Chapter 28 - 28: I Win
The air snapped.
Obito froze.
What the hell...?
His body—it wasn't phasing. Kamui wasn't activating. He was still solid.
Too solid.
Panic pressed at the edges of his calm like a splinter under the skin. His heartbeat was pounding now—loud, uneven. Distracting.
This had never happened before.
Kamui—his ace, his shield, his get-out-of-jutsu-free card—was sluggish.
And that white light? The one dancing across Zeldris's knuckles?
It wasn't chakra.
It wasn't jutsu.
It was something else.
Obito's breath caught in his throat. Cold sweat slipped down the side of his face beneath the mask.
"...What the hell did you do to me?" he growled.
Zeldris didn't answer. He just smiled.
And launched another punch.
Obito moved on instinct, throwing his body into a side-flip with an awkward twist that screamed I did not train for this. The white-hot fist sailed past him, grazing the air—and for a moment, just brushing it felt like brushing a star.
The heat alone made the air scream.
And that's when it clicked.
Zeldris wasn't just strong.
He was a walking middle finger to physics.
From across the battlefield, Sasori watched with arms folded, looking like a puppeteer who suddenly realized he's the puppet.
"...He's forcing him to dodge," he muttered. "Okay. So. That's a thing now."
Once, the masked man had seemed invincible. He phased through explosions like a ghost at a firework show. Untouchable. Unbothered.
And now?
He was doing cartwheels like a genin who failed chakra control.
Sasori exhaled through his nose.
"...And I was gonna try turning him into a puppet. Gods, I'm an idiot."
Back in the chaos, Zeldris slammed another punch into the ground.
CRACK.
It sounded like someone had dropped a mirror the size of a city.
Fractures spread instantly across the sand, racing outward in glowing threads. The desert rumbled.
The ground didn't break—it fractured, like the world itself was glass.
Obito stumbled back, eyes wide.
He turned—and stopped cold.
The air behind him was... broken.
Hairline cracks shimmered in the sky itself. The air had shattered.
He looked down.
His arm—his actual, very important, I-use-this-for-jutsu arm—was fracturing. Splintering like ice under pressure.
"What...?"
It wasn't pain. It was worse.
It was the feeling of no longer existing.
Zeldris stood a few meters away, calm as a monk, deadly as a guillotine.
"What's wrong?" he asked casually, like he was offering tea. "Can't escape?"
Obito didn't answer. He couldn't.
His body was coming apart.
That white glow wasn't just light—it was damage. Raw, existential damage.
And it was winning.
He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw cracked. Desperation surged up his spine like cold lightning.
He had one shot left.
Blood poured from his eye as he forced Kamui to activate, chakra screaming, vision swimming—
And finally—
Shift.
He phased.
Just in time.
Because behind him, Zeldris brought his fist down.
And the world broke.
BOOM.
The desert exploded like it had been holding its breath for centuries. Sand launched skyward in a column of force, the earth split like overcooked bread, and sound itself got punched out of existence for a second.
Sasori leapt back fast, the Third Kazekage puppet pulling him into the air with practiced ease.
He didn't even flinch this time.
Yep. There's the earthquake. Right on cue.
The dust storm swallowed the battlefield whole.
Silence.
And then—
As the haze began to fade, only one figure stood amid the wreckage.
Zeldris.
Still. Silent. Faint glow fading from his knuckles.
He exhaled slowly.
No Obito in sight.
Only... an arm.
Lying alone in the sand.
He stared at it.
"...So," he muttered. "Still managed to slip out in the end."
That meant Kamui had worked, barely.
Which also meant—Gura Gura no Mi couldn't directly affect space.
He clicked his tongue.
Tch. So it doesn't bend reality—it just breaks it so hard reality can't keep up.
But then—
The air twisted.
The space in front of him peeled back like a curtain. The Kamui vortex spun open once more.
And out stepped Obito.
Barely.
His left arm was gone. Blood soaked his side. His mask was cracked, cloak in tatters, eye half-lidded from chakra exhaustion.
He looked... awful.
Like someone who'd just barely dodged getting hit by a divine hammer.
Which, in fairness, he had.
Zeldris blinked.
And then smiled, just slightly.
"Sorry," he said softly, voice low and even.
"...But I win."
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