Chapter 130: Urashiki's Intelligence-Lowering Aura
Everyone had long since gotten used to Hikari's heavy, obsessive remarks and behavior.
Hashirama, for one, expressed deep envy.
Back then, he had even wanted to teach Shiromo how to conquer the Uchiha, only to get mocked for it.
Now that he thought about it, that ridicule had been well deserved.
'This' is what a true Uchiha-conquering master looks like.
Meanwhile, Urashiki had already found Naruto and his group.
Facing Urashiki's trademark sinister grin, Boruto snapped.
He thought of his master, Sasuke, whose life or death was still unknown.
And as everyone knew, "life or death unknown" basically meant dead.
Furious, Boruto launched an attack at Urashiki.
Boruto circled around behind Urashiki, ran all the way to his front, and charged straight at him.
This baffling human behavior, running in a circle only to attack from the front, left even the already goofy Ōtsutsuki Urashiki stunned, prompting him to let out a confused "Huh?"
Then Ōtsutsuki Urashiki raised his leg high and kicked Boruto flying.
"Damn it… normal attacks are completely useless against him."
Boruto climbed back up from the ground and wiped at the corner of his mouth, where there wasn't even any blood.
Taking the opportunity, Naruto threw several kunai tagged with explosive tags. Urashiki flashed out of existence and reappeared to the side.
"Fire Style: Flame Dragon Bullet!"
Jiraiya followed up with a Fire Style attack.
But instead of blasting Urashiki directly, the flames deliberately curved around him, forming a ring that boxed him in.
'Bang.'
Inside the Wood Release cabin, Tobirama slammed his fist down on the table in anger.
"I finally understand Urashiki's true ability!"
"I get it too, this is space-time ninjutsu. Urashiki should be able to…."
Nagato nodded slightly as well.
Since Shiromo had once demonstrated time-based abilities in front of him, he had some understanding of this area, certainly more than most people present.
"No."
Tobirama shook his head. "That's not what I mean. I'm talking about another, even more terrifying ability."
"What ability?"
Everyone turned to look at Tobirama.
"An ability that lowers intelligence. And it's likely a passive one, something like an aura that's constantly in effect."
"As long as you're near Urashiki, your intelligence drops to his level."
"Otherwise, there's no way to explain why Jiraiya would use Flame Dragon Bullet like 'that'."
"Was he trying to trap Urashiki?"
"Obviously not. Urashiki being able to fly is information you'd get on first contact. He's literally floating all the time, constantly reminding you that he can fly. There's no way Jiraiya would overlook that."
"And even if Urashiki couldn't fly, against any other ninja, with flames that high, a normal person could just jump out."
"Don't tell me Jiraiya was worried Urashiki had just come out of the river and might catch a cold, so he kindly roasted him to warm him up?"
"..."
When Tobirama first said it, Nagato thought the Second Hokage, like the First, was just joking around.
But the more Tobirama explained, the more it made sense.
Who was Jiraiya?
He was Nagato's ninjutsu mentor. One of the legendary Sannin.
His combat experience was second only to shinobi from the Warring States era.
In fact, it might even surpass most shinobi from that era.
After all, the Warring States period was mostly clan-based conflicts, relatively small in scale, closer to village brawls.
After the founding of the ninja villages, wars became true Shinobi World Wars, conflicts between nations.
And yet someone with such vast combat experience had made such an inexplicable move.
That alone was baffling.
If you said it was to probe Urashiki's abilities, Nagato had already guessed that Urashiki's power was related to time.
And he could say with certainty: that Flame Dragon Bullet had absolutely nothing to do with probing.
If you wanted to test an ability, you'd have to actually 'hit' Urashiki, not circle around him and give him a warm bonfire.
And indeed, that was the case.
After Urashiki flew out of the ring of flames, Jiraiya stopped feeding chakra into the Flame Dragon Bullet, leapt high into the air, and used Toad Oil Bullet.
Countless globs of brownish-yellow substance spewed from Jiraiya's mouth.
Thankfully, the masked man wasn't here, otherwise, he would have been reminded of some very unpleasant memories.
Facing Jiraiya's Toad Oil Bullet, Urashiki calmly and confidently began "blinking" around the trees nonstop.
He was acting exactly like an Ōtsutsuki Enderman.
At the same time, the bloodstains on Urashiki's clothes were rapidly fading.
Watching this, Jiraiya fell into thought.
Yes, 'this' was probing an ability.
So that earlier Flame Dragon Bullet really 'was' just for warming Urashiki up?
"I get it too now! Damn that Ōtsutsuki Urashiki, how despicable!"
Hashirama suddenly stomped the ground in anger.
"?"
Everyone looked at him in confusion.
"Big brother, what do you understand now?" Tobirama asked.
"Tobirama, haven't you always said I'm dumb? It's because I was affected by this, this innately evil Ōtsutsuki Urashiki! We must eliminate the evil Ōtsutsuki!"
Hashirama clenched his fists with righteous indignation, even borrowing Tobirama's usual line.
"Uh…"
Tobirama really wanted to tell him: 'Big brother, your intelligence is natural. You can't blame Urashiki for that.'
'You were like this long before Urashiki even existed.'
But would that be a bit too hurtful?
…Yeah. Better not say it.
When his brother realizes that after defeating Urashiki his intelligence hasn't improved at all, he'll understand on his own.
Soon after, everyone temporarily set this topic aside and began discussing the time-based ability of Urashiki that Nagato had mentioned earlier.
Nagato had been the first to notice it. With his reminder, and Jiraiya's follow-up Toad Oil Bullet test, the others also started to see it.
At the same time, Jiraiya himself had figured it out as well.
Urashiki's Rinnegan ability allowed him to rewind a few seconds of time, effectively giving him foresight and enabling him to dodge attacks more easily.
The only problem was that Urashiki couldn't rewind 'himself'.
As a result, he experienced more time than everyone else, which was why the blood on his clothes dried faster.
The intelligence-lowering aura seemed to have temporarily worn off.
Jiraiya bit his thumb and unleashed a summoning technique.
The surroundings instantly plunged into darkness.
"Where is this?"
Urashiki looked around and realized he was inside something fleshy.
This was the stomach of a Mount Myōboku toad.
It could only be said that the Mount Myōboku toads really had it rough.
One moment, their stomachs were being summoned out and burned through by Amaterasu. Afterwards, they were being used as a Divine Tree to eat an Ōtsutsuki.
Fortunately, although Urashiki could leave at any time, he chose not to.
Inside the stomach, Urashiki and Naruto, who had used Multiple Shadow Clone Technique, began exchanging blows back and forth.
During this, Urashiki continuously used Temporal Rewind.
It was comparable to Danzō using Izanagi as a substitute technique.
After dragging things out like this, just as Naruto was defeated, Urashiki suddenly spat out a mouthful of old blood.
The stomach was filled with acidic toxins. Since Urashiki experienced more time than Jiraiya and the others, he was poisoned faster.
So what was this?
Purple Haze instant-kills the King Crimson? Or a priest breathing pure oxygen?
It turns out the bodies of the Ōtsutsuki clan were this fragile, could they even be poisoned?
The last time poison mattered was back when Sakura fought Sasori, and Sakura had even neutralized Sasori's poison.
By this logic, that meant:
Sakura ＞ poison ＞ Ōtsutsuki Urashiki ＞ Sasuke.
Now 'that' was truly catching up.
(End of this chapter)