Chapter 429: Sasuke vs. Otsutsuki Urashiki
Four figures streaked through the dense, shadowed canopy of the forest, their boots barely grazing the thick branches before launching them forward again.
"Hey, Naruto."
Temari wiped a bead of sweat from her brow, her grip tightening on the strap of her giant iron fan as she cast a skeptical glance at the blond youth beside her.
"Are you absolutely sure that Otsutsuki Urashiki will take the bait?"
"We have been wandering around this dump for ages and have not even seen a ghost."
Naruto looked perfectly relaxed, his hands resting casually behind his head as he bounded through the foliage.
"Relax."
"The old man said that since that guy is after Chakra, he will not be able to resist the lure of the Nine-Tails."
"Right, Gaara?"
Naruto turned his head toward the red-haired youth keeping pace beside him.
Gaara froze mid-stride, his teal eyes snapping wide.
"He is here!"
Naruto skidded to a violent halt, his boots carving deep grooves into the thick tree branch. The casual demeanor vanished, replaced instantly by the sharp, focused glare of a seasoned shinobi.
A weird, eerie crimson light flashed through the canopy like jagged lightning.
A glowing red fish-hook shot straight out of the void, hurtling directly toward Naruto's stomach with lethal precision.
Shield of Sand!
A massive, dense wall of packed earth and sand erupted from the gourd on Gaara's back, forming an impenetrable barrier directly in front of Naruto.
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique!"
Temari shouted, swinging her giant iron fan in a wide, vicious arc.
Visible, razor-sharp blades of compressed wind screamed forward, tearing through the leaves and slashing violently at the glowing Chakra line trailing behind the crimson hook.
"Hmph, child's play."
A pale, white-robed figure drifted into view high above the canopy.
Otsutsuki Urashiki, gripping a glowing crimson fishing rod in his pale hands, looked down at the shinobi with a mocking, arrogant smile twisting his lips.
"The Nine-Tails brat and the One-Tail Jinchuriki..."
"Quite the haul."
Urashiki flicked his wrist with casual disdain.
The crimson hook, seemingly severed by the screaming wind blades, warped in an impossible, physics-defying angle. It dodged the lethal strike entirely, whipped around the towering sand wall with doubled speed, and lunged fiercely at Naruto's midsection once more.
"So fast!"
Naruto's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
But he did not retreat a single step.
"Rasengan!"
A swirling, condensed blue sphere of pure Chakra spun to life in his right palm. With a fierce roar, he leaned forward, rushing directly at the incoming hook instead of backing off.
"Naruto! Do not clash head-on!"
Gaara cried out, his voice cracking with urgency.
That hook possessed the terrifying ability to drain Chakra on contact. A direct hit was absolute suicide.
"Heh, idiot."
Urashiki's lips curled into a cruel sneer, his pale eyes gleaming with unrestrained greed.
'Once it hits, the Chakra of the Nine-Tails is mine.'
However...
Just as the swirling blue Rasengan was a fraction of an inch from meeting the crimson hook...
Hinata, who had stood silently watching from the rear guard, produced a specially marked Kunai from her pouch and flooded the dark metal with her Chakra.
The complex sealing formula carved into the Kunai activated with a blinding flash.
A heavy, suffocating wave of spatial distortion exploded outward, warping the very air around them.
Urashiki's arrogant expression changed drastically.
"This is..."
A deadly, icy sense of dread seized his throat in an instant.
The prey had just become the hunter.
"Crap. A trap!"
Urashiki reacted with terrifying speed, instantly abandoning his attack.
A pitch-black spatial tear, the Yomotsu Hirasaka, ripped open in the air directly behind him. He twisted his body, diving desperately for the dark exit.
Too late.
"You came all this way. Did you really think you could just leave?"
A cold, indifferent voice drifted down from the heavens, carrying a weight that seemed to crush the very atmosphere.
Everything in the world seemed to pause.
The violently spinning Rasengan in Naruto's hand froze mid-rotation, its blue light suspended in the air.
Even the raw, unadulterated terror etched onto Urashiki's pale face locked perfectly in place.
Right-Eye Dojutsu — Kamui Six Paths: Temporal Freeze.
In the gray, utterly motionless world, the fabric of reality rippled.
Uchiha Akira stepped casually from the void, his hands resting lightly behind his back. His dark eyes swept over the frozen battlefield with absolute authority.
He glanced at Urashiki, whose body was caught halfway through the black spatial portal, and a cold smirk touched his lips.
"Otsutsuki?"
"Not so impressive."
Uchiha Akira raised his right hand slowly and clenched his fingers around the empty air.
An irresistible, crushing spatial force wrapped tightly around Urashiki's frozen form.
The next second...
Time resumed its flow with a deafening rush of wind.
"What?!"
Urashiki's vision violently blurred.
The dark spatial gate that had been right in front of his nose vanished into thin air.
No, it had not vanished.
The very space around him had been forcibly and violently swapped.
His entire world spun in a dizzying blur of colors.
When his sight finally cleared...
He was no longer hovering above a dense forest. He stood in the center of a vast, endless paradise. Vibrant flowers bloomed in every direction, and the crisp song of unseen birds echoed under a boundless, crystal-clear sky.
"W-where... am I?"
Urashiki panicked, his usual arrogant composure shattering completely.
He frantically channeled his immense power, his pale hands forming rapid seals as he tried desperately to rip open the Yomotsu Hirasaka once more.
The divine ability that had always answered his call without fail now remained completely dead.
No matter how much pure ocular power he poured into the space around him, the fabric of reality refused to tear.
"Do not waste your strength."
Uchiha Akira appeared a hundred meters above him, looking down like a god judging a mortal.
"This is my world."
"Here, I am the absolute rule."
"Without my explicit permission, not even a fly gets out."
Six Paths: Tianyu Space.
This was Uchiha Akira's absolute domain.
Within these borders, every single law of space, time, and reality bent entirely to his will.
"Damned lesser creature!"
Urashiki's face twisted with ugly, venomous rage. The veins at his temples bulged against his pale skin.
"You dare scheme against a god!"
"I will kill you!"
He roared, whipping his glowing crimson fishing rod through the air with explosive force.
Massive, crescent-shaped waves of crimson Chakra blasted skyward, tearing through the peaceful air as they hurtled directly toward Uchiha Akira.
At that exact instant...
A dark figure flickered into existence directly in front of Uchiha Akira.
Cold steel flashed under the bright sky.
The legendary Kusanagi blade cut a flawless, silver arc through the air, slicing cleanly through the incoming red beams of Chakra.
A deafening explosion shook the atmosphere, sending a shockwave of displaced air rippling across the endless fields of flowers.
When the thick smoke cleared...
Adult Sasuke stood tall, his lone hand gripping the hilt of his sword. A terrifying, suffocating killing intent blazed from his mismatched eyes as he stared down at Urashiki.
"Otsutsuki Urashiki."
"This time, there is nowhere left to run."
Seeing the familiar face of his nemesis, Urashiki blinked in shock before a sudden, dark realization struck him.
He ground his teeth together, the sound loud in the quiet paradise.
"So you are working together!"
"Then I will just take every last drop of your Chakra!"
Urashiki shouted, his voice pitching into a hysterical shriek.
"Hand over your Chakra!"
He snapped his wrist, whipping the crimson fishing rod forward.
The eerie, glowing red hook shot through the air, aiming straight for Sasuke's heart.
Adult Sasuke let out a cold, dismissive snort.
His only hand twisted with blinding speed, the Kusanagi blade carving a sharp, precise arc to intercept the attack.
Sparks flew in a brilliant shower as ringing steel clashed against condensed Chakra.
The heavy impact of the sword smashed the glowing hook violently aside.
"Not done yet!"
Urashiki cackled, a manic edge to his voice.
His pitch-black pupils suddenly shifted, the color bleeding out entirely.
A bright, piercing blue light blazed to life within his eye sockets.
Blue Rinnegan.
The deflected hook, which should have been thrown wildly off course, completely ignored the laws of inertia. It froze in mid-air for a fraction of a second, then snapped back with double its previous speed, lunging straight at Sasuke's blind spot.
Adult Sasuke frowned, his sharp eyes tracking the impossible movement.
'That trajectory... it was wrong.'
But his battle experience was vast, forged in the fires of countless life-or-death struggles.
Blue lightning cracked violently under his boots.
He shifted his body half a meter to the side in a single heartbeat, moving faster than the eye could track.
The glowing hook grazed his high collar, slicing off a few stray strands of dark hair before burying itself into the empty air behind him.
"Tch, slippery as an eel."
Urashiki spat, his frustration mounting.
He spun the long fishing rod in his hands until it became a glowing crimson blur.
A terrifying storm of crimson Chakra waves and phantom hooks rained down from the sky, blanketing the area in a lethal, inescapable net aimed directly at Sasuke.
Adult Sasuke did not flinch. Sword in one hand, his Sharingan spinning wildly, he weaved through the devastating red onslaught with the grace of a phantom. Every step was calculated, every dodge precise.
He charged straight through the storm, closing the distance to Otsutsuki Urashiki in an instant.
And slashed.
The blade cut a lethal horizontal arc aimed directly at the Otsutsuki's neck.
But the hollow, weightless sensation of steel meeting only empty air made Sasuke's heart sink.
There was no resistance. No tearing of flesh. No spray of blood.
A tenth of a second earlier, the razor edge of the Kusanagi had been perfectly locked onto Otsutsuki Urashiki's throat.
But in the very next instant...
His vision blurred slightly.
The Otsutsuki who should have just lost his head now stood casually three meters away, utterly unscathed and completely relaxed.
Those once-black eyes now glowed with an eerie, radiant blue light.
Blue Rinnegan.
"That was close."
Urashiki patted his chest theatrically, a mocking smirk stretching across his pale face without a single trace of genuine fear.
"Almost took my head off."
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