The six remaining Senju charged with the desperation of men who knew they were already dead.
It was barely a fight.
Miyako didn't move from her spot. She signaled with two fingers. "Takeo, Hana—pincer formation."
The two members of her squad blurred forward. Takeo caught the first Senju's strike on a reinforced arm guard and grabbed the man's wrist. Hana vaulted over Takeo's shoulder. Her blade severed the Senju's spine from above.
On the right, Kenozo moved with a fluidity that belied his age. A Senju thrust a kunai at him. Kenozo swayed. The tip passed inches from his nose. He stepped on the hand and forced it down. He drove his heel into the attacker's throat. The cartilage collapsed with a wet crunch.
Amanai handled two himself. His Sharingan spun lazily. He parried a sword strike, ducked a high kick, and wove hand seals with one hand while blocking with the other.
"Fire Release: Ash Pile Burning!"
He blew a cloud of superheated gunpowder ash into their faces. They flinched and were blinded. Amanai clicked his teeth. The spark ignited the ash. The explosion threw them backward with their skin searing. Before they hit the ground, Naroi was there and finished them with efficient stabs to the heart.
Muzan watched the last two die under a hail of shuriken from Toshiro and Sayuri.
Silence reclaimed the forest. The air smelled of ozone, copper, and charred meat.
"Clear," Amanai said, flicking blood from his blade. "Naroi, check the corpses and camp for intel scrolls. Takeo, secure the perimeter. We leave in five minutes."
"Easy work," Naroi grinned, stepping toward the Senju commander's corpse.
"Something's wrong," Muzan muttered. He wiped his kunai on his pant leg. His eyes scanned the tree line.
"You're being paranoid," Toshiro said with a grin, though he was shaking slightly from adrenaline. "We won. The Senju reinforcements are two hours out."
"Are they?" Muzan asked.
A leaf fluttered down from the canopy. It didn't reach the ground.
Mid-air, the leaf disintegrated. It wasn't burned. It was cut and sliced into dust by unseen pressure.
Muzan's instincts screamed. "Scatter!"
He tackled Sayuri just as the air pressure dropped.
From the eastern tree line, a gale-force wind slammed into the camp. It wasn't natural wind—it was razor-sharp compressed air that carved through everything in its path.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
The blast wave tore through the clearing. Trees snapped like twigs. Supply crates splintered into flying debris. The ground ripped apart in furrows as the wind carved deep trenches through the earth.
Naroi was standing over the commander's body. He didn't have time to move. The wind hit him and lifted his body. It threw him backward through the air. He slammed into a massive oak tree with enough force to crack the trunk. The impact cratered the bark. He slumped with blood pouring from his mouth. His chest was caved in.
"Naroi!" Amanai screamed.
"Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work!"
A massive wave of fire erupted from the same direction and rode the back of the wind technique. The wind fed oxygen into the flames and turned them into a roaring white-hot inferno that moved faster than any normal fire jutsu. The heat was so intense that nearby trees ignited before the flames touched them.
"Mud wall! Now!" Miyako shrieked.
Takeo and Hana slammed their palms to the ground. "Earth Release: Mud Wall!"
A barrier of mud erupted between them and the incoming flames. It was useless. The wind-enhanced fire broke through the wall in seconds and engulfed them. Their screams were cut short as the heat turned their lungs to ash. Their bodies collapsed—blackened husks still burning.
Twenty figures dropped from the canopy and landed in a semi-circle around the surviving Uchiha. Their impact cracked the scorched earth and sent up small clouds of ash.
Ten wore dark grey armor with mesh undershirts. Ten wore lighter armor with green accents.
Muzan scrambled to his feet and dragged Sayuri up. His eyes locked on the two men standing at the center of the formation.
One was tall with sharp, angular features and a jaw set like stone.
The other was shorter and broad-shouldered, with wild spiky hair and a bo staff resting on his shoulder.
"Shimura Kaze," Kenozo wheezed, clutching his injured side. "And Sarutobi Sasuke."
The blood drained from Amanai's face. "The clan heads? Why are they here?"
"They weren't two hours away," Muzan realized. "Someone must have tipped them off."
Sarutobi Sasuke stepped forward and spun his staff casually. The weapon whistled through the air. "Uchiha Takeshi isn't here? A pity. I came all this way to smash his head in."
"Well, he is a strategist, so obviously he won't come out of hiding. We'll have to settle for his whelps," Shimura Kaze said. His voice whistled like a draft through a cracked window. He raised his fan. "Kill them all."
The twenty elite shinobi surged forward.
"Defensive circle!" Amanai roared. "Back to back!"
Chaos erupted instantly.
A Shimura jonin lunged at Muzan with wind chakra coating his kunai. The air shimmered around the blade and extended its reach by several inches—invisible cutting pressure that could slice through steel.
Muzan dodged quickly. The wind blade carved a line across his shoulder and drew blood, but it healed within seconds without anyone noticing in the chaos. He retaliated with three shuriken, but the Shimura exhaled sharply. A burst of wind deflected all three projectiles into the trees.
"Fire Release: Flame Bullet!" A Sarutobi shinobi flanked Muzan and spewed a continuous stream of flame.
Muzan grabbed a corpse—one of the dead Senju—and used it as a shield. The body caught fire immediately with its flesh sizzling. While the Sarutobi maintained his jutsu, Muzan kicked backward at the Shimura. His heel connected with the man's knee. Bone cracked.
The Shimura grunted and stumbled. Muzan dropped the burning corpse and drove his kunai through the man's throat before he could recover.
To his left, the massacre continued.
Akari, the last of Kenozo's squad, was fighting a Sarutobi. She blocked a punch aimed at her head, but the Sarutobi's strength was monstrous. The blow shattered her forearm. Bone jutted through skin. She screamed and left herself open. A Shimura shinobi behind her swung a wind-infused kunai. The blade, extended by pressurized air, decapitated her cleanly. Her head rolled across the scorched ground.
"Akari!" Kenozo roared. His Sharingan spun wildly with three tomoe burning bright red.
He charged directly at Shimura Kaze.
"You'll die for that!" Kenozo formed seals blindingly fast. "Fire Release: Dragon Flame Jutsu!"
Three dragon-shaped fireballs roared toward the Shimura leader. Each one was large enough to engulf a house. They carved trenches through the ground as they flew. The heat was so intense that the earth itself turned to glass in their wake.
Kaze didn't blink. He planted his feet and inhaled deeply. His chest expanded. "Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere."
He spat multiple bullets of compressed air. Each one punched straight through the fire dragons and dispersed the flames into harmless embers. The vacuum spheres continued toward Kenozo and moved faster than arrows.
The old man twisted mid-air and dodged two. The third punched a hole clean through his shoulder and sprayed blood. Kenozo hit the ground hard and rolled to absorb the impact.
Kaze was already there when he stopped. He had a short sword drawn with wind chakra coating the blade. Steel clashed against Kenozo's kunai. Sparks flew. The Shimura leader was faster. His strikes were aided by air currents that pushed his blade forward and created resistance against Kenozo's counters.
Their weapons met again. The wind-enhanced blade shattered Kenozo's kunai. The old man barely jerked his head back as the sword tip carved a line across his cheek.
On the other side of the battlefield, Amanai was losing against Sarutobi Sasuke.
Sasuke didn't bother with complex ninjutsu. He used overwhelming physical force. He swung his bo staff horizontally. Amanai raised his katana to block.
The impact vibrated through Amanai's entire skeleton. The blade cracked down the center. His arms went numb.
"Weak!" Sasuke shouted. He planted the staff's end into the ground and kicked Amanai in the chest with both feet.
Amanai flew backward and crashed through the burning remains of a lean-to. Wood splintered around him. He scrambled up and coughed blood. "Genjutsu: Sharingan!"
He locked eyes with Sasuke. His tomoe spun.
Sasuke grinned. He bit his own tongue hard enough to draw blood. The pain snapped him out of the illusion instantly. "Willpower, boy! Genjutsu means nothing at my level."
Sasuke inhaled. His chest expanded to an impossible size. His ribcage visibly stretched. "Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet!"
The blast was blinding. A massive fireball shaped like a dragon's head erupted from Sasuke's mouth. It was easily twenty feet in diameter. It consumed everything in its path. Trees exploded into splinters from the heat alone.
Amanai dove sideways and rolled behind a boulder. The jutsu vaporized the rock. Superheated fragments peppered Amanai's back and melted through his armor plating. The heat singed his eyebrows completely off and left his exposed skin red and blistering.
"Muzan!" Toshiro screamed.
Muzan spun. Two Sarutobi were closing in on Sayuri from different angles. She was frozen and overwhelmed by the sheer pressure of their chakra. Her single tomoe spun uselessly.
Muzan didn't think. He threw a smoke bomb between them. Grey smoke exploded outward. He dove into the cloud.
Inside, he didn't fight like a ninja. He fought like a beast and used a fraction of his true strength.
He grabbed the first Sarutobi's ankle mid-stride. His enhanced strength crushed bone and ligament. As the man fell screaming, Muzan's kunai found the gap in his armor under the armpit. The blade punched through to the heart.
One was down.
The second Sarutobi swung blindly with a tanto. Muzan ducked under the strike and swept the man's legs out from under him. Before the Sarutobi hit the ground, Muzan was on top of him. He drove his kunai into the man's eye socket and angled upward into the brain. The body spasmed once, then went still.
Two were down.
The smoke cleared, dispersed by the ambient wind from ongoing jutsu.
"Behind you!" Sayuri shrieked.
Muzan turned. A Shimura shinobi was forming seals. "Wind Release: Vacuum Palm!"
The invisible concussion blast hit Muzan square in the chest before he could dodge. Three ribs cracked instantly. He was launched ten feet backward and skidded through the dirt and ash. His ribs healed as soon as they cracked, but he could feel a tinge of hunger now. His chakra was very low.
He looked up. The battlefield was a graveyard.
Takeo was dead and impaled on multiple earth spikes that had erupted from the ground beneath him. His body hung suspended three feet in the air. Blood dripped steadily. Hana was a charred husk and barely recognizable as human. Akari's headless body lay in a spreading pool of blood. Naroi was slumped against the shattered oak tree with his lifeless eyes staring at the burning sky.
Only six Uchiha remained alive.
Miyako was fighting three enemies at once. Her hair was loose with half of it burned away. She moved like a demon with her Sharingan tracking everything, but she was bleeding from a dozen cuts. Blood ran down her face from a gash across her scalp. A Shimura shinobi swung a wind-enhanced blade. She dodged left, but the extended cutting pressure caught her leg. The wound opened deep. She stumbled and barely deflected a fatal blow with a kunai that shattered on impact.
"Regroup!" Kenozo shouted, disengaging from Kaze with a desperate Body Flicker. He grabbed Miyako by the collar and hauled her back toward the center.
Amanai scrambled over and dragged his broken katana. His right arm hung uselessly, dislocated at the shoulder.
Muzan grabbed Sayuri and Toshiro and shoved them toward the older Uchiha. "Move!"
They formed a tight circle in the center of the devastated camp. They were surrounded by flames and corpses. Eleven had become six.
Fifteen enemies still stood. They formed a loose perimeter and cut off every escape route.
Sarutobi Sasuke rested his staff on the ground. The impact cracked the earth and created a small crater. Shimura Kaze cleaned his blade with a cloth and looked bored.
"Surrender is not an option," Kaze said softly.
Sasuke snorted. "Hmph! How dare you attack the Senju!"
Amanai stood shakily with blood dripping from his chin. His three tomoe spun, but they looked dim—his chakra reserves were nearly depleted. "Miyako... Toshiro... take Sayuri. If we create an opening... run."
"No," Miyako said. Her voice was cold. She checked her remaining kunai. Three were left. Two explosive tags remained. "There's no running from this."
The Sarutobi and Shimura began closing the circle and advancing slowly. The heat from the burning forest pressed in from all sides. Smoke choked the air.
Kenozo laughed suddenly—a bitter, hollow sound. "My sons are waiting for me anyway."
Miyako's Sharingan spun rapidly. "If we're dying, we take as many as we can with us."
Amanai nodded slowly. He reached into his pouch with his good hand and pulled out three explosive tags. "Muzan, when I give the signal—"
But Muzan cut him off. "No. Miyako, Toshiro, and Sayuri should leave. We still don't know how they got news of our ambush. This matter has to be reported back!"
Hearing him, Amanai's eyes widened. "You're right!"
Miyako quickly intervened. "Muzan is weaker than me. He shouldn't stay here."
Muzan shook his head. "It's precisely because I'm weaker that I can't lead Toshiro and Sayuri back safely. If you lead them, there's a higher chance they'll survive."
Miyako clenched her jaw but couldn't deny it.
Toshiro looked at Muzan with surprise. He was the one who'd first spotted Muzan that day. Even though their friendship didn't start strong and he'd been suspicious of Muzan at first, now Muzan was truly someone Toshiro acknowledged as a friend.
Toshiro muttered slowly, "Muzan..."
Muzan clasped his shoulder and smiled. "Toshiro. That day you said you'd regret failing to share your comrades' burden. Today, I feel the same. So let me do this. Or else, I'll forever regret it."
Tears welled in Toshiro's eyes, but he quickly wiped them and nodded firmly.
On the other hand, Sayuri was also sad.
Muzan looked at her. "Sayuri, though we didn't share much time together in this squad, I'm happy you're one of my comrades. But this battlefield isn't meant for you."
Sayuri wiped the tears from her face and nodded. "Mm."