Swish!
With a soft rustle of fabric, Minato Namikaze, wearing his iconic Hokage cloak, instantly materialized in front of Jie Uchiha.
'Truly the most handsome back in the entire series. The charm of this Hokage cloak is simply irresistible!' Looking at the Fourth Hokage's back, Jie couldn't help but marvel.
"Hmm? Jie? Why are you here?" Seeing the boy suddenly appear, Minato's face filled with surprise.
However, his expression rapidly shifted into one of deep anxiety. "It's too dangerous here. Hurry and evacuate to the shelter with the rest of the Uchiha civilians!"
But Jie had come to the Hokage Monument precisely to intervene in the upcoming battle. How could he just leave obediently? Furthermore, having just acquired such tremendous power, he needed a high-level opponent to test his new limits.
Just as Jie opened his mouth to reply, his pupils shrank. He pointed toward the massive fox in the distance and shouted, "Watch out!"
Minato subconsciously turned his head. Down in the village, the Nine-Tails had already locked its sights on him. A swirling Tailed Beast Bomb condensed in a fraction of a second and shot directly toward the Hokage Monument.
In this critical moment, Minato could no longer afford to worry about the boy behind him. His hands blurred through hand seals, and a three-pronged kunai appeared in his grasp.
"Space-Time Barrier: Flying Thunder God—Guiding Thunder!"
A massive sealing grid instantly expanded outward from the kunai. The moment it made contact with the incoming Tailed Beast Bomb, it began to swallow the condensed chakra whole. With a soft shout from Minato, the space-time barrier vanished completely.
Boom! Far away, deep in the forests outside the Hidden Leaf Village, an earth-shattering explosion echoed into the night sky. The destructive yield of a single Tailed Beast Bomb was several times stronger than a hundred thousand explosive tags detonating at once.
'Fortunately, the Fourth didn't drop the ball,' Jie thought, a wave of lingering dread washing over him.
Although he knew from the original story that this Tailed Beast Bomb was merely a flex of the Nine-Tails' might and would be safely teleported away, witnessing its true apocalyptic power firsthand was a different matter entirely. Jie couldn't help but issue himself a stern warning: 'I can't act recklessly. Training and steadily growing stronger is the only right path!'
However, having come this far, he refused to back down.
"Watch out!" Jie yelled again.
The next second, he pulled a kunai from his ninja pouch, an explosive tag wrapped tightly around its handle. Without hesitation, he hurled it directly at Minato's back.
Minato's reflexes were incredibly sharp. Warned by Jie's shout, he triggered the Body Flicker Technique and vanished from his spot in a blur of speed.
The tagged kunai sailed forward, phasing cleanly through Obito Uchiha's torso, before detonating in mid-air.
"When did he...?" A bead of cold sweat rolled down Minato's forehead.
Just like in the cave earlier, the masked man's approach had caused absolutely no physical disturbance. Even Minato's elite sensory abilities hadn't detected the slightest anomaly. Yet, the kunai Jie threw had passed straight through the cloaked figure as if he were a ghost. Even the subsequent shockwave from the explosive tag hadn't ruffled his robes in the slightest.
Minato had never seen such a bizarre ability.
"A brat from the Uchiha clan?" The Sharingan in Obito's right eye flashed with a menacing red light as he glared at Jie. "Do you intend to join forces with an outsider against your ancestor? Truly a clan of traitors!"
'Ancestor? Was Obito addicted to cosplaying as Madara?'
Jie wasn't in a hurry to expose Obito's lie. After all, in the eyes of everyone else, he was currently just a five-year-old child. Knowing top-secret intelligence like the masked man's true identity would be impossible to explain.
"Brat, atone for your disrespect!"
The tomoe in Obito's Sharingan began to spin frantically. A spatial vortex ripped open the void, unleashing a crushing suction force. "Kamui!"
Jie simply felt a wave of disdain.
Kamui was undoubtedly a visual prowess worthy of being called a divine skill among all Mangekyo abilities. Not only was it linked to an alternate dimension—allowing the user to turn intangible at will—but it also enabled point-to-point teleportation. Offensively, the spatial vortex could forcefully tear an enemy's body apart. It possessed absolute offense and absolute defense, making it incredibly overpowered.
But unfortunately for him, Obito currently only had one Sharingan.
Even with the First Hokage's cells granting him the stamina to spam his visual prowess without going blind, missing an eye severely bottlenecked his overall ocular power. The activation time for his jutsu was significantly delayed.
Furthermore, with Obito's actual combat prowess, the only reason he could even exchange blows with the Fourth Hokage was entirely due to Kamui's bizarre mechanics. The lack of intel kept Minato hesitant, preventing the Hokage from striking with lethal confidence.
But for Jie? Obito's entire playbook was an open book.
"Tailed Beast Cloak!"
The very instant he felt the gravitational pull, Jie activated his peak state. "Sharingan, open!"
The bubbling red chakra of the Tailed Beast Cloak drastically amplified his speed and physical strength, while the three-tomoe Sharingan granted him immense dynamic vision. In a mere fraction of a second, Jie physically tore himself free from Kamui's devouring pull. Gripping a fresh kunai, he charged straight at Obito.
The ninja world wasn't like that pirate universe next door where everyone had monstrous, bulletproof physiques. Here, a single explosive tag or a well-placed blade was more than enough to make a Kage-level powerhouse perish on the spot.
Seeing Jie break free from his Kamui so effortlessly, Obito felt a violent tremor in his chest. 'Who exactly is this brat? How can he possess such tremendous power?!'
Watching the boy rapidly close the distance, Obito had no time to overthink. Forced to abort his absorption attempt, he slipped his body back into an intangible state.
Witnessing this brief exchange, Minato's eyes lit up. 'This cloaked figure can maintain a strange state to phase through damage, but he must materialize in order to attack! No wonder he dodged my strikes so easily.'
Understanding finally dawned on the Fourth Hokage.
Moreover, as Minato observed the familiar, potent chakra radiating from Jie, along with those crimson three-tomoe eyes, he felt a jolt of shock. He couldn't help but marvel inwardly, 'Fugaku... you really raised quite the son.'