A new arrival and it's about Itachi God. So, do give it a go.
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***
"Boom!"
After the ninjutsu from the wooden figure vanished, its towering, mountain-like form suddenly trembled, and then all its movements came to a halt.
In the village, Hiruzen Sarutobi, Jiraiya, Fugaku, and others, who were preparing to defend against the wooden figure's next attack, noticed its abnormality and looked shocked.
"Has its struggle disappeared?"
Kushina Uzumaki, who was restraining the wooden figure with her chakra chains, was the first to notice that the wooden figure had, in that instant, seemed to have lost all its strength.
Amidst the horrified gazes of the crowd, the massive form froze in place.
Meanwhile, on the grass where Minato Namikaze and the masked man were engaged.
Swish!
Around the masked man, Minato's figure transformed into golden light, crisscrossing the air, leaving afterimages.
Under Minato's relentless onslaught, the masked man could only defend himself, unable to retaliate.
However, he remained unfazed. Instead, amusement filled his crimson eyes.
With his abilities, not even the Fourth Hokage, who could be considered the strongest in the ninja world, could truly defeat him.
However, suddenly, a sharp pain shot through his brain.
"Chi!"
The pain affected the dojutsu he had been maintaining.
Then, before he could react, Minato appeared beside him, and his specially crafted kunai suddenly chopped down from the left side of his body!
At this critical moment, the masked man could only try his best to move his body and avoid the vital part.
"Puff!"
The sharp kunai slashed from his left shoulder, directly severing his left arm, and blood spurted out immediately.
The attack hit him suddenly, and Minato himself was very surprised.
"Why did his ability to wield his body suddenly vanish? Was it because the duration had expired?"
Minato muttered to himself, immediately dismissing his previous assumption.
"No, it's not because the duration had expired. It's because his eye power just received a huge shock, revealing a flaw."
"Shock."
At this thought, Minato suddenly understood.
He raised his eyes and stared at the masked man in front of him.
"That's how he was able to control the wooden figure at this distance. The power of the MangekyĹ Sharingan!"
"Why, my eye power was subjected to such a shock!?"
The masked man's pupils shrank sharply, completely ignoring the pain of his severed arm.
He was utterly horrified.
"There's no way such a person exists in Konoha!"
He might only have one eye, but his control over the wooden figure was beyond the reach of an ordinary Sharingan.
And no one in the current Uchiha clan possessed the more advanced MangekyĹ Sharingan.
"Impossible!"
But no matter how much he tried to disbelieve it, the fact was that his eye power had been overridden by someone else's.
Although the man's eye power wasn't as strong as his, it couldn't be fully utilized at a distance.
Furthermore, he'd already been injured in his clash with the Fourth Hokage.
While the masked man's control over the wooden figure hadn't been completely overwhelmed, he didn't have the time or strength to regain control.
"Could it be him who could deliver such a powerful blow to this guy?!"
Minato's eyes trembled.
This was the only possibility he could imagine.
Then, as he gazed at the masked man, a fiercer murderous intent emerged.
While his previous attack hadn't hit a vital point, it had severed an arm, and the resulting heavy blood loss had further weakened the masked man's strength.
His actions today undoubtedly posed a formidable threat to the village.
Minato could clearly sense the chakra binding the wooden figure, Hiruzen, Jiraiya, Tsunade, and numerous other ninjas in the village.
"I'll leave the village affairs in your care!"
Though the wooden figure's chakra hadn't completely dissipated, it was extremely quiet.
The situation in the village was now under control.
With Kushina and the others present, the wooden figure no longer posed a significant threat.
Therefore, the most important thing was to eliminate this troublesome threat!
Just as Minato locked eyes with the masked man, intending to keep him here for the day, a huge surge of chakra suddenly erupted from beneath the grass.
"Boom!"
The ground within a radius of dozens of meters, previously damaged by Minato's Rasengan, cracked open, and thick tree trunks sprouted wildly from within.
The trunks were covered in barbs, completely covering the entire area, leaving no gaps wide enough for an ordinary person to stand.
These trunks not only moved towards Minato, but also directly engulfed the masked man.
When the ground cracked, Minato had already reacted.
As he saw the area covered by the tree trunks growing from the earth, he immediately used his senses to lock onto the closest spot where his Flying Thunder God kunai lay.
Swish!
Minato moved about a hundred meters away.
He watched the tree trunks, like a dense forest, erupt from the ground, and his eyes dropped.
"Does the range of the jutsu just cover all my marks in that area?"
In the dense swarm of trunks, where no one could stand, the trunks growing from the masked man's feet all passed through him.
"Get down!"
A voice echoed from the ground beneath the masked man.
Then, his body vanished, the masked man swiftly dived into the ground.
The ground beneath him seemed to have been hollowed out by someone using Earth Release, revealing a space just large enough to accommodate his body.
A white figure emerged from the ground ahead.
It was the swirl zetsu (Tobi), who had previously enveloped the masked man's body and taken Minato's Rasengan attack.
"Tobi, how do you still have such strength?" the masked man asked, slightly surprised.
The white figure named Tobi replied, "I've drained all the remaining chakra from the wooden figure."
"Now, instead of talking about that, run!"
Tobi urged.
He used his Wood Release ninjutsu to launch indiscriminate attacks, precisely to give the masked man a chance to escape.
Otherwise, even if the masked man's eye technique surpassed the Fourth Hokage's, the Fourth Hokage was much faster, and he now knew the flaws in the masked man's eye technique.
"Damn it!"
The masked man gritted his teeth.
He hadn't expected his painstakingly planned plan to fail so completely in this way.
However, as Tobi had said, now was not the time to dwell on such matters.
Buzz!
Within this space, he had just enough time to materialize, and then the space in front of his right eye twisted, rapidly sucking him in.
...
"Disappeared!?"
Minato moved to the dense, impenetrable woods.
By then, the masked man's chakra had vanished.
"Damn it!"
Even with his temperament, Minato cursed uncontrollably as he gazed at the trees before him.
He wondered what a threat it would pose if the masked man escaped today.
But Minato had been so focused on killing the masked man that he hadn't noticed anyone approaching.
When the Wood Release attack erupted from the ground, he couldn't sense any other chakra.
It was as if the ninjutsu was activated by the earth itself, completely oblivious to the caster.
"Besides him, there's actually someone else who can use Wood Release."
This shocked Minato, but the situation was already such that it was pointless to dwell on it.
Since the masked man had already escaped, Minato was still worried about the situation in the village rather than immediately searching for clues in the trees.
Swish!
The murderous intent in those azure eyes gradually faded, and Minato's figure vanished in the distance.
In the village.
Itachi Uchiha knelt before the wooden figure.
As his radiant eye power enveloped it, his mind went blank.
The MangekyĹ in his eyes instantly vanished, returning to its original state.
More tears of blood fell from his eyes.
At that moment, the entire world seemed to grow silent before Itachi.
This situation was familiar to him.
During the Brothers' War, when his energy finally ran out, his mind was in the same state before he completely lost consciousness.
"Sure enough, this is too much of a stretch."
Itachi's remaining consciousness could no longer sustain it.
Facing death once again, Itachi's mind was calmer than before.
This outcome was both what he had anticipated and what he had wanted.
He knew that even if the MangekyĹ's eye power remained dormant within him after his rebirth, with his five-year-old body, no matter how much training he had gone through, he would still not be able to withstand it.
Itachi wasn't even sure if he could unleash the power of his MangekyĹ Sharingan, even at the cost of his life.
But having reached that point, he had no choice but to take the gamble.
Actually, for Itachi, this was cause for celebration, for he had won.
"Although I still feel a little bit unwilling, it seems this is the end of it."
Itachi chuckled inwardly.
He would no longer be able to witness the changes in history that followed.
But in the time since returning, Itachi had gained a lot, and had finally prevented tragedy from happening.
"Mom and Dad, Shisui, the Fourth Hokage⌠I'll leave the rest of the world in your care."
"Sasuke, I'm sorry I couldn't be with you to grow up happily this time."
"And Izumi, I'm sorry!"
As his consciousness completely faded, Itachi's tiny body collapsed before the wooden figure.
"Boom!"
As Itachi's body fell, the wooden figure, drained of all its chakra, began to tremble violently, and then it collapsed like a giant mountain.
Its wooden body shattered into countless fragments of varying sizes and fell.
Swish!
At that moment, Minato appeared beside Kushina, not far from the wooden figure.
Everyone, including Kushina and Hiruzen Sarutobi, was still stunned by this sudden change.
After appearing beside Kushina, Minato didn't immediately speak to her.
Instead, he suddenly expanded his senses.
He had noticed that since a while ago, Itachi's chakra had been completely absent from the village.
Minato was the only person of this era who knew that Itachi once possessed the MangekyĹ Sharingan.
He had already determined that Itachi had used his eye power to break the masked man's control.
However, Itachi was only five years old.
In his current body, even if his MangekyĹ power had not disappeared, he should not have been able to use it.
But the masked man's control had been broken, and Minato couldn't find Itachi's chakra.
He was worried that something might happen to Itachi.
"Minato!?"
Kushina noticed Minato beside her, but before she could finish her words, he darted toward the collapsing wooden figure ahead.
"If Itachi really did this, he should be nearby!"
Minato reasoned.
If Itachi could unleash his MangekyĹ power to break the control over the wooden figure, then the distance between him and it wouldn't be too far.
At his speed, it wouldn't take him long to circle it.
He found Itachi, lying before the wooden figure.
At this moment, directly above Itachi, several wooden blocks, several meters in diameter, quickly fell.
"Swish!"
Minato, still some distance away from Itachi, instantly hurled his specially crafted kunai in his hand toward Itachi.
Swish!
At that moment, Shisui Uchiha swiftly swooped in from behind Itachi, scooped him up, and leaped out.
"Shisui?"
Minato immediately spotted the person.
Just then, a large number of wooden blocks had fallen behind Itachi, obscuring Shisui's form.
Seeing Itachi had been saved, Minato also leaped out.
"Boom!"
The wooden blocks landed heavily on the ground, causing it to shake continuously.
Both Minato and Shisui quickly jumped out of the reach of the blocks.
"Hokage-sama, what's wrong with him?"
Shisui frowned as he looked at Itachi in his arms.
Itachi's face was covered in blood, and his complexion was extremely pale.
More importantly, Shisui's Sharingan couldn't detect the flow of chakra in his body.
Minato didn't have time to explain.
He had already sensed Tsunade's presence.
He reached out and placed a hand on Shisui's shoulder.
Swish!
The scene before their eyes shifted, and they were beside Tsunade.
Minato had already prepared Flying Thunder God Kunai on both of them.
"Tsunade-sama, please check on the boy's injuries!"
Minato said anxiously, taking Itachi from Shisui and standing before Tsunade.
Although he didn't have the Sharingan, he had already noticed that Itachi was no longer able to sense chakra.
Once a ninja exhausted all their chakra, they would die!
At Minato's call, Tsunade quickly turned around.
"It's this brat! How could heâŚ" Tsunade had met Itachi once before.
Seeing the blood on his face, she couldn't help but recall the painful image he had felt.
"Tsunade-sama!"
Minato noticed something strange in Tsunade's expression and shouted, startling her awake.
Tsunade regained consciousness and immediately extended her hand.
A soft green light rose from her palm, covering Itachi's body.
Before long, her pupils narrowed slightly, and she spoke in a heavy voice.
"It's too late to save him. He's already dead."
....
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