Chapter 379: The Plaything That Broke Free

Chapter 379: Chapter 379: The Plaything That Broke Free

The dazzling golden flames illuminated the once-gloomy underground collection vault until it was as bright as day.

At this moment, the vast majority of the weapons stored within the vault had already melted into streams of red-hot molten iron, flowing freely across the floor reinforced by sealing formulas.

A small number of exceptionally durable weapons had been scorched and warped by the golden flames, losing their original sharpness. It was only a matter of time before they, too, completely melted into molten iron.

Only a tiny handful of true treasures still retained their original forms beneath the golden flames, but no one could say how much longer they would withstand the relentless heat.

Walking slowly through the sea of fire, Hyuga Kagami wore a solemn expression.

At some unknown point, the ribbon tying his hair had snapped. His black hair, which should have been bound into a ponytail, now fluttered freely in the scorching currents stirred up by the golden flames.

Yet those terrifyingly hot golden flames—flames capable of reducing weapons forged from refined steel into molten iron in an instant—could not harm Hyuga Kagami in the slightest.

Even the strands of hair dancing around him remained completely unaffected.

The golden flames that consumed everything in their path behaved like obedient golden flowers whenever they approached him.

And Hyuga Kagami, bathed in that boundless sea of fire, resembled a divine being.

Calm and indifferent, he swept his gaze across his surroundings as though looking down upon his own divine kingdom.

"Where will he revive?"

Because Hyuga Kagami himself had never mastered the forbidden technique Izanagi, everything he knew about it came from the memories of his previous life.

He knew that Izanagi could turn anything unfavorable to its user into an illusion, replacing the reality that had actually occurred.

It was a miraculous ocular technique capable of using illusion to rewrite reality itself.

And when it came to a dōjutsu that touched upon the very realm of rewriting fate, Hyuga Kagami had no way of analyzing the principles behind its activation without first mastering it himself.

Therefore, all he could do was draw upon his memories of the battles in which Izanagi had been used...

and design his strategy accordingly.

In the original timeline, quite a few people had actually used the forbidden technique Izanagi.

Madara, Obito, Danzo, as well as several Uchiha throughout history had all used it before. But among them, the one who had used it most frequently was actually Danzo, someone who wasn’t even an Uchiha.

Based on Danzo’s battle with Sasuke, Hyuga Kagami had concluded that if Obito used Izanagi to rewrite his fate, then he would most likely be like Danzo and revive somewhere nearby.

And that was precisely why Hyuga Kagami had used Blaze Release to turn the entire collection vault into a sea of fire.

The moment Obito revived anywhere inside this collection vault, Kagami could use Blaze Release to instantly inflict severe damage on the newly revived Obito, creating an opportunity to kill him a second time!

However, several minutes passed, yet there was still no sign of Obito reviving anywhere inside the vault.

"Could it be that he didn’t use Izanagi?!"

The thought flashed through Hyuga Kagami’s mind, but he quickly rejected it.

Because he knew that before Obito was killed, he had indeed possessed enough time to activate Izanagi.

Hyuga Kagami’s expression darkened as he clicked his tongue.

"Tch..."

By now, he had already realized where his mistake lay.

Using the Izanagi performed by a second-rate imitation like Danzo to predict the Izanagi performed by a true Uchiha was undoubtedly an incredibly foolish thing to do.

It was just like two people using the same B-rank Fire Style technique, Majestic Destroyer Flame.

When an ordinary ninja used it, its power remained at the B-rank level.

But when Uchiha Madara used it, its power was practically S-rank!

The same principle applied to dōjutsu.

When different people used the exact same ocular technique, the difference in power could be as vast as heaven and earth.

Danzo himself possessed no Uchiha bloodline, and the transplant on his body wasn’t a fusion performed at the cellular level either. Instead, an entire arm had simply been transplanted onto him.

Therefore, the primary body responsible for refining his chakra was still his own.

As a result, the Izanagi he performed should have been nothing more than a crippled version, capable of lasting for only a short minute.

This difference was particularly obvious when it came to Madara.

Because when Madara used Izanagi to fake his death, he hadn’t merely deceived the First Hokage...

He had even fooled the Second Hokage, who had taken possession of Madara’s corpse for research.

It was clear that in the hands of a true Uchiha, the forbidden technique Izanagi could be activated with a delay. As for just how long that delay could be, it probably varied from person to person.

And Hyuga Kagami had no way of determining Obito’s limit.

Judging from Obito’s battle with Konan, the duration of his Izanagi was at least five minutes, perhaps even longer.

As for whether Obito could delay the activation of Izanagi, Kagami believed that he probably could.

That meant once the duration of the technique and the possible activation delay were added together, the window in which Obito might revive became extremely wide.

Kagami suddenly staggered and dropped to one knee.

He had consecutively used three Mangekyō Sharingan-level dōjutsu—Susanoo, Iwato, and Mikoto. Even with his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, his ocular power was beginning to struggle to keep up.

On top of that, in order to ensure that he could severely injure Obito the instant he revived, Kagami had just transformed the entire collection vault into a sea of golden flames, consuming an enormous amount of chakra in the process.

"Cough, cough..."

After coughing lightly twice, Hyuga Kagami thought to himself, "Perhaps the only way to truly kill Obito is to master Izanami and trap him within a cycle of fate!"

......

Deep within the underground palace.

At the exact instant Hyuga Kagami killed Obito, the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura Karatachi, abruptly opened his eyes!

"Damn it!"

Immediately afterward, his previously vacant expression gradually twisted.

Humiliation, fury, and countless other emotions surged through him all at once, causing his youthful face to flush bright red.

There was no doubt about it.

At the very moment Obito was killed by Hyuga Kagami, the Fourth Mizukage had seized the opportunity...

and broken free from Obito’s genjutsu control.

Although the Fourth Mizukage had been reduced to nothing more than a puppet under Obito’s genjutsu control, he had remained completely aware of everything Obito made him do while he was trapped within the illusion.

The thought that he, the Mizukage, had been reduced to a mere plaything in someone else’s hands...

The thought that he could only watch helplessly as Obito threw Kirigakure into chaos, unable to do anything to stop him!

Overwhelming rage and killing intent continued to swell within the Fourth Mizukage’s chest.

"I have to put an end to all of this as quickly as possible!"

Grabbing his iron hook, the Fourth Mizukage hurried out of the secret chamber.

He knew that a coup was currently erupting outside—

a coup that Obito had deliberately allowed to happen.

Just as the Fourth Mizukage stepped out of the secret chamber, he encountered Kisame, Ryū, and Renge in the corridor, the three shinobi whom Obito had only recently brought under his command.

Seeing the Fourth Mizukage approaching in such a hurry, the three assumed that he was still Obito’s puppet. They moved forward to meet him while asking,

"Is it time for us to make our move?"

Looking coldly at the three people before him, the Fourth Mizukage spat out a word.

"Traitors!"

Ryū, who possessed the Red Eye, immediately sensed that something was wrong and shouted,

"Watch out! He’s broken free from the genjutsu!"

As shinobi raised in the Village of the Bloody Mist, all three maintained an extremely high level of vigilance at all times.

They didn’t even lower their guard around one another.

So the instant Ryū shouted his warning, all three launched their attacks.

"Hmph!"

The Fourth Mizukage snorted coldly.

With a twist of the iron hook in his hand, a Water Mirror materialized out of thin air.

Immediately afterward, two figures emerged from the mirror—

perfect copies of Kisame and Renge!

The two copies charged forward to meet the attacking Kisame and Renge head-on...