Half an hour later—
While leaping between trees, Uchiha Kagami's expression changed. He reversed his grip on a kunai and slashed behind him.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
With sharp whistles through the air, four black figures attacked in succession.
After a brief exchange, the assailants came to a stop on four trunks surrounding Kagami, forming a ring.
"Stop struggling, Uchiha brat."
One Kumo-nin spoke with a mocking look.
His gaze flicked to Kagami's abdomen, where a long gash with upturned flesh had soaked his makeshift bandage red.
Kagami said nothing. His eyes had silently turned scarlet, three black tomoe spinning within.
"Don't look at his eyes!"
The speaker, likely the squad leader, called the warning as he charged first, ninjatō raised.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
As Kagami flung a storm of shuriken, a huge fireball roared from his mouth.
The Kumo captain's sneer deepened. Lightning chakra already wreathed his blade. He could slice apart a low-rank technique like this with ease.
But in the next instant—
That mere C-rank jutsu swelled to dozens of times its size in under a second, its heat spiking madly.
Under the blistering temperature, even the air warped and wavered.
A sea of flame surged out, swallowing the three Kumo-nin in front, captain included.
Kagami sprang from the ground, turned midair, and barely avoided the lightning that rippled out along the earth behind him.
Almost at the same moment, the tomoe in his right eye spun wildly, transforming into a more intricate pattern.
"Amano-Iwato!"
Before the last Kumo-nin's disbelieving eyes, Kagami's kunai drove straight into his heart. The man never resisted from start to finish.
Afterward, Kagami staggered, but managed to land steady on the bough of a nearby tree.
"Hah… hah… hah…"
He panted hard, clutching his right eye in pain as blood seeped between his fingers.
His left eye, uncovered, did not weep blood, but bloodshot threads webbed across it.
Clearly, Kagami knew he could not fight long. To end the four Kumo jōnin at once, he had used two Mangekyō Sharingan techniques back to back.
'The right eye—genjutsu? Or a binding-type ability?'
Judging from what Uzumaki Chizawa sensed, Senju Mori reasoned silently.
From the behavior of the Kumo-nin stabbed through the heart, the man had obviously fallen to Kagami's Mangekyō.
The fate of the other three was uncertain.
Even with Kagami's remarkable mastery over fire-nature transformation, it was hard to believe three full jōnin died to a single Great Fireball.
Chizawa thought the same, and though the fight seemed over, he kept Kagura's Mind Eye fully active.
What he said next shocked Mori.
"Those three Kumo-nin really are down. Their bodies are charred, and I can't sense any chakra from them."
"Looks like Kagami's left eye amplifies jutsu. That's a rare ocular power."
With intel in hand, Mori moved without delay. He and Chizawa surged toward Kagami.
…
For an ordinary Uchiha, setting aside the looming blindness from overusing the Mangekyō, each activation alone exacted a heavy toll on the body.
Kagami had awakened the Mangekyō only recently and could not yet wield it smoothly.
Bloody tears were the most common symptom, followed by blurred vision, sluggish responses and weakness from chakra overdraft, even stabbing pain through every cell.
In technical terms, it was the backlash of overusing Yin Release while lacking sufficient Yang Release.
Kagami was lucky.
Jōnin were not fodder. If even one of the four Kumo-nin had survived, he might have been killed on the spot.
Enduring the stabs of pain all over, Kagami dragged himself a few steps and slumped against a massive root behind him.
His body, battered by continuous high-intensity combat and severe injury and overdraft, refused to give more chakra or strength.
He knew the odds of returning to Konoha were slim, but he had no regrets.
With the Hokage and himself drawing off most pursuers in turn, he believed Hiruzen's group would make it back safely.
He resolved that if rescue did not arrive before he blacked out, he would use his last strength to destroy his Mangekyō eyes.
Just as Kagami fished a fresh kunai from his pouch, a voice rang out—surprised, incredulous.
"Kagami?!"
He lifted his head—two swishes—and two figures appeared before him.
"Mori?!! What are you doing here?"
Kagami was equally shocked.
At this distance he could see Mori's face and the familiar Konoha protector. As for the red-haired shinobi beside him, that bright scarlet left no doubt of his Uzumaki identity.
The pairing of Uzumaki and Senju deepened Kagami's trust. The three-tomoe Sharingan he had barely maintained faded back to ordinary black pupils.
"I found it hard to believe those Lightning types would take the initiative to sign a treaty, so I picked up a mission near the Land of Frost to swing by and check."
Mori had his answer ready and delivered it smoothly, his words laced with indignation toward Kumo.
"I knew those Kumo brutes couldn't be trusted! So the treaty was just a scheme!"
He did not forget to assess Kagami's condition. As he spoke, his right hand pressed to Kagami's abdomen, and he naturally applied Medical Ninjutsu.
For a Senju famed for vitality and chakra reserves, medical techniques were not difficult for Mori.
At the mention of "Kumo," Kagami rallied a little and grabbed Mori's other arm, urgent: "Good. You're here, Mori! Go save the Hokage!"
"The treaty itself wasn't the problem. The Gold and Silver Brothers ruined the ceremony! The Second Raikage has been assassinated, and the Hokage is personally fighting Kinkaku and Ginkaku!"
Before he could finish, a hammer blow seemed to land on Kagami's consciousness. In an instant it blurred, and darkness swallowed the light in his eyes.
He never noticed the countless black sealing script creeping from the grass to his body, nor the bold character for "seal" that had appeared on his forehead…