Dojutsu: Eight Thousand Spears
A sudden upheaval erupted on the battlefield. Countless Hidden Cloud ninjas and White Zetsu clones were horrified to discover a blue chakra aura appearing around them.
"What's happening?!"
"Ah… no, my chakra!"
"My chakra is being drained rapidly. It must be because of this mark on the back of my hand…"
Panic swept across the battlefield as countless Cloud ninjas screamed in terror. Even those with reincarnated bodies could feel it.
Some, upon seeing the mark that was draining their chakra, brutally severed their arms.
"Hahaha, if I can't remove this mark, then I'll just cut it off. Let's see how you—ah! Impossible! Why is it still draining…"
All over the vast battlefield, visible streams of chakra turned into rays of light. At this moment, Hikari appeared directly in front of Shirou.
"Obito, I told you—the war is only just beginning. The warm-up is over."
As he clasped hands, he felt an immense surge of terrifying chakra pouring into his body. Shirou smiled, gazing at Obito atop the Ten-Tails in the distance.
Now, this overwhelming chakra wasn't merely restoring his own. The chakra lost in past battles was insignificant compared to the vast amount now flooding into him.
With the chakra of over a hundred thousand ninjas—nearly half the shinobi world's chakra—pouring into him, the Mangekyō patterns in his eyes spun rapidly.
The black rings of the Rinnegan, the patterns of the Mangekyō, and a pale blue glow quickly merged under this power.
The massive force within him was evolving and fusing at an accelerated rate.
"Impossible! What kind of dojutsu is this?!"
As the blue chakra of hundreds of thousands flashed across the battlefield, countless ninjas were shocked.
Even the densest among them now understood: this mysterious Uchiha with the Mangekyō Sharingan possessed a terrifying jutsu.
"My dojutsu, Eight Thousand Spears! As long as a person is marked, I can control their mind and chakra at any distance through the connection. I can even send the chakra to myself or Lord Shirou, regardless of distance."
With her dojutsu revealed, Hikari looked coldly at her enemies and the stunned Mikoto and others, calmly declaring her ability.
The crowd gasped in shock at the terror of this dojutsu.
"Such a terrifying dojutsu!"
Even Kakashi was shocked as he looked at the mark on the back of his hand. Beside him, Minato had the same mark, but both quickly analyzed the situation with cool heads.
"No matter how powerful the dojutsu, its effect still depends on the user's strength. This terrifying dojutsu, or rather its host, can't cover the entire shinobi world, nor can it distinguish targets with enough precision yet."
Images flashed through Kakashi's mind. If the dojutsu were truly that strong, the shinobi world would already have been unified.
Just like Kakashi, Minato, and many other sharp ninjas realized:
Hikari's power could cover this battlefield, and even the marking-based genjutsu was indiscriminate.
"No! Impossible!"
At this moment, far away atop the Ten-Tails, Obito stared in disbelief at the scene before him: a hundred thousand White Zetsu, over thirty thousand Cloud ninjas, and more than fifty thousand forces from the shinobi world's great clans and nobles—
Now, each one had their chakra drained, collapsing like boneless shrimp, weakly begging.
Meanwhile, Shirou radiated a terrifying aura, infuriating Obito.
"No one can stop me! Give Rin back to me!"
With Obito's furious roar, the Ten-Tails began to form an enormous Tailed Beast Ball in its mouth.
"Not good! Everyone, scatter! This is no longer a battle we can participate in!"
"Get out of the way—even the shockwave from that thing could kill us all!"
As the terrifying Tailed Beast Ball formed, countless ninjas panicked at the overwhelming aura of destruction.
Tsunade and others shouted orders, calmly directing the Allied Shinobi Forces to disperse.
As for those on the battlefield who had been drained of chakra and now lay weak and helpless, no one spared them a glance.
Seeing this, Minato shouted urgently:
"Everyone, get ready to change the Tailed Beast Ball's trajectory! The chakra in this one is too much—I can't teleport it!"
The Flying Thunder God was powerful, but it had its limits.
For example, moving a Tailed Beast Ball—a pure mass of chakra. The more chakra it contains, the more chakra it consumes to teleport it.
Simply put, once the chakra reaches a certain level, it becomes impossibly heavy.
The Ten-Tails' Tailed Beast Ball was not something Minato could easily move.
"Die!"
With a ferocious roar, Obito hurled the monstrous Tailed Beast Ball.
At the moment of impact, Shirou's face remained calm. He raised his hand and muttered softly:
"As expected of the Ten-Tails' Tailed Beast Ball. Even the Gunbai probably can't deflect this. I wonder how powerful it is…"
In the next instant, a black spatial tunnel opened—its exit right in front of the Ten-Tails.
Obito's eyes widened in shock: "No!"
There was no time to react. The Tailed Beast Ball instantly vanished into the black hole and, in the next moment, exploded right in front of the Ten-Tails.
Boom!
A dazzling white flash lit up the world like day, and a terrifying shockwave swept the land. Countless ninjas stared in horror.
"So scary!"
"If that thing landed near us, we'd all be dead!"
In that instant, under Shirou's Mangekyō, a spatial rift had opened, swallowing the Tailed Beast Ball and ejecting it right in front of Obito and the Ten-Tails.
It all happened in a blink—the Tailed Beast Ball launched, then exploded in front of the Ten-Tails, far too quickly for anyone to react.
The explosion's shockwave was devastating, sending rocks flying like a hurricane.
Even though most ninja had fled the center of the battlefield, the direction of the explosion was toward the Hidden Cloud, and the aftershocks caused heavy casualties there.
"Tsunade!"
"Understood!"
Before the shockwaves had even dissipated, Hashirama shouted, and he and his granddaughter Tsunade teamed up, clapping their hands together.
Sage Art: Gate of the Great God!
This was the greatest sealing technique of the First Hokage and his granddaughter.
Suddenly, countless red torii gates descended from the sky.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Dense red torii rained down, crashing into the smoke and dust where cries of agony could be heard.
As the powerful sealing technique took effect, silhouettes were revealed.
Obito was left in a sorry state, half his body gone, coughing up blood as he glared madly at Shirou.
"I won't fail! I've come this far—I will create a world where Rin exists! No one can stop me!"
With Obito's furious roar, the Ten-Tails began to twist and distort.
Previously suppressed by the Gate of the Great God, the sudden change made Madara, watching from afar, smirk with disdain.
"Trying to become the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki ahead of me? Fine, let me see what the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki can do. I hope you can withstand its will!"
On the battlefield, the Ten-Tails' massive body began to visibly twist and disappear, actually being absorbed into Obito.
He screamed in agony.
"No! No one can stop me! I will create the perfect world with Rin!"
With a mighty roar from the Ten-Tails, a giant mass of flesh appeared, rapidly turning white before everyone's eyes.
"What's happening?! Is the Ten-Tails changing again?!"
"No! That aura—Obito has sealed the Ten-Tails inside himself!"
"The Ten-Tails!"
The white sphere floating in the air shattered, revealing Obito in his transformed state, casually snapping off a scale.
Sage of Six Paths Obito Appears!
With five scales sprouting from his back, Obito's body was deathly white. He gazed coldly at everyone, not yet in full control of the Ten-Tails, so the Sage of Six Paths' robes hadn't appeared.
Even so, his presence was overwhelmingly terrifying.
Far away, Madara smirked at the scene.
"Ten-Tails' jinchūriki… looks interesting."
Madara's gaze then turned to Shirou, curiosity in his eyes.
"Uchiha Shirou, I'm curious—how will you deal with Obito now that he has the Sage of Six Paths' power?"
Shirou, too, was changing internally. With nearly half the shinobi world's chakra inside him, his power was rapidly evolving.
Faced with Madara's curiosity, Shirou grinned with long-lost fighting spirit.
"After waiting so long, it's finally here."
Madara's expression changed, then turned to one of delight.
"Were you scheming for the Ten-Tails all along, or do you have another plan?!"
Madara admired Shirou's ambition, seeing his past self in him.
The stronger Shirou became, the more excited Madara got—even hoping Shirou would defeat him, considering him the perfect successor.
"I've read the Uchiha Stone Tablet too, and my eyes see the same things as yours."
Shirou glanced at Madara and laughed:
"I suppose you planned to revive yourself using the Rinnegan transplanted into Nagato, so you could carry out your Infinite Tsukuyomi scheme."
"You're using Obito to observe the process of becoming the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki; once confirmed, you planned to control Obito and use the Rinne Rebirth to revive yourself."
Shirou could only praise Madara's plan from the original story—a scheme spanning nearly a century of shinobi history, though it ultimately failed due to a hasty end.
"It's an impressive plan. Your foresight surpasses even the First Hokage's, but your Infinite Tsukuyomi at the end drags the whole thing down."
Speaking of Infinite Tsukuyomi, Shirou's tone turned disparaging, piquing Madara's interest.
"Tell me your thoughts. I've never looked down on your ambitions for peace."
Madara exuded dominance, never angered by criticism. Shirou lightly nodded and shook his head:
"As for Infinite Tsukuyomi, I once enacted a similar plan during the war. In a war-torn enemy region, I used genjutsu to give the suffering people a dreamlike peace—like a miniature Infinite Tsukuyomi."
"At first, it was a success. They forgot their pain, reunited with their families in the illusion, but time outside kept moving…"
Shirou's expression grew heavy, recalling the past.
"As I wrote in my notes, those living in the illusion indeed forgot their suffering, but outside, time moved on…"
Madara's expression also darkened as Shirou continued gravely:
"Time! Even the Sage of Six Paths couldn't resist the erosion of time. Can Infinite Tsukuyomi? Even if the caster is immortal, what about the rest of the world? In a hundred years, the world would be a dead wasteland. Your so-called peace plan would become an apocalypse after a beautiful dream!"
Madara, far from angered, smiled in admiration.
"Well said! But you seem to forget—inside the dream world, the bodies outside can still be controlled to propagate life, the cycle continues within Infinite Tsukuyomi…"
Madara excitedly described his plan: an endless cycle of desires fulfilled, life continuing outside, all within the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
"And what about after you die?"
Shirou's light words made Madara pause, and then fall silent.
"As you said, even the Sage of Six Paths couldn't defeat time. When you die, will the next generation possess your absolute power?"
Both plans shared one fatal flaw: the ravages of time.
Madara looked at Shirou with a sense of camaraderie—truly a worthy successor.
There had never been a perfect plan for peace—they were all feeling their way forward.
"I will not die!"
But Shirou's calm declaration stunned Madara—eternal life?
"Even the soul can die! There are too many secrets in this world. If this world is too small, there's always the stars!"
Shirou looked up at the sky, his faith unwavering. The Ōtsutsuki clan, after all, possessed extraordinary longevity.
Now, he did too, and he believed one day he would achieve true immortality.