warning and with extreme ostentation, at the visual center of all combatants.
Ignoring the astonished and wary gazes from all directions, he moved with ghostly swiftness.
Spatial power flowed through his hands. In almost the blink of an eye, Deidara, still showcasing his various arts; Kakuzu, emanating an ominous aura; Scorpion, controlling his precise puppets; and Hoshigaki Kisame, wielding the greatsword Samehada—were all forcibly yanked away from the battlefield's core area in a manner incomprehensible to everyone, vanishing on the spot.
Throughout the process, whether it was Konoha's elites or the strong from other villages, all attempted to stop him.
Ninjutsu, taijutsu, Shuriken—all attacks passed through his intangible body like birds flying toward a phantom, landing futilely on empty air, unable to even stir a single ripple.
This bizarre, unfathomable ability sent a heavy chill through the hearts of everyone present.
Was this the man who called himself "Uchiha Madara," repeatedly mentioned by the Hokage?
Having easily retrieved three subordinates, Obito's gaze turned coldly toward the other end of the battlefield, where Hidan was incessantly preaching the doctrines of the Jashin religion.
The next target was self-evident.
The Tendo Pain, suspended in mid-air, watched everything unfolding below with calm Rinnegan eyes.
Obito's forceful intervention, the "retrieval" of the Akatsuki members—he saw it all but remained silent throughout.
Proud as he was, he absolutely could not accept this masked man's "charity" or "help."
More importantly, he had faith in his own power.
Even if the Yellow Flash, Minato, proved troublesome with his Flying Thunder God Technique, unmatched in the Shinobi World, creating a check on his mobility, if he truly wished to disengage and leave, Minato might not truly be able to stop him!
Minato, the Fourth Hokage, also clearly perceived the current situation.
His golden hair stirred slightly in the turbulent airflow. Deep within his azure eyes was a calm weighing of options.
It wasn't that he didn't want to keep Pain here, nor was he without stronger trump cards.
The Natural Energy accumulated within his body was sufficient to support him entering a stronger "Sage Mode."
However...
Even if he poured all his effort into entering Sage Mode, facing the Six Paths of Pain who possessed Six Paths Power, unpredictable tactics, and diverse abilities, he still had no guarantee of certain victory.
Sage Mode was powerful, but it required immense chakra to sustain and had strict time limits.
If he couldn't defeat the enemy within the time limit, the drastic chakra consumption would plunge him into a great disadvantage, potentially leading to an irreversible defeat.
This heavy risk restrained his resolve to go all out.
Weighing the pros and cons, in the absence of absolute certainty of victory, using that high-cost trump card was not a wise move.
In the end, Minato could only grip his Kunai tightly, his figure frozen in place.
With a complex look in his eyes, he watched the six figures in the sky grow increasingly distant in their eerie resonance.
Elsewhere, the raging sandstorm seemed endless.
In this hellish sea of sand, the figure of Obito moved like a ghost.
His goal was clear: retrieve Hidan's dismembered remains.
Using the power of the Kamui Dimension, Obito's actions were swift and precise. Soon, Hidan's severed limbs were successively sucked into the Twisted Space Vortex and disappeared.
Now, he arrived at the location where Hidan's torso had fallen.
The yellow sand was almost burying this piece of mutilated body.
Obito reached out, Prepare to do the same to take it as well.
At this critical juncture, a sudden change occurred!
At the edge of the sandstorm beside Gaara, a flash of golden light appeared. Minato, clad in the Fourth Hokage's haori, who had just watched the Six Paths of Pain depart, descended!
His ability to transfer so precisely and instantly relied, of course, on the Flying Thunder God kunai he had entrusted to Gaara earlier!
This was all for this moment!
Obito's confidence in his own Kamui meant he didn't immediately perceive Minato's arrival.
However, his sharp intuition instantly caught that something was amiss. Something foreign seemed embedded within Hidan's torso!
The sensation under his fingers was unusually hard, definitely not flesh and blood.
Obito frowned. The moment he clearly saw the object, his crimson Sharingan contracted to pinpoints!
"That's... a Flying Thunder God kunai?!"
A shocked murmur escaped his lips.
Obito, as if struck by electricity, He suddenly raised his head. His gaze pierced through the Sandstorm, instantly locking onto the golden figure beside Gaara—Minato!
At this moment, Minato's face held none of its usual gentleness, only unprecedented gravity and resolve.
His hands had long since formed a rapid series of seals before his chest!
Vast chakra erupted from his body like golden flames, surging and boiling!
This terrifying force instantly activated the Sealing Jutsu Formula hidden on the Flying Thunder God kunai!
More horrifyingly, Obito realized with alarm that other fragments of Hidan's stump—those other body parts—also simultaneously erupted with resonant chakra fluctuation!
"So that's it!" The realization exploded in Obito's mind. "Hidan was a decoy from the start... a sealing trap designed for me!"
All of this happened in the spark of an instant.
Obito's gaze fell in terror onto his own hand, which was pressed against Hidan's torso. Countless jet-black, living incantation were spreading up his arm at an astonishing, crazy speed!
At this life-or-death moment, Obito showed not a shred of hesitation. There was no room for delay!
A flash of ruthless light appeared in his eyes. His other, free hand shot out like lightning, a sharp Kunai transforming into a cold gleam.
"THWACK!"
Accompanied by the muffled sound of tearing flesh and splattered blood, his arm, rapidly being erosion by the incantation, was cleanly severed by himself from the shoulder!
At the very same moment the severed arm hit the ground, Minato completed the final seal in his hands.
"Sealing Jutsu: Four Symbols Seal!"
Minato uttered the low incantation. The moment the words fell, the activated Flying Thunder God kunai Suddenly bursting forth with blinding light!
Countless ink-black, Twisted and writhing incantations no longer slowly erosion. Instead, like a bursting dam, they surging forth from the Kunai embedded in Hidan's torso!
This force did not spread outward. It carried a terrifying, inward-collapsing suction!
HUMMMMMMMMM!
A black sphere, So deep it seemed to devour everything., formed abruptly with the Kunai embedded in Hidan's torso as the core and the Kunai at other locations as nodal points!
No longer were they The chain of talismans along Obito arms spread. A substantive dark singularity had formed!
A terrifying gravitational field instantly enveloped an area with a radius of several meters.
The ground shook violently. Gravel, sand, even those fragments of Hidan's The severed limbs were stained with incantations, were all pulled toward the Expanding dark sphere!
The air shrieked under the strain. Light bent eeriely at the sphere's edges.
Obito's severed right arm, along with Hidan's core torso serving as the bait, were the first to be affected!
They didn't even have time to fully hit the ground before being utterly devoured by this vast sealing power, disappearing into the center of the black hole.
That was an absolute void leading to death and sealing.