Orochimaru walked out of the monitoring room without a change in expression. He had absolute confidence in his own strength, but Uchiha Chizumi's "name" in the ninja world wasn't small.
Even so, Orochimaru made some preparations in advance for a fight—basic respect for one of the most suitable "vessels" in his eyes.
Screee—!
All of a sudden, just a few steps after he left the monitoring room, the metal floor beneath his feet let out a tooth-aching screech.
Then—
Rumble—rumble—rumble!
As if a volcano that had built up for a thousand years erupted in an instant!
Ahead, a half-meter-thick alloy blast door was shredded like papier-mâché by a raging, natural-disaster force.
Huge chunks of metal shot out like cannon rounds. The corridor's piercing alarms howled straight into the red.
But more terrifying than the flying shrapnel was the roaring, surging scarlet magma right behind it!
Like a flood from hell, it boiled forward, devouring and melting the rain of metal fragments in a blink. Acrid burnt stench and scorching sulfur filled the air as leftover instruments and piping in the corridor warped and drooled like wax.
Blinding red light flooded every corner.
In an instant the lava tide swallowed the space, painting Orochimaru's pale face a ghastly crimson.
A blast of heat slammed into him like a physical punch, whipping the hair at his temples into a frenzy and forcing his golden slit pupils to narrow.
All he could see was a river of annihilating lava.
"Hah—" Facing the oncoming flood of destruction, Orochimaru's lips twisted into an extreme grin, full of admiration and greed.
"As expected of the body I've set my sights on. You found me fast… Those trash—turns out they're not even qualified to be cannon fodder to buy time!"
As his words fell, a sharp light flashed in his eyes.
His hands had already been gathering chakra. Now his ten fingers laced and he slammed both palms into the scorching floor as if pounding on the gates of hell.
Even as the flesh of his hands sizzled on the red-hot metal, Orochimaru's face didn't flicker.
"Summoning Jutsu: Triple Rashōmon!"
!!!
!!!
!!!
With earth-shaking booms and an explosion of rebar and concrete, three colossal gates bristling with fanged maws thrust up from the ground!
They punched upward with unstoppable force. Even the heavily reinforced ceilings above the base were ground to powder the instant the grotesque oni faces on the gates made contact.
Sunlight and smoke poured down through the fissures overhead.
The first Rashōmon—its doorface a demon's head biting a massive ring—exuded a chill from the underworld.
But in a single breath, the raging lava tide slammed into it.
That jet-black gate, tough enough to withstand a Tailed Beast Bomb, hissed like ice tossed into a steel furnace.
The snarling face warped and melted in the heat, then was swallowed and dissolved by the red flood in an instant.
The second Rashōmon held out a touch longer. Metal sheen and curse-patterns flickered across its surface, but only bought another heartbeat.
A torrent of magma splashed aside, scoring deep grooves in the walls; the gate itself turned red-hot like an ingot in a forge, softening—
Unable to bear the impact at last, it collapsed inward with a crash and was immediately buried and dissolved by the lava surging over it.
The third Rashōmon!
This was the utmost defense that Orochimaru's own chakra and summoning pact could sustain.
The crimson deluge dumped everything it had onto the final gate. It shrieked under the load, the slab bending back into a terrifying arc as if it would snap at any second.
At the center of the doors, the spot struck by the lava's core heat glowed dark-red, then began to drip and gutter like a candle, molten, dazzling metal flowing down the face.
Even so, the surging lava was finally forced to split by this last barrier, turning like a slightly-tamed beast and roaring down both sides of the massive gate, flooding into the monitoring room, hallways, and labs behind Orochimaru—turning everything it touched into a furnace.
The superheated air writhed. The remaining lights flickered and stuttered.
Heat punched through the air in a heartbeat; a film of clammy sweat broke across Orochimaru's sickly pale skin—and was steamed away a second later.
The firelight from the lava reflected in his golden serpent eyes as he watched the third Rashōmon deform in agony, then slowly sink back into the ground and vanish.
When the final gate lowered the "pure land of Yomi," Orochimaru's view opened wide.
His gaze speared past multiple metal bulkheads that had been pierced and melted, their edges running with glowing steel.
At the end of the lava-flowing corridor, a figure stood steady atop the scarlet magma, heat-white smoke boiling off him.
Most unnerving were the eyes—Mangekyō Sharingan, red as blood. Even through the surging heat and thick smoke, the eerie, unique pattern was clear.
Orochimaru instinctively shifted his gaze aside, avoiding direct eye contact with those soul-hooking eyes.
(soft chuckle)
Unhurried, his smile curling, Orochimaru didn't even look at the lava creeping toward his feet.
He raised his voice a little toward the man ahead. "Such a grand gift for our first reunion in years. Chizumi-kun, what price are you prepared to pay to calm my anger?"
"Don't act like we're old friends." The voice was icy, carrying sulfurous heat as it cut through the crackle of rolling magma and stabbed clearly into Orochimaru's ears.
Chizumi stepped onto the flowing lava and walked forward at an unhurried pace. With each step, the molten rock caved and bubbled.
The standard ninja blade in his hand had already nicked and warped along the way, and he'd tossed it casually into the lava behind him where it melted at once.
Right now, Uchiha Chizumi was empty-handed.
The smoke wreathed around him like hell's breath, warping the air so that in the heat-haze his outline flickered in and out.
His voice drifted out as cold as a judge of the underworld: "Years ago, with the Third Hokage leading the Anbu, you barely escaped Konoha. But once you were out, you didn't repent or reflect on the crimes you'd committed there—you only escalated."
"You carried your evil from inside Konoha to the outside, and in just a few short years your sins spread across the entire ninja world. The innocent people who suffered at your hands can't be counted. Sometimes just looking at the endless list of victims makes my head spin."
Orochimaru's eyes narrowed slightly. "I heard a tidbit from some useless subordinates—your Mangekyō Sharingan can see the evil a person has done."
"Ah—…
"If in my eyes, what I've done isn't 'evil,' by what standard are you judging me? In the end, your 'absolute justice' is just your personal justice."
"Self-indulgent justice like that can't save the shinobi world, nor will it win many hearts. Chizumi, like most people, you haven't grasped the true essence of this world."
"The Will of Fire, 'absolute justice,' the Blood Mist policy, or ruling the world through endless pain—every one of these visions is laughably small."
He spread his arms as if to fold the world into his embrace, his tone full of seductive certainty: "Chizumi-kun, you're no different from mediocre frogs at the bottom of a well. All you see is that narrow circle of sky."
Orochimaru's voice snapped cold, edged with scorn. "Short lives cage everyone's measure and mettle, leaving them to struggle their whole lives for a false, broken ideal.
"Only eternity—only life that transcends time's river—frees one from those shackles, to explore the true—"
His bewitching monologue never finished.
What answered him was Chizumi's right arm lifting without warning and a compressed, explosive jet of magma blasting out from his palm.
This time it was a shockwave—lava rammed into a giant fist by extreme compression and hurled straight at him.
The power was volcanic, undeniable.
Orochimaru's smile froze, but his body moved like a phantom.
"Tsk! How rude—interrupting people mid-sentence!"
"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"
His hands blurred to afterimages. A simple C-rank jutsu, under his chakra, underwent a qualitative shift.
A mass of chakra gathered and roared out!
In the tight corridor, a hurricane-class spiral blast ripped to life.
A wall of wind took shape, seizing the oncoming lava and dragging it in, shredding and churning it to pieces!
Scalding fragments of molten rock got caught up in the gale like a hail of fiery meteors, pelting the corridor walls and leaving tight clusters of charred pits and slow-dripping metal.
Using the smoke and energy turbulence from the clash of wind and magma,
Orochimaru's jaw suddenly unhinged forward to an impossible degree, like a snake dislocating its fangs.
—Hurk—
With a wet gagging sound, a long, gleaming sword slick with saliva snapped out from deep in his throat.
He clamped his teeth on the hilt of the Kusanagi, his own spittle shining on it.
Keen wind-chakra writhed to life over the blade like a living thing.
Fwee—
With a ripping screech the blade shot forward, elongating at insane speed, becoming a lethal silver line lancing through a hundred-meter corridor. Smoke and gale alike were skewered in an instant.
Chizumi's face didn't change. He tilted his head the slightest bit to the left.
Zip!
The blade's cold flash skimmed past his right ear.
It didn't take his head, but the wind pressure—condensed to the limit and almost tangible—left a cut as smooth as a mirror along the outer edge of his ear.
Strangely, there was no spray of blood.
Instead, a viscous, dark-red fluid oozed out like molten rock and dripped down like candle tears.
The severed edge was lava—slow-flowing and radiating fierce heat.
Chizumi glanced at the sword blade. Aside from Orochimaru's disgusting saliva, he could see a faint sheen of visible wind chakra rippling along it.
No wonder it could cut at range.
A short distance away, Orochimaru showed no surprise. His inhumanly flexible neck snapped, and the hundred-meter Kusanagi swung in a silver arc, aiming to bisect Chizumi at the waist.
Chizumi arched back and the cold light skimmed his face. Behind him, several walls parted in neat lines like laser cuts.
"Chizumi-kun, I know the problems with those eyes of yours—someone told me about them not long ago. Just hearing it sent a chill down my spine."
His voice hissed like a snake's as his hands kept flying through signs. "I can't give you the chance to use those bizarre dojutsu."
He threw his mouth open and vomited a black tide that made the scalp crawl—thick, black snakes.
Hiss—hiss—hiss—
Tens of thousands of jet-black serpents, thick as thighs and sheened with a weird metallic luster, poured out.
As they swept over the lava on the floor, the scales only sizzled, smoking a little and fraying at the edges—their speed didn't slacken at all.
"These little ones were bred specifically to counter your lava. Their scales are highly heat-resistant. Even thrown into a volcano, they'll live for a full minute."
"In a ninja fight… a minute decides everything."
Sure enough, the swarm bore the heat as he said. The lava on the ground wasn't enough to stop them.
Worse, each black snake gaped a maw full of fangs—
and inside each mouth was a long, razor-sharp blade, every weapon etched with dense, tiny black curse-marks.
Orochimaru unveiled his signature trick:
—man spits snakes,
—snakes spit swords.
"Chizumi-kun, a little gift I prepared especially for that 'lava elementization' you're so proud of."
His taunting voice carried through the layered hissing, confident to the point of certainty. "A lava elementization similar to Water Transformation? It may grant immunity to most physical attacks and some elemental ones…"
"But what about certain space-time techniques, soul-level jutsu, and curse-marks that work directly on chakra?"
His golden slit pupils locked on Chizumi's face, as if savoring the panic of a "vessel."
Watching the corridor pack solid with that black tide of snakes, metal-sheened and glowing with curse-marks, Orochimaru's sickly confidence all but overflowed.
"Don't mistake me for some arrogant fool. Against you, I'm cautious. To deal with Konoha's genius, Chizumi-kun, I've made all the necessary preparations.
"That's the mark of an experienced shinobi."
…
While Chizumi's battle ramped toward a frenzy, the clash in the Konoha Police Force building had also reached its peak.
Uchiha Fugaku's face was drawn tight, like a man who'd lost his parents.
Disappointment deepened his eyes as he looked at Uchiha Izumi before him.
Once so close to Itachi, the young woman had become unrecognizable. She had even, in front of a crowd—and with several non-Uchiha present—openly tried to force the clan head to step down.
Fugaku clenched his fists, then let them relax.
Expressionless, he said, "My conscience is clear toward the Uchiha, toward the Police Force, and toward Konoha."
Lowering his gaze to Izumi, he spoke slowly: "You thinking I'm unqualified to be clan head and police captain doesn't mean I have to step down just because you say so."
"I became clan head and captain because I was recognized by the clan—and by the Hokage."
"What if we don't recognize you now?!" someone cut in—a special jōnin of the Police Force, one of the radicals who'd always had it in for Fugaku.
"The ones who put you in that seat were the old fossils of the Uchiha," he sneered. "Those fossils are either dead by Chizumi's hand, or retired and out of clan business."
"Maybe it's time for us younger ones to pick a leader we actually accept?!"
Cries followed from other Uchiha: "The moment you decided to shield Uchiha Itachi, you lost the right to lead this clan! And now you dare stand against Absolute Justice."
"A police captain who doesn't believe in justice—ha! If that gets out, we'd lose every shred of face. What right do you have to lead us?"
Another Uchiha said coldly, "You say your conscience is clear, as if you've done something for the clan—but we don't see it."
"All we see is the village squeezing us out, and you bowing your head to Utatane Koharu like a servant."
"If that's your idea of 'contribution,' you might as well just make us the Hokage's dogs in the open."
"At least then I could respect you for being upfront about turning the clan into the leadership's loyal hounds."
Fugaku: "…"
He felt deeply misunderstood by many of his people.
He had never intended to be the village elders' "lapdog."
But under this surge of emotion, he realized even if he tried to explain, they wouldn't listen. People only believe what they want to believe—and what they think they've seen.
He drew a long breath and looked over the gathered police shinobi—but didn't speak to them further.
Instead he turned to the other Uchiha—the civilians.
Most of the clan were civilians without awakened eyes; their voices were usually drowned out by shinobi.
Fugaku still held out a sliver of hope that these people—those far removed from "Absolute Justice"—might understand some of his burdens as clan head.
"What do you think?" he asked them, offering them a chance to speak.
He regretted it a heartbeat later.
"Fugaku-sama, if you truly think of the Uchiha… why did you keep Uchiha Itachi?" An older civilian with graying temples mustered his courage. "Just because he's your eldest son, you had to keep such a massive future threat—someone who would one day slaughter us all?"
"Before Uchiha Chizumi killed Itachi, we lived every day in terror. Afraid we'd wake up one morning and the first thing we'd see wouldn't be our family—but the blade in Itachi's hand. We were terrified under his knife."
"To avoid him, I secretly moved my child out of the compound to live somewhere in the village. We were… that afraid."
He stared at Fugaku and went on, "Not long ago, if Chizumi hadn't stopped Itachi in his final frenzy,
"we'd all be dead! We civilians have no power to resist shinobi!"
The civilians' raw honesty left Fugaku speechless.
After several seconds he finally managed, weakly, to say things like, "He hadn't actually acted yet, so it wasn't truly a crime in the strict sense,"
"I have my reasons—he's my child,"
"Itachi isn't as extreme as you think."
Pouring his heart out only made the civilians' eyes grow more disappointed.
Fugaku suddenly realized he and his people weren't even on the same wavelength.
They couldn't understand him—just as he and they couldn't understand Itachi.
"Fugaku—"
An elderly Uchiha coughed, his wrinkled face shifting. "You've been the clan head and police captain for a long time. If you truly respect the clan the way you say, maybe it's time for a rest."
…
"What made you think 'Lava Release is my only trick'?"
Back in the corridor, faced with tens of thousands of curse-marked black snakes, Chizumi slapped his hands together without expression.
"Wind Style—"
This was an A-rank jutsu he had "popped" out of Shimura Danzō.
"Consecutive Vacuum Great Spheres."
Pup! Pup! Pup! Pup!—in an instant it was like dozens of invisible cannons fired together in the narrow hall.
Meter-wide, semi-transparent wind orbs condensed out of thin air, solid as if you could touch them.
They screamed as they tore the air and slammed into the black tide ahead!
Each "Vacuum Great Sphere" unleashed a localized storm on impact—the real terror wasn't the blunt force, but the ultra-high-speed maelstrom of vacuum blades formed by wind chakra compressed to the limit.
Riiiiip!
The first orb landed at the heart of the swarm. In a flash, the air within meters was sucked dry—dozens of grim black snakes couldn't even hiss before their iron-hard scales twisted and split like paper; the invisible wind blades squeezed and tore them—and the blades they carried—into shreds, grinding them into a crimson mist of blood foam and metal dust.
"Blood and gore" didn't begin to cover the instant disintegration.
Pup! Pup! Pup! Pup!
More massive orbs crashed down one after another, plowing the black tide into blossoms of red mist.
Scales that could briefly endure lava heat proved brittle as thin ice under the ultimate slicing of wind and crushing pressure.
The entire corridor filled with stench and glittering metal powder, like an abattoir in hell.
Orochimaru's golden pupils pinched tight—not for the lost snakes, but because one especially nasty "Vacuum Great Sphere" tore through everything in its path and kept going, howling straight for his face. The Kusanagi slid out like a living snake, spitting strings of saliva, shrinking to a manageable meter in length.
He slashed down through the huge wind orb.
There was no thunderous clash—the condensed orb split cleanly under the blade. Turbulent vacuum blades and air currents screamed past his body, carving two deep gouges into the wall behind him.
"Mm?!"
The next second, Orochimaru's feet sank. He glanced down—at some point, the floor had turned to bog. Looking up, he saw thousands of black snakes thrashing in the same mire.
"So you're this good with Wind and Earth Style too?"
In the instant his mind snagged on the swamp, a heat and chakra surge exploded from Chizumi's direction, like it would boil the very space.
Worse than anything before.
Rumble—rumble—rumble—
This time the lava wasn't a horizontal flood. It erupted like a sleeping volcano's first world-ending breath, a red pillar punching straight upward with annihilating resolve.
It bored through layer after layer of rebar and concrete. Against that pure, catastrophic force, the base's sturdy construction might as well have been paper toys.
The entire underground complex shook, groaned, and came apart.
Massive steel beams twisted and snapped like noodles. Alarms drowned under the deafening roar of collapse.
"What are you trying to do—destroy my life's work?"
Orochimaru stared as that doomsday column of lava speared into the clouds, painting the thick overcast a dark red for a thousand meters.
Rolling smoke rose like a pillar that tied earth to sky.
Sulfur stench spread for kilometers.
The quakes didn't stop. Stones fell like rain into the swamp, kicking up muddy splashes. A prickle of dread tugged at Orochimaru, keeping his eyes on the ceiling.
"Meteor—"
"Volcano."
Maybe it was his imagination, but in the cacophony of collapse, Orochimaru thought he heard Chizumi utter a few simple words.