Mukade stared at Uchiha Chiya.
His normally mechanical voice suddenly turned sharp and grating, and the eyes set behind the metal faceplate flickered violently.
He stumbled back two steps. The protective membrane formed by Dragon Vein energy on his body's surface actually began showing unstable ripples.
Sasuke's Sharingan sharply caught this detail, and waves of shock surged through his mind.
'This monster, one that can control countless puppets and absorb Dragon Vein energy, was thrown into disarray the instant he heard Chiya's name?'
"Impossible. You shouldn't be here."
Mukade's voice began to distort. His body, a mixture of machinery and flesh, let out an uncoordinated clicking sound.
'The records from the future clearly state that at this point in time, you should be in the Land of Rain.'
Chiya's eyes narrowed slightly. The crimson Mangekyō patterns slowly rotated.
'He can actually tell that I'm not the future Uchiha Chiya.'
Sara on his shoulder was still asleep in the genjutsu, her red hair cascading down like a waterfall.
"Enough babbling."
Chiya's voice was quiet, yet it made the air inside the entire tower go still.
"If you have anything to say, take it up with my Lava Blade!"
He formed a one-handed seal. A gentle flow of chakra lifted Sara's body and set her down softly against a stone pillar in the corner.
Immediately after, Chiya opened his mouth and exhaled.
Scorching Lava Style chakra condensed in his palm, then transformed into a long blade that glowed red all over.
The surface of the blade shimmered with a lava-like radiance, scorching the surrounding air into warped, distorted shapes.
"Wait!"
Naruto suddenly shouted.
"Chiya-ojisan, that monster's core is at his chest. You just need to..."
"That won't be necessary."
Before the words had even finished, Chiya's figure had already vanished from where he stood.
"So fast!"
Sasuke's heart lurched.
Because his three-tomoe Sharingan had barely managed to catch only a faint afterimage just now.
He had never seen anyone able to use the Body Flicker Technique to this degree.
No. This had already surpassed the limits of the Body Flicker Technique. It was practically spatial jumping.
Mukade hastily controlled over a dozen puppets to form a defensive formation, but those puppets crafted from high-grade steel were like paper against the Lava Blade.
Chiya's figure flickered through the puppet crowd, and every time he appeared, a streak of crimson blade light followed.
Wherever the lava-like blade edge passed, puppets were either cut clean in half or vaporized outright, with cut surfaces showing the marks of being melted at extreme heat.
Slash, slash, slash!
The Lava Blade condensed from Lava Style chakra cut through them as easily as a knife through soft tofu.
Chiya suddenly stopped directly in front of Mukade. The edge of the Lava Blade in his hand began to surge and expand.
Sasuke and Naruto both stared wide-eyed as that originally normal-sized long blade extended in an instant. The blazing blade light swept through like a volcanic eruption.
The mechanical structure on Mukade's chest was split open with precision, exposing the core device inside, which glowed with a green light.
Crack.
The clean, crisp sound of the core splitting in two rang out.
Mukade looked down in disbelief at his body, which had been cut in two. His mechanical joints let out a dying hum.
The top of the tower fell into dead silence, broken only by the sizzling of lava dripping onto the floor.
"Is it, is it over?"
Naruto asked with a stutter, his jaw nearly hitting the ground.
The enemy he and Sasuke had fought so hard for so long had been instantly killed by Chiya-ojisan in a single slash?
Sasuke's Sharingan spun wildly as he tried to analyze the trajectory of that strike.
But the more he analyzed, the more cold sweat seeped from his forehead.
That slash was not simply a crushing display of power and speed. What was truly frightening was the absolute mastery over the transformation of chakra's shape.
Compressing Lava Style chakra into a solid blade was already no easy feat. Yet when Chiya had slashed Mukade, he had extended the blade forty meters in an instant without it dispersing. That level of control was beyond comprehension.
"Something is wrong!"
Sasuke suddenly snapped his gaze toward the Dragon Vein and shouted.
The green energy of the Dragon Vein surged toward Mukade's remains like a living thing. The fractured mechanical structure was regenerating at a visible rate.
Within a mere three seconds, Mukade had fully restored himself. He was even larger in size than before.
Dragon Vein patterns unique to Loran surfaced on his metal shell, radiating a suffocating pressure.
"Hahaha! Useless!"
Mukade's voice carried a metallic texture from his mechanical modifications. He looked at his puppet body and became ecstatic.
"In the face of the Dragon Vein's power, I am immortal. Even Uchiha Chiya cannot..."
"Enough noise."
Before he could finish, Uchiha Chiya was already moving.
The Lava Blade surged and expanded in an instant and came slashing down again.
This time Chiya changed his angle. The blade edge struck diagonally from upper right to lower left, cutting the freshly restored Mukade in two once more.
The residual force of the lava blade energy did not stop there, leaving a striking charred crack on the tower wall.
"Hey! Chiya-ojisan, he can regenerate. Don't waste your chakra!"
Naruto looked over anxiously at Uchiha Chiya with a warning.
Chiya did not so much as glance at Naruto. With his left hand he pulled a sealing scroll from inside his clothes.
He bit his right thumb open, and fresh blood traced complex patterns onto the scroll.
Those runes moved like living tadpoles, rapidly spreading across Mukade's severed puppet body.
"Seal!"
With Chiya forming the final seal.
The runes suddenly burst with green light, forming countless dense chains that drove into Mukade's body.
A spine-chilling tearing sound rang out. The chains seemed to have grabbed hold of something inside Mukade's body and were pulling hard outward.
"No! This is impossible!"
Fear appeared in Mukade's voice for the first time.
"How can you sever the connection to the Dragon Vein?! Is this the lost sealing jutsu of the Uzumaki Clan? Damn it! I came back here. History was supposed to unfold exactly the way I intended. Why..."
A thick, coiling strand of green energy was forcibly ripped out from Mukade's body, its other end connected to the Dragon Vein deep beneath the tower.
Chiya gripped this energy strand with one hand and severed it with a swing of the Lava Blade.
The severed energy strand twisted like a snake for a few moments, then finally dissipated into the air.
Cut off from the Dragon Vein's support, Mukade rapidly regressed back to human form. A thin middle-aged man, one lens of his glasses cracked, his face drenched in terrified sweat.
Now.
Chiya planted a foot on Mukade's chest. The Mangekyō Sharingan stared directly into his eyes.
'Tell the truth.'
Chiya then turned and released Sara from the genjutsu.
The young queen's eyelashes fluttered faintly as she slowly opened those pale violet eyes.
She first looked around in confusion, and when she saw Anrokuzan pinned under Chiya's foot, the color drained from her face in an instant.
"Anrokuzan-dono? What, what happened here?"
Sara struggled to stand up, not even noticing that her knee-high socks were covered in dust.
Her gaze moved back and forth between Chiya, Naruto, and Sasuke, before finally settling on that familiar yet unfamiliar figure.
"Why would you..."
"Sara."
Chiya's voice became rarely gentle.
"Please listen carefully to this man's confession."
Mukade, under the control of the Sharingan, opened his mouth stiffly like a puppet on a string.
"I am the ninja Mukade from twenty years in the future. I was brought here by the Dragon Vein's power, disguised myself as Anrokuzan, and infiltrated Loran, with the purpose of stealing the Dragon Vein's power."
She listened as Mukade recounted in a mechanical voice how he had killed the former queen, how he had exploited her trust, and how he had planned to indirectly control the Dragon Vein by manipulating Sara.
Every word was like a blade carving into her heart. The girl's fingernails dug deep into her palms, and blood dripped down between her fingers.
Sara stumbled backward. Her back knocked against a cold stone pillar.
"Mother, she..."
Sara's voice broke apart completely.
"That day you said mother had suddenly fallen ill. So it was you all along..."
Naruto looked away, unable to bear it. Sasuke stared hard at Chiya.
"I'm now certain of it. This Uchiha Chiya in front of me is not the one I know."
"If it were that Chiya-ojisan, he probably wouldn't use something like a sealing scroll."
"But even so, the power and methods this era's Uchiha Chiya has shown already far surpass any ninja within my understanding."
"Where is the proof?"
Sara suddenly looked up, tears tracing shining streaks down her face.
"I want to see proof!"
Chiya released his control over Mukade and reached into the man's clothes, pulling out a metal device and tossing it to Sara.
It was a finely made projector. When activated, it displayed footage Mukade had recorded. The former queen was lying in a pool of blood, while Anrokuzan stood to the side with a cold smile.
Sara held the projector in both hands and sank to her knees, sobbing.
Chiya raised his hand and flicked it. A shuriken flew from his hand and pierced straight through Mukade.
Without the ability to regenerate, Mukade simply looked at Chiya, then tilted his head to one side and fell, dead.
Chiya walked over to Sara's side. After a brief hesitation, he gently pressed down on her trembling shoulders.
"Your mother must have taught you something very important as well."
Sara looked up, her eyes blurred with tears as she gazed at Chiya.
"Yes."
"Then think once more about what your mother valued. That will tell you what you need to do right now."
"Every queen of Loran has her own mission. Think clearly about what it is you are meant to do."
After hearing this, Sara's sobbing gradually grew quieter.
The sorrow in her eyes slowly receded, and she stood up on her own.
"I know what I need to do now!"
She walked with resolve toward the direction of the Dragon Vein.
Before she could even get there, the Dragon Vein's power suddenly began to rage. Its immense energy overflowed, and directly shattered several of the supporting pillars around them.
"The Dragon Vein, is it going out of control?!"
Cold sweat appeared on Sasuke's forehead. His Sharingan could see massive amounts of energy gathering and surging toward them.
Chiya's brow furrowed.
'With the Dragon Vein raging like this, Sara has no way of controlling it.'
'Looks like I'll have to step in.'
Sara was knocked off her feet by the shockwave. When she got up again, she ran toward the Dragon Vein's seal point.
She still wanted to seal the Dragon Vein!
With Mukade's control gone, the Dragon Vein energy began expanding in disorder. A green pillar of light pierced through the top of the tower and shot straight into the sky, and all of Loran began to shake violently.
Chiya flashed in and blocked Sara's path.
"The Dragon Vein right now is beyond your control! Let me handle it!"
Chiya grabbed her shoulders from behind and flung her out of the way.
Then he himself pulled out several sealing scrolls, bit open his finger, and pressed it onto them.
Before he could even form the seals.
The Dragon Vein's power surged forward rapidly and enveloped Chiya entirely.
Seeing this, the Mangekyō Sharingan's icy power erupted in Chiya's eyes in an instant.
The dark crimson Susano'o covered his body, manifesting in its skeletal frame form to shield him on all sides.
More and more Dragon Vein energy poured in. In the end it transformed into a great energy dragon, radiating a blinding light.
For that moment the three outside were overwhelmed by the brilliance and could not open their eyes.
When the three of them opened their eyes again, the Dragon Vein had calmed.
Chiya's shadow clone let out a pop and vanished.
"Chiya-ojisan is... gone??"
Naruto rubbed his eyes. When he confirmed he could no longer see Uchiha Chiya's figure anywhere, he opened his mouth blankly.
Sasuke's brow was tightly furrowed. He moved quickly to where Uchiha Chiya had been standing just moments ago, looked down below, and his gaze flickered.
"Could it be the Dragon Vein's doing again?"
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