Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the second Shimizu had already engaged Tobi directly.
The nine curved bolts of Storm Release lightning were all instantly blocked by Wood Release techniques unleashed by the opponent.
Immediately afterward, Shimizu closed the distance with fierce sword attacks. Pale green Wind Release chakra surged around his blade with unstoppable momentum.
"Although seeing you again fills me with a kind of joy I can't quite put into words," Tobi said while dodging, continuously using Wood Release to neutralize Shimizu's attacks.
"But if you keep pestering me like this and let the Three-Tails slip into that river, then I'm going to have a real problem."
The Three-Tails was extremely weakened at the moment, but its body had shrunk to an unusually tiny size and it was naturally adept in water. If it truly escaped into the river, there would be no getting it back.
Yet Shimizu remained unmoved.
He pushed both his speed and swordsmanship to their limits.
Konoha-Style Kenjutsu: Crescent Moon Dance!
Midair, his figure suddenly split into three.
Three "Shimizus" attacked Tobi simultaneously from three separate directions.
I can't dodge—he's too fast!
At the instant the green sword light descended, countless trees suddenly erupted from underground, enveloping Tobi's entire body in the blink of an eye.
Three crisp tearing sounds rang out.
The Wind Release-enhanced blade strikes only managed to carve several deep marks into the Wood Release defenses.
"I mean, seriously, why are all of you so angry? You people don't even say a word before attacking."
Finally escaping immediate danger, Tobi managed to catch his breath.
Extracting a Tailed Beast was nowhere near as easy as it appeared on the surface.
At this moment, he urgently needed time to recover.
"Earlier, I kept wondering whether you'd come or not." Through the gaps in the layers of Wood Release surrounding him, Tobi stared at Shimizu in the distance. "But logically speaking, judging by the travel time from Kirigakure to here, it should've been absolutely impossible."
Tobi sighed, sounding genuinely depressed.
"And yet here you are standing right in front of me."
"I came to send you to hell," Shimizu replied calmly.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. You care about me so much."
"Where's Madara?"
"Hiding in the shadows waiting to strike at any moment."
"So he's not here…"
Shimizu recalled everything he had seen while rushing here.
Among them, the two enormous ravines carved through Konoha left a particularly deep impression.
One of them had clearly been caused by the Three-Tails.
Which meant the other could only have been the Two-Tails' doing.
Since Madara wasn't here, then he had likely gone to the Two-Tails' side.
And the Third Hokage also seemed to be there.
"You heard wrong! I said he's hiding in the shadows!" Tobi emphasized loudly.
But Shimizu had already ignored the other side's pointless chatter and took the opportunity to recover chakra and stamina as quickly as possible.
Earlier, he had relied on Garaga's keen sense of smell to accurately track the direction Kakashi had gone.
Then, after pushing his speed to the absolute limit, he used Wind Release chakra to accelerate himself further.
Unexpectedly, the Wind Release training methods he had casually asked the Third Hokage about in the past had actually proven useful at a moment like this.
Still, this kind of brute-force chakra usage was incredibly wasteful and reckless.
If he hadn't feared arriving too late—
If he hadn't feared missing this fateful meeting between Kakashi and Obito—
And if his chakra reserves hadn't already become vast enough to step into the Kage-level realm—
Then he never would have chosen such an extravagant method of travel.
But even so, Shimizu's chakra reserves had once again dropped to a dangerous level.
The nonstop travel and earlier explosive burst of speed had placed an enormous burden on his body.
Suddenly, the memories from two shadow clones flooded into his mind.
'Looks like I made it in time. Kakashi's life isn't in danger, and confused teenager Obito already got beaten flat.'
'But Rin actually didn't die… now that's rare.'
'And the key to the whole issue was actually Tobi's Wood Release?'
"The Three-Tails ran away…" Tobi suddenly wailed mournfully. "That was a Tailed Beast! Are you going to compensate me for it?!"
Shimizu: "…"
There was definitely something wrong with this idiot's brain.
"You just insulted me, didn't you?!"
Shimizu: "…"
"I can't take this anymore!" Tobi slammed his hands together, pouring massive amounts of chakra into the earth. "Today, either you die or I do!"
The battle resumed.
In an instant, enormous numbers of trees burst from underground and began growing wildly, quickly covering hundreds of square meters around them.
But against Shimizu, this level of attack posed little real threat.
With several rapid uses of the Body Flicker Technique, he escaped the Wood Release's attack range.
The only problem was that Tobi still remained tightly protected within layers of Wood Release, with absolutely no intention of coming out.
For the moment, even Shimizu had no good way to deal with him.
As for powerful large-scale techniques like Water Severing Wave, they required a certain amount of hand seals and activation time. Worse, Tobi could very likely evade them using his unpredictable Earth Release techniques.
And Shimizu's chakra reserves were no longer abundant enough for careless waste.
Every bit had to be calculated carefully.
He needed cover.
Meanwhile, throughout the battlefield, countless trees continued spreading and growing at an unbelievable speed.
The stance and scale of this technique resembled the First Hokage's Deep Forest Emergence, though on a far smaller scale.
"You keep hiding like this, and it's getting boring," Tobi taunted while continuing to manipulate the Wood Release. "Come hit me already…"
As time passed, the area covered by the trees continued expanding.
At first, Shimizu could evade them with ease, but gradually the attacks became impossible to avoid completely. He was forced to rely on instant-cast Lightning Blade Slashes and his Wind Release-enhanced longsword to cut down the trees closing in around him one after another.
This kind of wide-open, overwhelmingly aggressive Wood Release assault—fighting without any regard for chakra consumption—was completely different from Tobi's usual sneaky and underhanded style.
It really did seem like a decisive battle now.
For the first time, Tobi was fighting him with genuine killing intent.
Good.
This was exactly the kind of battle Shimizu had long desired.
As you wish.
Today, only one of us walks away alive.
In an instant, a blue-glowing chakra kunai flew toward the area where Tobi was hiding.
Boom!
A violent explosion erupted, sending wood splinters and green leaves flying everywhere while thick smoke rolled outward.
"That kind of attack can't hurt me."
Then even more blue chakra kunai flew toward Tobi.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A continuous chain of explosions engulfed the area in dense dust and smoke.
For a moment, both sides lost sight of each other completely.
"Tobi, hiding like this won't let you defeat me."
"How would you kn—"
A crisp cracking sound suddenly rang out.
From within the dust cloud came Tobi's exaggerated voice.
"Whoa, that was close! Seriously close."
"White-hair, you're still as underhanded as ever."
"You tried to use the blocked vision and bait me into talking so you could pinpoint my position and finish me with that Water Severing Wave technique."
"But…"
Tobi suddenly burst into laughter. While manipulating the damaged trees destroyed by Water Severing Wave to wrap around himself once more, he continued mocking:
"A cheap trick like tha—"
Suddenly, a sharp whistling sound tore through the air.
Then came a wet piercing noise.
Tobi's unfinished words were abruptly cut off.
"Ugh… that actually hurts a little."
As the dust finally dispersed, Tobi lowered his head and looked at his chest and abdomen, where blood was steadily flowing out.
Three shuriken needles were embedded there.
Only one had been blocked by the surrounding trees.
"So that's what this little thing was."
They were Shimizu's chakra shuriken—specialized hidden weapons custom-made by master craftsmen from the Land of Craftsmen. Once infused with Lightning Release chakra and detonated, the four miniature blades hidden at the tip would launch outward again, creating a secondary attack.
Back then, Shimizu had not been able to precisely control the trajectories of those needles.
But now, such control was no longer difficult for him.
Tobi finally understood.
"So only something this small could slip through the gaps between the trees."
"And judging by the look of it, you've got quite a few of these on you."
"Enough to kill you."
"Hehehe… let's hope you're still this arrogant later."
A massive amount of chakra once again surged wildly into the ground.
Within only a few breaths, every tree branch and vine in the entire forest suddenly bloomed with white flowers.
In the blink of an eye, countless snow-white blossoms spread throughout the green sea of trees.
This…
Shimizu faintly caught a strange fragrance in the air.
Immediately afterward, he noticed his chakra flow becoming disrupted.
Poison?!
Instinctively, he tried to form hand seals and escape using the Body Flicker Technique.
But by now, his entire world had begun spinning violently.
For a moment, he could not even complete the hand seals properly.
"Feeling dizzy? Feeling your chakra circulation becoming sluggish?"
"Stop struggling uselessly. I prepared this specifically to deal with you… After thinking it over, this was the only method capable of restricting that irritating speed of yours."
"Shimizu Uzuki…"
"This is the funeral I prepared for you."
"And once you reach hell…"
"Don't miss me too much."
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