Chapter 249

Obito raised his head, glancing around. In the Kamui Dimension, an immense wall of darkness blocked his path.

He cautiously placed his hand on the barrier, confirming its solidity. Something was indeed obstructing his way.

This was unprecedented. The Kamui Dimension had never shown any limitations like this before!

Realizing something was wrong, Obito turned around to find that darkness surrounded him on all sides.

Since when did the Kamui Dimension have physical boundaries?

A cold sweat dripped down his forehead, and a hint of confusion flashed in his remaining eye. According to all his prior experience, the Kamui Dimension was a reflection of the shinobi world—its shadow. The dimension should be as vast as the world itself.

Yet now, it had shrunk to a confined space.

Obito exited the Kamui Dimension and returned to reality, looking back at where the dark barrier had been.

"Nothing?!" Obito's eyes widened in disbelief.

There was no sign of the barrier—everything appeared normal.

But the moment passed, and Obito realized something was off. It felt as though something was distorting his vision. He focused on a tree for a couple of seconds, and suddenly, the tree seemed to bend unnaturally, only to snap back to its original state in an instant, as if the distortion had been a mere illusion.

He performed a hand seal, attempting to disrupt any potential genjutsu, but nothing happened.

And yet, deep down, Obito doubted that he was under any illusion. Could it be tied to the strange occurrences in the Kamui Dimension?

Grabbing a nearby branch, he reached toward where the dark barrier had previously appeared.

Snap.

The branch was instantly twisted and broken by some unseen force, with half of it disintegrating into fine dust, drifting away.

The landscape in front of him, though visually intact, now seemed to belong to another world—a world too familiar to Obito.

This technique was eerily similar to the powers of his Kamui.

His left eye, the one capable of warping space, had been lost, but now he was witnessing something that closely resembled its abilities. Kamui could distort space for brief moments, severing limbs or warping parts of people and objects away.

However, what Obito saw before him seemed to be a permanent spatial distortion. Whether it would revert in time or remain forever was uncertain, but one thing was clear:

He was trapped.

Swallowing hard, Obito realized this wasn't something he could easily escape. He turned his gaze back toward the direction he had come from, unable to shake the feeling that the mysterious figure was somehow responsible for all this.

As that thought took root, it became impossible to ignore.

"Wait... If that's the case, where's Zetsu?" Obito muttered.

Even if this space had become a cage, Zetsu wouldn't have been defeated by just a water shark bomb.

Even now, Obito couldn't fully comprehend Zetsu's fate. He still assumed Zetsu was waiting somewhere, just like him, possibly observing from the edges of the battlefield.

With no other options, Obito decided to return to the battleground to assess the situation.

When he arrived at the lake five minutes later, he was stunned.

Twelve bodies floated on the lake's surface—Deidara, Kakuzu, Hidan, Sasori, Kisame, Uchiha Itachi, and the Six Paths of Pain.

Hidan's head was missing, and his body had been severed into numerous pieces, scattered across the battlefield. The lake's surface was tinged with a faint red, marking the site of a recent battle.

Among the debris were countless puppet fragments, indicating that Sasori had unleashed a large number of his puppets before dying.

"You're back?"

Thud.

"Ahhhh!"

Before Obito could fully process the sight, the mysterious figure's voice came from behind him. In an instant, a hand shot out from beside his head, and within moments, Obito's remaining eye was gouged out.

Everything had happened so fast.

Obito realized that this individual's physical capabilities far exceeded those of a normal person. The speed of his attack alone would have made it impossible for most shinobi to react.

On the other side, Dak gazed at the figure of Obito, who had momentarily escaped using Body Flicker Technique.

"Well, now you won't have to worry about using Izanagi anymore," Dak remarked calmly.

Moments ago, while focusing on Itachi, Dak had nearly fallen prey to Tsukuyomi—if not for his Conqueror's Haki, things could have gone wrong. Not to mention, there was the constant threat of Itachi's crows.

Every time one appeared, Dak would crush it with psychic power to avoid inadvertently encountering the one containing Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan and its dangerous Kotoamatsukami.

As expected, Itachi had attempted to use Kotoamatsukami to alter Dak's will.

But Dak now held Itachi's Shisui Eye in his hand, preventing the jutsu from being used.

As for Itachi himself…

The body of Itachi floating on the lake was, in fact, still alive. He had used Izanagi to reverse his death, faking it for the moment. Dak, of course, knew this, but he didn't expose Itachi's act.

His reasoning was simple: leaving Itachi alive would allow Sasuke to awaken the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, fulfilling his desire for revenge. Once that was done, Dak could potentially recruit Sasuke to the Pokémon League as a powerful asset.

Despite being a complicated character, Itachi's unwavering dedication to protecting Konoha was something Dak could respect. Allowing Itachi to live would help preserve stability in the shinobi world.

"What's your goal?" Obito's voice called out.

By now, Obito had come to realize that Akatsuki was finished, and with it, the Moon's Eye Plan.

"For peace," Dak replied simply.

"Peace? Hahahaha! Do you even know that Akatsuki's entire purpose is to maintain peace in the shinobi world?!" Obito sneered.

"Spare me the fake peace from Infinite Tsukuyomi," Dak scoffed, waving his hand dismissively.

If the Moon's Eye Plan succeeded, Dak's ambitions for reshaping the shinobi world into a Pokémon World would be thwarted.

To destroy this plan, Nagato, Obito, Madara, and Zetsu—the four individuals who knew how to implement it—had to die.

"..."

Obito hadn't expected Dak to be aware of the Moon's Eye Plan. "I'm telling the truth. Without Akatsuki, the Fourth Great Ninja War will break out within months!"

"Is that so? Then let it happen," Dak replied indifferently, tilting his head, confused by Obito's reasoning.

Why would Akatsuki's fall trigger more war?

Based on Dak's understanding, Akatsuki was responsible for igniting countless small wars throughout the shinobi world. By monopolizing war commissions from smaller nations, Akatsuki was steadily expanding the scale of conflict, disrupting the established systems of the great nations.

Wasn't Akatsuki already making wars worse?

"You'll regret what you did today!" Obito declared with certainty.

In his mind, Dak was making a grave mistake if he truly believed that Akatsuki was the cause of war rather than a means of controlling it.

"You can die now," Dak said coldly, raising his hand. He had no intention of debating further, and with a swift motion, he crushed Obito's heart.

Although Dak didn't fully understand Obito's logic, he couldn't dismiss the possibility entirely. Without Akatsuki, the Fourth Great Ninja War might indeed come sooner than expected.

In the time of Boruto, the five great nations managed to maintain peace due to their alliance against Akatsuki and its remnants, as well as the larger threat of the Ōtsutsuki Clan. The cooperation born from the Fourth Great War endured, with the five villages working together for decades.

However, with Akatsuki destroyed before the Ōtsutsuki threat could emerge, the likelihood of the five villages maintaining their unity was slim. The balance of power would be shattered, and war would be inevitable.

Without a common enemy to unite them, the shinobi world might descend into chaos, as the great nations resumed their power struggles.

For the world to find peace, there could only be one solution:

The unification of the shinobi world.

The wars must continue until one nation emerged victorious, dominating the others and uniting the world under one rule.

Only then would true peace be achievable.

This had once been Madara's belief as well. Before he was manipulated by Zetsu and misled by the falsified writings of the Sage of Six Paths, Madara had planned to unify the shinobi world by force.

But in the end, Madara was swayed by Hashirama's dream of a peaceful Konoha, leading him down a different path—until the day he uncovered the altered stone tablet.

Had Madara been more ruthless, had he pursued his original vision, the shinobi world wouldn't have endured three major wars. And Zetsu's schemes would have been thwarted from the start.

In a way, Oda Nobunaga had done the same in his own world—unifying warring states into a singular empire. History had proven the effectiveness of that approach.

And now, Dak believed it was time for the shinobi world to follow suit.

True peace could only come through unification.

Yet, Dak had overlooked one crucial detail: the shinobi world didn't have a Nobunaga.

The one person capable of unifying the world, Madara, had already strayed too far off course.

(End of Chapter)

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