"Fugaku, aren't you going to lead the Police Force to help Keizumi?"
Uchiha Mikoto turned to ask Fugaku.
"…We can't help him anymore." A complicated and conflicted expression crossed Fugaku's face. After a long sigh, he said, "If Keizumi hadn't caused so much trouble, I truly could have led the Police Force to support him. But now, he's become a source of deep concern for the higher-ups. Even the Hokage won't meet him alone."
"If I were to lead Police Force shinobi out of Konoha to support Keizumi, in the eyes of the higher-ups… it would suggest that the Uchiha Clan and Keizumi are closely tied. Their wariness toward Keizumi would be redirected onto the Uchiha Clan as a whole."
"This… would push our already precarious clan over the edge, plunging us completely into the abyss of mutual distrust with the leadership."
Fugaku paused for a moment, then continued, "This is also one of the reasons I don't want Sasuke embracing [Absolute Justice]. The closer the Uchiha become to Keizumi, the greater the danger we face."
Upon hearing this, a look of disbelief flashed across Mikoto's eyes.
She couldn't help but say, "Fugaku, Keizumi is part of the Uchiha Clan—how can there even be such a thing as 'too close' or 'not close'? Why would the higher-ups implicate the entire clan just because of him?"
"Fugaku, aren't you becoming overly sensitive?" Mikoto struggled to understand her husband's desire to draw a cold, emotionless line between himself and Uchiha Keizumi.
"Mikoto, your perspective is too narrow," Fugaku replied slowly, echoing something Itachi had once said to him.
After a brief silence, Fugaku added, "It's not that I've become sensitive… it's Itachi. He's beginning to stir."
Mikoto: "!!!"
"And the reason Itachi is stirring is because of Keizumi's extreme actions. They've convinced him the Uchiha Clan is spiraling out of control. The only thing that might calm him down now is if we completely sever ties with Keizumi—though even that may not work."
Fugaku's long sigh seemed to age him several years in an instant.
Mikoto was left at a loss.
One was her eldest son, the other her husband—yet she couldn't understand the thoughts or actions of either.
Both father and son kept saying that Uchiha Keizumi was extreme.
But…
Neither of them seemed to realize just how extreme they were themselves.
Mikoto opened her mouth—
But no words came out.
…
Outside Konoha.
The moment the overwhelming torrents of water collided with the magma dragon, a seething cloud of scalding white steam surged downward, engulfing Asuma and Kazuma from above.
The blistering heat caused both men's expressions to change in an instant.
They retreated in haste, unable to even retrieve Chiriku's corpse. They could only watch helplessly as that horrifying steam enveloped the body—
And cooked it alive.
"Tch..."
The burning pain on his skin made Asuma draw a sharp breath. He glanced down at his arm—already flushed a deep red. Clearly, it had been scalded by the surging, searing steam.
When he looked up again, he saw the crimson magma dragon pushing forward, steadily overwhelming the oncoming water!
A combined jutsu from three elite jōnin—yet it still couldn't hold back a single Lava Release technique from Uchiha Keizumi!
"He's already on the level of a Kage!"
Asuma clenched his teeth and forced the words out. At last, he understood why the old man had always tread so cautiously—why, even after his own son was killed by Uchiha Keizumi, he still refused to turn on him.
That terrifying power Keizumi wielded… was likely the reason Hiruzen dared not make an enemy of him.
"Huh?!"
Suddenly, Asuma's sharp instincts caught something—he noticed that the magma dragon's glow was intensifying, burning brighter by the second.
"Watch out!!!"
His shout had barely left his mouth when the blazing magma dragon detonated like a volcanic eruption! The force of the blast shattered the massive wave of water, reducing it to droplets that sprayed across hundreds, even over a thousand meters—like a sweltering monsoon pouring down over the dense forest.
The exploding dragon fragmented into countless magma projectiles. Each one was massive—each the size of a house—trailing long tails of flame and billowing, acrid black smoke as they rained down toward the three Guardian Ninja who had used Water Release.
One of them, caught completely off guard, was struck head-on by one of the blazing, high-velocity projectiles.
His flesh and blood body was instantly engulfed by magma.
Asuma couldn't even tell—had the man been vaporized? Or simply charred into a black husk?
Another tried to dodge in a panic, but was a moment too late.
The force of the impact from the falling magma smashed into the ground and unleashed a shockwave that sent him flying. His body slammed into a large tree, crashing in with such force that he was embedded deep into its trunk.
"GUH-WAH!!!"
A mouthful of blood burst from his lips. The magma's radiant heat had scorched half his body from a distance, charring the skin black. His burned flesh clung to his melted clothing, fused together in patches of oozing rot.
The third finally managed to dodge several incoming magma bombs.
Seeing one comrade dead and another grievously wounded, his face went pale with lingering dread.
But just one second later—
Before he could even breathe a sigh of relief for narrowly escaping death, he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet begin to tremble.
His expression changed drastically. He looked down—and saw fissures opening in the ground beneath him, with glowing magma pulsing just beneath the cracks!
"…Shit—!"
[BOOM!!!]
The ground within a 10-meter radius around him erupted, collapsing inward as a fountain of magma exploded from below, engulfing him entirely in an instant.
He didn't even have time to scream.
No jutsu, no taijutsu—he never got the chance to use a single technique.
He died on the spot.
"Damn you, Uchiha!!!" Kazuma's reaction was even more furious and grief-stricken than Asuma's, eyes bloodshot and wide with rage—because all three of the fallen Guardian Ninja had been staunch supporters of abolishing the Hokage position!
"Kazuma!!!"
Asuma's sudden shout snapped him out of it—just in time to realize the next wave of danger was already upon them.
In the next instant—
A pair of crimson Sharingan appeared within Kazuma's field of vision. The genjutsu from the three-tomoe Sharingan embedded itself into his mind, instantly scrambling all of his senses—touch, hearing, smell, sight, and taste—into chaotic disarray.
Panicked and desperate, Kazuma slammed his hands together, trying to disrupt his chakra flow and forcibly break the illusion.
He managed to regain partial control over his senses—
But then suddenly felt something clasping the lower half of his face.
When his horrified vision finally cleared, what he saw was—
Uchiha Keizumi, with magma coursing down one side of his body.
And gripping his jaw—
Was Keizumi's magma arm!
[Sizzle—]
[SZZZ—]
The sound of flesh sizzling against molten rock rang out with disturbing clarity. Keizumi's magma hand pressed into Kazuma's face as if it were warm butter—melting straight through with no resistance.
The terror and despair in Kazuma's eyes froze permanently in place.
The fighting strength of the Twelve Guardian Ninja…
Had just dropped to six.
Asuma, who had witnessed it all in just a matter of moments, felt a chill run through his entire body. When his eyes fell upon Uchiha Keizumi's back—magma churning, smoke billowing—the look on his face was one of pure shock and horror.
Chiriku, Kazuma, and the other three—
They were all elite jōnin of the Land of Fire, veterans who had clawed their way out of blood-soaked battlefields during the Third Great Ninja War.
If Asuma had been pitted alone against those five, he wouldn't have stood a chance. Death would've been a certainty.
And yet—
Uchiha Keizumi, all by himself, had effortlessly slaughtered four of them and severely injured a fifth—all in a matter of moments.
Especially Chiriku and Kazuma—both exceptionally powerful shinobi.
And yet in front of Keizumi, they were utterly powerless.
This guy…
He's a monster.
The deaths of four Guardian Ninja—and the crippling of a fifth—had thrown the five remaining who were besieging the ninja cat, Tachibana Jirō, into complete panic. One of them, distracted by the chaos, caught a glimpse of Jirō's massive paw slicing toward him, carried by a howling gale. Startled, he tried to dodge in a hurry.
But he moved just a bit too late.
Tachibana Jirō's razor-sharp claws slashed clean through his arm, severing it instantly.
The searing pain twisted his face in horror as he clutched at the shoulder where his arm used to be.
So it wasn't just Uchiha Keizumi—
Even this giant ninja cat was a monster!
[Whoosh—]
The howl of the wind returned. The one-armed Guardian Ninja's pupils shrank as his eyes darted to the right—
Just in time to see an enormous tail swinging toward him like a whip.
He was forced to form a one-handed seal.
[WHAM!!!]
Even as his skin turned to stone, Jirō's tail slammed into him with crushing force. The one-armed shinobi was sent flying like a volleyball struck mid-air, the world around him blurring into streaks of color as he spiraled backward through the air.
Wait!
This direction…
Shit!
Before he could react any further, his expression suddenly shifted—
And in that exact moment, a terrifying figure—magma flowing, smoke rising—flashed past him as he flew.
—That ninja cat had deliberately swatted him in this direction!
The thought flashed through his mind in a split second.
And in that brief 0.000-something seconds, the one-armed Guardian Ninja saw, in horror, Uchiha Keizumi's pair of crimson Sharingan turning—seemingly locking eyes with him!
Time itself seemed to slow in that moment.
He watched helplessly as the "magma monster" before him swung his left arm—his molten, crimson arm extending like a blazing spear, thrusting straight toward him!
Its speed outpaced the velocity of his own airborne body!
[—WHAM!!!]
The pointed tip of Keizumi's magma arm pierced clean through his chest in an instant, skewering him like meat on a spit—his backward momentum halted mid-air as if frozen in place.
"GUH-WAAH!!!"
Blood gushed from the one-armed Guardian Ninja's mouth, eyes wide with terror.
His Hardened Skin had been enough to block a direct blow from that giant ninja cat's tail…
And yet it was utterly worthless against Keizumi's Lava Release!
He couldn't understand it!
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