Chapter 56.4- Gamer of the Desert

Madara chased after him. His men tor fought oil a way Obito had never experiencesd in his life. He was being thoroughly overwhelmed. Whatever he tried failed as Madara dismantled his taijutsu step by step. It felt like fighting Kakashi again. Not entirely. Kakashi was slower. Kakashi liked to lord his superiority over him so he fought much slower and took him apart step by step to show the gap between them. Madara didn’t seem to care about anything like that. He just fought. He was better than Obito. Much like kakashi was, but instead of taking things slowly to drive that point across, he pounded the lesson into Obito’s head with quick savagery.

Obito dodged out of the way of a punch only to take a vicious backhand to the side of his face. He tried to kick him to gain distance but Madara pushed against his kick, forcing Obito’s leg back to the floor with pure strengrth and then punched Obito in the head again. Half his body was white Zetsu so he healed quickly. Quicker than everyone he’d ever see, but with taijutsu alone, it felt like Madara was going to overload his healing factor. How annoying. He jumped backwards, barely avoiding a punch that threatened to take his head off only for him to freeze suddenly. There was a kunai in his neck. Genjutsu. He flared his chakra, and the Madara he’d been fighting disappeared in place of another who was standing right in front of him and had a kunai driven into his neck. He tried to back off, gain distance to heal, but Madara did not allow it. He stepped even closer, driving the kunai even deeper and completely severing Obito’s head from his body.

He took a deep breath. That was a close one. He was lucky he’d had that spare sharingan in his skull. Madara’s eyes panned over to his new position, and he did not look impressed. No one there seemed even slightly surprised. Kabuto, the damn bastard, just stood there watching with a smile on his face. “Just to drive home how outmatched you are, let me show you something” The bastard said, and formed the ram seal.

Before him, Madara began to swell with telltale purple chakra. Sussano’o. The Spectre of Death. Obito saw his life flash before his eyes as the top half of a Sussano’o body formed before him. He tried his best. Running forward, trusting that Madara would not be able to form the legs in such a tiny cave and trying to use his mobility to his advantage. It was pointless. The chakra construct brought its hands together for a second, and when it separated them, it was with several discs in its hands. They tore through Obito’s body, moving too quickly for even he to react.

Again he returned. He could not see a thing. Blind in both eyes. He tried to sense his surroundings, but it was pointless as he felt a blade pass straight through his chest. “Rin” He muttered to himself as he felt the breath leave him. He’d failed her again.

XXXXXXXXXX

The barrier opened and both he and Nagato stood before each other once again. Except this time, Nagato had the numbers advantage with Karin by his side.

“Are you going to send her away? Or is her blood going to be on your head?” He asked, pointing dark sister right at her. It was not an idle threat. The woman had already cost him victory once before and if it came down to it, he’d kill her without blinking an eye. Spilling ‘innocent’ Uzumaki blood was not what he had in mind when this fight started, but if that had to be the way of things then that was that.

“Karin” Nagato said, and she nodded before fleeing south in a body flicker. He tracked her until he was sure that she’d retreated a respectable distance. I considered briefly using her as a hostage but removed the thought from my mind as quickly as it had entered. Nagato was not the type to care about hostages. I knew his ilk.

“Are you ready to dance again?” I asked, taking my stance. With time to stockpile even more senjutsu chakra and think things through, I had quite a plan ready for him.

He raised his hand, and I felt the irresistible force as it tossed me and everything behind me backwards. That body dissolved in smoke, revealing itself as a clone as I jumped out of the ground before him and attempted to shorten his height by a head. I left with only a few strands as he ducked underneath the attack. From that position, his hair shifted form to turn into series of blades that I had to dive backwards to dodge.

Missile arm came back and he took pleasure in firing the entire payload right at me. Unable to retreat in time, I forced my sand to cover me, amplifying its density by several orders of magnitude. The missiles hit and failed to even knock loose even a single grain of sand. I brought the shield down, allowing the sand to part around my form as I jumped right at him with dark sister raised. Another almighty push sent the clone flying. I appeared at the other end of the wasteland we battled within and tossed my completed jutsu right at him. “Wind Release: Rasenshuriken”. He turned to it and raised his arms to use Gakido’s absorption ability.

It worked, but I body flickered to right behind him and prepared to cleave head from shoulders with dark sister. Another hand formed from his shoulder with a black rod in its grip and blocked my sword cold. “There’s no way you’re getting any leverage from that position” I commented, displeased by the clear unfairness of the situation. He was just clearly cheating at this point.

Still, we were close to each other, and he hadn’t forced me away yet. I risked removing my right hand from dark sister and moved to place it on him. He noticed what I was doing and formed another hand out of his back to grab mine by the wrist. I forced through, pushing sage enhanced strength to the maximum as I strained to complete the movement. Just one seal. I just needed one seal on him, and it would be over.

A/N; Three steps towards the end.