"Sarutobi Asuma." Uchiha Keizumi's voice rang out slowly.
Cold and emotionless, the words drained all strength from Asuma's body.
"When you raised your blade, laced with malice, against [Absolute Justice]—you had already become its enemy."
"Heh… 'Absolute Justice'..." Asuma suddenly let out a laugh.
"Uchiha Keizumi, is this your justice? To slaughter people in Konoha and turn yourself into a blood-soaked murderer? Don't forget—you're the one who killed my brother, Sarutobi Shinnosuke."
"Even if we put aside the threat you pose to Konoha's future, the fact that you killed my brother alone... means there can only be one outcome between us."
"Heh—cough! So what? In your eyes, is avenging my own brother also considered a sin under your twisted justice?"
Blood continued to seep from Asuma's torn skin. His vision blurred, his consciousness fading in and out—
But he still clenched his teeth, forcing himself to challenge Keizumi.
Uchiha Keizumi's tone remained calm and unshaken: "A murderer is exposed and sentenced to death by Konoha. That murderer's family then brands Konoha as their sworn enemy, seeks to destroy the village, and tries to kill everyone in it—if you believe that's righteous, then I have nothing more to say to you."
"Sarutobi Asuma, you are beyond redemption."
The moment those words reached Asuma's ears, his eyes—which had already been wide—began to tremble violently.
The whites of his eyes were now filled with a web of bloodshot veins.
His barely-standing body—
Completely froze.
As his gaze slowly lowered—
All Asuma could see was the red-hot magma that had, at some unknown moment, pierced straight through his body.
The flak jacket that could easily block shuriken and kunai offered no defense at all in the face of molten lava.
Smoke rose from Uchiha Keizumi's magma-infused arm, veiling half of Asuma's face.
His trembling eyes stared forward—
"You're facing death, just like Shinnosuke-sensei did... but you don't see it as clearly as he did," Uchiha Keizumi murmured. "Maybe that's why, as the younger brother, you were never his equal. When your soul reaches the Pure Land, perhaps you can ask him."
"Even though he never accepted my [Absolute Justice], he understood better than most what I was doing. He knew what kind of weight those words truly carry."
As Uchiha Keizumi withdrew his hand—
The last glint of life faded from Asuma's eyes.
His body went stiff—
And collapsed forward, face-down onto the scorched earth.
Keizumi calmly stepped aside, allowing the body to fall.
And with that—
The Third Hokage's eldest son… and his second son… were both dead.
"That leaves… four and a half."
Uchiha Keizumi's indifferent gaze swept over the ruined battlefield, past the broken corpses and scattered debris—
Until it fell on the four Guardian Ninja still locked in combat with the ninja cat, Tachibana Jirō.
He began walking toward them.
…
"Hah! Almost there!" Kakashi breathed heavily through the sulfur-thick air. The acrid stench alone told him how brutal this battle must have been.
"But…"
Something didn't feel right—the sound of fighting up ahead had quieted. It felt like the battle was already drawing to a close.
When he and Might Guy finally burst out of the dense forest together—
Kakashi's eyes slowly widened.
What he saw was…
The massive ninja cat, Tachibana Jirō, holding a bloody corpse in its mouth.
A second body lay on the ground—its upper half missing.
Not far ahead, there was a small chunk of blackened charcoal that might have once been human.
And further on—
Uchiha Keizumi, without any flashy technique, crushed half a shinobi's skull with a single punch.
The dying ninja's final desperate thrust—driving his blade into Keizumi's body—looked laughably pathetic in contrast.
"…Looks like we got here too late."
Kakashi inhaled deeply and said it with a dry, grim voice.
Reluctantly shifting his gaze away from Uchiha Keizumi, Kakashi couldn't help but look at the scene of devastation before him.
What he saw—was a vast area resembling a volcanic crater, molten lava flowing in all directions like a pool of magma. Billowing smoke continuously rose into the sky, and the surrounding terrain within sight was engulfed in roaring flames. The heat was so intense it made Kakashi physically uncomfortable.
Countless craters dotted the area, some so massive they defied visual estimation, others so deep their bottoms were out of sight.
The trees in this entire region had been completely obliterated. Anyone looking down from above would see nothing but bare, scorched land.
The bodies strewn across the ground were all mangled beyond recognition.
Some were missing everything below the torso. Some had only a head left. Some were charred to cinders. Others had massive gaping holes through their chests.
"Haa... haa..."
The faint sound of breathing immediately caught Kakashi's attention. When he turned toward the source, he was shocked to see that Uchiha Keizumi had actually left one person alive!
But that survivor was barely clinging to life, their limbs twisted at grotesque angles, with who knew how many broken bones inside their body.
Kakashi thought, if this person didn't receive emergency treatment right now, they probably wouldn't survive another minute.
And it would have to be from a professional medical-nin.
In other words...
There was no saving them.
Even Might Guy, standing nearby, now wore a grave expression.
"Kakashi, look over there..." Guy's sudden words made Kakashi pause. "Look at the lower half of that corpse's waist."
Following Guy's instruction, Kakashi focused his gaze.
Even his Sharingan—its three tomoe spinning—narrowed sharply.
He saw it—wrapped around the waist of the corpse skewered through the chest by Keizumi's hand, was a sash. Embroidered on that sash was a single character: Fire.
And that one word pierced Kakashi's vision like a blade.
"This is..." Kakashi drew in a sharp breath.
Guy gave a low grunt of confirmation, no longer shouting about youth or passion. In a serious tone, he said, "That's a sash from the Land of Fire. The only shinobi qualified to wear that kind of sash…"
He paused dramatically, then dropped a bombshell: "Are the Twelve Guardian Ninja who serve directly under the Daimyō of the Land of Fire!"
And at the exact moment Guy finished speaking, Uchiha Keizumi slowly withdrew his right arm. The corpse he had pierced through collapsed limply to the ground.
Nearby, the massive, wounded shinobi cat—Tachibana Jirō—deflated like a burst balloon and rapidly shrank in size.
Once he had returned to normal ninja cat proportions, Tachibana Jirō kicked furiously at the mangled corpse he had just bitten to shreds, wincing in pain and baring his teeth.
"Damn it, that hurts like hell, meow! You're the one who used a Fire Release jutsu on my bell, weren't you?! What a despicable bastard! Biting you to death was way too merciful!"
"Meow! Good thing I dropped my butt to the ground in time to put out the fire—gah, you lackey of the Land of Fire's Daimyō really died too easily. Tsss—still hurts! Damn it, it really hurts, meow!!"
Kakashi: "…"
Guy: "…"
The angry grumbling of the ninja cat—along with his tragic tale of a near-castration—seemed to completely ruin what had been an otherwise somber and grim atmosphere.
The words "lackeys of the Daimyō" immediately confirmed it for both of them—
these corpses were indeed the Twelve Guardian Ninja.
"One, two... five, six…"
Kakashi silently counted the mangled bodies, cold sweat running down his face.
Though the number didn't reach eleven, he figured that was probably because some of the ninja had been completely vaporized by the extreme heat of the lava.
Those poor souls didn't even get the chance to leave behind a corpse.
The Twelve Guardian Ninja of the Land of Fire's Daimyō…
It was highly likely they had been completely wiped out!
...
[Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh—Rustle, rustle…]
Suddenly, the sound of movement came from behind.
When Kakashi turned around, he saw ANBU operatives arriving one after another at last.
"Captain Kakashi?"
One of them—one of Kakashi's subordinates—immediately spotted his distinctive silver hair.
Glancing at the devastated landscape before him, the man was visibly stunned.
He quickly walked up to Kakashi and asked, unable to hold back: "Captain, what happened here? Who are all these bodies?"
"No idea what exactly happened."
Kakashi shook his head, his expression complicated.
"All I know is that these bodies are most likely the Twelve Guardian Ninja of the Land of Fire's Daimyō."
The ANBU: "!!!"
Kakashi hadn't even lowered his voice—all of the ANBU present heard him.
One of them immediately stepped forward to inspect one of the mutilated corpses.
When he saw the face of the corpse, he couldn't help but exclaim in shock, "This is Seito—one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja, an elite jōnin!"
On the other side, another ANBU gasped, "This body looks like Tōu, another of the Twelve!"
All eyes—filled with dread and disbelief—turned toward Uchiha Keizumi.
From afar, they had already seen that Uchiha Keizumi had been fighting a group of unidentified ninja.
But who would've imagined… that those unidentified ninja were the Twelve Guardian Ninja?!
And even more staggering—
In such a short span of time, the Twelve Guardian Ninja, all elite jōnin, had been completely annihilated by Uchiha Keizumi!
Now reduced to corpses too gruesome to look at.
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I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
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