"Hmm!?"
Byaran, the Third Mizukage, watched Ren Uchiha's sudden movements from across the battlefield. Ren had been firmly trapped, yet now he was winding up for a strike that seemed absurd.
The distance between us is over three hundred meters.
A human fist is barely ten centimeters wide, and even with the arm, it reaches only seventy centimeters. Swinging a fist at this distance should do nothing but stir a futile breeze. Even if his Taijutsu is strong enough to wrestle Tailed Beasts at close range, he cannot reach me from there.
Byaran's lips curled into a mocking sneer. He had received the intelligence reports spread by the Stone, Sand, and Cloud villages regarding Ren's latest combat feats.
The key detail was clear: in his battles against the Four-Tails and Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, Ren's most devastating attacks were delivered at point-blank range.
In this state, Ren Uchiha has a fatal flaw—his reach is too short!
However, in the next instant, Byaran's expression froze.
"Wait... what is that!?"
Ren twisted his waist, his lead foot hammering into the ground with enough force to shatter the ice. As his fist shot forward, a towering sonic boom cloud erupted in front of him, and the very air seemed to wrinkle and fold.
Then, a blinding light ignited.
In a heartbeat, a radiant pillar swept across the vast ice plain, bridging the three-hundred-meter gap and slamming into the forty-meter-tall Wood Man.
—BOOM!!!
The shockwave of the punch exploded from within the pillar of light, blossoming outward like the petals of a mandala. The seawater was dragged upward by the vacuum, forming spiraling water blades, while the night was set ablaze by a pale, blinding aurora.
The ice beneath Ren's feet collapsed instantly. Under this pure, physical assault—an attack on the level of the Daytime Tiger—the seawater evaporated, the ice plain was cleaved in two, and the hundred walls of Zetsu-enhanced ice were pulverized. The forest growing atop the plain was ground into dust in an instant.
On the other side, the terrifying wind pressure crossed the final distance, snapping Byaran's head back. His mouth was forced open, exposing his gums as the skin on his face was pulled taut toward his ears.
Creeeeeeeak!!
The Wood Man beneath him let out a piercing, agonized groan as its structure buckled. Byaran barely managed to cling to the Buddha's halo behind him. Because the three-hundred-meter distance was the extreme limit of the punch's range, he was narrowly spared from being turned into mincemeat.
However, just as the wind began to dissipate...
Zip!
A violent bolt of lightning tore through the dark!
Ren swung the eighteen-meter Greatsword of Lightning with savage force. A single strike detonated the Wood Man's head, reducing the Buddha's halo to splinters.
Byaran didn't even know what had happened in that fraction of a second. The sudden sensation of falling made him reach out instinctively to grab anything for support.
He caught an arm—a solid, muscular arm wrapped around his throat.
Raising his head in a daze, he saw them. A pair of crimson eyes with three black tomoe spinning around a majestic, vertical slit.
"Genjutsu: Sharingan!"
In a panic, Byaran tried to trigger the spores on his palm, screaming in his mind:
Zetsu!
Once caught in a Sharingan's ocular jutsu, only outside help could break the illusion. However, Ren knew exactly what was beneath the Mizukage's skin. As a white branch began to sprout from Byaran's shoulder, Ren's right hand—shimmering with white Sage markings—clamped onto it.
He ripped it backward with irresistible strength.
The force nearly tore the Mizukage in half, but with a violent yank, a white creature with a spiral face was bodily uprooted from Byaran's skin.
"How is this possible!!" Guruguru's shrill scream had barely begun when Ren glared directly into the spiral hole where its eye should be.
The veins in Ren's eyes bulged, flooding the whites with red.
"Sage Art: Sharingan: White Rage Pupil!"
On a jagged shard of ice floating upon the sea, Ren looked down at the two unconscious figures before him, his brow furrowed.
One was the Third Mizukage, with his withered white hair and bead-like ornaments; the other was the pale, spiral-faced creature.
After beating them into the ground and ensuring they couldn't rise, Ren had used his Sharingan to forcibly read their memories. Guruguru's mind was a chaotic mess, yielding little of value, so Ren simply used a genjutsu to erase the memory of his own appearance from the end of the creature's mental timeline.
From the Third Mizukage, however, he extracted information that left him stunned.
First, his encounter with the Mist fleet had truly been an accident.
Second, the Third Mizukage was exactly what Ren had suspected: a puppet ruler placed on the throne by Madara Uchiha to control the Land of Water from the shadows. Byaran's mission had been to deliver the Three-Tails Jinchuriki to the Gedo Mazo to extend Madara's life. He had simply run into Ren on the way and initiated combat to prevent any leaks.
Finally, there was a strange piece of intelligence.
A month and a half ago, Madara had intended to kill Byaran. But after a brief trip away, Madara had suddenly abandoned the idea.
Ren took a deep breath. A month and a half ago was the exact day he had been ambushed by the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, Killer B.
This meant that even then—and perhaps even earlier—Madara had been watching him.
The very existence of Byaran was an anomaly. According to the original history, the Third Mizukage should have been dead by now. He was supposed to have perished or been fatally wounded during the conflict at the Green Ridge Reef, just before or at the start of the Third Shinobi World War, amidst internal village strife and enemy ambushes.
Instead, Byaran had survived. The reason was the very war situation Ren himself had altered.
The Stone village's ambush had failed, the war had become a stalemate, and the Mist village had found time to react due to the intel provided by Aburame Ryuma. Under external pressure, the internal factions that should have torn the village apart had briefly united. The coup involving Gengetsu Hozuki, Yagura Karatachi, and Fuguki Suikazan had never happened, allowing the Mizukage to live.
This unity was not what Madara wanted. He had intended to kill the "independent-minded" Byaran, but because of Ren, he had stayed his hand.
Ren felt a chill run down his spine as he reached a staggering conclusion.
The only reason Byaran was still alive was because of Ren himself.
Madara wants me to be the executor of the 'Eye of the Moon' plan!
"Madara Uchiha has been watching me for a long time," Ren's face darkened. "He wants to arrange a tragedy for me, just like he did for Obito. He wants to force me to witness a horror that will turn me into his agent!"
"Byaran was meant to be a piece in that plan. That is why he was allowed to live."
"But now..."
"I met Byaran early. I learned everything from him."
A spark of inspiration flashed in his mind.
Wait... if Byaran hasn't reported back yet...
With Zetsu's Mayfly technique, Madara surely knows we clashed. But he doesn't know that I already know about the Eye of the Moon. With this information gap, I can buy more time!
Ren contemplated for a moment, looking at the unconscious Byaran with a cold glint in his eyes.
"And... this might be an opportunity. An opportunity to kill Uchiha Madara."
Ren took a breath and wove hand signs he had learned from Orochimaru's records on suppressing the Cursed Seal.
Cursed Seal Parasite Technique!
Ren knelt and pressed his left palm against Byaran's neck. A white, crescent-moon-shaped mark—so faint it was almost invisible—was quietly branded onto the Third Mizukage's skin.
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