Inside the vast chambers of the Raikage Building in Kumogakure, Obito and several shadow clones were busy at work.
"Hmm… so this is the Lightning Release Chakra Mode? Not bad."
He glanced over the scroll, then flicked it into his Kamui space.
"Next… Hell Stab?"
He raised an eyebrow. That was the Third Raikage's signature, One-Finger Nukite at its peak, so fearsome that even the Fourth Raikage never surpassed the original's single-finger form.
"Let's see…"
Obito scanned the contents in a heartbeat.
"I get it the physical requirements are brutal. Looks like even the Fourth's body couldn't meet the one-finger standard. Good for me…"
Out of all conditions, raw physique was the easiest for him to push past. No problem there.
"This one… Kumo-Ryū (Cloud-Style) Kenjutsu. And here… a sealing technique."
Shelf after shelf, he looted without hesitation.
Even the "ordinary retreat" scrolls, basic evacuation protocols weren't spared.
He took everything, planning to bring it all back to the Land of Snow and file it neatly away in his study. Knowledge is knowledge.
After scraping the scrolls, Obito slipped into the next room.
With Kumogakure under attack, most shinobi on duty had rushed out to reinforce the lines. Only a handful remained to guard the Raikage Building.
Those Obito handled effortlessly. A flicker of the Sharingan, a clean genjutsu and the guards became quiet guides.
He didn't even need to rummage; they led him straight to the valuables. Efficient.
Soon, he stepped into another chamber. In the center sat a massive jar-like vessel on display.
"Oh? The Amber Purifying Pot…"
Without a second thought, he stored it away in Kamui.
A pity, though the rest of the Treasured Tools of the Sage of Six Paths weren't here.
When Kinkaku and Ginkaku rebelled, they'd taken the treasured tools with them.
This pot had later been reclaimed by the Third Raikage in the battles against them.
After the brothers' deaths, the remaining tools were scattered and vanished.
Now, only this Amber Purifying Pot remained in Kumogakure's possession.
Obito exhaled a quiet sigh. "What a waste."
He kept moving. The scraping continued.
By the time he finished, the Raikage Building had been stripped bare. Before leaving, he carved a bold scrawl deep into the wall:
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Thank you, Lord Raikage, for the generous gift."
Subsequently, Obito pressed on, hypnotizing and torturing with the Sharingan all the way, until he finally discovered Kumogakure's research building.
"All the data on the Chakra Cannon is here…"
A researcher, his eyes hollow and lifeless, opened a door and spoke in a mechanical tone.
In the corridor behind him, countless researchers already lay in crimson pools, bodies still and silent.
"Good work."
Obito nodded faintly, then gave his command.
"Then… you can go too."
"Yes…"
At his word, the man calmly raised a kunai and drove it straight into his own throat.
Poof!
Blood gushed forth as he collapsed, expressionless even in death.
Unmoved, Obito strode into the chamber. With a wave of his hand, every scroll and record within was swept into Kamui's dimension.
From the extracted memories, he had already confirmed: Kumogakure's Chakra Cannon was still only a prototype.
Unstable, prone to explosion, its destructive power inconsistent, its energy loss excessive…
All glaring flaws, proof the technology was far from mature.
But Obito didn't care.
The hardest step was always the first, going from zero to one. Refinement from one to one hundred was a trivial matter by comparison.
And with this knowledge in hand, the research teams of the Land of Snow would surely polish and perfect it in time.
Meanwhile, under the cover of night in Kumogakure, Pakura darted through the darkness.
Black curse marks spread across her face, twisting into an ominous, mask-like pattern.
"She's here!"
"Attack!"
Kunai and shuriken rained down in a deadly volley.
But before they could even graze her, the projectiles melted into liquid slag, consumed by the searing fireballs orbiting around her.
"Hmph… Sage Art: Scorch Style—Steaming Murder!"
Fwoooosh!
A blinding blaze erupted, lighting up half the night sky.
"AAAHHHH!!"
The shinobi screamed, their bodies withering to brittle husks in seconds, collapsing into piles of dried corpses.
Moments later, Pakura came to a halt before another looming structure.
"Kumogakure's Anbu base… Found it."
By now, she had already reduced every logistics warehouse in the village to ashes.
Elsewhere before the ruins of Kumogakure's hospital another figure burst out of the heavy fog. She slid across the rubble-strewn ground, halting with predatory grace.
Behind her swayed a feline tail, wreathed in faint blue flame.
"Damn it! They even destroyed the hospital… slaughtered the wounded and ordinary people inside!"
Her voice trembled with fury as her gaze swept across the mangled corpses scattered in the rubble.
"Unforgivable!"
Chakra surged violently, etching glowing blue patterns across her body. Her golden hair flared upward, eyes bleaching into pure white.
Boom!
The sound of flesh knitting echoed as smoke hissed from her scarred skin. The wounds on her body closed at a terrifying speed, sealing as if nothing had ever touched her.
"Hehe… when you attacked our caravan in the Land of Snow, Kumogakure didn't spare the ordinary merchants either!"
A teasing, sultry voice drifted out of the thick fog. It was Terumi Mei.
"Sage Art: Lava Release – Dissolving Jutsu!"
Her words were followed by a surge of sizzling acid mist, bursting forth from the haze like a flood.
"In the name of Nii Yugito, jinchūriki of the Two-Tails, I'll kill you here!"
"Tailed Beast Bomb!"
Blue chakra flames erupted around Yugito, condensing into a sphere that launched forward to meet the corrosive tide.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
A series of deafening explosions rang out. Acid mist was scattered, blown apart into droplets that rained down as burning acid rain, eating pits into the earth.
But Mei's Dissolving Mist had one terrifying trait: overwhelming volume. And now, enhanced by Sage Mode, the acid spread endlessly, like a storm surge crashing forward.
"Damn it!"
Yugito's teeth clenched. She retreated a step, cat-tail of blue flame lashing violently behind her.
At only fifteen years old, she was far from perfect jinchūriki control. Unlike Killer B, she couldn't fully harmonize with her tailed beast. If she lost control here and the Two-Tails went berserk…
A flicker of hesitation crossed her face.
At that moment, Obito arrived.
"Storm Release: Laser Circus! … Not bad."
Having just left Kumogakure's research facility, he watched the scene unfold with an amused glint in his eyes. Lightning beams arced across the battlefield like sharp spears of light.
Storm Release, a kekkei genkai born from combining Lightning Release and Water Release.
Its destructive power came from lightning, but by blending water into it, the technique could flow as freely as a current.
The result: lightning that bent, split, and guided itself like a laser, striking with impossible angles.
"A kekkei genkai that patches lightning's biggest flaw… a nice bloodline indeed."
Obito's lips curled slightly, then he vanished.
Shu!
A spray of scarlet burst in the air.
"Wha—how…?"
The Kumogakure shinobi who had been wielding Storm Release widened his eyes in disbelief. Obito had materialized right in front of him, a single hand closing around his throat.
"Your Storm Release isn't bad," Obito said flatly, tightening his grip. "I'll take it."
The man choked, struggling, but his body was already failing him.
Then
Shing!
A massive blade appeared out of nowhere, its heavy edge cutting down with murderous speed toward Obito's neck.
"Let go of him!!"
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