"Fla Release: Susanoo Heavenly Flight!"
Gripping the only two surviving clansn by his side, Fugaku spread his flaming wings and launched himself violently toward the sky.
The Dragonfly Users who had hastily converged on his position attempted to intercept them, but they were ruthlessly forced back by a single, sweeping slash of his treasure sword.
"Do not pursue," Shiraki spoke plainly.
The Dragonfly Users halted mid-air. Watching the receding, fiery figure flee into the distance, they cheered triumphantly: "Haha! So these are the so-called two greatest ninja clans? They don't look like much after all!"
On the other side of the valley, Kakuzu raised his head to watch the distant, burning silhouette vanish. A slight smile played on his lips. "You're just going to let him leave like that?"
Shiraki nodded smoothly. "Why shouldn't I?"
"He exhausted every single drop of his chakra and ocular power just to wring out this narrow escape. Even if he manages to stumble back to Konoha, those eyes of his are as good as ruined."
The corner of Shiraki's mouth curled into a subtle smirk. "But you likely don't understand what those eyes symbolize to the Uchiha clan. With him back there, I believe Konoha will beco quite lively very soon."
"So a pair of half-damaged Mangekyo is worth more than a corpse?" Kakuzu looked at him, suddenly bursting into a laugh. "I didn't expect you to be even more sinister than I imagined."
"Likewise."
Shiraki swept his gaze over the injured Takigakure ninjas surrounding Kakuzu. This man, who had once been an uncompromising, unyielding lone wolf, had thoroughly changed.
He finally understood the value of using others as shields and coordinating with a vanguard. Though Kakuzu's raw power hadn't experienced an earth-shattering leap compared to the past, in terms of sheer survivability, it was highly probable that even two of his past selves combined wouldn't match his current standard.
"Right, what do you plan to do next?" Kakuzu asked suddenly.
"Nothing special. Naturally, I will proceed to forge the alliance with the Land of Rain."
"In truth, I quite dislike aningless slaughter, but there are tis when certain sacrifices are an absolute necessity." Shiraki shifted the narrative smoothly. "Therefore, let the bloodshed between shinobi remain strictly contained within the shinobi world."
"Moving forward, the Land of Grass will undoubtedly beco the absolute vortex of this war. When that ti cos, the local nobility will flee, and the ruling order across various major cities will collapse entirely. Once the common people lose oversight, combined with the panic of war, I fear they will descend into chaos all on their own."
"Alas, human nature is the least capable of handling a true test. When pushed to the absolute brink of starvation, how many of those able-bodied youths will be able to maintain their moral compass? To survive, I fear many will turn into wandering bandits.
Once they cross the line into murder, their fundantal nature will change completely. After that, most of them will cease to be human at all."
Kakuzu curled his lip slightly. "Why does it sound like you've experienced this firsthand?"
"Haven't you as well? In truth, I fear all shinobi are exactly the sa."
"So, what do you intend to do?"
Kakuzu didn't quite grasp why Shiraki had suddenly diverted the conversation toward ordinary civilians, but at this mont, he was genuinely curious about the mastermind's intentions.
"Migration! Moving forward, I will have to trouble your forces to assist with this. The citizens caught in the crossfire are currently gripped by absolute panic; migrating them en masse to the Land of Waterfall is the absolute best outco for everyone involved."
"You want us to accept refugees?" A look of disappointnt crossed Kakuzu's face. Compared to accepting commoners, he was far more willing to take in wealthy nobles—at least they could be squeezed for money. After all, he had long outgrown the age of possessing a soft heart.
"No, you look at it wrong," Shiraki countered calmly. "In truth, it is the population that generates wealth in the first place.
If you have no people, earning all the money in the world becos entirely aningless. Furthermore, the Land of Waterfall is currently undergoing massive infrastructure developnt; it happens to require a massive labor force, does it not?"
Kakuzu lapsed into silence for a brief mont, then chuckled. "Those words actually carry a shred of logic. Fine, I will take on the extra trouble. But let it be known upfront: I demand thirty percent of all the wealth carried by the migrating nobility."
As they spoke, the last of the flas within the Ring Valley finally sputtered out.
The Konoha ninjas who had managed to survive the initial inferno were systematically executed by the descending Dragonfly Users.
Even the few who had been thrown into hidden alcoves by the wind pressure, narrowly avoiding the burning heat, were swiftly finished off with a single blade—the Grass ninjas possessed zero habit of keeping prisoners.
Shiraki stood at the center of the blackened wasteland, surveying the carpet of corpses. There were over seven hundred bodies from Konoha, and when combined with the corpses harvested from various other skirmishes across the region, the total ca close to a thousand.
With a wave of his hand, he commanded his subordinates to move all the corpses into a massive deep trench.
Once the area was entirely clear of onlookers, he would deploy his specialized insects to clean the pit—he could only wonder how much primordial energy he would be able to accumulate from this harvest.
Following this grand clash, the total number of surviving ninjas belonging to the Grass Village stood at a re one hundred and twenty-seven. Of course, if one included himself and the father-son duo from Hozuki Castle, the entire force totaled exactly one hundred and thirty people.
As for Konoha, Uchiha Fugaku had escaped alongside two of his clansn. Hyuga Tennin was dead, and every single remaining Jonin had been utterly wiped out.
Shiraki uncurled his fingers, revealing a pair of pristine, unblemished Byakugan. Lacking the restrictive Cage Bird seal, these eyes were an absolute treasure.
"Secure the battlefield," he ordered as he stood up. "Salvage every single usable resource."
The Dragonfly Users moved instantly upon receiving the command. Shiraki raised his head, his gaze piercing toward the horizon—in the direction of Konoha.
"Sarutobi Hiruzen, how exactly will you respond once you receive this grand gift?" he murmured, a faint, placid smile playing upon his lips.
Far away, on a distant hillside, Negishi Kusanagi sat heavily on the ground, completely drenched in blood.
He watched the Dragonfly Users circling majestically in the sky, watching the remnants of his shattered vanguard being pulled up to safety one by one.
Beside him, a Grass ninja stared at the scene with a face full of absolute disbelief.
Over seven hundred Konoha ninjas—a combined vanguard spearhead featuring the apex Uchiha and Hyuga clans, totaling a thousand-man army—had been completely broken and slaughtered by them?
"Leader... it looks like we won!"
"We won?" Negishi Kusanagi muttered blankly.
"We won! Long live the Grass Village! Long live the Independence Faction!" Cheers began to erupt across the slope.
The battered, heavily wounded Grass ninjas fell into one another's arms, weeping tears of pure catharsis. So fell to their knees, kissing the scorched earth beneath their feet, while others roared at the sky, expelling the imnse dread that had choked their chests for days.
Watching this display, Negishi Kusanagi suddenly burst into a hysterical laugh: "Hahaha! Haha!"
Yet, as the laughter echoed, hot tears stread down his face. The cost of this single victory had been devastatingly, brutally high.
"Military Advisor Shiraki... you absolute bastard, you truly aren't human."
anwhile, inside the Hokage's office in Konoha.
"Uchiha Fugaku has crawled back heavily wounded, Hyuga Tennin has fallen in battle, and over a thousand of our shinobi have been completely annihilated!"
Sarutobi Hiruzen sat stiffly behind his desk. As his eyes scanned the lines of the ergency report, a sudden wave of absolute darkness rushed over his vision, making his head spin.
"Hiruzen, you must take care of your health!" Utatane Koharu cried out in panic, rushing forward to support him.
"I am fine... leave in peace for a mont."
He dismissed them with a weak wave of his hand. Facing his dark expression, the advisors lapsed into a grim silence and systematically filed out of the room.
The exact second the door clicked shut, Sarutobi Hiruzen coughed up a violent mouthful of fresh blood.
Deep within the Land of Earth, inside the Hidden Stone Village.
Ohnoki stared at the intelligence scroll held in his hands, maintaining an absolute, heavy silence for a very long ti. "The Grass Village... the Seven-Tails... the Dragonfly Users..."
If it weren't for the absolute verification protocols embedded in the intel, he would have assud soone was playing a massive, elaborate prank on him. "Could this be the rise of another individual like Hanzo of the Salamander? No, this developnt must be evaluated with absolute precision."
anwhile, in a hidden valley deep within the Land of Water, Zetsu materialized directly out of the ground, his voice dripping with pure excitent: "Lord Madara, the Grass Village has secured an absolute victory."
Madara slowly cracked his eyes open. "Oh?"
"Uchiha Fugaku successfully awakened the Mangekyo, but he was utterly defeated. Hyuga Tennin has fallen in battle, and Konoha's vanguard force was almost entirely wiped out."
Uchiha Madara let out a long, heavy sigh, his voice echoing with profound lancholy: "Hashirama... without you around, Konoha has truly fallen into deep decay."
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