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"That's—!!!"
Senju Shūichi went white as a bone. Every ounce of his legendary physical strength was locked up inside his body, refusing to answer the call. Like his muscles had collectively decided that moving right now was a very bad idea and they'd rather not participate.
A figure came out of empty air.
At first, it was the same old man. Tender eyes, worn face, that maddeningly calm expression. The mysterious elder who'd been living rent-free in Senichi's nightmares for weeks.
"That's him! Shūichi!"
Senichi's Sharingan went wide, recognition hitting like a strong impact.
Shūichi took one look at the pressure rolling off this old man, felt it settle deep into his bones like lead, and immediately understood.
'Senichi, you idiot. You picked a fight with a hidden God.'
"You SET ME UP, Senichi!"
Through clenched teeth. Every word ground out against the paralysis.
The old man hadn't made a single aggressive move. Hadn't raised a hand. Hadn't so much as narrowed his eyes. But every survival instinct Shūichi possessed was screaming that he and Senichi could be erased from existence between one heartbeat and the next.
Then the old man changed.
Light shone from Manji's body.
White hair blackened. Turned jet black. Wrinkles smoothed away like writing being erased from a page. His posture straightened. His frame filled out. Years peeled away—decades—centuries—falling off him like shed skin.
In the span of three pulses, the elderly traveler was gone.
In his place stood a young man. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Features so refined they looked sculpted. Eyes that contained the calm, terrifying depth of something that had been watching the world turn since before anyone alive could remember.
That face.
That exact face.
Senichi's brain detonated.
He and Shūichi had been kneeling before that face not three days ago. Palms together. Heads bowed. Incense lit. Praying for victory against the old man.
The painting in the Six Paths Temple. The one hanging above every altar in every shrine in every nation across the known world.
It was the same face.
Identical.
"The… the Sage of Six Paths…?"
The words came out of Senichi's throat in broken fragments. His sword arm went dead. His fingers opened on their own.
Clang.
The katana hit stone. Senichi staggered backward, his Sharingan flickering in and out of focus, overwhelmed by a terror so fundamental it bypassed every mental defense he'd ever built.
Not a Transformation Technique. Not genjutsu. Not a trick.
This was the actual, literal, honest-to-god deity they'd been worshipping their entire lives.
They had prayed to the Sage of Six Paths for help in defeating this old man.
They had ambushed a Tailed Beast to lure this old man out.
They had sworn to find and fight this old man.
The old man was the Sage of Six Paths.
Shūichi—who almost never cursed, who prided himself on keeping his composure in every situation—felt something snap.
"Are you KIDDING me, Senichi?? The target is the SAGE OF SIX PATHS??"
His mind helpfully supplied a preview of his afterlife:
Senju ancestors, gathered around a table: "Shūichi, you died so young. What happened?"
Shūichi: "I tried to fight the Sage of Six Paths."
Senju ancestors: "…GET OUT."
..............
Senichi looked like he'd been hit by lightning and hadn't finished falling yet.
Both of them reached the same conclusion at the same time: they were, without question, the two stupidest people who had ever lived.
Matatabi lay in her chains, watching the entire scene unfold with the satisfied expression of a cat who'd knocked a glass off a table and felt no remorse whatsoever.
"So. Still want to try cutting me?" Manji stood in the air above them, his true form radiating Sage light, and looked down at the two kneeling clan heads.
"You wanted to see me. Here I am. What do you want?"
Simple question. Delivered the way a headmaster addresses two students caught breaking windows.
Senichi and Shūichi looked at each other.
Then their knees gave way simultaneously.
Thud. Thud.
Foreheads against cold stone. Neither one dared to breathe too loudly. 'We can't exactly tell him we came here specifically to beat him up, can we?'
"Oh, Sage of Six Paths, we were just in the neighborhood! Thought we'd drop by and pay our New Year's respects!"
Matatabi relaxed in the background, watching two of the most dangerous men alive grovel in the dirt, and let her tail curl upward with undisguised delight.
'Your turn to act tough? No? Then it's MY turn.'
The next second, Matatabi's entire demeanor transformed. The smug confidence vanished. Her eyes went red and watery. She dragged her battered body toward Manji in a pitiful, limping crawl, voice wavering with perfectly calibrated distress.
"Master… you finally came… I had no idea they were looking for you… if I'd known, I would have died before I let them get a single clue…"
Manji looked down at the wounds covering her body. Something cold passed through his eyes.
"Matatabi. You've been through enough. This is my fault."
His hand rose. Warm, luminous Sage chakra flowed from his fingertips and wrapped around her entire form.
"Sage Art: Mystical Palm."
Three seconds. Every wound sealed. Every torn muscle mended. Matted, blood-caked fur smoothed back to its natural luster. Her chakra reserves, nearly depleted, returned swiftly to full capacity.
Good as new.
Manji turned his attention back to Senichi.
"Uchiha Senichi. I let you walk away last time. Didn't hold it against you. Thought you'd learned something. Instead, you've gotten worse. Roped the Senju into your vendetta. Attacked one of my students. And you thought I wouldn't find out?"
The words carried no heat. They didn't need to. The quiet disappointment hit harder than any threat.
Senichi's back was drenched in cold sweat, fabric plastered to his spine. His lungs felt like they'd shrunk to half capacity.
Before he could force out a response, Shūichi slammed his forehead against the ground.
"Sage! Senichi was reckless, and I was a fool for following him! We didn't recognize you! We had no idea who we were provoking! Whatever punishment you decide, Senichi and I will bear it alone! Please, I'm begging you, don't let this fall on the Senju or the Uchiha! Our clans had nothing to do with this! Punish US, not THEM!"
Straight to the point. No deflection. No excuses. Full accountability, offered without hesitation.
Manji glanced at him.
Asura's reincarnation still knows how to read a room.
Meanwhile, every cell in Senichi's body was engaged in a civil war. The Uchiha blood—Indra's legacy—was screaming at him to fight. To stand up. To draw steel and charge regardless of the odds. The Uchiha didn't kneel. The Uchiha didn't beg. The Uchiha stared God in the face and swung first.
That was the code burned into his DNA. Indra's bottom line.
Manji could feel it. He watched Senichi's jaw work, watched the tendons in his neck tighten, and knew exactly what was happening behind those crimson eyes. The boy was one pride-fueled impulse away from doing something spectacularly, fatally brave.
But Senichi swallowed it.
He stepped forward, dropped to both knees, and pressed his head to the stone beside Shūichi.
"I accept responsibility. Whatever consequence you see fit. Kill me if you want. Just leave the clans out of it."
His voice shook. But the words held.
Both clan heads. Side by side. Foreheads to the ground. Offering their lives to protect their people.
Manji looked at this tableau and paused.
He'd come here ready to deliver a lesson these two would carry to their graves. He'd half-expected them to resist, which would have given him a clean excuse to demonstrate exactly how far beneath him they actually were.
Instead, they'd folded the instant they saw his real face. Not out of cowardice—out of genuine, bone-deep reverence for the Sage of Six Paths. The same reverence that every person in the shinobi world carried.
It was hard to punch someone who was already kissing your feet.
All that righteous indignation he'd been building up suddenly had nowhere to go. Like swinging a hammer and hitting a pillow.
He'd underestimated, yet again, just how thoroughly the Sage of Six Paths mythology had penetrated every layer of shinobi civilization. He wasn't just a historical figure to these people. He was the closest thing their world had to an actual, confirmed, universally accepted God.
And you don't fight God. You apologize to God and hope God's in a forgiving mood.
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