Naruto: Cthulhu: Ch. 248

A thick green mist surged wildly across the surface of the lake. In the blink of an eye, the once-bright lake was completely shrouded in this dense green fog.

But that wasn't all—on the surface of the lake, one grotesque, emerald-green monster after another slowly crawled up from the water. These creatures looked like crude lifeforms from a time when the world was still in its primal state. Their eyes bulged outward, their heavy lips turned out so much they couldn't close, and their ears were shaped bizarrely.

What's more, their bodies were the exact same green as the mist rising off the lake, making it hard not to suspect that these hideous creatures were the very source of the eerie fog.

"What the hell are these things?!" Standing on the back of a bird, Deidara looked around the lake in panic. In just a matter of seconds, at least a hundred of these monsters had crawled out from beneath the water and were slowly approaching them.

Compared to Deidara's unfiltered panic, Obito—standing calmly on the surface of the lake—was much more composed.

Normally, given the silly persona he kept up within Akatsuki, Obito would be screaming and running away by now, begging Deidara for help like some fragile coward. But this time, he just froze in place, staring blankly, doing nothing.

It wasn't that he'd forgotten his act—it was just that the moment these things appeared, they completely absorbed all his thoughts. He even forgot to maintain his disguise.

Before coming to capture the Three-Tails, Obito had done his homework thoroughly to make sure nothing went wrong. But even with all that preparation, he hadn't expected this.

It was said that the Three-Tails had the ability to create mist that induced hallucinations in anyone who entered it.

Could these be illusions created by the Three-Tails?

But how could it create hallucinations this elaborate? These monsters didn't seem like illusions—they looked real!

"Whatever the hell you things are, let me show you the power of my art!" With the mouths on his palms, Deidara quickly crafted a swarm of explosive clay spiders, then hurled them at the terrifying creatures.

"Hah!" Just as Deidara raised his hand in a seal, Obito—his keen Sharingan noticing something—saw what was really happening.

The moment Deidara's clay spiders landed, they passed right through the monsters' bodies and hit the surface of the lake beneath them.

In other words, the monsters weren't physically real. Deidara's explosions wouldn't work on them.

"Wait!" Realizing this, Obito forgot to change his voice and shouted in his true tone, urgently trying to stop Deidara.

But it was already too late. With Deidara's shout, a powerful explosion erupted once more from the lake—stronger than the one he'd used earlier to try to awaken the Three-Tails. Water blasted over ten meters into the air.

"Ha! Now you've tasted the power of my art! I'll blast you all to the heavens!" Deidara yelled excitedly from atop his bird, but Obito on the ground was far from optimistic.

That idiot... These things aren't even real. His explosions won't do anything.

But then what are they?

When Obito had first suspected these might be hallucinations created by the Three-Tails, he immediately disrupted his chakra and tried the standard method for breaking illusions. But the green monsters hadn't disappeared.

So, odds were high they weren't illusions.

Sure enough, as the blast sent the lake water soaring and it came crashing back down, the monsters reappeared through the steam and spray.

"No way! My art... it didn't..." Deidara was completely dumbfounded by what he saw. For all the antics of Obito's Tobi persona, Deidara was actually the biggest clown in the whole organization.

But now, after two massive explosions, they had finally awakened something that had been slumbering deep within the lake.

Above the lake, still shrouded in green mist, a whirlpool began to form in the center of the water.

And within that whirlpool, a long, narrow shadow moved.

The tip of the shadow was slightly thicker, but its end was much more slender—looking distinctly like a tail.

"What is that?!" Standing on the lake's surface, Obito also noticed the whirlpool in the distance. Without hesitation, he jumped onto the bird and, using his real voice, ordered, "Get us up there, now!"

As the duo rapidly ascended into the sky, the massive figure finally emerged fully from the surface of the lake.

ROAR! A gigantic water lizard rose from the lake.

Its back was lined with spines, and its entire body was covered in blue-green, metallic-shimmering scales. Its enormous size was completely comparable to that of a tailed beast!

The moment they laid eyes on the mighty water lizard, both Deidara and Obito were struck speechless.

"Is that the Three-Tails? But how—"

Compared to Deidara, who was in shock, Obito—standing behind him—remained more rational. Judging by the number of tails, he immediately realized this wasn't the Three-Tails.

"The Three-Tails should have three tails. But this monster only has one. Also, the Three-Tails is supposed to resemble a giant turtle. But this isn't a turtle at all—it's a giant lizard."

Although Obito calmly pointed out these facts, his inner thoughts were anything but composed. He had even forgotten to speak in his usual goofy Tobi voice and had been talking in his real tone all along.

That alone showed just how fully his attention had been consumed by the incomprehensible creature before them.

What the hell is going on?

Zetsu's intel said the Three-Tails was revived in this lake—so why wasn't the monster in the lake the Three-Tails?

Was the intel wrong?

Impossible. The intel never fails.

Could the Three-Tails have mutated during the resurrection process?

Obito squinted through the hole in his mask, using his Sharingan to focus—and what he saw shocked him to the core.

No! This is impossible!

There wasn't even a trace of chakra in this creature—how could it be a tailed beast?! It shouldn't even exist in this world!

Though Deidara's heart was already gripped by shock and fear, his fanatical belief in "art" kept him from giving up the fight.

"Whatever it is, it's going to get a taste of my art!"

From atop his bird, Deidara shouted defiantly, reaching his long-mouthed hand into his clay pouch to create more explosive clay bombs.

But Obito, beside him, suddenly gave a firm order: "That thing's not a tailed beast. Fighting it is pointless."

"Leave this place, Deidara."

"Why should I listen to you? I'll settle this with my art!"

Deidara still wanted to stay and fight—but when he looked back at Obito, he caught sight of something through the hole in the mask: an eye that sent a chill through his soul.

"F-Fine…" Deidara controlled the clay bird to soar across the sky above the lake, trying to quickly fly out of the area covered by the green mist.

But by that point, Bokrug's jewel-like yellow-green eyes had already locked onto the flying target in the sky.

At the center of its glowing gaze was none other than Deidara and Obito, riding the clay bird as they tried to escape the lake.

In the next moment, both of them—and the bird—vanished from the air.

They were still flying through the air. Just a moment ago, their surroundings were enveloped in thick, green mist—but in the next instant, the familiar view vanished, and they suddenly found themselves in an entirely unfamiliar place.

Looking around, they saw that the sky above was made up of the vast, star-filled depths of the universe.

It was like the starry night sky of summer, except now, they were much closer to those stars than when observing from the ground.

Neither Obito nor Deidara had ever experienced anything like this before.

And beneath them was a city.

It was surrounded by magnificent marble walls, and its gates on all four sides were cast from bronze.

Within the city, fifty streets ran vertically and horizontally, intersecting and connecting to the outer gates.

There were two types of roads: wide avenues paved with granite, and narrower paths made of onyx.

All the homes in the city were built using glazed tiles and chalcedony. Each residence had a walled courtyard and pools as clear as crystal.

The construction techniques used in this city were like nothing Deidara and Obito had ever seen. Even in the prosperous Konoha, they had never encountered a city or gardens as dreamlike as these.

Even people like Deidara and Obito—who normally had no interest in architecture—couldn't help but marvel at the radiant domes that crowned each building.

At the very center of the city stood a palace-like structure that drew the eye more than anything else.

Its dome soared high into the sky, and the outer walls were adorned with grand murals depicting scenes like thousands of horses galloping in formation. Various art galleries and a circular coliseum were also enclosed within the palace's grounds.

The palace alone was larger than the entire Konoha—let alone the rest of this massive city!

The city also boasted seventeen towering spires, beneath which stood majestic, square-shaped temples that rivaled the palace in grandeur.

The opulence of this mysterious city was beyond imagination. One could boldly speculate that the amount of materials and time required to construct it far exceeded that of all five great ninja villages combined!

This was a city so extraordinary, its existence would be unimaginable even in a dream!

After gazing down in awe at the city below for a long time, Deidara and Obito finally began to recover from their initial shock.

"Where... are we?" Deidara's voice was unsteady now, because the sheer grandeur of the city before them was far beyond what anyone from the shinobi world could comprehend.

Compared to this lavish city, Iwa where Deidara had spent over a decade felt like nothing more than a stable.

Obito, on the other hand, remained relatively calm. After quieting his thoughts, he turned his gaze toward the edge of the city—and immediately noticed something unusual.

The edge of the city was not solid ground, as one would expect, but more of the same cosmic void.

This instantly reminded Obito of one nearly impossible, yet plausible explanation.

They were no longer in the familiar world of the shinobi—but in a different space-time dimension.

Space-time ninjutsu was not unfamiliar to Obito—in fact, it was his specialty.

Space-time ninjutsu allowed objects to instantly cross vast distances, or even be absorbed into another dimension separate from the present world.

A common example would be summoning techniques, which used summoning scrolls to create a small pocket dimension to store items, allowing them to be summoned when needed.

And it wasn't just inanimate objects—living beings could also be stored in these alternate dimensions, though doing so was much more difficult and could only be achieved by powerful shinobi. Otherwise, there was no guarantee the summoned subject would still be alive.

But for Obito, this was a trivial matter. Not only could he freely enter his own Mangekyō Sharingan space, but he could also absorb others into it through physical contact.

Obito's eye-space was a realm of darkness, filled with countless rectangular pillars suspended in the void.

This kind of alternate space-time realm operated under completely different rules from the physical world—its very laws defied real-world physics.

After careful thought, Obito began to feel that the space of his Sharingan was almost identical to the space he and Deidara were now in!

This wasn't the real world.

At that moment, Deidara spoke up in confusion, "Could this be a genjutsu? Are we just seeing illusions?"

The moment the words left Deidara's mouth, Obito immediately denied it.

"No. This isn't an illusion—it's real."

"This must be a different space-time dimension, separate from the real world. We were just pulled into it."

"What?! Another space-time dimension? What are you talking about?"

Naturally, Deidara's brain couldn't quite keep up with what Obito was saying. After all, a user of such advanced space-time ninjutsu like Obito was among the rarest in the entire shinobi world.

But Obito had no interest in explaining it to Deidara at the moment. What concerned him more was figuring out when they were absorbed into this space—and what exactly this city was.

After carefully retracing his thoughts, Obito recalled that he had ordered Deidara to fly them away on the clay bird.

Then, just as they were flying through the green mist, they had suddenly arrived in this strange world—almost without warning.

In other words, it must have been at that moment that they were absorbed into this alternate space.

But who—or what—had done it?

At the time, other than himself and Deidara, there had only been—

Obito's eyes sharpened—he had found the answer.

It was that lizard—it had pulled both him and Deidara into this dimension!

But how could it do something like that when it didn't even have chakra?

This question completely exceeded Obito's understanding, so he immediately turned to the next puzzle.

What exactly was this city?

A city like this could not possibly exist in the void, nor could it spontaneously appear in such a barren space-time dimension.

Even the rectangular pillars in Obito's Sharingan dimension had to be pulled in from the real world just so he could have a place to stand.

So this city must have been absorbed from the real world by that lizard too?

That explanation seemed to make sense.

But if such a grand city had truly existed in the shinobi world, Obito couldn't believe he'd never heard of it.

And yet… he really had no clue where this place came from.

What's more shocking—the lizard was somehow able to absorb an entire city of this scale.

Just the central palace alone was larger than the entire Konoha! The city as a whole was about the size of a small country!

What kind of creature was this lizard, that it could absorb an entire nation into another space-time dimension?

Obito couldn't help but compare. In terms of space-time ability, his own mastery was like a flickering candle compared to the brilliance of the full moon.

If he had that kind of power, destroying Konoha would only take a single thought.

As Obito trembled inwardly at the realization, Deidara suddenly shouted.

"Ah!"

Obito looked down—and saw that both of them had somehow drifted off the clay bird they had been riding. The bird was now flying ahead on its own.

And yet, neither of them fell into the city below. Instead, they were slowly descending, almost floating.

"It seems the gravity here is very weak," Obito analyzed calmly.

But just then, Deidara squinted toward the distant sky. After staring for a while, he said hesitantly, "What's that?"

Obito followed the direction of Deidara's pointing finger—and saw it.

In the not-so-distant cosmic void, a black sphere was slowly growing larger in their field of vision.

The sphere was perfectly round, pitch black, and faintly glowing with a purplish hue. It was rapidly closing in on the city.

"This is…"

Suddenly, Obito realized what it was.

A Tailed Beast Ball!