Obito Uchiha felt his body fall out of his control.
It shrank at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The invisible vortex was clearly right before him, yet he could not enter it at all.
"What is this?"
"Rasa, what did you do?"
"No!"
But Obito Uchiha realized that even the words he spoke had changed.
They did not sound like human speech.
Instead, they were a series of barking sounds.
What was that sound?
A dog's voice?
He had turned into a dog?
Rasa had turned him into a dog?
What the hell kind of ninjutsu was this?
Such a ninjutsu could not possibly exist.
Fake.
Fake.
All of this had to be fake.
"Wake up!"
Obito Uchiha roared furiously.
But what came out was still nothing but barking.
A shadow fell over Obito Uchiha.
Obito Uchiha raised his head and saw Rasa.
An incomparably massive Rasa, whose shadow completely enveloped him.
But Obito Uchiha knew that Rasa had not grown larger.
He had grown smaller.
Then he saw Rasa's fingers reaching toward his eyes.
Obito Uchiha struggled with everything he had and resisted.
But he could do nothing.
His body was as though it had been completely imprisoned.
Puchi!
Puchi!
Obito Uchiha felt his vision instantly go black.
Everything became darkness.
Not a single trace of light remained.
Only after that did intense pain surge from his eyes.
Obito Uchiha's heart dropped.
"My eyes… my eyes!"
The pain of having his eyes forcibly dug out was not what hurt Obito Uchiha the most.
What hurt Obito Uchiha the most was that without his eyes, he had lost all hope.
Facing Rasa, he would no longer have any ability to resist.
He could not even escape.
His plan no longer had any possibility of success.
No one would work as hard as he had to complete the Eye of the Moon Plan.
Even if Nagato inherited his will—
Without obtaining Sunagakure's jinchuriki, the Eye of the Moon Plan could not be completed.
And if Nagato opened the Eye of the Moon Plan, would there be him in it?
Would there be Rin?
Would there be a world where he and Rin lived happily together?
Despair engulfed Obito Uchiha.
"No! No! No!"
"It cannot be like this!"
"I still haven't completed the Eye of the Moon Plan!"
"Rin is still waiting for me!"
The effect of the Targeted Transformation Technique disappeared.
In truth, it had lasted only an instant.
A very short instant.
After all, Obito Uchiha's strength was not weak.
This technique worked in such a way that the stronger the target was, the shorter the duration of the effect.
But for Rasa, it was already enough.
Obito Uchiha returned to human form.
With a thought from Rasa, gold dust gathered into the shape of chains and wrapped around Obito Uchiha, binding him firmly in place and leaving him unable to move.
"Rasa, I curse you!"
"I curse you!"
"You will die a miserable death!"
Rasa looked calmly at Obito Uchiha, who raged helplessly like a defeated dog.
"Shut your mouth."
A lump of gold dust was stuffed into Obito Uchiha's mouth, preventing him from uttering even half a word.
Obito Uchiha exhausted all his strength.
With the last of his chakra, he made a desperate final attempt.
"Wood Release: Cutting Technique!"
Countless branches stabbed outward in every direction, and Rasa's position was also covered.
But it had no effect.
"Sandification!"
Those branches pierced through Rasa's body, yet did not cause him the slightest injury.
In terms of convenience, sandification was actually even more convenient than Obito Uchiha's intangibility.
Its only weakness was being countered by water.
But Obito Uchiha did not know that.
Rasa brought Obito Uchiha back to Sunagakure.
He did not execute him directly.
Instead, he sealed him away and imprisoned him in the death cell beneath the Sun Disk.
He would still be useful later.
"Long live Kazekage-sama!"
"Long live Kazekage-sama!"
The moment Rasa entered Sunagakure, what greeted him was countless cheers.
At first, the people of Sunagakure had not noticed Obito Uchiha's arrival.
But as the battle between the two escalated, it became far too intense.
It was difficult for the people of Sunagakure not to notice.
Especially when the Nine-Tails appeared.
That enormous body.
That terrifying pressure.
And the Tailed Beast Ball it condensed in Sunagakure's direction.
Countless people felt their hearts tremble.
The people of Sunagakure knew about the tragedy of Konoha's Nine-Tails Rampage.
Who knew how many people had died?
Who knew how many buildings had been destroyed?
Who knew how many families had been ruined?
Even the Golden Flash, Minato Namikaze, had died because of the Nine-Tails Rampage.
And now, such a Tailed Beast had actually appeared near Sunagakure.
What kind of calamity was this?
Just when the people of Sunagakure were overcome with worry, Rasa stepped forward.
Alone, he blocked the Tailed Beast Ball.
"This is Kazekage-sama!"
"Kazekage-sama's strength is too powerful!"
"He blocked a Tailed Beast Ball all by himself!"
"Too incredible!"
Everyone could not help feeling as though they had survived a great disaster.
Immediately afterward came intense excitement and pride.
"Long live Kazekage-sama!"
"To have Kazekage-sama is truly Sunagakure's fortune!"
Then, everyone saw it again.
A gigantic blue figure rose from the ground.
An experienced old shinobi recognized what it was.
"That is Susanoo!"
"The one attacking us is from the Uchiha clan!"
"That is the ability only Uchiha Madara could use back then!"
"Could the attacker be Uchiha Madara?"
Everyone's hearts tightened once more.
But at that moment, Rasa stepped forward again.
With an equally huge—
No.
An even larger golden giant, he clashed against Obito Uchiha's Susanoo.
Not only did he contend with it, he defeated Obito Uchiha's Susanoo.
A middle-aged man with a solemn expression said,
"Today may have been the most dangerous day in Sunagakure's history. The threat of those two things was even greater than the threat Kirigakure posed to Sunagakure back then."
"Either one of them was an existence of ultimate terror."
"If not for Kazekage-sama, no one else could have stopped them."
Maki looked at Pakura beside her and asked,
"Teacher?"
Maki did not finish her question, but Pakura knew what she wanted to ask and shook her head.
"I would not be a match for either of them. These are already existences that surpass the Kage level."
"My strength is far beneath my husband's."
"Having my husband succeed as Kazekage back then was the right decision."
On the other side, Chiyo also shook her head.
"I could not do it."
Chiyo looked in Rasa's direction, her emotions somewhat complicated.
At first, Chiyo had not thought highly of Rasa.
She had not believed Rasa would do well in the position of Kazekage.
But now, Chiyo had no choice but to admit that Rasa's performance had exceeded her expectations by far.
Not by one or two times.
By dozens of times.
"I misjudged him."
A young man hesitated for a moment.
"But why can Kazekage-sama use that kind of technique? And why can he use methods similar to Wood Release? Could Kazekage-sama possess the bloodline of both the Senju clan and the Uchiha clan?"