Chapter 119 (Patreon)

The lethality of the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception was overwhelming.

As long as Mihawk cut through a line of death or pierced a point of death, even the hardest substance in the world could be severed effortlessly.

That ability alone freed Mihawk from the mental and physical exhaustion caused by relying on the Breath of All Things.

By cutting the death of the airflow itself, he could continuously unleash Ranged Slashes of varying strength.

Perceiving the death of the airflow across a wide area placed some strain on his mind, but compared to the tremendous mental and physical energy required to unleash the traditional Ranged Slashes of a Great Swordsman, that price was almost insignificant.

A short rest was enough for him to recover.

However, this was not the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception’s greatest ability.

Its true power lay in its ability to kill the concept belonging to an object—or even a specific concept itself.

For example, if Mihawk used the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception to erase the concept of a door from a house, then it would become impossible to install another door in that house.

However, accomplishing that required a profound understanding of what a door truly was. Mihawk would first need to comprehend the concept of a door before he could kill it.

Otherwise, he could still kill the existing door, but what he killed would merely be a wooden plank shaped into one.

An ordinary wooden door was made from timber, and timber could be traced back to the sapling from which it had grown. That shallow understanding was already enough for Mihawk to kill the physical object.

Yet even after that door was destroyed, another one could still be installed in its place.

Killing a concept required a deep understanding.

Killing only its physical form required nothing more than a superficial one.

The results were entirely different.

The same principle could be applied to ninjutsu.

Because Mihawk possessed memories from another world, he had developed his own interpretation of the life and death of a technique.

At the moment a technique was released, it was considered alive. That was the cause.

Once its effect ended, it was considered dead. That was the result.

However, this was still only a surface-level understanding.

Mihawk could kill an active technique. That was how he had eliminated countless nano-sized venomous insects earlier with nothing more than a light swing of his sword.

Although the cloud had contained countless rinkaichū, they had all been gathered together to form one technique.

Therefore, Mihawk had only needed to kill that single technique.

The same principle applied to the Shadow Clone Technique.

If several Shadow Clones had been created from the same technique, Mihawk would only need to kill one of them to erase every Shadow Clone produced by that casting.

However, that did not mean he had killed the concept of the technique within its caster.

Even if Mihawk destroyed the technique currently in front of him, its caster could simply perform it again.

To permanently erase it, Mihawk would need to perceive the conceptual death of that technique within the caster.

Only then could he truly kill it.

But where had the concept of the Shadow Clone Technique originated?

Why had the Second Hokage created it?

How could chakra be transformed into a physical Shadow Clone through a single hand seal?

How was the chakra divided and distributed between the original and the clones?

Mihawk would need to understand principles at least that complex before he could completely kill the Shadow Clone Technique within its caster.

If he succeeded, then even if that person still possessed chakra, remembered the required hand seal, and understood how to distribute the chakra, they would never be able to perform the Shadow Clone Technique again.

Almost every chakra-based phenomenon in this world could ultimately be traced back to the chakra fruit.

However, the chakra fruit itself had come from the extraterrestrial Ōtsutsuki clan.

What did the chakra fruit represent to the Ōtsutsuki?

What principles allowed it to function?

Mihawk knew almost nothing about either subject.

It now appeared that every supernatural death Mihawk had perceived so far had been based on only the most superficial level of understanding.

Ordinary substances such as wood and paper were simple. Mihawk could trace their existence back to their origins and completely sever them beyond any possibility of repair.

Supernatural concepts were different.

This world did not share the same metaphysical foundation as the world from which the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception had originated.

Mihawk’s memories of another world merely provided him with an unconventional shortcut toward understanding its laws.

It was somewhat regrettable that he could not yet kill the underlying concepts of ninjutsu and dōjutsu.

Even so, the forms of death he could already perceive had elevated his swordsmanship to an entirely different level.

That alone was enough to satisfy him.

Having organized his thoughts, Mihawk returned his attention to Shimura Danzō.

A visible layer of Armament Haki spread across the tiny cross-shaped sword in his hand.

By this point, a full minute had passed.

Only three Sharingan had remained open on Danzō’s right arm.

Now, one of those three Sharingan slowly closed.

Only two remained.

Danzō’s Izanagi was incomplete. Each Sharingan could sustain the technique for only one minute.

With two Sharingan left, Danzō possessed only two more minutes during which he could rewrite his injuries and death as illusions.

Mihawk immediately charged toward him again.

“Wind Style: Vacuum Great Sphere!”

Danzō swiftly formed several hand seals before expelling a massive sphere of compressed wind from his mouth.

The roaring air cannon resembled the Hyūga clan’s Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm as it hurtled toward Mihawk.

The moment he released the technique, Danzō rushed forward directly behind it.

It appeared that he still believed Mihawk knew nothing about Izanagi’s secret.

Danzō intended to use his remaining two minutes to place the Self-Cursing Seal on Mihawk.

As long as he succeeded once before Izanagi expired, victory would belong to him.

Unfortunately for Danzō, Mihawk already knew everything about his abilities.

Faced with the roaring sphere of compressed wind, Mihawk merely swung his tiny cross-shaped sword.

“Shing!”

A silver-white flash descended.

The enormous air cannon split apart before vanishing instantly.

There was no gradual weakening of the technique.

One moment it had been roaring toward Mihawk with tremendous power.

The next, it had ceased to exist.

“Wind Style: Vacuum Blade!”

Danzō drew another kunai.

Unlike the one he had used earlier, this kunai was enveloped in concentrated Wind Style chakra. The compressed chakra extended from its edge, transforming the short weapon into a sharp blade of wind.

“Crack!”

It still accomplished nothing.

The moment Danzō’s kunai collided with Mihawk’s tiny cross-shaped sword, the wind-coated weapon shattered.

However, destroying the kunai had never been Danzō’s true objective.

As the two weapons collided, his left hand once again reached for Mihawk’s neck.

“Not a chance.”

Mihawk looked at him with complete disdain.

This time, he did not even bother kicking Danzō away.

He pushed off the ground with both feet and launched himself upward.

Then, using Geppo, Mihawk stepped against the air and soared directly over Danzō’s head.

As his body flipped through the air, the tiny cross-shaped sword in his hand slashed downward.

“Tear—!”

The blade tore through Danzō’s right shoulder.

Half of his shoulder was severed, and his entire right arm fell onto the snow-covered ground.

The next moment, Danzō’s mutilated figure disappeared like an illusion.

“Whoosh!”

The instant Mihawk landed, the familiar figure of Danzō rushed toward him once again.

Anyone else confronted with such an unnatural sight would have felt tremendous psychological pressure.

No matter how many times Danzō was killed or dismembered, he continued returning without a single wound.

Mihawk, however, did not hesitate.

His figure transformed into an afterimage and passed straight through Danzō’s body.

“Bzzt—!”

The sound resembled cloth being torn apart.

With a single slash, Mihawk cut Danzō through the middle, splitting his body into two halves.

One second later, Danzō’s bisected figure once again faded away like an illusion.

“Well, well… You two seem to be having quite the fight.”

This time, Danzō did not immediately attack again.

The moment his body reappeared, a mocking voice reached everyone present.

They turned toward its source.

Uchiha Obito was standing a short distance away, dressed in the Akatsuki’s black cloak patterned with red clouds. His face was concealed behind an orange, spiral-patterned mask.

Standing beside him was Sasuke Uchiha, who had already recovered from his injuries.