Chapter 151 (Patreon)

CRACK!

Just as Mihawk and Hinata leaped from the cliff, several cracks appeared across the pale sphere floating above the battlefield.

The cracks rapidly spread and widened until they covered its entire surface.

A moment later, the sphere shattered like a mirror striking the ground.

Countless scale-like fragments fell from the sky.

Obito emerged from within.

His appearance had completely changed.

His skin and hair had turned white, while feather-like fragments drifted around his body. Ten horn-like appendages protruded from his back, and nine black magatama surrounded a Rinnegan pattern upon his bare upper body.

His left eye remained a Rinnegan, while his right was a Sharingan.

However, his gaze appeared unfocused.

The Ten-Tails’ immense power had overwhelmed his mind, leaving him in a state of confusion as though he had forgotten who he was.

Even so, his instincts immediately sensed the barrier surrounding him.

Five of the appendages behind Obito ignited with crimson chakra.

They stretched outward and transformed into enormous hands before seizing the walls of the Four Red Yang Formation.

CRACK!

The barrier that had endured the Ten-Tails’ Tailed Beast Bomb shattered beneath their grip.

The four crimson walls broke apart, scattering countless fragments of red chakra across the battlefield.

“Sage Art: Gate of the Great God!”

Hashirama reacted immediately.

A colossal crimson torii gate materialized above Obito and came crashing down.

BOOM!

The sealing technique had been created specifically to suppress tailed beasts. A single gate could immobilize one of the nine tailed beasts, while several had been powerful enough to restrain the Ten-Tails itself.

The enormous structure struck Obito and drove him toward the ground.

However, before it could pin him down, Obito raised one hand.

CRACK!

The entire torii gate shattered.

Dozens of massive fragments scattered across the ground.

Obito remained floating in the air, having destroyed Hashirama’s Sage Art through little more than instinctive resistance.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Two afterimages appeared beside Naruto.

Naruto’s expression immediately brightened when he saw them.

“Mihawk! Hinata! You’re finally here!”

He had already received the memories of the shadow clones that had witnessed their earlier battles.

“My shadow clone told me everything! You two were incredible!”

“We can talk later.”

Mihawk stared at Obito.

“For now, we need to deal with him.”

Obito suddenly moved.

Hinata’s expression changed as her Tenseigan followed him.

“Third Hokage-sama, watch out! He’s aiming for—”

Pop!

Before Hinata could finish her warning, Hiruzen’s reanimated body burst apart.

Countless fragments of white dust scattered through the air.

Obito had not appeared to move from his original position.

Two black, liquid-like spheres now hovered behind him. Their surfaces rippled as though several dark rings had been layered over one another, while his hands remained open at his sides.

Hinata looked toward Mihawk.

“Mihawk-kun, those black spheres...”

Mihawk’s red eyes changed to an icy blue.

The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception awakened.

“Don’t attack yet.”

He continued watching Obito.

“Let the Hokage test his abilities first.”

“Correct.”

Tobirama stepped forward.

“We’re already dead. Even if our reanimated bodies are destroyed, they can recover.”

His gaze hardened as he studied Obito.

“The Edo Tensei allows us to take risks that the living cannot. We’ll uncover his abilities first.”

Minato appeared beside him.

“I’m coming with you.”

The two fastest shinobi of their respective eras vanished simultaneously.

Mihawk paid no attention to their departure.

His entire focus remained upon Obito and the black spheres surrounding him.

Colorful rings of light rotated within his icy-blue eyes.

The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception were not omniscient.

They could reveal the death of anything Mihawk understood, but completely unfamiliar existences required him to first comprehend what sustained them and what could bring that existence to an end.

His thoughts accelerated.

Memory, reason, and perception connected within his mind as he began tracing the principles behind the Ten-Tails’ jinchūriki and the Truth-Seeking Balls.

To understand their death, Mihawk first needed to return to the origin of chakra itself.

Every form of chakra within the shinobi world could ultimately be traced back to the Divine Tree and the chakra fruit consumed by Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.

Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki later founded Ninshū and shared chakra with humanity.

From that moment onward, chakra spread throughout the world, passed down through countless generations and transformed into the foundation of modern ninjutsu.

Chakra was not a living creature, but it still possessed a state of formation and dispersal.

It could be created, transferred, absorbed, divided, or reclaimed.

When a shinobi died, the chakra system maintained by that person’s body ceased functioning.

If the Divine Tree reclaimed all chakra through the Infinite Tsukuyomi, the individual forms that chakra had taken throughout the world would also come to an end.

For the Mystic Eyes, that distinction between formation and dissolution was enough to establish the concepts of life and death.

The five basic chakra natures, along with Yin and Yang, formed the foundation of every jutsu.

Combining the Nature Transformation of two chakra natures could produce a Kekkei Genkai.

Combining three could produce a Kekkei Tōta.

At the highest level, powers involving all five basic chakra natures and Yin–Yang Release entered the realm associated with a Kekkei Mōra.

The Truth-Seeking Balls were created from those same seven chakra natures.

However, they were not themselves a Kekkei Mōra.

Rather than forming a specific transformed bloodline, they combined all five basic natures with Yin–Yang Release into a black substance capable of nullifying ordinary ninjutsu.

They could even prevent the portions of an Edo Tensei body they destroyed from regenerating.

Within the shinobi world, they were one of the few powers that could completely suppress a reanimated body.

However, even the Truth-Seeking Balls were not without an end.

Their existence depended upon the fusion of all seven chakra natures and the Six Paths power controlling them.

The instant those components were brought together marked the beginning of a Truth-Seeking Ball.

If that balance collapsed, if its connection to the user was severed, or if the chakra sustaining it was dispersed or reclaimed, the form of the Truth-Seeking Ball would cease to exist.

That was its death.

The moment Mihawk reached that understanding, the Mystic Eyes responded.

The colorful patterns within his icy-blue eyes began rotating faster.

Dark lines spread across his vision, dividing the world before him into several overlapping planes.

Lines of death appeared upon the two black spheres floating behind Obito.

The supposedly indestructible Truth-Seeking Balls now possessed clear points at which their existence could be severed.

Mihawk’s attention then shifted toward Obito himself.

The Divine Tree had come from beyond this world.

It began as a seed that absorbed natural energy and life from an entire world. After growing for countless years, it eventually produced a chakra fruit.

The Ten-Tails was connected to that same existence.

It was a vast collection of natural energy and chakra, but it still possessed conditions that defined its existence.

It could be sealed.

It could be divided into the nine tailed beasts.

Its chakra could be absorbed, scattered, or extracted.

The state of a Ten-Tails jinchūriki was even simpler to understand.

Absorbing the Ten-Tails created that state.

Extracting it ended that state.

The Six Paths form now surrounding Obito existed only because the Ten-Tails remained sealed within his body.

The Ten-Tails was the beginning.

Its removal would be the end.

As Mihawk completed his understanding, more dark lines appeared.

They spread across Obito’s pale body.

To everyone else, Obito had become an almost immortal existence who stood beyond ordinary shinobi.

To Mihawk’s eyes, however, that seemingly invincible body was no longer incomprehensible.

It possessed death like everything else.

If Mihawk severed those lines, neither the Ten-Tails’ chakra nor Obito’s regeneration would save him.

The uncertainty that had remained after Mihawk’s battle against Madara finally disappeared.

His raw power had not yet fully entered the realm of the Six Paths.

However, the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception allowed him to threaten—and kill—those who had.

Mihawk had finally confirmed the level of his current strength.

Pseudo–Six Paths level.

A fighter whose overall power stood beyond the Kage, yet possessed an ability capable of threatening true Six Paths-level beings.