Muzan grabbed Miyako's arm. "Go. Now."
She held his eyes for half a second, then her chakra flared and she used Body Flicker. She took Toshiro's collar in one hand and Sayuri's wrist in the other and pulled them both into the smoke and flames at the western tree line.
"Stop them!" Kaze's voice cut sharp across the clearing.
Three Shimura broke from the encirclement and moved toward the tree line at full speed.
Amanai stepped forward with his one working hand already forming seals. "Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
The fireball rolled into their path and forced two of them wide. The third dropped low and slid under the flames.
Kenozo slammed both palms to the ground. "Earth Style: Earth Wall!"
The wall cut across the clearing and the Shimura who'd slid under the fireball hit it at full stride and had to go over. By the time all three cleared the obstacles, Miyako and the others were gone into the dark.
The pursuit stopped. The three Shimura turned back.
Kaze looked at what remained. Three Uchiha standing in a burning camp surrounded by twelve shinobi and two clan heads.
"Kill them," he said.
They came forward together.
What followed was fast and one-sided and everyone present knew how it would end.
Kenozo met them head-on. He moved like a man who had already said goodbye to everything and had nothing left to protect. A kunai buried itself in his side between the ribs and he grabbed the attacker's wrist before the blade could be pulled free, headbutted him hard enough to shatter his nose, and drove his own kunai up through the jaw.
He formed his last seals with shaking hands. His voice came out wet and rough.
"Fire Style: Dragon Flame Jutsu!"
Three dragon-shaped fireballs erupted from his mouth at point-blank range and consumed the two nearest enemies. They fell screaming as the flames took them.
The effort finished him. He dropped to one knee with blood pouring through his fingers where he gripped his side.
A tanto came through his back and out through his chest.
Kenozo looked down at the blade. He didn't make a sound. He just stopped moving and fell forward, and that was the end of it.
Amanai was surrounded by four enemies with his right arm hanging useless at the dislocated shoulder. He fought with his left hand and made it count. He put a kunai into one man's kidney before a katana opened his back from shoulder blade to spine.
CRACK!
The sound of it carried across the clearing. Amanai's legs buckled. He caught himself against a broken tree trunk and held on with his one good arm, still upright, still moving.
Three enemies closed around him. Sasuke walked toward him from behind with his staff raised in both hands.
Muzan was already running.
He covered thirty feet in under a second and moved faster than he had at any point in the battle. His hand shot up and caught the staff mid-swing.
CLANG!
The impact echoed across the clearing like a struck bell. The staff stopped completely. Sasuke's arms shook from the absorbed force. His eyes went wide.
Silence fell across the battlefield.
Sasuke pulled at the staff. It didn't move. He pulled harder with his full weight behind it.
Nothing.
"What in the—" Sasuke's voice dropped to almost nothing.
Muzan looked back at Amanai. The man was still conscious, barely, with blood running freely from the wound across his back and his breath coming in wet uneven pulls.
"Don't die yet," Muzan said.
A Sarutobi came at him from the left with a kunai aimed at his ribs. Muzan's free hand shot out and closed around the man's throat before the strike landed. The Sarutobi grabbed at Muzan's wrist with both hands. His feet left the ground.
Muzan squeezed. The windpipe collapsed. He threw the body into the two shinobi coming in behind it and all three went down.
A Shimura came from the right with a wind-enhanced blade humming with cutting pressure. Muzan stepped into the strike instead of away from it and let the blade cross his ribs. The wind chakra edge cut deep enough to show bone.
The flesh sealed in two seconds. Muscle, skin, everything closed over clean.
The Shimura stared at it.
Everyone on the battlefield stared at it.
Muzan grabbed the Shimura by the head and twisted. The neck broke with a sharp crack and the body dropped.
He released Sasuke's staff and stepped forward into the open ground between the two sides. Blood and ash covered the scorched earth in every direction. The fires still burned through what was left of the camp.
Sasuke's expression had changed. The casual contempt was gone. He held his staff in both hands and watched Muzan the way a careful man watches something he doesn't understand.
"What are you?" Sasuke asked, his voice low and even.
Muzan said nothing.
Kaze raised his war fan and the seals along its surface began to glow. His voice was cold and flat. "It doesn't matter what it is. It dies the same as everything else. Hit it with everything and don't stop."