While marveling at the opponent's "immortality," Kakashi also noticed another change. From when he first started observing until now—roughly forty seconds or so—another Sharingan on Danzo's arm had closed.
"Now that's four closed. Could his ability be related to the closed Sharingan eyes?"
As Kakashi pondered this, Danzo also raised his arm to look at the Sharingan on it, confirming the number of closed eyes. He no longer took the initiative to attack as before and instead began forming hand seals once more.
In the previous exchanges, Danzo had already realized that his earlier judgment had been a huge mistake. Although the opponent appeared young and was fortunately female, the taijutsu she displayed far exceeded his expectations.
The wounds on his body had been left by her during their first clash, before he had activated Izanagi. There was nothing particularly exquisite about her technique—just pure speed and ruthlessness, the most suitable way for killing.
Moreover, the opponent was extremely cautious. When he later activated Izanagi in an attempt to trade life for injury, Uchiha Hikari gave him no opportunity to inflict any meaningful damage, basically limiting him to minor, insignificant wounds.
Facing an opponent who was both immensely powerful and lacked the arrogance typical of geniuses, Danzo could not help but feel extremely troubled. Because of this, he no longer cared about things like drawing attention.
"Summoning Technique!"
As the white smoke dispersed, a massive summoned beast resembling an elephant appeared beside Danzo. Under Danzo's command, the elephant did not hesitate upon appearing and immediately unleashed Wind Release toward Uchiha Hikari, pulling her involuntarily toward its mouth.
"Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation"
Although somewhat surprised by the pull, Uchiha Hikari was not panicked. With wind fueling the fire and her vast chakra reserves amplifying it, Great Fire Annihilation instantly formed a sea of flames that covered the area ahead.
If Danzo insisted on having the summoned beast continue devouring, he would definitely need to warm himself up first. Naturally, Danzo would not allow such a fleeting scene to occur—he did not want his summoned beast to disappear right after appearing.
He quickly signaled the elephant to stop devouring and adjusted its attack to coordinate with his own Wind Release in resisting the now dangerously close sea of flames.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves"
After barely using Wind Release slashes to cut through Great Fire Annihilation and create an opening to dodge, Danzo no longer dared let the elephant continue using its devouring ability. Instead, he had it use Wind Release to attack alongside him.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves"
While Danzo reused the same technique, the elephant opened its mouth once again. This time, however, it did not inhale to devour but instead blew outward like "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough," with Vacuum Serial Waves blending into it to form countless tiny wind blades that assaulted Uchiha Hikari from all directions.
Although the earlier mishap had been somewhat dangerous, the current coordination between the elephant and Danzo was indeed effective. The combination of their Wind Release produced an effect greater than the sum of its parts.
In that dense barrage of attacks, even Uchiha Hikari found it difficult to completely evade. Before long, numerous small wounds appeared on her body. Pure Vacuum Serial Waves could be dodged, but combined with the elephant's wide-range attacks, evasion became extremely hard.
"Should I use the Sharingan?"
With the elephant continuously blowing wind outward, Uchiha Hikari found it difficult to close the distance, making ninjutsu largely ineffective. Without using the Sharingan, she had already exhausted most of her other abilities.
Relying solely on ordinary methods, the current situation could no longer be broken.
Because she had used the Sharingan earlier while pretending to be part of Akatsuki and doing good deeds in the Land of Iron, and since the Uchiha clan had already been exterminated, suddenly having an additional clan member would be hard to explain.
To avoid arousing suspicion, before returning to the village, Furina had reminded her to use the Sharingan as little as possible in the village and to avoid letting anyone discover it even if she did use it.
However, these were ultimately just Furina's suggestions. When facing enemies—especially an old bastard like Danzo—there was no need to hold back at all. If anything happened, Furina would take responsibility.
Uchiha Hikari remembered all of this. She had refrained from using it earlier only because she was worried it might cause trouble for the other party, but in this hopeless situation, she could only...
Uchiha Hikari was not a stubborn person. She would not stubbornly refuse to use the Sharingan until death. Besides, if she simply eliminated the opponent, there would be no information leak.
However, just as she prepared to act, the distant elephant suddenly let out a miserable cry. Looking closely, the space at the elephant's neck had abruptly twisted.
Unable to withstand such an attack, the summoned beast could no longer maintain itself. The next moment, it turned into a cloud of white smoke and disappeared, leaving only Danzo alone on the field once more.
Although the disappearance of the summoned beast caused Danzo's mood—which had just slightly improved—to sink again, he no longer had the energy to care about such things. He stared intently with his single eye at the newly appeared figure in the distance—or rather, at the opponent's left eye, which was scarlet and engraved with strange patterns.
"Tch, Hatake Kakashi, are you acting this way because you're preparing to betray Konoha?"
"So this is Kamui. It really does look very powerful."
Unlike the somewhat agitated Danzo, Uchiha Hikari actually showed a smile. This was not her first time seeing Kakashi's ability—she had also witnessed him use it during the earlier fight against Mōryō.
However, that time she had not participated in the battle and had only watched from afar, so her impression of Kamui was far less profound than this time.
Previously, when Furina had praised her Mangekyo abilities, she had also mentioned that both Kakashi's and the masked man's Kamui were very impressive. At the time, she had felt somewhat unconvinced, but as she experienced more events, she gradually realized that Furina had been right.
Whether it was the difficulty posed by the masked man's Mangekyo in previous battles or the now unstoppable attacks from Kakashi's Kamui, everything proved that Furina had not been exaggerating.
"My relationship with Miss Hikari here is pretty good. I just saw you turning this into a many-against-one situation, so I decided to lend a hand. Of course, if you want a one-on-one, I can step aside."
Kakashi did not bother responding to Danzo's accusation. He casually tossed out an excuse for his intervention and brushed the matter aside. The way he was blatantly playing biased referee looked quite infuriating (at least in Danzo's eyes).
"Hmph."
"How about this? No problem now, right?"
"Of course, Senior Kakashi. You don't need to worry about what comes next. Just leave him to me."
Although Kakashi spoke as if it were perfectly reasonable, it was obvious to anyone with eyes which side he favored. Danzo had already been suppressed the entire time, and only after summoning the beast had the situation slightly turned around.
Now that the summoned beast had been sent away by Kakashi's Kamui, the outcome of the following battle was already foreseeable.