Enkō's face was dark as he fled toward Kannabi Bridge. As much as he longed to cut down Koeda Kyoichi, that damned traitor who deserved death a thousand times over, his reason had not yet been consumed by rage. Now was not the time to be entangled with Koeda Kyoichi.
Escape!
Survive!
That was what mattered most.
After all, even if he stayed behind and killed Koeda Kyoichi, there was no way he could escape alive from these Konoha brats. His mission would end in complete failure, and the critical intelligence—that the Koeda Clan, those traitors, had colluded with the Anbu—would never be passed on.
And so—
Retreat was his only choice.
"Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!!"
Blazing flames came pouring down from behind like a sudden rainstorm.
Forced to swerve, Enkō darted behind towering bamboo so thick it would take eight or nine men to encircle, using them to shield against the fiery barrage. The searing orbs burned holes clean through the massive stalks, leaving behind uneven pits as if gnawed by insects.
But none of the flames struck Enkō.
Fortunately for Obito, he wasn't fighting alone.
Although his Phoenix Sage Fire Technique failed to injure Enkō, it forced him off his straight path and into a side detour. And that… was the opening.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
Kyoichi's shadow clone seized the moment.
With the hand-seal speed of a man who had lived single for fifteen years, a massive wall of earth surged up ahead, cutting off Enkō's escape. True, climbing a wall was no challenge for a shinobi—even a mere genin could leap lightly into the treetops.
And Enkō was no genin. He was an elite jōnin.
But the problem was that his enemies weren't weaklings either.
Clang!
Blades clashed.
Before Enkō could scale the wall, Kakashi closed in like lightning, wielding the famed White Fang short blade. His strikes were fierce and unrelenting; though he couldn't take Enkō's head in a few exchanges, he kept him pinned.
Moments later, Obito joined the fray with a kunai.
With his twin tomoe Sharingan awakened, he could follow the blistering movements of both Kakashi and Enkō. Even his body had adapted enough to keep pace. Truly, the Uchiha were prodigies—awakening their eyes was like unlocking a cheat code.
"You Konoha brats—are your heads broken?! If you wear yourselves out against me, your comrade's life won't be the only one lost—you'll all end up as Kyoichi's prey as well!!" Enkō roared, frustration boiling over.
He was trying to shake their resolve.
He didn't expect them to actually switch sides and turn on Kyoichi, that heartless traitor. He only needed the slightest hesitation—just enough to break free of this two-against-one stalemate.
"Iwa shinobi are all the enemy."
Obito's cold reply cut through.
His kunai thrust toward Enkō's vital point without the least hesitation.
No one likes being coerced. The Uchiha might be strange in many ways, their minds never quite aligned with ordinary folk—but in hating coercion, they were no different.
The difference lay elsewhere:
The Uchiha were a clan consumed by love.
That "love" took many forms—love for family, friends, lovers, clan, village… any deeply cherished bond. And for the sake of what they loved, they would go to mad extremes, even to self-destruction.
Obito was no exception.
His love was nothing extraordinary—merely the "love" of a boy for a girl. But his devotion burned as fiercely as any Uchiha's.
For the sake of the girl he loved,
he crushed down his anger and distaste, throwing himself with reckless abandon into the fight against Enkō.
"Letting you live would jeopardize the mission! And 'mutual destruction'? You're being arrogant."
That was Kakashi's answer.
He bore no Uchiha name, but ever since his father's suicide, he had clung to the shinobi rules. To complete the mission, he would sacrifice anything.
Even now, though he loathed being threatened by Kyoichi, Dani's death at Kyoichi's hands proved that at least part of what he had said yesterday was true.
That is to say,
The Koeda Clan—or more precisely, Koeda Kyoichi himself—was no longer standing on the same side as Iwagakure.
Enkō, however, was a true Iwa shinobi.
Even if it was only for the sake of ensuring the Kannabi Bridge operation went unhindered, Kakashi couldn't allow Enkō to escape. Otherwise, by the time they arrived, they might be facing an army of Iwa shinobi waiting in ambush.
And so,
Kakashi chose to pinch his nose and temporarily accept Kyoichi's coercion—
Resolving first to eliminate Enkō.
The White Fang short blade struck mercilessly, every blow aimed at Enkō's vitals.
"You idiots! Have both your brains rotted?!"
Enkō staggered, forced into desperate defense.
The unshaken resolve of the two brats enraged him further, but his fury gave him no sudden burst of strength. Instead, as the fight dragged on, the situation only worsened. Within two or three minutes, his body bore more than a dozen wounds.
None fatal—
But in high-intensity combat, even small injuries grew into fatal weaknesses, deciding victory and death.
And—
Kakashi and Obito weren't his only opponents.
Kyoichi's shadow clone was still lurking.
As Enkō was forced back against the earth wall by Kakashi's blade,
"Earth Release: Rock Pillar Spears!!"
The shadow clone struck without hesitation.
Jagged spears of stone shot out from the wall, extending and thickening in an instant until they pierced toward Enkō's exposed back. They shredded his clothes and skin, but before they could pierce his organs, he swapped places with a Mud Substitute.
The substitute—his likeness formed of earth—was skewered through the chest and belly, before collapsing back into mud.
But Enkō's real body—
Had not escaped far.
Substitution techniques, like Hardening, were a category of ninjutsu. Earth Substitution was one variant, a particularly refined one at that. As long as there was earth nearby, it could be used.
But no matter how skilled the substitution, its purpose was only to redirect damage and create an opening for counterattack or escape. It could not whisk one away from the battlefield entirely.
Which meant—
Enkō's real body was still here.
Worse still,
One of his opponents was an Uchiha. With twin tomoe spinning, the Sharingan read his chakra flow and predicted exactly where his true body would appear.
And when the prediction came true—
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!!"
Obito spat forth a massive, blazing fireball, hurling it directly toward the predicted point—
Enveloping Enkō completely, just as he tried to flee Kyoichi's shadow clone's strike.