Chapter 145 (Patreon)

“Boom!”

The jet-black lightning crashed down upon Nagato in the distance.

Yet a moment before it struck, Nagato’s presence vanished without a trace.

Yujiro’s eyes narrowed slightly. A familiar figure had appeared before him.

A man wearing an orange mask.

Uchiha Obito.

At the last possible instant, Obito had used Kamui to pull the dying Nagato out of danger.

“You really are strong,” Obito said coldly. “After all these years, you’ve become even more powerful than before.”

Yujiro ignored his words and calmly studied him instead.

Obito’s chakra was strange. One moment, it flowed steadily; the next, it surged with barely restrained violence.

It seemed something drastic had happened to his body.

“Wood Release: Cutting Technique!”

Seeing Yujiro dismiss him without a word, Obito flew into a rage. His hands blurred through a series of seals before he unleashed Wood Release.

Sharp wooden branches erupted across the entire mountaintop.

They twisted and multiplied without end, transforming the surrounding area into a forest of deadly spikes.

Yujiro leaped into the air and manipulated gravity to remain suspended above them.

He looked down at the destruction below, his expression unchanged.

Obito had grown far stronger than before.

His power was already approaching the very peak of the Kage level. With one more breakthrough, he might even step into a realm beyond it.

However, judging from the way his chakra alternated between calm and violent, Yujiro could tell that this sudden increase in strength had not come from training.

“Orochimaru,” Yujiro muttered with an amused laugh.

That snake truly lived up to his reputation. He had even managed to tamper with the secret leader operating behind the Akatsuki.

Yujiro was beginning to look forward to seeing what else Orochimaru had prepared.

“Wood Release: Bursting Roots!”

Obito launched another attack.

Enormous roots tore through the earth and surged toward Yujiro, growing at a terrifying rate as they climbed into the sky.

Yujiro showed no urgency. He casually swept one hand through the air, creating a wind blade that sliced cleanly through every approaching root.

He waited for Obito’s next attack.

Then he waited a little longer.

When nothing impressive followed, Yujiro’s expression turned strange.

Was that all?

Even after being strengthened, Obito’s Wood Release was still this weak?

He had not mastered a single one of the First Hokage’s truly powerful techniques. Even his strongest Wood Release attack could barely be considered an S-rank jutsu.

“You call that Wood Release?” Yujiro sighed softly. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”

His gaze locked onto Obito below.

“I’ll show you what real Wood Release looks like.”

Yujiro brought his hands together.

“Wood Release: Wood Dragon Jutsu!”

The moment his voice fell, a thunderous roar shook the mountain.

The ground split apart as an enormous wooden dragon burst from beneath the earth. Its massive body rose into the sky, blotting out the sunlight and casting a vast shadow across the battlefield.

The dragon hovered beneath Yujiro’s feet, silently awaiting his command.

Such a tremendous disturbance naturally caught the attention of everyone fighting in the distance.

The battle had already quieted considerably after the defeat of the Deva Path. Now, the moment that colossal wooden dragon appeared, everyone stopped at once.

Kakuzu stared at it in horror.

“Isn’t that... the First Hokage’s Wood Dragon?!”

“That’s right.” A hint of pride appeared on Minato’s face. “Yujiro has already mastered Wood Release.”

“And I have no doubt that he’ll surpass the First Hokage with it.”

Minato had never personally witnessed Yujiro using Wood Release before, yet he possessed absolute faith in his strength.

After all, Yujiro was a man who had created one miracle after another.

Kakuzu was even more stunned after hearing Minato’s words.

His Wood Release might surpass the First Hokage’s?

A moment later, Kakuzu felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

Fortunately, he had agreed to join Yujiro’s side.

Otherwise, his corpse might already have been rotting in some forgotten corner of the wilderness.

He had no way to counter Yujiro’s strange and unpredictable control over gravity. If he also had to face Wood Release on this scale, there could only be one outcome.

Death.

Both the Akatsuki members and Konoha’s forces had stopped fighting.

Was there even any reason to continue?

Their leader, Pain, had already been beaten to the brink of death, and every one of them had witnessed it.

For now, all they could do was remain where they were and quietly await the outcome of the distant battle.

High above the mountain, Yujiro looked down at the wooden dragon and nodded in satisfaction.

Its size was acceptable. It was even slightly larger than the one Senju Hashirama had once created.

Now he only needed to test its power.

At Yujiro’s command, the wooden dragon opened its jaws and surged toward Obito on the mountaintop.

“Roar!”

Its bellow rolled across the battlefield like thunder as its enormous body descended with overwhelming force.

“Damn it! How can Yujiro use Wood Release?!”

Obito repeatedly activated Kamui, allowing the wooden dragon’s attacks to pass through his intangible body.

He had never received any information suggesting that Yujiro possessed Wood Release.

Had he known, he would never have been so confident when planning this operation.

Obito had come determined to seize the Nine-Tails.

According to his plan, he would keep Yujiro occupied while the Deva Path sealed the Nine-Tails. Once that was done, Obito would use his Mangekyō Sharingan to place the beast under his control.

Afterward, he intended to use Kamui to capture the Two-Tails without anyone noticing.

The plan should have been flawless.

Yujiro’s strength had destroyed everything.

In truth, however, Obito had overestimated himself from the very beginning.

The Hashirama cells within his body might have been strengthened, greatly increasing both his physical power and the abilities of his Mangekyō Sharingan, but Yujiro was far from Konoha’s only powerful fighter.

The Uchiha clan alone possessed three pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan.

That meant three Susanoo.

Combined with Itachi and Shisui’s terrifying genjutsu, defeating the other Akatsuki members would hardly be difficult.

And beyond them, Konoha still had the complete Nine-Tails on its side.

Obito had truly allowed Orochimaru to lead him into disaster.

“Wood Release: Wood Golem Jutsu!”

Yujiro brought his hands together again and released another powerful Wood Release technique.

Although he had trained in Wood Release for some time, he had rarely found an opportunity to use it in actual battle.

Obito happened to be the perfect opponent for testing his techniques.

“Wood Release: Hotei Technique!”

Gigantic wooden hands erupted from the earth and slammed down one after another.

“Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!”

Countless trees burst from the ground with deafening crashes, spreading across the mountain in a matter of seconds.

Yujiro floated leisurely in the sky, releasing one ninjutsu after another.

Below him, Obito fled through the expanding forest, relying on Kamui again and again to avoid or nullify the attacks.

The difference between them could not have been more obvious.

“Wood Release: Deep Forest Bloom!”

The forest trembled as enormous flowers began to bloom among the trees.

Ten minutes later, Obito’s furious shout erupted from below.

“Yujiro! Are you using me to practice your techniques again, just like last time?!”

He had spent the entire ten minutes fleeing.

Again and again, Obito had searched for an opening to counterattack. Yet whenever an opportunity finally appeared, Yujiro would casually stop him with another newly unleashed jutsu.

Only now did Obito fully realize that Yujiro had been treating him like a training dummy from the beginning.

“How should I answer that?”

Yujiro looked down at him with a faint, teasing smile.

“All I can say is that I’m impressed you finally noticed. As expected of the man secretly pulling the Akatsuki’s strings.”