บท 223: Ch223. Uchiha Massacre 3
Konan materialized right in front of Obito who was finishing off an Uchiha chuunin with a stab straight through his heart.
Obito slowly blinked and tilted his head, trying to comprehend where the heck did all that paper appear from and who was the woman in front of him. Honestly, he was confused as heck. "Er... Tobi is a good boy?" He weakly tried as the body of the chuunin fell lifelessly onto the ground.
"Obviously." Konan patronizingly nodded but her tone was totally sarcastic as her eyes glanced at the dead Uchiha between them.
It didn't take Obito long to realize that something went horribly wrong with this straightforward operation. As such, he decided that useless banter was unnecessary and quickly sprang into an attack.
Crossing the distance between himself and the patiently waiting woman, Obito lashed out with a kunai and gleefully watched as Konan tried to parry, only for her kunai to pass through him. To Obito's surprise, the only sight of shock on Konan's face was an almost pleased widening of her eyes. He didn't have a long time to see her expression though and even less to contemplate it. He quickly passed through her body in his intangible state and the second he finally separated from her, he quickly spun on his heel and plunged his kunai deeply into her upper back, aiming straight for the heart.
Obito watched his kunai enter Konan as brief satisfaction filled him and thoughts of continuing with his mission sprang up in his head. It was only the sheer primal instinct honed for years of preparation to fight against the fabled Yellow Flash that caused Obito to rapidly let go of the kunai embedded in Konan's back and switch into his intangible state just as the Konan in front of him burst into paper slips and a very sharp tip of folded tessen suddenly poked out from his chest, causing him to numbly stare at it.
'That would go straight through my heart.' He realized how close to death he came as cold sweat drenched his forehead. 'I didn't even realize when she got behind me!' He slightly inclined his head to the side and instantly saw Konan standing there, lazily holding the fan still stabbed through his intangible form while she was wearing an amused expression with one of her brows mockingly lifted upwards.
It was an expression that reminded Obito of Kakashi's condescension in his early years and for some reason, when he saw it on the deadly bluenette, it really irked him somewhat fiercely. Gritting his teeth, Obito spun his body in a burst of speed and sprang again towards Konan, aiming to engage her in hand-to-hand combat as that would provide him the most advantage considering his intangibility.
His fist neared the calm Konan and Obito expected her to block. That's why he was very surprised when she didn't react at all and his fist burrowed into her chest all the way to the middle of his forearm. That's why he was even more surprised when Konan's body let out a small hiss as she briefly glowed orange before a resounding boom shook the street as numerous explosive tags in the paper clone reduced everything in their proximity to ash.
"That almost got me." Obito murmured as he appeared a few feet from the small, newly-made crater in the middle of the street, holding his right arm that sported nasty burns through the tattered sleeve. He only barely managed to switch with a clone but the explosion still somewhat got him. His arm was half-buried in the paper clone and therefore his intangibility was useless at that moment.
"Obviously." Konan's leisure voice sounded from the crater and Obito, much to his shame, actually gaped for a second as she stepped out from the smoking crater, as fresh as daisies, ready for the second round.
Quickly pulling himself together, Obito reassessed the threat the woman posed to him. Frankly, there were not many people he feared but the bluenette in front of him was doing quite a good job at making it into his personal 'don't cross' list all the while looking almost sinfully bored. Obito shuddered.
'She clearly knows how to counter my Mangekyo. I have to be careful in further confrontation.' He thought and decided to attack again.
For the next thirty minutes, Konan and Obito fought back and forth, playing an odd game of cat and mouse with their roles reversing after every strike. When Obito struck, Konan's figure burst into paper and Obito usually found himself skewered from behind as new Konan always appeared there, no matter how prepared for it he was. It was supremely irritating, in his humble opinion. When Konan struck, Obito simply relied on his intangibility to both avoid damage and get an opportunity to strike back. Now that he was extremely cautious, his opponent was clearly having as much difficulty landing a meaningful attack as he was since he was under the intangibility most of the time. Now if only he knew why the bluenette had such an amused and smug smile plastered on her face...
Obito slashed his kunai through Konan's neck, not at all surprised when his target burst into paper. He was already in the process of spinning around, expecting new Konan to appear from behind... only for his instincts to mockingly scream DODGE at him, causing him to jump away just as the thrice-damned tessen of Konan passed the spot his neck was just a second ago.
Obito's eyes widened as he slid to halt when he noticed that the Konan whose throat he slit was still there, her slit throat made of slips of paper, clearly not injured at all as her throat reformed in matters of seconds.
'So... not only she can burst into paper and appear behind me, now she can even disregard lethal damage by turning into paper? Isn't this just plain cheating!?' Complained the sole ninja who could go intangible at will without any significant restriction.
That singular lapse in judgment was enough for Konan, however.
A sharp pain suddenly erupted from Obito's chest as blood burst from his mouth. He could only briefly note that he was alive because he subconsciously leaned his body to the right and as such, the spike made of paper missed his heart. He fell on one knee, gritting his teeth at the satisfied expression of his opponent. "How?" He rasped in disbelief that he was caught off guard.
"I counted... Obviously." Konan snorted and rolled her eyes at the wide eyes of Obito. Inwardly, however, Konan was a bit sullen that she couldn't make the paper spike from exploding tags. Unfortunately for her, during the fight, she found out that Obito was far too sensitive to chakra and had almost inhuman instincts so she was severely limited in her offensive means. That's why she didn't even bother using wind chakra in the clash. With her opponent's chakra-sensing ability, it would be a waste of chakra.
'Counte-, SHIT!' Obito mentally cursed and spat the blood that pooled in his mouth as he realized with no small amount of horror the woman in front of him somehow grasped the limit of his intangibility in their short fight. Suddenly, something clicked in his mind and he couldn't help but shudder. 'So that's why she fought with me for the last thirty minutes! She was trying to gauge the limits of my abilities!' Obito wanted to berate himself for his carelessness. The limit of his Mangekyo Sharingan was the only weakness he had considering he wasn't losing his eyesight thanks to the Hashirama cells implanted in him. To think somebody would so easily deduce it during a fight!
Yes, the woman in front of him was definitely getting on his 'feared' list.
Grimacing, he curiously looked at the dangerous bluenette in front of him and asked, "Aren't you going to finish me?"
Konan pointedly looked at him as if he was a total idiot. "You would just go intangible again."
"Fair enough." Obito painfully chuckled. In fact, he was very happy he decided to keep some of his abilities secret and didn't use his mokuton in the fight because he was half-suspicious the woman in front of him would pull out some unexplainable shit… again. He half-expected to be turned into paper at this rate. But… that was delusional even for him. right?
In fact, Konan still tried to control the paper spike skewing his chest but the chakra Obito was pushing into it was causing quite an interference. He definitely knew what he was doing, she mused.
"Well, Tobi had enough! You are not a good girl! You cheating piece of… ahem." Obito slipped into his cheerful persona, not minding the winces he did mid-speech before he went serious again, "Next time we meet, I will be prepared." And with that, he disappeared in a swirl, making Konan chuckle at the empty threat.
"Such a drama queen..."
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