A cold, determined resolve settled over Miria. The raw, overwhelming power of Tailed Beast Mode would quickly burn her out, a blunt instrument against foes of Tobi's caliber. No. This fight wouldn't be won by brute force. It would be won by her unique advantage: knowledge. Her mind, clear and sharp, locked onto the incoming threat.
I won't activate Tailed Beast Mode, she affirmed internally, the thought resonating with a newfound control over Isobu's chakra. I will win this fight with my mind.
Deidara's smaller, more precise explosive spiders, gleaming menacingly in the dim light, streaked towards her. Miria didn't flinch. Her [Observer's Log] provided instant tactical data: fuse timings, blast radii, Deidara's favored attack patterns. She saw not just the spiders, but the invisible lines of their trajectory, the precise moment of their detonation.
With a sudden, almost imperceptible burst of chakra-enhanced speed, Miria dodged, a fluid, agile movement that defied her recent agony. One spider detonated where her head had been a split second before, another where her hip had been, leaving only small, harmless puffs of smoke against the rock. It was an evasion born of pre-cognition, not raw power.
"What?! She moved, yeah!" Deidara roared, his eyes widening in disbelief. His art had missed.
Miria didn't waste the moment. As Deidara prepared to mold more clay, she channeled Isobu's chakra. It was a stable, controlled flow now, not the uncontrolled torrent of TBM. Her hands didn't even need to form seals. The vast lake around them responded to the latent, water-affinity of the Three-Tails.
With a surge of will, Miria commanded the water. A thin, yet incredibly dense wall of water erupted from the lake directly in front of Deidara, cutting off his line of sight and deflecting his next volley of clay before he could launch them. It wasn't an explosive wave, but a precise, controlled barrier, imbued with the raw strength of a Bijuu.
"A water jutsu?!" Deidara shrieked, splashing back as the wall formed. "From a Jinchuriki?! That's not supposed to be possible without...!"
Tobi, watching from his perch, finally broke his silence. "Indeed," his voice was cold, an edge of dangerous fascination in it. "She is not merely a vessel. She understands the Bijuu's nature... and mine. This is no longer a simple capture." His eye-hole narrowed, observing Miria's precise, almost graceful movements. He was witnessing a mind, armed with forbidden knowledge, leveraging a power it had only just gained. This wasn't a fight of brute force. It was a chess match.
Miria held the water wall, her breath coming in controlled gasps. She had demonstrated not raw power, but terrifying cunning. She had Isobu's immense chakra, now flowing steadily within her, ready to be molded, not into a roaring beast, but into precise, intelligent counters. She was no longer just surviving. She was fighting, relying purely on the knowledge that had brought her here.
Miria held the water wall, her gaze piercing through the rising mist. The raw, desperate laugh had vanished, replaced by an unnerving stillness. Her face, pale and streaked with moisture, was utterly devoid of emotion, a mask of cold, unyielding resolve. With Isobu's power now flowing with chilling control, she stepped forward, her bare feet pressing down not on rock, but directly onto the surface of the churning lake. Her chakra-infused steps defied gravity, allowing her to stand perfectly still atop the water, an emerald aura subtly outlining her form. This was her domain.
The act was a silent, powerful declaration. She wasn't just a trapped Jinchuriki anymore. She was a master of the very element that surrounded them, a new force rising from the depths. Her cold gaze swept over Deidara, still spluttering behind the water wall, then fixed on Tobi. There was no fear, no hesitation. Only the quiet, calculating confidence of a predator.
Deidara, seeing her stand effortlessly on the water, let out a frustrated growl. "She's just showing off now, yeah?! Get her, Tobi!"
Tobi's silence was more chilling than any shout. He watched Miria, his single eye-hole seeming to bore into her very soul. The calm defiance, the effortless mastery over water, the lack of fear—it all signaled a dangerous shift. She wasn't just reacting; she was projecting, manipulating the environment, staking her claim. This was beyond the scope of a mere captured weapon. This was a sentient threat, armed with unnatural knowledge.
He knew direct, explosive attacks would be countered by her water manipulation, and prolonged engagement would drain his Kamui. He couldn't risk letting her fully develop, or worse, truly cooperate with Isobu to unleash its full power.
Tobi acted. He didn't rush in with a punch or a kick. Instead, the air around him shimmered violently, and his body began to distort. The signature vortex of Kamui didn't just open around him; it seemed to expand slightly, subtly changing its properties. He was preparing to directly warp the very space around Miria, not to pull her into his dimension, but to forcefully tear her away from her newfound control over the water, to destabilize her position, and deny her the environmental advantage. It was a more powerful, aggressive application of Kamui, designed not for capture into his dimension, but for disorientation and immediate physical seizure.
The still surface of the lake beneath Miria's feet began to ripple erratically, not from wind or current, but from an unseen force warping the fabric of reality itself. A growing pressure, like an invisible hand, pressed down on her, threatening to pull her from her stable footing on the water's surface.
Tobi's spatial distortion warped the very water beneath Miria's feet, threatening to rip her from her footing, to deny her the domain she had just claimed. The pressure was immense, an invisible force trying to tear her apart. But Miria, her cold gaze unwavering, saw not just the immediate threat, but the vast, untapped potential of the element that surrounded them. Kisame's ultimate technique, the very embodiment of a water master's power, flashed in her mind.
No. Not just my feet. All of it.
With a fierce, silent scream of effort, Miria plunged her hands into the lake, channeling Isobu's vast chakra. It was a single, immense surge, a raw, demanding draw on the Bijuu's power, pushing beyond the limits of mere control. The entirety of the massive lake surface responded with a deafening roar.
Water rose. Not in a geyser, not in a wall, but in an impossible, towering, churning dome that began to swell upwards, encompassing everything. The lake, seemingly endless moments before, began to lift, forming a colossal, spherical prison of raging water. It mimicked Kisame's Super Exploding Water Shockwave, but on an even grander, more primordial scale, fueled by a genuine Tailed Beast.
"What in the...?! It's a dome! A giant water dome, yeah!" Deidara shrieked, his face paling as the immense wall of water rushed over him, pulling him and his last clay remnants inside. He was a ninja of explosions, and he was being encased in pure water.
Tobi, caught mid-warp, found himself surrounded. The spatial distortion around him flickered violently as the massive mass of water consumed him, pulling him into its suffocating depths. His intangibility, designed for air and solid ground, struggled against the sheer, overwhelming volume of liquid that now enclosed him. He was trapped inside Miria's impromptu watery arena, forced to maintain his Kamui constantly to avoid being crushed.
The sphere completed its formation, a gargantuan, shimmering bubble of roaring water suspended impossibly high in the air, a hundred feet across, trapping Miria, Tobi, and Deidara within its confines. The sounds of the outside world vanished, replaced by the terrifying, deafening roar of churning water and the frantic splashes within.
Miria stood at the center of this new, watery world, her feet still on the turbulent surface that now formed the floor of the dome. Her green aura flickered precariously, her body trembling with the colossal exertion. She was severely drained, but not broken. This was her domain. They were trapped.
Miria watched Tobi's frantic flickering through the churning water, a grim satisfaction settling in her gut. Her body thrummed with the immense, continuous drain of controlling such a vast amount of water, maintaining its crushing pressure and oxygen-depleted state. It was a massive output, yes, but it wasn't the volatile, explosive discharge of a Tailed Beast Bomb. This was a sustained, calculated drain.
Her mind was cool and clear. No flashy jutsu wasting a large amount of chakra on something like a Tailed Beast Bomb. This much is tolerable. The thought resonated with Isobu, who, though still wary, was now fully committed to their shared survival, lending its vast, steady chakra.
[System] confirmed her assessment: BIJUU CHAKRA MODE (LIMITED ACCESS): ACTIVE. CHAKRA DRAIN: HIGH (SUSTAINABLE FOR EXTENDED PERIODS WITH ISOBU'S COOPERATION). BODY STRESS: MODERATE. It wasn't easy, but it was far from the catastrophic burn she'd faced attempting the TBB. She could keep this up. And Tobi couldn't.
Tobi's Next Strategic Thought
Inside the suffocating, churning sphere, Tobi was a blur of constant motion. Each flicker of Kamui was a desperate gasp for life, his body briefly rematerializing in his own dimension to draw air, then phasing back into the brutal water to avoid the crushing force. He couldn't attack, couldn't even think clearly beyond the immediate need to survive this relentless, suffocating assault. His unique Mangekyo Sharingan ability, normally his greatest asset, was now his greatest burden, consuming his chakra at an alarming rate just to prevent drowning.
This cannot continue, Tobi's mind screamed, even as he phased again. He had vastly underestimated this Jinchuriki. Her rapid stabilization, her cunning use of the environment, and now this sustained, chakra-draining technique. She wasn't just powerful; she was intelligent, leveraging Isobu's element perfectly. He was trapped in her domain, bleeding chakra, unable to retaliate.
His next strategic thought was stark: escape the dome. He couldn't afford to fight on her terms. He needed to break free, to regain solid ground, and confront her where his spatial jutsu could be used offensively, not just defensively. He would have to use a more significant burst of Kamui to distort the entire section of the water dome around him, tearing a hole in it to exit.
Miria's Next Strategic Thought
Miria felt Tobi's struggle, sensing the increasingly rapid pace of his Kamui usage, the subtle dips in his chakra. He was trying to outlast her, but she had the ocean itself as her battery. Her next strategic thought was simple: maintain the pressure and prepare for his escape attempt.
She knew Tobi wouldn't just sit there and drown. He had to break out. Her goal wasn't necessarily to kill him, but to exhaust him, to diminish his capacity to pursue or fight when he finally escaped. She needed to anticipate where and how he would try to escape the dome, and use the water to counter that precise attempt. Perhaps she could force him into a vulnerable position, or even injure him, as he attempted to leave her domain. The time for subtle observation was over; the time for decisive, tactical engagement within her watery prison was now.
Tobi's desperate flickerings intensified within the churning water. Miria felt his resolve, his growing frustration. He would try to escape, to tear a hole in her domain and flee. But she wouldn't let him.
Drawing on Isobu's vast, albeit demanding, power, Miria pushed. It was a secondary command, layered upon the maelstrom already contained. The colossal water dome, hundreds of feet in diameter, began to move. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, it started to traverse the landscape, gliding over the ruined cliffs and the vast lake below. It might ascend slightly, or drift across the valley, but its movement was constant, unpredictable, and designed to disorient.
Inside, the world became a nauseating, watery blur. The internal currents and crushing pressures intensified further, but now combined with the unnerving sensation of the entire environment shifting. Finding a stable point, let alone calculating a precise spatial exit, became exponentially harder.
"Escape this dome by normal means? Impossible," Miria thought, a cold satisfaction spreading through her. The sheer volume of constantly shifting water, the lack of fixed points, turned Tobi's precision-based Kamui against him. Any attempt to tear a hole and rematerialize would be met with an entirely new section of water, an unpredictable shift in momentum.
The drain on Miria was immense. Her green aura, usually a stable glow now, flickered wildly, threatening to destabilize her hard-won control. Her muscles screamed, and a fine sheen of sweat coated her skin beneath the constantly shifting water. This wasn't just "tolerable" anymore; this was pushing her to the very edge of what her untrained body could sustain. But she held on, a grim, determined fire in her eyes.
Tobi's already frantic pace of Kamui usage accelerated further, desperation creeping into his actions. His attempts to gauge an exit point, to find a stable vector for his warp, became futile. He was forced to constantly phase, burning through his chakra at an alarming, unsustainable rate. His physical exhaustion, even within the protection of his dimension, began to manifest as subtle, less precise movements upon re-materialization. He couldn't sustain this.
Deidara, meanwhile, was no longer coherent. His body was battered, his lungs screaming for oxygen. He was simply flailing, a drowning man trapped in a liquid nightmare, his artistic pride utterly shattered by the overwhelming, incomprehensible power of this Jinchuriki.
Miria knew she was winning the battle of attrition. Tobi had to break. And when he did, he would be weakened, vulnerable. She just needed to hold on.
The constant, disorienting movement of the colossal water dome, combined with the crushing pressure and suffocating lack of oxygen, pushed Tobi to his absolute limit. He felt his chakra reserves plummeting at an alarming rate, sustaining Kamui just to breathe. Deidara was already flailing, barely conscious, a dead weight that only added to Tobi's burden. This was unsustainable. This Jinchuriki was too cunning, too adapted, too dangerous to fight on her terms.
A tactical retreat was the only option.
Tobi phased directly to Deidara, grabbing his limp form in an instant of fleeting tangibility. He then focused, pouring a massive burst of chakra into his eye, preparing the ultimate escape. The vortex of Kamui began to form, not just around his eye, but expanding rapidly, preparing to envelop both him and his partner, to rip them from this aqueous prison and transport them to the safe haven of his dimension.
Miria, her face cold despite the tremor of exertion running through her, sensed Tobi's intent. Her lip curled into a subtle, chilling smirk. Finally. She knew his limits, his methods. He would retreat, and by the time he regrouped, by the time he forged a new plan, she would be long gone. It would be too late to catch her.
But before he could vanish completely, she wanted to leave a parting gift, a seed of fear that would fester in the mind of the great Uchiha Obito.
As the Kamui vortex reached its peak, just as Tobi and Deidara were about to be swallowed by the spiraling void, Miria focused Isobu's formidable power. She didn't launch a Tailed Beast Bomb. Instead, she willed the entire, churning mass of the water dome to converge, to focus an overwhelming, crushing pressure directly at the vanishing point. It was a raw, physical manifestation of Isobu's rage, compressed into an almost solid force.
The watery prison shuddered. The black spiral of Kamui's exit, normally seamless, seemed to wobble, distorting under the sheer, instantaneous force. Tobi instinctively shrieked a soundless curse. The concentrated blast of water didn't fully hit him – Kamui was too fast for that – but it slammed into the very edge of his dimensional warp, causing a violent, jarring ripple in reality itself. It felt like being struck by a physical wave even as he transcended reality.
And in that infinitesimal fraction of a second, just as Tobi and Deidara were sucked completely into the swirling vortex, Miria projected a single, chilling thought directly into Obito's mind, a whisper of impossible knowledge that bypassed all defenses:
You lost, Obito.
The giant water dome, deprived of Miria's focused chakra, lost its cohesion. With a deafening splash, the colossal bubble imploded, raining tons of water back into the lake, sending massive waves crashing against the now deeply scarred cliffs.
Moments later, on a barren cliff miles away, Tobi and the unconscious Deidara rematerialized in a sickening lurch. Tobi gasped, his masked body heaving. He had barely made it. But it wasn't the physical exertion that shocked him. It was the whisper in his mind, the impossible, chilling knowledge. He stumbled, his lone Sharingan eye widening behind the mask, his entire being gripped by a sudden, profound, and terrifying unease.
Miria, back in the now turbulent lake, allowed herself to sink. The colossal effort had left her utterly drained, her body collapsing as the last vestiges of Isobu's controlled chakra faded. But the smirk remained, faint, triumphant. She was exhausted, vulnerable, but she was free. And Tobi now knew she was more than just a simple Jinchuriki. She was a threat armed with knowledge he couldn't comprehend. Her escape was complete.
Miria gasped, but it wasn't the searing pain of exhaustion this time. It was the simple, pure, unfiltered relief of breathing actual air. The last vestiges of Isobu's chakra, which had held her upright through that impossible ordeal, finally receded, leaving her utterly, completely spent. She floated in the turbulent lake, her body limp, every muscle screaming in protest, but her lungs filled with the sweet, blessed oxygen.
She had done it. She had outsmarted them. She had gone head-to-head with an Akatsuki duo, including one of the most dangerous shinobi in history, and she had escaped. The smirk, faint but triumphant, still lingered on her lips, even as her vision swam and the world began to fade.
She was exhausted, vulnerable, and probably critically low on physical stamina, but she was free. The chilling whisper she'd sent into Tobi's mind was her final, defiant declaration. He would remember this. He would know that she was no ordinary Jinchuriki. And by the time he recovered from his shock and devised a new plan, Miria would be long gone, a ghost in the vast, dangerous world she now inhabited.
Miria coughed, a ragged, painful sound, as she gasped for air, her lungs burning, but this time not from lack of oxygen, but from the sheer relief of breathing it freely. Her body was a leaden weight, every muscle screaming in protest, but a fierce, triumphant grin stretched her lips. She was floating in the cold, churning waters of the lake, the remnants of her colossal water dome still raining down around her, but she was free.
"We made it out, Isobu!" she thought, her voice a weak, internal whisper that somehow resonated with the massive, weary presence within her. The Bijuu's consciousness, still wary but undeniably present, responded with a low, rumbling thrum that was almost... approval. They had faced the impossible, pushed beyond their limits, and survived.
The smirk remained on her face, even as her vision swam and the world began to fade around the edges. She was utterly spent, physically broken, but the victory was hers. Tobi had been outsmarted, his chilling confidence shattered, his meticulous plans disrupted by a girl with impossible knowledge and a desperate, untamed beast.
She had escaped. But now, truly alone in this dangerous world, with a powerful, wary Bijuu inside her, Miria faced a new, uncertain path. The immediate threat was gone, but the long game had just begun. The question now wasn't how to survive the Akatsuki, but what to do next.
The roaring echo of the imploding water dome faded, leaving behind only the lapping of waves against the scarred shore and the rhythmic thrum of Miria's own hammering heart. The cold embrace of the lake's water now felt less like a domain and more like a drain, pulling at her last vestiges of energy. The adrenaline that had fueled her impossible escape rapidly receded, leaving behind a profound, bone-deep weariness. Every muscle in her body screamed, a chorus of protest against the abuse it had endured.
"We made it out, Isobu!" she whispered again, the thought barely a ripple in the vast, silent sea of her mind. Isobu's presence within her was like a distant, slumbering leviathan, its vast power temporarily sated, or perhaps simply exhausted from their shared ordeal. A faint, almost imperceptible warmth spread from her core, the Bijuu's way of acknowledging their shared, improbable victory.
The relief was potent, intoxicating, but short-lived. She couldn't stay in the water. Her body was starting to shiver uncontrollably, the cold seeping into her exhausted bones. With a groan that barely escaped her lips, Miria forced her leaden limbs to move. It was a monumental effort. She dragged herself through the water, each stroke a conscious battle against the overwhelming desire to simply sink and rest. The faint green aura around her was gone, her skin pale, translucent in the fading light of what must have been late afternoon.
Finally, with a last, desperate surge, her numb fingers clawed at damp earth. She pulled herself onto the rocky, muddy shore, collapsing onto her belly, gasping for breath. The ground felt impossibly solid, grounding her after the ethereal chaos. She lay there for a long moment, muscles twitching, the taste of lake water and defeat (for Akatsuki) bitter-sweet on her tongue.
The immediate vicinity was a wreck: splintered trees, gouged earth, the lingering scent of ozone. The dome had traveled, but not infinitely. She was still in a desolate, wilderness area, likely miles from any human settlement. The sun was beginning its slow descent, painting the bruised sky in hues of orange and purple. Night would fall soon.
I need shelter, she thought, the primitive instinct overriding all others. She pushed herself up, a shaky, shivering mess. Her [System] was blessedly silent, its critical warnings having subsided. A quick, internal check of her status revealed the grim truth: CHAKRA RESERVES: DEPLETED (CRITICAL). PHYSICAL CONDITION: SEVERE EXHAUSTION, MULTIPLE MICRO-TEARS (MUSCULAR), HYPOTHERMIA (MILD).
She was a ghost, a shell. But she was alive.
With a determination born of desperation, Miria scanned her surroundings. A thick cluster of pines offered some immediate cover, their dark forms beckoning. Beyond them, the shadowy entrance to a small cave or rock overhang might provide respite from the chilling wind. She dragged herself towards the darkness, one painful, agonizing step at a time. The world was still vast, still dangerous, and she was utterly alone. But she was free. And for now, that was enough.