Chapter 434: Conflict Breaks Out, The Coalition Forces Launch Their First Surprise Attack
Uchiha Mikoto ushered her guests into the warmth of the house. Adult Sasuke lowered himself onto the woven tatami mats, his posture rigid, shifting with an uncharacteristic restlessness. His lone right hand rested heavily upon his knee, his fingers curling inward.
"There is no need to be so formal," Mikoto said, her voice a soothing balm. "Please, treat this as your own home."
She stepped out from the kitchen, balancing a large wooden tray. The rich, savory aroma of steaming miso soup filled the air, accompanied by the scent of saury fried to a flawless, golden crisp. In the center sat a plate of rice balls, stacked high like a miniature mountain. It was the exact meal, the exact scent, that had defined Sasuke's childhood.
"Um... then I won't hold back!" Boruto blurted out, his stomach letting out a loud, traitorous growl.
He shot a quick glance at his mentor; Sasuke was staring blankly ahead, completely lost in a daze. The atmosphere in the room felt heavy, thick with unspoken emotions, but the mouth-watering aroma of the food was impossible to ignore. Boruto pressed his palms together in a sharp clap.
"Thanks for the food!"
With that, he snatched a rice ball from the peak of the pile and took a massive bite.
"Mmm! Delicious!" Boruto's blue eyes widened, his cheeks bulging like a chipmunk's. "This flavor... it's ten thousand times better than the stuff they sell in the convenience stores!"
Mikoto covered her mouth, a soft, melodic chuckle escaping her lips. "Eat slowly, child. There is plenty more."
She reached out, delicately picking up a rice ball tinted with a faint red hue—a tomato rice ball—and placed it gently into the empty bowl in front of Adult Sasuke.
"Give it a try."
Sasuke stared at it for a long moment. Slowly, he picked it up and took a bite. The sweet and sour tang of the tomato juice blended perfectly with the fragrant, warm rice, blooming across his tongue.
In a single, shattering instant, the floodgates deep within his memory burst wide open.
The flavor was identical. Decades of pain, war, and loss faded, leaving only the pristine, untouched warmth of his mother's cooking. It had not changed at all.
Sasuke bowed his head, his dark hair falling forward to shadow his face. He chewed in large, hurried mouthfuls, swallowing past the sudden, sharp lump in his throat. He refused to look up, desperate to hide the sudden moisture gathering at the corners of his mismatched eyes.
"Is it good?" Mikoto's gentle voice drifted to his ear.
Sasuke swallowed hard. When he finally spoke, his voice was incredibly hoarse, barely above a whisper.
"It is very delicious." He took a shaky breath. "This is the best rice ball I have ever eaten."
"Your arm..."
Mikoto's gaze drifted downward, finally settling on the empty, pinned sleeve of his cloak. She had noticed it at the door earlier, but seeing it up close now sent a sharp, stinging ache through her chest.
Sasuke's entire body went rigid. Instinctively, he angled his left shoulder forward, trying to hide the amputation from her sight.
"It is fine," Sasuke replied, forcing a stiff, unnatural smile that looked infinitely more agonizing than tears. "It is just a small price paid for atonement."
"Atonement?" Mikoto's brow furrowed.
She reached out, her fingers trembling as she moved to touch the empty sleeve, but she stopped herself just inches away.
"Silly child." Her voice cracked with maternal sorrow. "No matter what mistakes you believe you have made, you should never treat your own body so carelessly."
Her dark eyes swam with deep heartache. In this timeline, shielded by the absolute power of Uchiha Akira, her Sasuke was a favored, protected son. He had his arrogant quirks, certainly, but he had never known true, soul-crushing hardship. Yet the man sitting before her—missing an arm, his face weathered by years of brutal conflict and silent suffering—was a living monument to tragedy.
"From now on..." Mikoto took a deep, steadying breath, forcing a warm smile back onto her face. "Come back for dinner often. No matter what you have experienced out there in the world, there will always be a place for you at this table."
Sasuke's head snapped up. He stared into his mother's gentle, unwavering eyes, the last remnants of his stoic facade crumbling. Slowly, heavily, he nodded.
"I will remember."
Meanwhile, high within the Hokage Building.
Uchiha Akira reclined in his grand office chair, his fingers steepled beneath his chin.
"It is about time," he murmured, a cold, calculating gleam flashing in his eyes. "Now, for the main event."
He closed his eyes. His consciousness plummeted inward, and the mortal world faded away.
He manifested at the absolute core of the Tianyu Space. Suspended in the void was a massive cocoon radiating a blinding, brilliant golden light. Trapped within its inescapable confines was the suppressed and sealed Otsutsuki Urashiki.
Countless ethereal chains pierced the glowing shell, their barbed hooks buried deep into the Otsutsuki's flesh. A dull, rhythmic thud—like the beating of a dying titan's heart—echoed throughout the dimension. With every agonizing pulse, a torrential amount of chakra was forcibly ripped from the prisoner.
Urashiki might have been a pathetic coward who relied on stolen chakra pills and underhanded sneak attacks, but his veins still flowed with genuine Otsutsuki blood. Pure, unadulterated cosmic energy surged along the chains, flooding the Tianyu Space with unimaginable vitality.
Yet, this violent extraction was merely the appetizer. The true harvest awaited within his mind.
[Ding! Detected that the Host has defeated and suppressed a Six Paths Level lifeform for the first time.]
[Calculating rewards...]
[Calculation complete.]
[Reward Obtained: Tianyu Space - World-Level Leap.]
[Reward Description: The original spatial barriers will be shattered. The dimensional territory will undergo an exponential, world-class expansion.]
The instant the final prompt chimed, the entirety of the Tianyu Space boiled over.
The dimension, previously restricted to a landmass roughly the size of the Land of Grass, violently shattered its own borders. The earth let out a deafening roar of grinding tectonic plates. New landmasses erupted from the void at a terrifying velocity.
The scale of the expansion was staggering.
One kilometer.
One hundred kilometers.
One thousand kilometers.
The horizon, once a visible boundary, frantically stretched outward at a pace that mocked the very laws of physics.
Simultaneously, the previously barren wastelands burst into life. Towering ancient trees tore through the topsoil, their canopies blotting out the sky as lush forests spread like wildfire. The fundamental laws of reality within the dimension solidified, becoming infinitely more complex and complete.
Akira floated at the absolute zenith of the sky, his dark robes snapping in the gale as he looked down upon the birth of a new world.
But the visual spectacle was merely the surface. The true evolution lay in its fundamental quality. This was not a mere increase in square mileage; it was a divine elevation in cosmic status. If the Tianyu Space had previously been nothing more than an oversized, heterogeneous pocket dimension, it had now evolved into the genuine prototype of a Small World.
Hours seemed to pass in minutes before the violent quakes finally subsided. In the end, the total area of the Tianyu Space had completely eclipsed the combined territories of the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind.
This was the terrifying, absolute authority of the Family Growth System. A single, instantaneous reward had saved Akira decades of painstaking, grinding effort.
[Ding! World-Level Leap complete.]
[Tianyu Space has been promoted from a 'Heterogeneous Space'to a'Small World Embryo'.]
[Congratulations to the Host for obtaining World Feedback: World Power!]
As the ethereal text faded, an alien, overwhelming force surged directly into Akira's physical body.
He snapped his eyes open. His piercing purple Rinnegan, usually cold and detached, now radiated a faint, divine golden halo. This new energy coursing through his veins was not chakra. It was an existence fundamentally superior to chakra—the primordial World Power.
Akira slowly clenched his right fist. The air around his knuckles warped and cracked under the sheer pressure.
It was ridiculously strong.
If his previous strength had placed him at the baseline of the Six Paths Level, this influx of World Power had triggered a total sublimation of his life essence. His combat prowess was now rocketing toward the absolute peak of the Six Paths Level.
"Otsutsuki Urashiki," Akira murmured, a cruel, mocking smirk playing on his lips. "Thank you for your generous gift."
He unclasped his hands, the golden halo in his eyes fading back to a predatory purple.
"It is about time to head out."
With a single thought, spatial ripples distorted the air around him, swallowing his form and returning him to the physical world of Konoha.
Two days later, at the border of the Land of Rice Fields.
The hour just before dawn was the darkest, and a thick, suffocating fog blanketed the desolate wasteland. At the edge of the horizon, a massive, dark tide began to move. Tens of thousands of shinobi, organized into rigid phalanxes, advanced slowly through the mist like an unstoppable torrent of cold steel.
At the absolute vanguard of the Allied Shinobi Forces stood the Fourth Raikage, A.
Violent, crackling arcs of blue Lightning Release chakra shrouded his massive physique, causing his pale blonde hair to stand on end like a furious lion's mane. Floating in the air beside him was the diminutive Third Tsuchikage, Onoki. The old man kept his hands clasped firmly behind his back, his dark, weathered eyes narrowed into slits of cold, calculating malice.
"Today is the day," Onoki rasped, his voice carrying over the low hum of the marching army. "Today is the moment we crush the ambitions of that arrogant brat, Uchiha Akira."
"Hmph! This old man has been waiting for ages!" A snorted, two thick trails of white steam puffing from his nostrils as his lightning armor flared brighter. "What 'Fifth Hokage' nonsense! I do not care what title he claims. I am going to crush his skull with my bare hands!"
Before the echo of his roar could even fade, the ground beneath the Raikage's feet violently detonated.
Dirt and rock sprayed into the air as A transformed into a blinding, supersonic streak of blue lightning. He instantly broke away from the main vanguard, charging headlong toward the Konoha defensive positions with reckless, overwhelming killing intent.
"All-out assault!" Onoki roared, his voice amplified by chakra.
As the Raikage led the charge, the tens of thousands of shinobi in the Allied Forces erupted into an devastating battle cry. Weapons were drawn, hand seals were woven, and the ground trembled under the weight of the charging army.
The war had officially broken out.
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