I charged at Sasuke, both whips extending in a crossing pattern.
Sasuke raised his staff horizontally to block.
My whips smashed into the wood. The staff splintered, then shattered. Fragments scattered across the ground.
Sasuke stumbled back, weaponless.
"Menma! I need the staff!"
The monkey nodded. In a puff of smoke, it vanished. When the smoke cleared, an elongated black staff materialized in Sasuke's hands—the Adamantine Staff.
"Now we're even," Sasuke said.
He spun the staff and charged.
I met him head-on, both whips lashing out.
Sasuke blocked with the Adamantine Staff. The whips wrapped around it. I pulled. The staff didn't break—didn't even crack.
Sasuke used the tension to vault toward me, bringing the staff down at my head.
I released one whip and dodged sideways. The staff smashed into the ground where I'd been standing, creating a crater.
Kaze attacked from range. "Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!"
A spinning air sphere shot forward.
I raised my whips to deflect it, but Sasuke was already moving. He thrust the Adamantine Staff forward. It extended rapidly—five meters, then ten, then fifteen.
The staff punched into my chest before I could react.
I gasped. The impact drove me backward, feet tearing furrows in the earth.
Sasuke retracted the staff and spun it defensively as I recovered.
"Combination attack!" Sasuke called.
Kaze launched another jutsu. "Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!"
I raised my whips to deflect it.
Sasuke extended the Adamantine Staff from my blind spot. It caught me in the ribs. Bone cracked.
I healed and spun, both whips coming around.
Sasuke retracted the staff just in time, the whips passing inches from his face.
Kaze's wind jutsu adjusted trajectory while I was focused on Sasuke. Instead of hitting my whips, it punched into my chest.
It burrowed through muscle and bone. The spinning motion carved through my torso.
I felt it getting closer to one of my hearts. The pressure. The cutting force boring deeper.
It found one.
Searing pain. My heart—one of seven—was punctured. The organ torn apart by spinning pressure.
Blood poured from the wound.
I collapsed to both knees, gasping.
Sasuke had already moved in. The Adamantine Staff extended, ready to strike.
"It worked," Kaze said, eyes wide. "We need to destroy the rest."
But I had six hearts left. The others compensated immediately. Within seconds, the dizziness passed. I stood, though slower.
The chest wound sealed. The destroyed heart remained gone.
I changed tactics.
I let my whips extend fully—ten meters each—and swung them in wide, wild arcs.
The whips carved through everything. Trees fell. Boulders split. The ground tore open.
Sasuke extended the Adamantine Staff to block one whip. The staff held firm, not even dented. But the force pushed Sasuke backward, his feet skidding through dirt.
My other whip carved where he'd been standing, splitting a boulder.
Kaze raised his fan. "Wind Release: Air Wall!"
A wind barrier formed. My whip hit it. The impact shattered the shield.
I kept swinging. Creating chaos. Making coordination impossible.
But I was getting slower. Each swing took more effort.
Sasuke saw the opening. While I focused on Kaze, he came from behind. The Adamantine Staff glowed with chakra—Menma lending its power.
Sasuke thrust forward like a spear.
The staff punched through my back. I felt it enter, pushing through muscle and bone, driving deeper, angling upward.
Then it pierced one of my hearts.
Pain exploded through my chest.
I coughed blood.
Five hearts left.
Sasuke pulled the staff out. Blood poured from the hole in my back.
"Kaze! Now!"
Kaze was already moving. "Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves!"
Multiple wind currents converged on my chest, cutting deep, carving through the exposed wound Sasuke had created.
I felt them slice through organs, through muscle—the blades tore through my lungs, shredded tissue, carved furrows in bone. By chance, they missed my remaining hearts.
Blood poured from my mouth, chest, back.
My legs gave out. I fell to one knee.
Regeneration started, but it was slower now. Ten seconds. Fifteen.
The chest wounds closed gradually, but the destroyed hearts didn't regenerate.
I wasn't finished.
With desperate speed, I lunged forward. My right whip extended faster than they expected. It wrapped around Kaze's leg.
I pulled.
Kaze stumbled. His fan fell from his grip.
"Kaze!" Sasuke started to move, but he was too far away.
My left whip came up. The blade-tip aimed for Kaze's chest.
Kaze's eyes met mine. No fear. Only determination.
His hands moved in a blur. Final seals.
"Wind Release: Vacuum—"
My whip punched through his chest before he could finish. The blade pierced his heart. His lung. Spine.
But Kaze didn't stop.
Blood poured from his mouth, but his lips kept moving. The jutsu completed even as he died.
"—Great Sphere!"
His final breath became a massive compressed air bullet. Point-blank. No dodging.
It punched into my torso with devastating force.
The spinning pressure burrowed deep, carving through everything in its path.
I felt it tear through muscle, shatter ribs, and then—
It found another heart. The vacuum sphere ripped through the organ, shredding it completely.
Agony exploded through my chest. My vision went white.
Another heart destroyed. Four remaining.
I gasped, coughing blood. My grip on Kaze loosened.
Kaze's body went limp. His eyes dimmed. But even in death, his expression was peaceful. Satisfied.
He'd struck a critical blow with his dying breath.
I retracted my whip. Kaze's corpse collapsed to the ground.
"KAZE!"
Sasuke's scream tore through the clearing. Raw. Anguished.
I turned toward him, still on my knees. Blood poured from my chest. My regeneration struggled—slower now, much slower. Three hearts destroyed. Only four left.
I was getting weaker.
Sasuke stared at Kaze's body. His hands trembled. The Adamantine Staff shook in his grip.
Then his eyes locked onto mine.
All the grief, all the rage, all the loss—it crystallized into pure fury.
"You bastard," Sasuke whispered.
His chakra exploded outward. The pressure was immense. The ground beneath him cracked and splintered. Trees nearby bent from the force.
The Adamantine Staff in his hands glowed brighter—Menma responding to Sasuke's fury, channeling more chakra through the weapon.
"I'll destroy every last piece of you," Sasuke said, his voice deadly calm now. "Until there's nothing left to regenerate."
He began forming seals. One after another.
I tried to move. But I was slower.
"Fire Release: Dragon Flame Song Jutsu!"
Four massive flame dragons erupted from Sasuke's mouth—each one forty feet long, fifteen feet wide. Blue-hot flames turned the air into a shimmering haze.
The heat was so intense that nearby stones didn't just crack—they vaporized. The ground turned to molten glass before the dragons even arrived.
The dragons roared toward me, converging from four different angles. North. South. East. West. No escape.
The flame dragons hit me from all sides simultaneously.
The heat was beyond anything I'd experienced. My flesh didn't just burn—it vaporized instantly. My bones turned to ash. My whips incinerated completely. The blood in my veins boiled.
I tried to scream. My throat was already gone.
The ground beneath me turned to molten glass. The flames merged into a single inferno, a white-hot pillar reaching toward the sky.
Sasuke held the jutsu. Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.
Pouring everything he had into it. All his chakra. All his rage. All his grief.
When the flames finally cleared, almost nothing remained.
Just a charred skeleton partially sunk into molten glass. Scraps of smoking tissue. One arm completely gone. My legs were blackened stumps.
The destruction was absolute.
Sasuke stood thirty feet away, breathing hard. The Adamantine Staff kept him upright—without it, he would have collapsed.
"Is it... done?" Menma's voice emerged from the staff, weak and exhausted.
Sasuke stared at the charred remains. "It has to be. Nothing could survive that."
But then—movement.
The charred ribs shifted slightly.
Sasuke's eyes widened.
Deep within the smoking remains, four hearts still beat. Hidden in the depths of my torso, protected by what little remained of my ribcage.
And I had three brains left. The redundancy that kept me functional even when barely alive.
Regeneration began. Agonizingly slow. With only four hearts left, regeneration was no longer reflexive—it had to be forced, pulled from reserves that were nearly empty.
Flesh grew from bones, one cell at a time. Organs reformed. Blood vessels reconnected. The process was excruciating. Visible.
Sasuke watched in horror as I rebuilt myself from near-complete destruction.
It took a full minute. But I rose.
My body was whole again, but I was hollow. Exhausted. Running on four hearts and three brains. Close to my absolute limit.
Sasuke's eyes went hollow. The staff slipped slightly in his grip. "Why won't you die?"
"Because," I said quietly, voice raw, "I can't."
The words hung in the air between us.
Sasuke stood alone. The Adamantine Staff scorched but intact, keeping him upright. His armor was burned away. Blood ran from multiple wounds. His breathing was ragged, labored. His chakra nearly depleted.
But his eyes were still fierce. Still defiant.
He looked at Kaze's body. Then back at me.
"Menma," he said quietly to the staff. "One last time."
The staff pulsed with chakra—weak, but present. A voice emerged from it, exhausted but determined. "Understood, Sasuke. Together."
Sasuke straightened. Pushed away from the staff and held it properly. One final stance.
"For Kaze," he said quietly.
Then he charged.
No jutsu left. No tricks. Just a warrior and his weapon, charging an unkillable enemy.
It was beautiful in its futility.
I was faster. Stronger. But I was exhausted, and he was desperate.
Sasuke came in low, the staff extending mid-thrust, aiming for my chest.
I tried to dodge. Too slow.
The staff punched into my sternum. I felt it pierce deep, driving through muscle and bone.
By chance, it found one of my hearts. The Adamantine Staff crushed it.
Three hearts left.
Pain shot through me. I staggered, gasping.
But I caught the embedded staff with my left hand before Sasuke could pull it free. My grip was iron. Unyielding.
Sasuke pulled. The staff didn't budge.
"Let... go..." he growled, pulling harder.
I didn't.
My right arm began to change. The flesh rippled, elongated. Red, spike-covered tissue erupted from my forearm. The whip reformed—shorter this time, only five meters, but sharp enough.
Sasuke saw it forming. His eyes widened.
He released the embedded staff and drew a kunai from his pouch—his last weapon.
"Come on then," he said, voice hoarse. "Finish it."
The whip lashed out.
Sasuke tried to dodge. Tried to block with the kunai.
The whip wrapped around his torso. The spines punctured through what remained of his armor, through his flesh, through his ribs.
Sasuke gasped. Blood leaked from his mouth.
But he didn't drop the kunai.
With his last strength, he lunged forward—pulled himself along the whip toward me, ignoring the spines tearing deeper into his body.
He closed the distance. Five feet. Three feet. One foot.
His kunai came up, aimed at my throat.
I caught his wrist with my left hand. The bones cracked under my grip.
Sasuke's kunai fell, clattering on the ground.
We stood face to face. My whip around his torso. My hand crushing his wrist. His blood pouring onto the ash-covered ground.
"You fought well," I said quietly.
Sasuke smiled bitterly. Blood leaked from his mouth. His eyes were fading, but still fierce. "Not well enough."
He looked toward where Kaze had fallen. His expression softened. "I'm sorry... my friend. I couldn't... finish it..."
"Fate is often cruel," I said. "It favors none."
Sasuke's eyes met mine one last time. "No... it doesn't."
I squeezed. The whip contracted. The spines drove deeper—through his lungs, between his ribs, toward his heart.
Sasuke's eyes went wide. His mouth opened, but no sound came. Just blood.
One spine found his heart. Pierced it.
Sasuke's body convulsed once. Then went still.
His eyes dimmed. The fierce defiance faded. The light went out.
I held him for a moment longer. Then released the whip.
Sasuke's body fell. He collapsed beside Kaze's corpse, their blood mixing in the ash.
The Adamantine Staff—still embedded in my chest—vanished in a puff of smoke. The summoning ended.
Silence reclaimed the clearing.
I stood alone among the dead.
My whip retracted, shrinking back into a normal arm. The spines withdrew. The red tissue faded. Within seconds, my arm looked human—though covered in blood and ash.
Behind me, Amanai's voice was so weak I almost didn't hear it.
"Muzan..."
I turned. Walked to where he was propped against the broken tree.
His eyes were open. His Sharingan spun weakly.
"What are you?" he whispered.
I knelt beside him. "I don't know. What I am... it's beyond mortal comprehension. But, Uchiha Amanai, I have fulfilled my promise. I have repaid your favor."
Amanai's eyes widened slightly. Then he smiled. Blood leaked from his mouth. "Thanks..."
"You don't have to," I said quietly.
"No." Amanai's hand moved weakly, reaching toward me. "You gave them a chance. Miyako. Toshiro. Sayuri. I'm not sure if you're an Uchiha or not, but for us you will always be Uchiha Muzan."
His hand fell. His breathing stopped. The light in his Sharingan faded.
I closed his eyes gently.
Then I stood and looked around the clearing one last time.
Kenozo's body lay nearby, eyes staring at the sky. The tanto protruded from his back.
Further away, Naroi's corpse slumped against the shattered oak tree.
Takeo and Hana were charred husks.
Akari's headless body lay in a spreading pool of blood.
And Amanai, propped against the tree like he was resting.
All dead.
Sasuke and Kaze lay together. They'd fought as one. Died as one.
Bodies of Sarutobi and Shimura jonin scattered across the clearing—some in pieces, some burned, some crushed.
The entire area was devastated. Trees fallen or burning. The ground carved into furrows and craters. Scorched earth and molten glass. Blood everywhere.
Soon the sun would rise, but I wouldn't be here. Uchiha clan... The time I spent here would always be a part of me, but it was time. Time for me to go.