Within the ribs of the Susanoo, Uchiha Fugaku's pupils contracted slightly. Assassinated the First Hokage? Is this man rely boasting, or did it truly happen?
Kakuzu did not explain. Instead, as he continued his relentless assault, he cast a glance upward at Shiraki in the sky. "How much is that one's head worth?"
Shiraki smiled faintly. "As long as you win, you can na your price."
"So it's priceless?" Kakuzu's eyes lit up, glinting with avarice. "Then it must be worth a fortune."
He rolled his shoulders, his movents shifting from casual to calculated. "Co then, let see exactly what the Mangekyo is capable of."
With a flick of his wrist, chakra circulated through his five hearts, and he slamd his palm against the ground.
"Earth Style: Earth Flow River!"
Instead of relying on his favored Wind or Fire Style techniques, Kakuzu used the Earth Flow River to cause the ground to churn and heave, instantaneously splitting the battlefield apart.
The remaining Konoha ninjas, caught off guard by the shifting terrain, were violently scattered in all directions.
Kakuzu singled out Uchiha Fugaku, but he rely focused on keeping the Uchiha leader pinned down. He strictly avoided any direct, brute-force clashes, refraining from deploying massive, high-drain techniques in favor of a constant barrage of minor jutsu and specialized crowd-control tactics.
He constantly utilized the environnt and coordinated with the surrounding ninjas to harass, exhaust, and launch precise sneak attacks against Fugaku.
As far as Kakuzu was concerned, fighting fair in a one-on-one duel belonged strictly to the past.
Ever since he had first experienced the absolute efficiency of a coordinated gang-up, he made sure to never act alone when he deployed.
Furthermore, these Takigakure ninjas possessed exceptionally high physical resilience; even if they made a tactical error, they weren't the type to be easily slain by a single kunai or a basic elental jutsu.
With the strongest fighter, Uchiha Fugaku, successfully tied down by this sudden powerhouse, Hyuga Tennin had no choice but to step forward. He flared his Byakugan; though his vision remained terribly blurred, he could still make out the general trajectories of the enemy ninjas closing in on his periter.
"Gentle Fist Style: Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms!"
He lunged into the fray, his palms blurring into motion as each strike struck a Takigakure ninja with mathematical precision.
However, these adversaries were drastically different from the opponents he had faced in the past—their hides were absurdly thick. This resilience didn't stem from any armor they wore, but from the dense, modified structure of their physical bodies.
The shockwaves of the Gentle Fist were largely absorbed and mitigated by their augnted flesh. Though the strikes managed to inflict internal injuries, they fell short of delivering instant fatalities.
Worse still, the wounded ninjas completely refused to get bogged down in a prolonged duel with him; they retreated imdiately after a single exchange, allowing a fresh wave of combatants to take their place.
Gradually, Hyuga Tennin felt his stamina failing him. His chakra reserves were rapidly approaching rock bottom, and his Byakugan was reaching its absolute endurance limit. He knew with bitter certainty that the battle was lost, but he refused to leave his clan's precious eyes to the enemy.
Just as he raised both hands, preparing to gouge out his own eyes, a dark blur lunged at him from his blind spot.
Tennin's battle instincts scread at him to dodge, but the interloper was simply too fast.
CRACK. A wave of agonizing pain exploded from his left shoulder.
He looked down, only to see his left arm completely detached from his torso, tumbling onto the blood-soaked grass.
"Your Byakugan... I'll be taking it now," a calm, chillingly serene voice whispered right beside his ear.
Tennin whipped his head around, locking eyes with an unfamiliar face.
The man had vibrant green hair and wore ordinary civilian attire without a shinobi headband. A faint, placid smile rested on his lips as he extended two fingers, hooking them directly toward Tennin's eyes.
"You..."
When did he...!? Wasn't he just up in the sky?
Tennin's eyes widened in sheer horror. Following a sharp, piercing pain, absolute darkness instantly consud his world.
In the very next second, a kunai pierced cleanly through his back, rupturing his heart.
Tennin slumped forward, two hollow, bloody sockets staring blindly down at the tip of the kunai protruding from his chest. His features were frozen in a mask of profound bitterness and unwillingness.
The head of the prestigious Hyuga clan had died just like that.
Slaughtered like cattle in a naless, unremarkable valley deep within the Land of Grass.
anwhile, the surrounding Konoha ninjas—most of whom could barely see three ters ahead—could only watch in despair as they were systematically whittled down and executed by nurical superiority under the coordinated assault of nearly a hundred Taki elites.
Within monts, only three Uchiha powerhouses remained, desperately fighting for their lives.
Simultaneously, Uchiha Fugaku witnessed Hyuga Tennin's collapse. The stony, stoic expression he had maintained finally cracked, replaced by sheer disbelief.
That was the head of the Hyuga clan. One of Konoha's ultimate masters of Taijutsu, snuffed out just like that?
A bitter wave of regret surged through his chest. He cursed his earlier hesitation—why hadn't he unleashed the full power of the Mangekyo much earlier?
"Lord Fugaku, run!"
An Uchiha clansman roared at him, the lightning crackling around his hands sputtering weakly as he struggled to wring out even a single drop of remaining chakra.
In the next instant, a barrage of wind blades sliced the man into ribbons. Fugaku's eyes burned a deeper, violent crimson—a hue born not just from his dojutsu, but from absolute, unadulterated fury.
He raised his head, glaring death at the figure floating high in the sky. The Mangekyo within his pupils spun at a manic pace as he attempted to lock onto the mastermind of this entire operation.
Yet, every single ti he tried to shift his focus, Kakuzu would abruptly intercept him. "My, my. It's incredibly rude to look away from soone during a fight. Your opponent is ."
Thick tendrils of black thread surged forward like a tide, though every single strike was relentlessly deflected by the outer shell of the Susanoo.
Right at that mont, the ominous hum of wings echoed as the Dragonfly Users dived back into the valley. Fugaku knew, with absolute certainty, that his window of opportunity had closed completely.
"I will rember you." Gritting his teeth, he reached into his pouch once more, pulled out his remaining secret ration pills, and swallowed them all in one go.
The absolute last reserves of his latent physical potential were forcibly wrung out. His eyes spun with frantic, self-destructive violence, and fresh streams of blood flowed uncontrollably down his face.
Fugaku was gambling his life. Disregarding all consequences, he pushed his Mangekyo Sharingan to its absolute limit, pouring out a massive wave of ocular power that rapidly condensed into a pair of massive, fiery wings upon the back of the Susanoo.
This was a specialized application of his Mangekyo. It had to be said that when pushed to the brink of death, a ninja's potential was truly limitless.
The Susanoo was naturally capable of flight at higher stages, but what he lacked in mastery, he made up for with raw ocular manipulation. By combining the traits of both eyes, he could shape his Fla Release into any form he desired.
Since the Susanoo was constructed entirely of chakra, its weight could be adjusted at will.
Fugaku intended to launch himself straight into the sky, but the mont the fiery wings flapped, the massive construct wavered and plumted heavily back onto the valley floor.
Watching from a safe distance, Shiraki couldn't help but clap in silent appreciation. In terms of sheer genius, Uchiha Fugaku's talent wasn't inferior to his future children in the slightest.
He hesitated for a brief mont, but ultimately decided against personal intervention. After all, as the mastermind pulling the strings from the shadows, how could he easily expose himself on the front lines? Doing so carried a massive risk of uncovering his true identity.
Reason ultimately won out. While a pair of Mangekyo Sharingan was an incredible prize, it wasn't a strict necessity for his plans.
What a pity. A half-damaged Mangekyo isn't of much practical use if taken by force anyway.
However, a certain gold-obsessed powerhouse had absolutely no intention of letting such an incredibly lucrative opportunity slide.
Kakuzu chuckled darkly, viewing this as a rare, golden opportunity.
"Heh, flying is an incredibly difficult art to master; you still have a long way to go. Since you can't escape, your head and your eyes belong to ."
He detached one of his masks to form a physical heart-clone. The mont the clone closed the distance, its hardened threads managed to slip through a gap in the Susanoo's skeletal ribs, reaching directly for Fugaku's torso.
But before the threads could pierce the heart, the clone found itself staring directly into a pair of blood-red, spinning blades. In the next fraction of a second, an orange-red treasure sword sliced downward, cleaving the clone perfectly in two.
"Gah! My heart! I've been tricked!"
Kakuzu's current collection of hearts was different from the ordinary ones he used to harvest; they had been carefully refined and possessed imnse value. Losing one so abruptly cut him to the quick.
He imdiately broke away, completely losing the nerve to make another reckless approach, deeply terrified that the Uchiha leader still possessed enough lingering ocular power to snare him in a lethal illusion.
Fugaku clicked his tongue in bitter disappointnt. He hadn't expected his opponent to be so absurdly cautious, utilizing a physical clone that contained an actual, beating heart to test the waters.
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