Are all Uchiha completely insane?
Kurosuki Raiga stared at the man in front of him—calm face, mild smile, black-rimmed glasses—and felt a chill sink all the way into his bones.
This guy had run circles around Kirigakure, drawn out their forces, baited their swordsmen… and all along, his real target…
…was the Mizukage.
That's a Kage, Raiga thought numbly. Not some jonin you jump in an alley.
Anyone who could earn the title Kage in the shinobi world was a monster pulled from battlefields and stitched together with scars. Even the leaders of minor hidden villages weren't simple men and women; if the other villages recognized them as "Kage," they were never weak.
And Uchiha Sogetsu's target was one of the Five Kage.
If a single Konoha jonin could just stroll in and quietly assassinate the Mizukage, then Kirigakure might as well slit its own throat and be done with it. They'd have no business "allying with Iwagakure" and picking a fight with Konoha.
"Fine," Raiga growled at last. "I'll watch. I want to see how you plan to assassinate the Mizukage."
He reclaimed his Kiba blades, electricity purring faintly along the steel, and fixed his eyes on Sogetsu, not giving him a single blind angle.
Compared to the uneasy "truce" on this side of the lake, the other front was hell on ice.
For reasons known only to itself, the Three-Tails Isobu seemed to have picked a favorite.
It barely glanced at the other shinobi. Its focus was locked entirely on Jūzō Biwa. It chased him across the shattered lake like a cat tormenting a single, stubborn mouse.
In a warped way, it meant Jūzō's plan was working. He'd wanted to draw the beast's attention. He just hadn't expected to succeed this well.
"Perfect."
Jūzō licked the blood from his lips, eyes blazing.
"My blade's been starving for too long. Today, it gets a taste of tailed beast."
He ran along a cliff edge between life and death, dancing on a single thread over a floor of knives. Every nerve in his body was pulled taut; every muscle obeyed without wasted motion. One slip and he'd be gone.
The danger didn't crush him. It exhilarated him.
This… this is it.
He could feel his mind sharpening under the pressure, his focus honing into something new, something keener.
If I live through this, he thought, I'll be stronger than I've ever been.
"Come on, then! Fight me!"
Laughing like a man already half-mad, Jūzō hefted the Decapitating Blade and sprinted straight at Isobu.
Forced back again and again by the beast's bulk and power, he finally caught a breath of open space.
He pushed his speed higher. Higher.
By the end, he was little more than a streak over the water, a blurred line the ANBU on the perimeter couldn't even track with their eyes.
But the Three-Tails saw him clearly.
Those huge yellow eyes followed him with a predator's unblinking focus, its inhuman perception pinning him in place no matter how fast he darted.
Isobu's maw opened—a black cavern framed in fangs.
"ROAR—!"
The bellow compressed wind into a visible sphere.
It spat.
BOOM.
The projectile ripped the lake open, punching a tunnel through water and waves alike.
The dense ball of air shrieked as it flew, a solid sphere of wind-chakra that slammed straight into the flickering afterimage racing across the surface.
CRASH!
The impact detonated. A ring of vapor ballooned outward, a visible shockwave expanding in all directions.
The blast heaved the lake into towering waves. Ice shattered; spray hammered out toward the shoreline like a wall.
"Jūzō-sama!"
The ANBU trying to close in were forced back yet again, shoved to the outskirts by the sheer violence of the waves. They could only shout from the edge, hearts slamming against their ribs.
At this level of battle, they couldn't even get close.
"Jūzō Biwa doesn't die that easy!"
A roar answered them from the explosion's heart.
Jūzō burst out of the steam and shock, body slick with blood, the Decapitating Blade dragging a furrow behind him as he hurled himself straight at Isobu.
He didn't retreat.
He accelerated.
He became a cannon shell, air screaming as he cut through it, the pressure wave behind him building into a thunderous tail.
His killing intent, distilled to something sharp enough to cut, wrapped around the blade in dark wisps—inky "ghosts" clinging to the steel.
"DIE!"
No holding back. No testing the waters.
He poured everything into this strike—blood, chakra, will, every scrap of spirit he had left.
The slash rose like a demon dragging itself out of the pit, howling, burning, all its rage and belief funneled into that single downward arc.
SHRING—!
The heavy blade came down, simple and brutal.
No fancy form. Just pure, refined intent.
The air split.
The sword-light carved a gouge in the sky, dragging a trench of darkness with it. Waves of compressed wind chased the cut, the pressure piling up into a roaring current.
To the watching ANBU, it looked like a dragon of steel and shadow diving from the heavens, eyes scarlet, jaws wide.
Isobu rumbled low, some primal sense of danger prickling even through its rage.
Its three massive tails whipped around, one broad, armored limb lashing out like a steel whip, all its crushing strength concentrated into a single swing.
CRACKLE.
The tail tore the air apart. The sound was more than wind—it was the atmosphere itself being smashed aside.
Tail and blade met.
BOOOOOM!!!
For a heartbeat, the world was nothing but light and noise.
Metal screamed against shell. The blast thundered across the lake, loud enough to punch pauses into the falling snow.
Wind howled outward as a visible tidal wave of force. Lake water erupted; ice sheets shattered and flew like broken glass.
The ANBU closest to the impact felt a sledgehammer hit their chests and were thrown back like dolls, tumbling through spray and slush.
Jūzō flew too.
He streaked away from the clash trailing drops of red, a falling star that hit the broken ice hard enough to bounce.
He lay there for a second, the Decapitating Blade still in his hand, the world tilting.
Up on the beast's head, a thin, clear scar marked Isobu's armor.
It wasn't deep. It wasn't fatal.
But it was there.
Isobu stared cross-eyed at the mark for a long, frozen moment.
Then its temper snapped.
"ROAAAR!"
Wounded by a mortal, even slightly, the Three-Tails let fury boil over.
It planted its limbs, hauled its bulk upright as much as its shape allowed, and lifted its head high.
"Jūzō!"
Far off, Raiga's right eye twitched violently. He felt his pupils tighten.
"Move! Get out of there!"
"Kh… cough… cough…"
Jūzō pushed himself up using the Decapitating Blade as a crutch. Blood ran hot into one eye, blurring his vision.
His body felt hollowed out, strength leaking away faster than he could catch it. Even keeping his feet under him was an effort.
"Someone's… calling me?"
The sound came from a long way off, like shouting through water. His five senses were slipping, drifting away from him.
"Danger! Jūzō, move! Get away from there!"
Raiga couldn't spare another second watching Sogetsu. He took off at a dead sprint toward Jūzō, waving, shouting, chakra burning out of him like smoke.
"Danger…?"
Jūzō blinked, lost, then turned.
The mountain behind him had opened its jaws.
Deep in Isobu's mouth, chakra was gathering—dense, dark, wrong.
Spheres of deep violet and pale blue spun together, collapsing inward, compressing tighter and tighter until a single orb formed, meters wide and black as a new moon.
It pulsed with a suffocating, ominous pressure that made the hair on every neck stand up.
"A… Tailed Beast… Bomb?"
Jūzō stared at the black sphere, a sliver of raw, animal terror finally piercing through his battle-high.
So that was the technique spoken of in hushed voices.
The Tailed Beast Bomb that existed in legends—the shot that erased landscapes.
And it was pointed straight at him.
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