His left eye invoked Yokushi.
A technique that revealed a target's immediate intent toward him for the next few seconds.
Not thoughts.
Not emotions.
Only what they meant to do regarding Madara, attack pattern, movement direction, killing intent, flight intent, projected in crisp clarity.
His right eye triggered Kōro.
A technique that mapped the most optimal route toward achieving Madara's next action regarding that same target, angle, timing, pathing, and positional advantage, all highlighted in perfect sequence.
Yokushi showed him what Tobirama was about to do.
Kōro showed him exactly how to bypass it.
He knew that the moment he moved toward Kushina, Tobirama would appear behind her with Flying Raijin, and launch Gale and Spectral Release to cut Madara's approach, and then retreat with her two meters back to another marker. Madara saw all of it like a pre-recorded clip.
A thin, shimmering path traced itself through the chaotic battlefield and his mind, like another clip blending reality and vision.
Similarly, an exact sequence of movements, timings, micro locations, and angles that would allow Madara's Limbo to reach Kushina at a single moment where Tobirama could not physically intervene.
"Predictable as ever, Tobirama."
The route required only a few steps.
So, Madara raised one hand confidently. "Shinra Tensei."
A localized blast, not wide, not destructive, just a sharp pulse that shoved Tobirama's next teleport trajectory off-angle the moment he materialized. Exactly as Kōro indicated.
Tobirama blinked into existence behind Kushina, but on the wrong spot by barely a few feet, and it truly mattered.
Yokushi confirmed: Tobirama would correct with an immediate Flying Raijin jump toward the kunai he would throw on the ground nearest to Kushina from him. However, Madara was obviously now ready.
"Banshō Ten'in."
The pull wasn't directed at Tobirama.
It targeted Kushina and pulled her at a very fast speed already.
Yokushi also displayed Tobirama's next move right this instant:
He would teleport somewhere above in desperation instead, as Kushina was still pulled by him, and drop a massive elemental attack toward him first.
And then he would wait once Kushina was being pulled even closer to Madara, but near one of the other Flying Raijin markers, which Tobirama covertly left sometime after this clash started.
"But speed without foresight is pointless."
So, Madara didn't even look up.
He hadn't kept his Limbo hidden for this entire battle by accident.
Kushina never reached Madara's hands.
She was caught instead by two Limbo clones that materialized perfectly between her and Madara at some point, at a precise angle far from any of Tobirama's hidden Flying Raijin markers, and moved her even a bit farther.
Her eyes widened in confusion as invisible arms wrapped around her torso.
"What—?"
The clones didn't give her time to react.
Both pressed their palms to her front and back.
"Preta Path."
Her chakra cloak collapsed instantly, ripped out of her body in a single overwhelming drain.
She gasped sharply, not understanding who was touching her, unable to see the hands gripping her, and then her consciousness snapped under the shock.
"Struggle if you wish. It changes nothing."
One breath.
And Kushina went limp in the clones' arms.
At the same moment—
The second pair of Limbo clones appeared directly in front of the real Madara, intercepting Tobirama's Frostfire blast mid-air.
"You cannot stop what you cannot perceive."
Two invisible silhouettes raised their palms skyward.
"Preta Path."
The Frostfire torrent bent, then dissolved entirely into their hands, leaving nothing but steam.
Tobirama blinked from above, only now realizing he had struck nothing but empty air around Madara somehow.
And below, Kushina jerked in confusion, as if also grabbed and dragged by invisible hands.
For a fraction of a second, his eyes narrowed.
Then the cold thought settled in.
'Good. This is what I wanted. I should also go along with it and ease off a bit.'
He didn't know how Madara even seemed to be able to predict the future somehow, or similar, but Kushina's fate no longer mattered in the slightest.
The only threat worth focusing on currently was still outside the barrier.
His face stayed grave, as if worried for Kushina, yet he let himself drop through the air for a few seconds without lifting a finger.
No one watching would ever realize he was doing it on purpose.
Meanwhile, Madara moved.
He formed an incomplete Susanoo and used its hands both to guard the approach and to pull the Limbo clones and Kushina in even closer.
The entire motion was smooth, almost lazy.
Madara exhaled, the faintest satisfaction touching his expression. He also caught a glimpse of Tobirama's hidden intentions, but it meant nothing to him.
He sensed Obito previously struggling slightly against his old sensei and noticed Sasori, Kakuzu, and Zetsu being pushed back by the steady waves of Konoha shinobi.
So he chose to help them and then leave the village with Obito's Kamui.
He had already taken what he came for.
Before departing, he cast one last glance toward the outer barrier, wondering whether that young Senju would end up subjugating this village… or whether his strange, meteoric rise would finally end today.
Before leaving, he reinforced the Chibaku Tensei, currently crushing Duy, mildly surprised that the man's physique had withstood being at its center for so long, buried under the collapsing rubble of half-destroyed Konoha.
"Your village will collapse on its own soon enough anyway."
...
Meanwhile, Minato and Obito clashed not too far from the main cluster of destruction, flickering through broken rooftops and corridors of warped space, the entire time.
Minato still maintained perfect Toad Sage Mode, the same stable state he had shown against Ryusei, Tsunade, and Pakura earlier.
Thanks to several small toads he summoned on his shoulders, constantly reverse-summoning his clones from Mount Myōboku that gathered natural energy for him, a method the elders had recently taught him, he could keep it active without interruption.
He fought like a ghost carried by the wind.
Obito fought like a shadow carried by the void.
They blurred through abandoned streets, each movement carving invisible scars into reality.
Minato vanished with Flying Raijin and reappeared behind him, palm spiraling.
"Rasenshuriken."
The compressed sphere expanded the moment it left his hand, but Obito Kamui warped the entire attack into the other dimension.
It detonated far away in the Kamui plane, shredding empty space.
Obito countered immediately, flickering forward with dual-eye Kamui active.
With both Mangekyō, his timing was nearly perfect.
Long-range Kamui immediately pulled Minato's torso toward the dimensional pocket.
Minato twisted midair, marking a shard of debris with Flying Raijin and jumping cleanly sideways, but Obito matched him.
A hand appeared at Minato's back through a Kamui aperture, nearly grabbing his spine.
Minato's cloak flared, Frog Kata's natural-energy aura bursting outward and disrupting the pull, forcing Obito to slip into intangibility with his right eye.
"Running won't change what you let happen. I'll drag you into the void myself."
Minato landed lightly, breath steady.
"You don't have to do this, Obito."
"You couldn't save Rin. And you won't save yourself or your wife now."
Obito's voice cut through the air, sharp and hateful.
Obito and Minato clashed again, but something changed.
A tremor went through Minato's natural-energy field.
His Toad Sage perception sharpened for a split second—
And he felt it.
Kushina's chakra.
Her chains collapsing.
Her cloak fading.
Her consciousness slipping.
And an overwhelming, foreign force swallowing her up.
Madara.
Minato's entire expression cracked.
"Kushina—"
He turned his head, just a fraction, instinct, fear, panic, punching straight through his battle focus.
That single heartbeat was all Obito needed.
A Kamui aperture opened point-blank on Minato's left side, the long-range pull firing at full power from only meters away.
Minato tried to teleport, he really did, but the distraction had already cost him the timing.
Space tore.
So did his body.
Parts of the left torso and that arm folded into the Kamui dimension before he could unmake the seal, compressing with a sickening, wet crunch before he wrenched himself free too late.
Blood sprayed across Obito's sleeve and the ruined ground.
Minato hit the dirt, one knee down, gasping.
Obito's voice was cold.
"That's what hesitation looks like."
Minato didn't answer.
He couldn't.
His breathing was ragged, frantic, all instinct screaming one thing.
Get to Kushina.
He teleported to one mark he still had there, even while bleeding out, straight toward Madara's location.