Everything happened in the span of an instant.
Neither Madara nor Tobi had expected that a Konoha shinobi capable of such patience and restraint had been hiding nearby the entire time, waiting until the very last moment—just as they were about to take Shimizu away—to launch an attack.
Tobi immediately sank underground, and with the experience he had gained from fighting the Second Hokage, he recognized the technique at once.
"It's Heavenly Weeping," his voice echoed from all directions. "The fastest offensive Water Release technique."
Meanwhile, Madara, hidden atop a massive tree, glanced at his right arm. It had already gone numb after being pierced clean through by the high-speed water needles.
His brows furrowed slightly.
If the two of them hadn't remained on high alert the entire time—if their reaction speeds had been even a fraction slower—and if they had truly been struck directly by that technique…
Then what followed would likely have been an endless chain of relentless attacks.
In battle, the line between life and death was often no more than a single instant.
But who exactly was the hidden attacker?
And why had that person vanished immediately after missing the first strike?
Madara pushed his three-tomoe Sharingan to its limit, scanning the forest within a hundred-meter radius. Yet there was no one there.
"The enemy has already left," he concluded calmly.
Only then did Tobi slowly emerge from underground.
"I couldn't detect any trace either," he muttered. "Looks like they fled right after the ambush."
"Then we should—"
But just as Madara's attention returned to Shimizu, he suddenly noticed that the chakra inside Shimizu's body was in complete disarray.
A sign of collapse?
The next moment—
"Poof!"
The bound "Shimizu" burst apart into rippling water.
It had been nothing more than a Water Clone.
All that effort… all that caution… and they had spent the entire time dealing with a fake?
"…What?" Tobi stared blankly, momentarily unable to accept such an insult to his intelligence.
"Then where is the real Shimizu Uzuki?" Madara asked coldly.
Tobi abruptly came back to his senses. "I thought that was just a clone... a clone that suffered that level of damage couldn't possibly have the capacity to continue fighting..."
Madara nodded slightly. "A clone indeed wouldn't be able to..."
Generally speaking, the durability of a physical clone was proportional to the amount of chakra invested into it. The more chakra a clone possessed, the more punishment it could endure.
That was why some clones could continue existing even after suffering serious injuries.
But once a clone's chakra became unstable from severe damage, it naturally lost the ability to perform ninjutsu.
And so, after concluding that the one he initially attacked was merely a clone, Tobi had instinctively ignored it.
"…But the original body could still fight," Madara finished.
Then suddenly, he laughed.
"Ahahahaha… remarkable. Even I was deceived."
"There actually was a moment when I became suspicious," Tobi admitted with a sigh. "After all, how could he possibly detect my stealth?"
"And honestly… the way that clone acted—stiff and sluggish—it really did look like a fake dummy."
So Tobi's ambush had genuinely succeeded. No one could completely guard against such unpredictable sneak attacks.
But Shimizu had used a Water Clone to make both Madara and Tobi believe he had already seen through their scheme from the very beginning, misleading them into making the wrong judgment.
Otherwise, with his poor resistance to genjutsu, how could he possibly have escaped Madara's Mangekyō Sharingan?
"The Konoha Anbu are here," Madara said as he noticed figures flickering rapidly through the forest ahead.
"Then what now?" Tobi asked.
"Jiraiya is severely injured, and I still haven't fully recovered my strength. More importantly…" Madara turned away slowly. "Shimizu Uzuki has already escaped."
"We'll let him go for now."
Tobi blinked in surprise, immediately catching the implication behind Madara's words.
"…You're planning to come back again?"
"There will always be another opportunity," Madara replied calmly. "How could I possibly ignore someone capable of attracting the attention of fate itself?"
…
Madara and Tobi withdrew unwillingly, but on Shimizu's side, there was no way he could simply watch those two brazen intruders stroll out of Konoha unhindered.
Did they really think Konoha was their own home? Free to come and go as they pleased?
After enduring serious injuries and successfully launching Water Release: Heavenly Weeping, Shimizu immediately retreated and regrouped with the arriving Anbu reinforcements. Following some basic treatment, he joined the pursuit operation against the infiltrators without hesitation.
"Uzuki-senpai, your injuries…" a young Konoha Anbu said quietly.
"It's nothing. They avoided my vital points," Shimizu replied dismissively with a wave of his hand. "And the bleeding's already stopped."
"But if you continue fighting, the wounds will reopen," the Anbu warned earnestly. "That'll become a real problem."
It was common sense—something everyone understood.
Yet Shimizu remained unmoved.
He simply shook his head and continued the mission.
Madara was a threat he could never ignore. There was no way he would back down now.
Still…
This Anbu seemed unusually concerned about him.
"…Obito, isn't it?" Shimizu asked quietly, his tone certain.
"…Uh—"
For a split second, the young Anbu froze in surprise.
The other man instinctively reached up to touch his mask, as though the gentle night breeze had peeled away the disguise covering his face.
Even his voice had been deliberately altered, and the two of them had not seen each other for a very long time…
But seeing that reaction, Shimizu was certain.
It really was Obito.
"Stay alert. The enemy… is extremely dangerous."
Shimizu said no more after that, focusing entirely on the direction Madara and Tobi had fled.
There was an entire Anbu squad here, along with himself.
And even that… probably still wasn't enough.
Because the memories transmitted back from the Water Clone had already made one thing painfully clear:
He, Shimizu Uzuki, had absolutely no way of resisting Madara's Mangekyō Sharingan.
In fact, nobody present could likely withstand that attack.
The moment Madara activated his Mangekyō Sharingan, Shimizu had fallen under its influence instantly—even without making direct eye contact.
Was it some kind of space-time Dōjutsu capable of interfering with reality itself, similar to Kakashi's Kamui in the original story?
Even after personally experiencing the technique once, Shimizu still understood almost nothing about it.
Worse yet, he possessed no memories whatsoever regarding Madara's Mangekyō abilities.
Their intelligence on it was effectively zero.
And in battle, that was the worst possible situation.
Before Obito could reply, Shimizu suddenly sensed one of the two chakra signatures disappear entirely.
Tobi had probably entered stealth again.
But was he retreating…
Or circling back to observe them?
Based on Shimizu's understanding of him, the latter seemed far more likely.
As if confirming his suspicion, Madara's movement speed gradually began slowing down again not long afterward.
They were preparing to fight?
Shimizu's expression darkened immediately.
"How long until reinforcements arrive?"
"About ten minutes," Obito replied quickly from behind his Anbu mask.
Ten minutes…
With only their current numbers, they probably wouldn't survive that long.
That left them with only one option: keep Madara occupied without fully engaging him, stall for time until the larger reinforcements arrived, and then deal with the situation properly.
Shimizu immediately turned toward the leader of the Anbu squad.
"Maintain distance. Avoid direct engagement with the enemy."
They couldn't afford to lose track of the targets, but they also couldn't recklessly advance. If Madara attacked proactively, they would have to retreat immediately.
The strategy sounded somewhat cowardly on the surface. And technically, Shimizu wasn't even the squad leader.
But his prestige and reputation within Konoha were already well established. More importantly, he had already warned everyone that the infiltrators possessed Kage-level strength.
After only a brief hesitation, the Anbu captain nodded.
"Understood. We'll follow Uzuki-senpai's judgment."
"Uzuki-senpai… even if they're strong, we still have the numbers," Obito said unwillingly, clearly dissatisfied with such a passive approach.
Still just a hot-blooded kid.
"In front of those two, numbers don't mean much."
"Not even elite jōnin?" Obito shot back immediately, unconvinced.
At this point, Obito had already stepped into the ranks of jōnin, and his strength had been growing at an astonishing pace. He was currently at the height of his confidence.
Even against Kage-level opponents, what filled his heart was not fear, but overwhelming fighting spirit.
Because he possessed the Sharingan.
Those eyes were his greatest source of confidence.
But in front of Madara…
How long could even an Uchiha jōnin with a three-tomoe Sharingan last against the terrifying and mysterious power of the Mangekyō?
"The gap in strength between jōnin can already be enormous," Shimizu replied seriously. "And they're Kage-level opponents."
Compared to the Obito from the original story, the current Obito was already far more humble—and vastly stronger.
But blind passion at a moment like this would only make the situation worse.
"My injuries are proof enough."
"Uzuki-senpai is definitely strong…" Obito slowly raised his head, his voice filled with seriousness. "But you also said you were heavily injured because they caught you off guard."
"So maybe… they aren't actually as invincible as you think."
No…
Those two had nearly beaten Jiraiya to death.
But Shimizu couldn't reveal that information.
His brief silence was apparently interpreted by Obito as agreement.
Immediately, Obito continued:
"I can hold one of them off. Even if they're Kage-level."
"As long as senpai and the others can defeat the second one, we can kill them."
That confidence…
Shimizu instinctively looked toward him, trying to peer through the cold Anbu mask and uncover the source of such overwhelming self-assurance.
But the instant their eyes met, Shimizu immediately looked away again.
It had only been a brief glance.
Yet that immense ocular power had already interfered with the normal flow of chakra inside his body.
This was Dōjutsu power far beyond Shisui's.
Far beyond even Sawei and Zero.
This kid…
Without anyone noticing, he had already grown to this level.