On Yagura's shoulders, boiling chakra bubbled up like foam.

  Normally, human chakra was invisible ale, not dispying such phenomena.

  This was tailed beast chakra.

  As a perfect jinchūriki, someone who had full trol over a tailed beast's power, he was demonstrating this urait.

  The violent tailed beast chakra partially maed on his shoulder, enveloping Obito's haing there.

  In an instant, the hand was mangled, flesh and blood indistinguishable.

  "You!?" His chakra surged, ahdrew his hand.

  The moment, the tail-like chakra burst forth from Yagura's back, sweeping across the area where Obito stood.

  The fereable was sliced apart as if it were made of tofu.

  Cries of arm and shouts erupted in the cil chamber.

  Shocked, everyoood up instinctively, their chakra fring and splintering chairs into pieces. Wooden shards flew everywhere, apanied by a deafening cacophony that seemed to shake the entire hall into chaos.

  This a of Yagura's pletely caught the s off guard.

  Ketsuki stared at the suddenly aggressive Mizukage, both shocked and furious. His first thought was—Are these two fighting amongst themselves?

  Though he had spread rumors, deep down, he didn't believe someone as strong as Yagura could truly be trolled by genjutsu.

  But such a blemish was necessary to pressure him into stepping down.

  Ketsuki wasn't the only one who thought this way. However, the immediate priority was avoiding the fallout.

  After his initial strike, Yagura had already drawn the hook-staff from his back, his chakra surging through the on to create a terrifyingly powerful force.

  Ign the other ninjas seated behind Obito, Yagura swung his staff.

  Boom!!!

  The chakra emanating from the staff transformed into cw-like shapes, pierg through Obito's body and annihiting everything in its path.

  It finally tore through the wall, its momentum bsting the entire wall—along with part of the outer wall—into oblivion.

  With the wall gohe pure, clear sky outside the Mizukage Building was now fully visible to everyone.

  The thick, humid wind blew into the room, snapping many back to their senses with its familiar chill.

  In front of Masashi and Shisui, a chakra barrier rose to block the flying debris and tailed beast chakra.

  The two of them were the only oill seated in their chairs amidst the wreckage.

  However, the table before them—and the two copies of agreements atop it—had long since been obliterated by Yagura's strength, being nothing more than floating particles in the air.

  "Mizukage-sama! What are you doing?!" The assembled ninja s were both furious and horrified.

  Just moments ago, Yagura's attaot only destroyed the wall in front of him, but also obliterated several ninjas in the room.

  Literally obliterated—blood and flesh still lingered in the air.

  "Of course, I am purging rebels. Today, Kiri will be reborn," Yagura said coldly, looking at the s. "For the sake of the vilge, I ask you all to die."

  "Yagura, are you insane?" Ketsuki excimed in disbelief. "Do you want to destroy the vilge?"

  We just wanted you to step down, okay? Sure, those nouveau riche like the Yuki ca go, but the rest of us here were among the founding s of the vilge!

  "That's exactly your problem," Yagura replied with a regretful shake of his head. "Even at death's door, you think you are the vilge? The Hōzuki is tiny. All of you bined—are there evehousand of you?"

  The perpetually baby-faced yet formidable Mizukage sighed. "If you don't die, the vilge has no future…"

  Having said this, he turned his gaze back to Obito.

  "Tobi, you've worked hard during this time."

  Yagura smiled kindly, as he always did.

  Obito g Yagura, then at Masashi and Shisui, who were still calmly seated.

  "When did they break yenjutsu?" Obitht hand had already regeed.

  That side of his body, infused with White Zetsu's cells, didn't bleed the same way normal humans did.

  Yagura noticed this as well.

  "Tobi, it seems you have more secrets than I imagined."

  "Answer my question."

  Obito sneered, "With your strength, there's no way you could've broken my genjutsu."

  Every eye in the cil chamber turoward Yagura.

  So, Yagura had been under genjutsu trol?

  And from the sound of it, it was the White Ghost and the Teleporter who freed him?

  I eve you have Hikari, and you py me like this? Ketsuki felt a wave of fury rise within him.

  ---

  Masashi and Shisui exged awkward gnces.

  Does this guy even know how bad his genjutsu really is? And look at him, he seems so proud of himself…

  "Enough," Shisui said, standing abruptly. "Surrender now, criminal!"

  This versation couldn't tinue any longer.

  If the truth came out, it wouldn't just embarrass Obito—it'd humiliate the Uchiha as a whole!

  Masashi, oher hand, seemed pletely unbothered, keeping his eyes locked on Obito.

  "Shisui, I'm speaking with Yagura. Stand aside; I'll deal with you shortly," Obito said.

  Iy, however, his attention was entirely on Shisui.

  It was obvious that Shisui was the one who had broken Yagura's genjutsu.

  In other words, Shisui was the only real threat to him here.

  He was already prepared to make his move—everything he had done so far was just to lull Shisui into a false sense of security.

  This guy couldn't sit still anymore, trying to stop him from tinuing the versation with the Mizukage.

  Once again, Obito felt the thrill of victory.

  Under his mask, a smirk formed.

  The joy of intellectual dominance was exhirating.

  He po trap Shisui with Kamui, kill the Kiri ninjas here, re-trol the Mizukage, a Masashi with genjutsu to make him sing "All My Dugs."

  Oh! Even the White Zetsu cells in his body trembled with excitement!

  However, just as he was about to act, Yagura spoke.

  "Tobi, you're as persistent as ever. Actually, I broke free of yenjutsu the st time you modified its structure. By my t, I was under your trol for…twenty days? Let's just round it to a month."

  The White Zetsu cells trembled even more violently.

  Even Obito's own cells began to shake.

  Stop moving, cells! Yoing to make it look like I'm upset!

  "Liar!" Obito roared. "Are y to provoke me?! My teique isn't something trash like you could break!"

  Seeing his reaasashi nearly pulled a bag of peanuts out of his sealing scroll.

  That expression! This is it! This is exactly what I wao see!

  "No, I didn't figure it out," Yagura said, his expression strangely ear. "I simply broke free. Tobi, your teique really didn't need improvement. Why did you even ge it?"

  The ninjas in the chamber—all of them, whether they beloo the s, the fa loyal to the previous Mizukage, ura's own people—were now staring at Obito with expressions that seemed to ask, Yeah, why did you do that?

  "Tobi…" Yagura said, feeling a surge of satisfa. "Do you know how much effort Isobu and I went through to hide this from you? It was harder than breaking your inal genjutsu."

  Thinking about how Obito had diligently helped him during this time, even approving dots with reasonable petence, he couldn't bring himself to be too harsh.

  So he offered some genuine advice.

  "Your previous genjutsu was strong enough. Really, don't recklessly modify your jutsu and make it worse."

  "Hahahahaha!"

  Suddenly, Obito burst out into maniacal ughter.

  Yagura stood still, silently watg him.

  The other Kiri ninjas, however, were startled.

  Especially the injas among them—they kept gng nervously toward the wall-less side of the room.

  From this height...

  Jumping down shouldn't kill a ninja.

  Still, none of them dared to act immediately. They khat since Yagura had made his move, the outside was undoubtedly surrounded by a foolproof trap. They wouldn't leap unless it was absolutely the st resort.

  Obito's ughter subsided, though his voice still carried a gritted edge. "So my genjutsu isn't good enough for you, huh? Fine, I'll show you the inal version!"

  "Do you think that's possible?" Shisui suddenly appeared beside Yagura, his Mangekyō Sharingan active. "This is your st warning—surrender!"

  Masashi also stood up.

  That was enough. He'd seen what he o. It was time to work.

  Notig Masashi's movement, Obito didn't waste any more time. He acted immediately.

  But his target wasn't Yagura—it was Shisui.

  The power of his genjutsu surged through his single Sharingan, aimed directly at Yagura.

  This wasn't a modified version. It was the inal, pure teique taught to him by Madara, designed specifically to ter perfect jinchūriki.

  Shisui stepped in front of Yagura, meeting Obito's gaze head-on.

  The two unleashed their equally powerful ocur powers, which collided aed into each other's minds.

  The advantage of such precision targeting was that when it hit, the impact doubled in power.

  The downside? If the target wasn't patible, the effect would be diminished.

  Shisui fully activated his Mangekyō Sharingan, tering Obito's inisu power.

  Just as he finished dispelling it, he felt Obito's ha on his shoulder.

  Everything in his vision ed. Even with his mastery of the Body Flicker, he couldn't escape this space-ing ninjutsu. Realiziance was futile, Shisui chose not to attempt using any more ninjutsu, allowing Obito to successfully pull him into the Kamui dimension.

  When his visiouro normal, Shisui found himself in a space filled with floating cubic structures.

  Just as Masashi had described.

  Shisui calmly sat down cross-legged, waiting patiently.

  Everything in front of him affirmed his belief: Masashi's pn was fwless.

  Meanwhile, ba the outside world, Masashi had already stepped in to take over Shisui's role.

  Having subdued Shisui so easily, Obito felt a surge of fideurning to him.

  Once again, he broke into hearty ughter, though this time it sounded more assured.

  "It's e to this, huh? I guess there's no other choice. You all just die."

  With that, he spun on his heel and suddenly charged toward the smen.

  "Tobi! What the hell are you doing!?"

  "Dammit! Kill him!"

  The smen pletely lost it.

  Yagura wahem dead, and now Obito was attag them too.

  What was the meaning of this?

  Masashi, who had initially po act, paused again. After some thought, he stepped aside.

  Let Kiri haheir own infighting. As a Konoha ninja, he couldn't casually interfere—that wouldn't be right.

  Both the elder fa and the Mizukage fa were dumbfounded.

  Yagura, too, joihe battle. No, rather, he joined in the massacre of the smen.

  Moments ago, these two majures had been on the verge of g. Now, they had turned around and were ruthlessly sughtering the smen of Kiri.

  The onlookers couldn't help but marvel.

  How could these smen possibly have such terrible interpersonal retionships? If they didn't die today, would there even be justice left in the world?

  However, this was an excellent opportunity. If they didn't kick them while they were down, they wouldn't be Kiri ninjas.

  "Let's start by eliminating the rebels," Genji decred.

  He didn't name specifis, but everyone present uood his meaning.

  Thus, aside from Ao, who stayed behind with a group to guard Genji, the rest of the elder fa took up their ons and charged toward the smen.

  The Mizukage fa wasn't far behind.

  In an instant, the cil chamber became a perfect storm where only the smen were on the receiving end of violence.

  Of course, the smen weren't going to sit there and wait for death. They used whatever they had, and chaos erupted as the different fas cshed.

  At first, everyone worried about colteral damage and refrained from using ninjutsu. But after just a few breaths, no one cared anymore.

  Not using ninjutsu was foolish.

  They didn't hold back, aher did Obito, who had no allies here.

  He unleashed Wood Release, attag indiscriminately.

  Outside the Mizukage Building, the Kiri army—who had surrouhe building so tightly that not even water could seep through—once again watched as the building's walls were breached.

  If the first time had just knocked down a wall, this time was dht excessive.

  Was the entire building about to colpse?

  The Kiri ninjas collectively cursed their parents for not giving them ls as they sprinted away from the building at full speed.

  From one side of the building, massive and grotesque thorny trees erupted, tearing down walls as they writhed. Large ks of wall, along with human bodies and various debris, tumbled down like dumplings into the streets below.

  Who wouldn't run from that?

  Boom—!!!

  A series of deafening crashes echoed behind them as heavy debris smmed into the ground, sending tremors rippling through the grouh their feet.

  Finally, the tremors subsided. Wheurned back, they gasped.

  The Mizukage Building would need repairs this year—no, they might as well build a new one!

  Half of the building's outer wall was gone, with a mountain of rubble piled up at its base.

  The grotesque thorny trees pletely filled the now-exposed side of the building.

  The Kiri ninjas stared at the se in stunned silence.

  "Is that… Wood Release?" one of them muttered weakly, as if m.

  "What's Wood Release?" a newer, civilian-born ninja asked, still unfamiliar with many things.

  "It's a Konoha teique. And an incredibly powerful one!"

  "Hey! Isn't it strange for such a teique to show up here?"

  "Shut up, you idiot! There are two Konoha ninjas in there. Did you fet about the White Ghost?"

  "Ah! So this is the White Ghost's teique!"

  At the mention of the White Ghost, the entire Kiri army seemed to freeze. They fell silent as if someone had pressed a pause button.

  After a while, seeing that the otion inside had subsided, they cautiously moved back toward the Mizukage Building.

  "Stop!" someone suddenly barked.

  A group of Kiri ANBU appeared before them, raising their hands to signal them to halt.

  "Orders from the Mizukage: the traitors in the building will be dealt with personally by the Mizukage and Genji. All others are to head to the s' distrid ensure no one escapes!"

  The Kiri ninjas were stunned but quickly delighted.

  Great!

  They'd much rather fight their own vilge's s than face the White Ghost in bat.

  The thought of capturing some of the en, soft and fair-skio take home as wives made them ecstatic.

  Unfortunately, their joy didn't st long. The ANBU had more to say.

  "If any of the traitorous injas resist, elimihem all. However, those who surrender, as well as civilians, must not be harmed. Above all, do not harm or viote any women."

  At this, the ANBU's voice turned icy.

  "Otherwise, wherever you're from, prepare to lose a limb as an apology."

  Damn! That harsh!? The Kiri ninjas gasped, harder thahey'd seen the destru of the Mizukage Building.

  "Other units have received the same orders. Now go!"

  The ANBU waved them off, eager for them to leave.

  He didn't want these troops hanging around. The psychos ihe building could burst out at any moment.

  The Bloody Mist policy did have its minor bes—obedieo orders had bee sed nature for the Kiri army.

  Without hesitation, they dispersed like a flood.

  Oside the Mizukage Building's perimeter, they turoward the district.

  Meanwhile, the ANBU outside the buildiurheir gaze to the wrecked building.

  They were dying to know what was happening inside…