Chapter 163 (Patreon)

“Mihawk-kun!”

Seeing Mihawk knocked out of the sky, Hinata hurriedly flew over and helped him to his feet.

“Are you all right?”

“Ahem… Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

Mihawk coughed several times, lowered his gaze, and rubbed his stomach.

“I couldn’t see the shadow, but I predicted its attack. Before it struck me, I coated my body in Haki.”

“That’s a relief…”

Hinata sighed before looking at him seriously.

“But you must be more careful next time, Mihawk-kun. Please don’t push yourself recklessly.”

“Don’t worry. If I can’t find an opening next time, I’ll retreat.”

Mihawk had indeed been slightly too greedy just now. Had he withdrawn immediately after destroying two Truth-Seeking Balls, Madara’s Limbo shadow would never have struck him.

With Hinata supporting him, Mihawk rose to his feet.

They both turned toward Madara.

The dust raised by the dark-red Ranged Slash gradually dispersed. Madara’s white Six Paths robe was slightly damaged, and there were a few stains on his face. The insignificant wounds on his body had already healed.

Madara looked at Mihawk in surprise.

“You took a direct hit from Limbo and can still stand? That body of yours is sturdier than it looks.”

Limbo: Border Jail was a dōjutsu unique to Madara’s Rinnegan.

It allowed him to create invisible shadows that existed within the world of Limbo. Each possessed power almost equal to Madara himself, and after regaining both Rinnegan, he could create up to four at once.

Those shadows could even use abilities mastered by Madara’s main body.

The shadow that attacked Mihawk had not used ninjutsu, denying him any obvious warning before the strike. However, its physical strength alone was still terrifying.

Madara’s current body was far stronger than it had been after he absorbed Hashirama’s senjutsu chakra.

In the original story, Naruto had destroyed the Asura Path with a single punch after entering Sage Mode.

A full-powered strike from the current Madara would be far stronger than that punch.

Among taijutsu specialists, Mihawk’s physique could only be considered above average. By Madara’s calculations, that last attack should have left him seriously injured.

Mihawk did not answer.

He tightened his grip on Nemesis and stared calmly at Madara.

“Hinata, we attack together this time.”

“Yes!”

Hinata nodded firmly.

One of the nine green orbs floating behind her flew into her hand. The moment she closed her fingers around it, golden light extended from her palm and formed a blade nearly a meter long.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Mihawk and Hinata rushed toward Madara from opposite directions.

“A pincer attack this time?”

Madara watched them approach with a serious expression. His grip tightened around his Six Paths staff while his other hand secretly formed a one-handed seal.

“Sage Art: Storm Release Light Fang!”

As Mihawk and Hinata entered his range, Madara snapped his head toward Mihawk and fired a razor-thin purple beam from his mouth.

His Rinnegan remained locked onto Mihawk, guiding the Light Fang after him as he moved.

Behind Madara, one of his four remaining Truth-Seeking Balls expanded into a hemispherical shield, blocking Hinata’s attack.

Riiip!

The extraordinary speed of the Light Fang made it one of the most difficult techniques for Mihawk to kill with his Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, so he chose to evade it instead.

The Rinnegan possessed astonishing insight, but the predictive ability of Mihawk’s Observation Haki was no less impressive.

Madara’s plan was sound, yet Mihawk still used Soru and Geppo together to avoid the pursuing beam.

The Truth-Seeking Ball protecting Madara was not as fortunate.

Before the golden blade created by the Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion, the black shield was once again torn apart as easily as thin paper.

After destroying it, Hinata continued forward without losing any speed. She poured more chakra into the green orb, causing the golden blade to rapidly expand.

As she swept past Madara, the enormous blade cut straight through his waist and severed his body in half.

“Limbo: Border Jail.”

Madara had made no attempt to evade Hinata’s attack.

The instant she passed him and exposed her back, he activated Limbo, which had just finished recovering.

An invisible shadow rushed toward Hinata.

However, the Tenseigan granted her an almost complete 360-degree field of vision. Attacking her from behind offered no true advantage.

“Divine Strike!”

Hinata spun around and thrust out her palm.

A violent blast of compressed air and repulsive force erupted from her hand, crashing into the invisible Limbo shadow as though it had struck a solid wall.

Whoosh!

Before Madara’s upper and lower body could reconnect, Mihawk suddenly disappeared from the sky.

A familiar silvery-white flash of sword light swept toward Madara from his left.

With his lower body still severed, Madara had no way to evade.

However, Mihawk’s target was not Madara’s body.

It was the remaining Truth-Seeking Balls.

The silvery-white blade light swept past Madara and pierced two of the three Truth-Seeking Balls floating on his left.

Whoosh!

Having learned from his previous mistake, Mihawk immediately disappeared after completing the attack.

Before Madara could retaliate, an immensely powerful gravitational force seized his body and dragged him upward.

Hinata soared into the sky, pulling Madara after her while keeping ahead of the pursuing Limbo shadow.

An ominous feeling rose within Madara.

“Their coordination is far too precise.”

The regeneration granted by his Six Paths body prevented him from suffering any lasting injuries, but the uneasy feeling in his heart continued to grow.

What were they planning next?

Boom!

After dragging Madara a considerable distance into the air, Hinata abruptly reversed the gravitational force into an overwhelming repulsive force.

Madara was blasted toward the ground at an even greater speed.

Hinata raised her other hand, and three green orbs gathered above her palm.

“Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion!”

A cylindrical beam of golden light erupted downward.

At the same moment, Mihawk appeared on the ground beneath Madara. He lowered his body and assumed an iai stance, one hand gripping Nemesis while the other rested near its hilt.

“Dark Night!”

Mihawk drew his sword.

A colossal dark-red crescent spanning dozens of meters tore toward the sky.

The dazzling dark-red light illuminated the darkness before dawn. Even the Allied Shinobi Forces several miles away could clearly see the golden and dark-red attacks converging from opposite directions.

Caught between the two attacks, Madara transformed his final Truth-Seeking Ball into a black shell around his body.

That was precisely what Mihawk and Hinata had been aiming for.