Chapter 54: The Furious Senju Tobirama
Uchiha Setsuna's smile widened, a cruel, triumphant thing.
Then, he watched as Stelle, a broken doll on the forest floor, rolled through the dirt. To his utter astonishment, she laboriously condensed a wisp of violet flame at her fingertips. It was a tiny, fragile-looking thing, barely a flicker in the gloom.
Yet, the energy radiating from that minuscule flame was immense, possessing a strange, severing quality. It began to peel the inextinguishable black flames away from her body, not by dousing them, but by isolating them. The dreaded Amaterasu was methodically wrapped into a tight, crackling ball by the violet fire before being unceremoniously tossed aside, sputtering out on the damp earth.
Uchiha Setsuna's jaw went slack. "...How is this possible!"
Black Zetsu, still playing dead on the ground, had a different thought. 'Is he really this pathetic? He can't even finish off someone who's already half-dead?'
The sheer shock of seeing his ultimate technique so casually dismantled sent a hot flush of shame creeping up Setsuna's neck. The boast had barely left his lips, and he was already being slapped in the face by reality.
Reason fled. A blind rage consumed him. He abandoned ninjutsu entirely, drawing his chakra-infused tanto and launching himself into the air, aiming a vicious stab straight for Stelle's heart.
Stelle remained rooted to the spot, her body seemingly having given up, utterly incapable of further action.
But in the quiet of her palm, she was secretly condensing chakra. Just as the tip of Setsuna's blade was a hair's breadth from piercing her heart, her own attack—a Spiralflame Detonation—shot toward his chest.
By all appearances, it was a mutual kill. A life for a life.
But just as the cold steel was about to tear through flesh, a pair of hands materialized from thin air, grabbing the blade in a bare-fisted grip. The tanto screeched to a halt, inches from its target.
Stelle's eyes widened. Eh?!
The newcomer was tall, with stark white hair and an aura as cold and sharp as a winter wind.
It was none other than Senju Tobirama.
At the most critical instant, the Second Hokage, who had been desperately searching for her, had activated the Flying Thunder God marker engraved on her arm, appearing by her side in a flash of light and displaced air.
His breath came in ragged bursts, his lips trembling as he held the blade in a death grip. He was a master of countless techniques, with a hundred different ways to deflect such an attack, yet he had chosen the most direct, most brutal method: catching it with his own hands.
His palms, still shaking from the violent exertion, were sliced open by the razor-sharp edge. Crimson blood trickled down the steel, dripping onto the forest floor. The man who had long ago mastered the art of concealing his emotions had lost his composure completely, his face a mask of deathly pallor.
Stelle was stunned. 'No, this place is miles from Konoha. The journey is long and treacherous. Even if that heavily injured Tsukiyomi Kenshi crawled back on his hands and knees, he couldn't have made it in time. How did Tobirama find me?'
[System, Tobirama is a bit too impressive. How did he pinpoint my location so quickly?]
[It seems the Host's 'fall of a genius' script will not be proceeding as planned. Please continue to work hard, Host.]
Stelle's mind was reeling, but her hands were not. Her Spiralflame Detonation had already slammed into Uchiha Setsuna's torso.
At that moment, both Uchiha Setsuna and the hidden Black Zetsu were completely dumbfounded. The scene before them was simply unbelievable.
Think about it: a critically injured woman, on her last breath, spitting up blood with every word, hanging on by a single thread, and unable to even muster a simple ninjutsu. An existence that looked like a stray kick would send her straight to the Pure Lands had just, once again, unleashed an S-rank technique.
Was this reasonable? Was this scientific?
Did her blood supply never run dry?
A series of deafening explosions rocked the clearing, and Uchiha Setsuna ceased to exist. His aptitude had always been poor; it was only with Black Zetsu's clandestine help that he had barely managed to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan. He hadn't even had time to master its basic ocular powers, let alone a forbidden technique like Izanagi.
What should have been a double death had become a world where only Uchiha Setsuna died. Congratulations were in order for Black Zetsu, who had just unlocked the 'Whoever I Choose, Dies' achievement. Truly a cause for celebration.
Using the last dregs of his will, Black Zetsu burrowed deep into the earth, exhaling a puff of what felt like soul-smoke. He had a sudden, overwhelming impulse to just stay buried here and sleep for a thousand years.
The Mangekyo he had just painstakingly cultivated was gone. Just like that.
The new pawn he had just found was gone. Just like that.
Killed by a person who was practically a corpse.
Killed.
[Ding! Mood value from Black Zetsu +20,000]
[Ding! Mood value from Black Zetsu +20,000]
[Ding!...]
...
The injuries covering Stelle's body were truly terrifying, too gruesome to look at directly. Senju Tobirama had to first use an entire Healing Scroll to wrap her up like a mummy before he even dared to touch her.
He bent down, scooped her into his arms, and began sprinting toward Konoha.
A storm of dark clouds swirled in his eyes. His face was a blank slate, utterly devoid of expression, yet his complexion was a terrifying shade of white. Even now, the hands holding her trembled.
From the moment he appeared until now, he hadn't spoken a single word to her. He was clearly, incandescently furious.
That predatory look in his eyes was enough to frighten even Stelle.
She had no idea why he was so angry, so she could only shrink her neck and press herself into his chest, reminding him in a small, weak voice.
"Um... Uchiha Setsuna's Mangekyo..."
Tobirama's gaze flickered down to the mangled corpse on the ground. He carefully set her down, retrieved a glass bottle from a scroll he carried, and expertly plucked the pair of Mangekyo Sharingan from the wreckage. He sealed them in the bottle and stuffed it into her hand without a word.
Then he picked her up and resumed his breakneck pace, never giving her another glance.
Stelle's mind was filled with question marks. Lately, Senju Tobirama's emotional state had been a rollercoaster of high and low mood values. She couldn't begin to fathom what was going through his head.
'Right,'she thought,'aren't I supposed to be a grievously injured person right now?'
Weak, pitiful, and helpless. With injuries this severe, it was only natural to faint.
She tilted her head and allowed herself to fall into a "deep sleep." It would be far less awkward if she was unconscious.
Although her body possessed an immortal-like state that prevented death as long as her lifespan value wasn't depleted—meaning she could recover from any injury in the shortest possible time—playing the part was still exhausting, okay?
Ever since her third alias had gone live, everything had been going sideways. Her plans simply couldn't keep up with the constant, chaotic changes.
Stelle felt her mental energy had been seriously depleted. She relaxed her consciousness and let herself drift into a genuine slumber.
Over the following days, she would only wake up periodically to consciously halt her body's ridiculously fast healing process, and then she would go right back to slacking off.
Her prolonged sleep didn't matter much to her, but it was scaring the people outside to death.
The patient's various physical injuries began to recover at a steady, albeit slow, pace, but she simply would not wake up. Medical examinations revealed that her mind had been impacted by a powerful Sharingan genjutsu.
With the combined efforts of Konoha's best, her mental energy was eventually restored to normal. As for why she still wouldn't awaken, the doctors were at a complete loss.
Whenever the head of the Konoha Hospital, an elder of the Senju clan, thought about it, a massive headache bloomed behind his eyes.
Especially when he had to face Senju Tobirama's death stare.
Could he please stop looking at him with that predatory gaze? They were all Senju; he really had no other solutions to offer!
While Stelle remained "unconscious," the ones who had besieged her suffered the consequences.
First and foremost, the Uchiha clan was in deep trouble.
Senju Tobirama had witnessed Uchiha Setsuna attempting to murder Stelle with his own eyes. There was no room for mediation, no space for excuses. He held the entire Uchiha clan directly accountable.
When the Uchiha leadership learned that Setsuna was involved, they were even more furious than Tobirama.
Stelle was the prized disciple of their former clan head, Uchiha Madara. She was the prodigy who had been able to run wild in the Hokage Building since she was a child, the person most likely to become the Fourth Hokage.
This was the individual who could have secured the Uchiha's glory for another generation, and she was nearly destroyed by one of their own. The audacity was unthinkable.
Who could possibly tolerate such a betrayal?
To appease Senju Tobirama's wrath and give Stelle a proper explanation, the peace faction led by Uchiha Kagami didn't even wait for the Hokage to act. They mobilized their own forces and began to clean house internally.
The Uchiha Grand Elder, a man so old his teeth were practically gone, and his fanatical followers were subjected to what was euphemistically termed "humane culling" by Kagami and his loyalists.
It was said the process was exceedingly brutal. The traitors were first beaten by their own Uchiha kin until they were clinging to a single breath, then thrown into the clan's dungeons.
Immediately after, they were handed over to several Senju clansmen who had married into the Uchiha and harbored a deep-seated hatred for the old guard. They were tortured until every last scrap of information was extracted. Only after ensuring every loose end was tied up and every conspiracy cleaned out were they finally disposed of for good.
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