Chapter 416: The Fourth Kazekage's Fury
A dry, rasping cough broke the momentary stillness.
Mū, the Second Tsuchikage, slowly raised his bandaged head. The suffocating, stoic aura of the reanimated Kage warped, twisting into something distinctly sinister and serpentine.
"What a... perfect body."
The voice slipping past Mū's concealed lips no longer belonged to the Second Tsuchikage. It was a sickening, sibilant hiss that slithered through the air.
Uchiha Akira did not flinch. He merely crossed his arms, the ripple-patterned Rinnegan spinning with cold amusement as he looked down at the possessed Edo Tensei puppet.
"I thought you would keep hiding in the gutter, watching all this unfold like a rat." Akira's voice was flat, devoid of any surprise. "Finally willing to show your face? Orochimaru."
That signature, hoarse laughter echoed across the shattered valley, scraping against the eardrums.
"Hehehe... Uchiha Akira." Mū's reanimated eyes narrowed, burning with a sickening, greedy light. "I admit, I underestimated you. I didn't expect you to be able to awaken the legendary Rinnegan."
The Sannin's control over the puppet was absolute, projecting his morbid obsession through the dead Kage's gaze.
"However, this makes me even more certain of one absolute truth. Your body is the key to the ultimate Ninjutsu." The sibilant voice pitched upward, dripping with fanatical hunger. "Just wait, Akira-kun. This is merely the prologue. I will constantly study you, analyze you, until... I completely take you over! Those eyes, that flawless flesh... they will eventually become my, Orochimaru's, most perfect vessel!"
Facing the Sannin's naked covetousness and harsh threats, Akira simply arched a single eyebrow. The sheer arrogance of the snake was almost comical in its ignorance.
"Take me over?" A low, dark chuckle vibrated in Akira's chest. He spread his hands slightly, a gesture of mock invitation. "I am right here. If you want it, come and take it now."
The amusement vanished from his face, replaced by a glacial chill. A terrifying, suffocating pressure of visual prowess erupted from his Rinnegan, crashing down upon the valley with a thunderous boom. The air itself seemed to groan under the weight.
"Or is it that you only dare to hide in dark corners, indulging in empty talk?"
The fanatical greed on Mū's borrowed face stiffened. Orochimaru was a madman, but he was by no means stupid. Even through the proxy vision of the Edo Tensei, the Sannin could clearly feel that despair-inducing chasm in their power.
A cold snort echoed from the puppet.
"Do not try to provoke me. There is plenty of time, Uchiha Akira. Our game has only just begun."
Before the final syllable finished echoing, Mū's bandaged figure rapidly blurred.
"Dustless Bewildering Cover!"
In a fraction of a second, the Second Tsuchikage dissolved into the ambient air, completely erasing his physical presence and chakra signature. Orochimaru had decisively issued the order to retreat. Mū possessed the strategic, devastating deterrent of Dust Release; he was far too valuable a pawn to be sacrificed in a futile clash here.
A short distance away, Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage, paused his assault on Gaara. His reanimated eyes widened in sheer disbelief as he watched Mū vanish.
Where are you going?
Panic flared in Rasa's chest. He instinctively shifted his weight, preparing to fall back. Was this a joke? Even the legendary Second Tsuchikage was fleeing. Why should he remain behind to face a monster like Uchiha Akira?
But just as Rasa's muscles tensed to execute a retreat, a cold, unquestionable command pierced his consciousness.
[Stop them.]
[Buy time for the Second Tsuchikage. Let him retreat.]
Rasa's body violently jerked to a halt. Fury and indignity twisted his features.
Orochimaru! You bastard! Do you want to use me as a disposable pawn?! he roared within the confines of his own mind.
But the absolute authority of the Impure World Reincarnation binding was absolute. No matter how fiercely his consciousness resisted, his dead flesh betrayed him. His feet planted firmly into the earth, arresting his retreat entirely against his will.
[This is for the greater good,] Orochimaru's voice whispered in his mind, dripping with ruthless pragmatism. [You are already a dead person anyway, so it doesn't matter if you die again. Exert your final remaining value, Fourth Kazekage.]
Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!
Rasa's internal curses were venomous, but his body pivoted mechanically, forcing him to face Gaara, who hovered amidst a sky full of swirling yellow sand.
Gaara looked down at his father's rigid posture, his pale teal eyes flickering slightly.
"It seems you have been abandoned," Gaara stated, his voice devoid of pity.
Rasa's face contorted into a livid mask of humiliation. His hands, moving entirely against his own survival instincts, trembled as they rapidly wove hand seals. If he could not flee, he would have to fight to the bitter end.
"Cut the crap!" Rasa bellowed, his voice cracking with desperate rage. "Even if I die, I will drag you, this rebellious son, down with me!"
Above them, the lingering clouds of heavy Gold Dust surged, answering their master's furious call.
High above the battlefield, Akira's Rinnegan tracked a faint, shifting distortion in the atmosphere. Mū's invisibility was renowned for erasing physical form, but beneath the supreme visual prowess of the Rinnegan, that so-called 'complete invisibility' was nothing more than a slightly higher-level illusion. He could see the Tsuchikage's retreating silhouette perfectly.
Yet, Akira made no move to pursue.
"Running away quite fast," Akira murmured, the corner of his mouth curling into a chilling smile.
He slowly raised his right hand, turning his palm toward the sky. The surrounding atmosphere warped as a dense sphere of highly concentrated chakra began to rapidly condense above his skin.
Meanwhile, the clash between father and son reached a white-hot boiling point.
Gaara slammed his palms together, a sharp clap ringing out over the howling wind.
"Quicksand Waterfall Flow!"
In an instant, the very earth groaned and surrendered. The solid ground stretching for several kilometers fractured and disintegrated, transmuting into a raging, endless tidal wave of yellow sand. The colossal ocean of earth surged outward, expanding frantically in all directions with Gaara at its epicenter.
Rasa stared at the apocalyptic landscape unfolding beneath his feet. The solid rock had become a ravenous desert. His pupils shrank to pinpricks.
This scale...
"Do not get arrogant with me!" Rasa roared, slamming his hands down toward the churning sea of sand. "Magnet Release: Gold Dust Cube!"
Veins of glittering gold were forcibly extracted from the depths of the earth, rising into the sky where they rapidly compressed. The sheer magnetic force condensed the loose dust into several colossal, impossibly dense golden cubes.
"Crush him for me!" Rasa commanded, thrusting his hands forward.
The massive golden blocks plummeted from the sky like gilded meteors, tearing through the air with a deafening shriek. The density of Gold Dust vastly eclipsed that of ordinary sand. Once hit, even with the absolute Shield of Sand, one would be instantly crushed into meat paste.
Yet, facing the heavy pressure descending from the sky, Gaara did not flinch. He stood quietly atop the crest of his sand wave, calmly pointing a single hand toward the heavens.
The vast ocean of sand behind him violently reared up. But instead of forming a shield to meet the golden meteors head-on, the sand twisted like a nimble snake. It completely bypassed the plummeting cubes, weaving through the air to strike directly at Rasa's exposed main body.
Rasa's breath hitched in shock. "Your goal wasn't defense?!"
"The best defense is offense," Gaara replied, his tone absolute zero.
Countless pillars of compressed sand erupted from the desert floor, shooting into the sky to seal off every conceivable avenue of retreat from all directions. Rasa frantically tried to control his Gold Dust to protect himself, but the massive cubes were already locked into their downward trajectory. Their immense inertia made it impossible to alter their course in time.
"Damn it!"
Rasa desperately condensed whatever residual Gold Dust he had left into a frantic, thin shield before his chest.
It was futile. With a sickening, muffled crunch, a colossal hand of yellow sand shattered the golden barrier directly. The sheer kinetic force slammed into Rasa's chest, swatting him out of the sky and burying him heavily into the churning sea of sand below.
"It is over, Father," Gaara whispered, pressing both hands downward in a crushing motion.
The entire desert boiled at this moment. Millions of tons of yellow sand moved like living things, crazily gathering and violently squeezing toward the exact epicenter where Rasa had fallen.
"Desert Layered Imperial Funeral!"
Amidst a deafening, earth-shaking roar, a magnificent, towering pyramid of sand erupted from the desert floor, rising dozens of meters into the sky. Every single grain of sand was tightly interlocked, bound by the crushing weight of Gaara's immense chakra.
Deep within the dark core of the pyramid, Rasa's body was tightly imprisoned in the center, completely unable to move.
"This... this is..."
Rasa gasped, feeling the suffocating pressure of the earth pressing against his throat. More terrifying than the physical weight was the sensation of his chakra network being systematically suppressed and gradually severed by the sealing jutsu.
As the darkness of the tomb closed in, the frantic rage in the Fourth Kazekage's eyes finally dissolved, leaving behind nothing but a quiet trace of dejection.
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