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Uchiha Senichi limped back into the Uchiha council hall still aching from head to toe. The dull throb of Matatabi's "massage" hadn't fully faded, and his expression carried the residual tension of a man who'd recently stared into the face of God and lived to regret it.
He'd barely settled into his seat before calling the senior leadership together.
"Effective immediately. No member of the Uchiha Clan is to capture, provoke, or engage any Tailed Beast in any way. Anyone who violates this order is expelled from the clan. No exceptions. No appeals."
The elders nodded without hesitation. The Tailed Beasts were already universally protected across the shinobi world. Every major clan had backed off. Swimming against that current would only paint a target on the Uchiha's back.
One of the fighters who'd accompanied Senichi on the expedition stepped forward, head tilted.
"Lord Senichi, what about the old man you went to confront? Did you settle things with him?"
Every head in the room turned toward Senichi. The upper ranks all knew the real purpose of his recent outing. He'd gone to track down a mysterious elder and settle a personal score. Now he'd returned, said nothing about the mission, and was suddenly issuing decrees about Tailed Beasts.
The gap between those two facts was raising eyebrows.
The question landed on Senichi like a lit match on dry tinder.
His Sharingan contracted to pinpoints. The temperature in the room dropped. A wave of killing intent so sharp it felt physical rolled off him and pressed against every chest in the hall.
"SHUT YOUR MOUTHS!"
His palm cracked against the table hard enough to split the wood. The sound echoed off stone walls and died in horrified silence.
"If I hear a single person in this clan mention that man again, I will personally puncture your eardrums! Is that CLEAR??"
Every elder in the room hit the floor in a simultaneous bow.
"Forgive us, Lord Senichi! We'll never speak of it again!"
The curiosity didn't go away. If anything, the outburst made it worse. What kind of being could rattle Uchiha Senichi this badly? The man who'd never shown fear in his life was practically vibrating with it.
Senichi unclenched his fists. Took a breath. Placed his katana on the table with deliberate calm.
"One more thing. Tomorrow, I'm leading a pilgrimage to the clan's Six Paths Temple. And every Six Paths shrine within eight hundred miles of our territory gets a full renovation. Funded by us. Top to bottom."
........
The ceasefire lasted exactly one month.
Senichi broke it.
The Uchiha and Senju war banners rose again across the plains, battle cries splitting the sky, chakra detonations shaking the earth in rolling waves.
Senichi stood at the head of his forces, fingertips pressed against his swollen, bloodshot eyes. His Mangekyō Sharingan was deteriorating fast. The world kept sliding in and out of focus, distant figures doubling and tripling, edges bleeding into each other like wet ink.
These damn eyes...
He ground his teeth and forced himself steady.
The Mangekyō's curse had come for him. His vision was collapsing at a terrifying rate. A few more battles, maybe less, and he'd be completely blind.
Once that happened, it was over. Without the Sharingan, he couldn't compete with Shūichi's monstrous physical abilities and ninjutsu arsenal. The Uchiha would lose everything.
Only one option: end it now. While he could still see. While he could still fight.
"SENICHI! We agreed to six months! Your injuries haven't even healed! Why are you breaking the truce??"
Shūichi gripped his sword, staring across the battlefield at the man he'd been carrying home on his shoulder just weeks ago. Confusion and anger fought for control of his face.
"Truce? HAHAHAHA! All's fair in war, Shūichi! Today we settle this! Winner takes all, loser takes the grave!"
Senichi's Mangekyō spun wildly, his voice cracking with the desperate ferocity of someone running out of time and willing to burn everything on one final roll.
Shūichi caught it. Something was wrong. The way Senichi kept blinking. The way his gaze wouldn't quite lock on. The slight lag in his reactions.
"Your eyes... something's happened to them?"
"ENOUGH TALKING! FIGHT ME!"
Senichi moved first.
One-handed seal, instant execution. "Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!"
A tsunami of flame poured from his mouth, red-orange inferno consuming the space between them with world-ending hunger.
"Earth Style: Mud Wall!"
Shūichi's hands hit the ground. A massive stone barrier erupted upward, absorbing the fire's impact. He split into three Shadow Clones the instant the wall held.
Four Shūichis fanned out, surrounding Senichi from every angle, each one crackling with the terrifying physical power that had made the Senju name synonymous with "don't get hit."
"Don't blame me for going all out, Senichi!"
Four figures charged simultaneously, fists loaded with bone-crushing force, targeting every blind spot at once.
"Mangekyō Sharingan, FULL POWER!"
Susano'o erupted around Senichi in a flash of blue-green spectral energy, skeletal ribs and armored plates condensing just in time to absorb the four-directional assault. The impact shook the ground for a hundred meters, but the shell held.
"Is that all you've got??"
Senichi roared from inside the Susano'o.
"Blaze Release: Fire Claw!"
Black flames condensed into a massive spectral hand, raking toward Shūichi's real body with killing precision.
And then his vision went black.
Both eyes. At once. A spike of white-hot pain drove through his skull like a nail, and for one critical fraction of a second, his body stuttered.
No. Not NOW—
Shūichi saw it. That tiny hesitation. That microsecond gap where Senichi's guard dropped and his flames wavered.
"Water Style: Water Dragon Bullet!"
The technique launched before the thought finished forming. And Shūichi was already airborne, right fist cocked back, every ounce of Senju strength concentrated into a single descending blow.
The punch connected with Senichi's chest.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM——
The Susano'o shattered. Senichi flew backward like he'd been launched from a catapult, crashed into the earth hard enough to leave a trench, and didn't get up.
Blood sprayed from his mouth. His Sharingan flickered. Dimmed. The tomoe slowed their rotation and stopped.
Uchiha Senichi lay in the dirt, chest heaving, completely spent.
"I... did I just kill him with one punch??"
Shūichi stared at his own fist in genuine horror. He'd expected a prolonged battle. A war of attrition. Not... this.
What he didn't know was that Senichi had been fighting on borrowed time for weeks. The Mangekyō had been eating itself alive. His chakra reserves were gutted. And Matatabi's enthusiastic "back massage" from the previous month hadn't done his recovery any favors.
Shūichi had healed from that encounter in days. Senju constitution. Senichi's body, already overtaxed by the Mangekyō's toll, had barely recovered at all.
The Senju forces erupted into wild cheering.
"LONG LIVE THE CHIEF! Uchiha Senichi was nothing but talk!"
"One punch! ONE PUNCH!"
On the Uchiha side, pandemonium. "LORD SENICHI!!!"
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