Just as Orochimaru was staring blankly at the severed arm held by Homura in the distance, an arm suddenly pierced into his body from behind, penetrating straight through his chest!
"Pfft..."
After coughing up a large mouthful of blood, Orochimaru lowered his head to look, and froze on the spot.
Because the arm currently piercing through his chest was also the right arm embedded with seven Sharingan—the very same arm he had transplanted onto Danzo during the modification surgery!
However, at this moment, all the sockets containing the Sharingan were tightly closed. Judging from its appearance, it seemed as though there were no Sharingan embedded in those sockets at all.
"Wh... why? Isn’t this arm being held by Homura?"
In an instant, a question surfaced in Orochimaru’s mind.
After all, the severed arm held by Homura beside the distant lava pool and the arm currently piercing through his chest should both have been Danzo’s distinctive right arm embedded with Sharingan!
At that moment, Danzo, who had silently ambushed Orochimaru from behind, violently swung his arm, sending Orochimaru, whose chest had been pierced through, flying!
Bang...
The injured Orochimaru crashed into a pile of rubble and soon stopped breathing.
Danzo, whose four limbs were now completely intact, turned his head. Breathing heavily, he fixed his gaze firmly on Kagami, who was bathed in golden flames.
Within those beastlike eyes, brimming with the desire to attack, there was now something else besides boundless brutality and bloodlust.
A faint but unmistakable trace of confusion!
Exactly—confusion!
Beneath his flame-patterned mask, the corners of Kagami’s mouth gradually curled upward.
The severed right arm of Danzo that he was holding was real, not some illusion. The reason two identical right arms had appeared simultaneously was entirely due to the clash of ocular powers between him and Danzo at the bottom of the lava pool!
Just now, taking advantage of Danzo’s loss of reason and his inability to act on anything other than instinct, Kagami had successfully dragged him into the lava pool. With the home-field advantage provided by the scorching heat of the lava, he had quickly broken through the defenses of Danzo’s Susanoo.
However, during this process, Kagami had not made killing Danzo his primary objective. Instead, he had attempted to use fuinjutsu to counter Danzo’s Izanagi.
Unfortunately, among the fuinjutsu Kagami had mastered, the most powerful was the Four Symbols Seal.
But the Four Symbols Seal was a fuinjutsu that targeted the flow of chakra. It had little effect on dojutsu activated by the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan.
Thus, even after Kagami had inscribed the sealing formula of the Four Symbols Seal onto Danzo’s body, he had still been unable to prevent Danzo from instinctively activating Izanagi.
However, during the process of Danzo activating Izanagi, Kagami had not only severed his right arm embedded with Sharingan, but had also subconsciously unleashed the ocular power of his own Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan.
At such an extremely close distance, his ocular power directly interfered with Danzo’s Izanagi, causing a deviation and overlap in fate!
As a result, the normal timeline in which Danzo escaped death and the timeline in which his arm was severed had erroneously overlapped.
Consequently, although Danzo had successfully revived and his severed right arm had been restored, the remaining Sharingan embedded in that arm had all vanished without a trace!
Meanwhile, the right arm Kagami had severed had inexplicably remained in this spacetime.
"Heh, so even Izanagi can be interfered with..."
Chuckling softly, Kagami sealed Danzo’s severed right arm, which still contained four Sharingan, into the storage scroll he carried with him.
Undoubtedly, as long as one’s ocular power was sufficiently strong, even a forbidden technique like Izanagi, which could rewrite fate itself, could still be interfered with.
Kagami even suspected that if the ocular power of the person casting Izanagi was not strong enough, he might be able to directly use the ocular power of his own Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan to nullify the opponent’s rewriting of an unfavorable fate.
And the reason he had failed to completely nullify Danzo’s Izanagi just now was most likely because Danzo possessed ocular power comparable to his own.
After returning the storage scroll containing Danzo’s severed right arm to the ninja tool pouch at his waist, Kagami slowly walked toward Danzo.
Watching Kagami approach step by step, the bloodlust in Danzo’s eyes gradually faded, replaced by deep apprehension and fear.
He was afraid!
The pair of Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in his eyes was afraid!
After losing the remaining three-tomoe Sharingan embedded in his right arm, if Danzo wanted to activate Izanagi again to save his life, he would have no choice but to sacrifice the pair of Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in his eye sockets.
And the very thing currently influencing Danzo’s will was that pair of Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Naturally, it was impossible for them to willingly sacrifice themselves!
Panting and trembling, Danzo began retreating.
Having only recently survived the Kekkei Genkai Fusion Ritual, he had been thrown into one fierce battle after another without the slightest opportunity to recover, and had even activated Izanagi three times in succession.
One had to understand that although Izanagi could rewrite an unfavorable fate, the chakra consumed to activate it would not be restored.
Thus, after suffering repeated setbacks, Danzo had weakened considerably, both in terms of his chakra reserves and his courage. Instinctively, he had lost confidence in his ability to defeat Kagami.
Suddenly, Kagami’s gaze sharpened as he discovered that Danzo had actually deactivated the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in his own eyes, causing his pupils to revert to their normal dark color.
At the same time, the ferocious expression on Danzo’s face disappeared.
It was as though he had become an entirely different person, and his eyes even revealed a hint of unease.
Kagami stopped advancing and frowned.
"You..."
Before Kagami could finish speaking, Danzo rapidly formed hand seals and slammed both hands onto the ground!
In an instant, countless blood-red crystals spread outward with Danzo at their center. Like razor-sharp blades, these crystals instantly severed the wooden pillars and vines that had been desperately supporting the volcano!
Having lost the First Hokage’s chakra support, these wooden pillars and vines were already deteriorating and could barely support the mountain any longer. Now, under the impact of Danzo’s Crystal Release, they were utterly powerless to resist and were completely destroyed.
RUMBLE...
With all the wooden pillars and vines gone, the entire volcano collapsed amid a deafening roar in the span of a few breaths!
At the very moment the earth shook and the mountain crumbled, Kagami keenly noticed another change in Danzo’s expression.
The previous unease had turned into nervousness, and a thin layer of sweat had even appeared on his forehead.
Immediately afterward, Danzo formed hand seals with both hands and activated Swift Release, disappearing from the spot.
"He’s trying to escape!?"
Kagami was taken aback.
He had originally been certain that Danzo, having lost his reason, would remain fixated on obtaining his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan.
And he could exploit this obsession to seize Danzo’s Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in return.
Yet, contrary to his expectations, the other party had actually disregarded his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan entirely, decisively activated Crystal Release to destroy the mountain, and then immediately used Swift Release to escape from the lava cavern!
"No, that’s not Danzo!"
In an instant, Kagami reached a conclusion...