Senju Tobirama stood in place, his brow furrowed in concentration for a moment before finally relaxing.
There was no need to ask; his sensory focus had been locked onto the fleeing Hagoromo Clan Leader until just now, but he no longer felt the need to track him. He looked up, locking eyes with Genma. "Is it not enough to kill him? Must you destroy his spirit as well? There was no need to go that far."
Tobirama felt that crushing an enemy leader in a direct confrontation was the proper way for a shinobi to act. To him, Genma's convoluted approach of letting the man escape only to face a different kind of end was merely "painting legs on a snake"—an unnecessary addition to an already settled matter.
"I wouldn't call it destroying his spirit," Hane Genma replied calmly. "I simply wanted to give him a death befitting his status… a very 'shinobi-like' death."
Genma thought to himself that Tobirama was as suspicious as ever. He had already let the man flee; did Tobirama really think the Clan Leader could survive? Was it truly necessary to monitor him from start to finish? He had allowed the man to leave not to grant him life, but so that he could die a much more pathetic death. If Tobirama couldn't understand such a simple logic, it seemed their mutual understanding as "dear friends" had hit a snag.
At that moment, chakra surged within Genma, slowly forcing out the broken half of a "light sword" still embedded in his body. Ranton (Storm Release) was truly impressive; it was fascinating how Water Release could be used to give form to Lightning Release. Based on certain stereotypes, Genma couldn't help but feel that Storm Release was a Kekkei Genkai that might actually be relatively easy to learn.
"Just what do you think a shinobi is?" Tobirama asked, his voice tinged with dissatisfaction at Genma's words.
While it was true—as Genma's subtext implied—that most shinobi died without honor or glory, filled only with sorrow and resentment, Tobirama felt Genma was different. Despite being a shinobi himself, Genma's words often dripped with a peculiar contempt for the profession. It was as if he were constantly looking down upon his own kind. "Do you need the fame of slaying the Hagoromo Clan Leader to bolster your prestige? Are you trying to gain the capital necessary to challenge your elder brother for the position of Senju Clan Head?"
Tobirama fell silent immediately. Was such a thing even possible? It was a joke. Not only was he perfectly content playing the supporting role to his brother, but even if he truly harbored ambitions of competition, Hashirama would have finished off a dozen clan leaders in the time it took Tobirama to deal with one.
"My mission is complete," Genma stated, ignoring the hypothetical. "The rest is up to the Senju Clan. Don't rely too heavily on those mercenary shinobi; the help they can provide is limited."
Genma had indeed fulfilled his part of the deal. The ensuing cleanup was not his responsibility, and he intended to withdraw from the battlefield. Total wars of annihilation were far too cruel for his tastes; he considered himself a kind-hearted man who couldn't bear to witness such sights.
"You're leaving?" Tobirama pressed, perhaps asking too much of him. He felt that with Genma's prowess, he should stay and continue to exert his strength on the battlefield.
Genma waved a hand dismissively, shutting Tobirama down with a single sentence. "Come now, the dust has settled. If I stay any longer, I'm worried I'll become a target for the Senju. After all, the one leading the assault on the Hagoromo isn't your brother, Senju Hashirama."
Tobirama remained speechless. Considering his father's grim and self-serving nature, he couldn't even offer Genma a guarantee of safety. Backstabbing an ally on the battlefield was a common occurrence in any war, regardless of the era. If I were my father… wait, is there something wrong with me for thinking that? Tobirama's train of thought was momentarily derailed by his own internal ethical dilemma.
"Besides, it's not as if I'm washing my hands of everything," Genma added. "If I'm not mistaken, my people have already begun battlefield relief efforts. I brought a Medical Corps with me, and their primary focus is treating the Senju."
Tobirama had been about to part ways with Genma to return to the fray, for while Genma was finished, Tobirama still had a fight to conclude. However, upon hearing those words, his footsteps froze. "A Medical Corps? Who is leading them?"
"Chihori. She insisted on it," Genma replied. "After the last incident, I feel she's been drowning in self-blame. She practically demanded to come to the battlefield this time."
Genma wasn't lying. Chihori felt that her weakness had forced her teammates to rescue her, even leading to sacrifices. She had been immersed in guilt for some time. Having only just recovered from her own serious injuries, her inner drive had pushed her here the moment she heard of the mission.
No matter how strong Tobirama's sensory abilities were, he usually focused them on enemy combatants. But now, prompted by Genma's words, his expression turned solemn as he refined his perception to scan the distance. After a moment, he nodded. "I see. Go and take charge of things over there."
He stopped complaining and instead began to urge Genma along. Genma realized he didn't need to worry about how treacherous the "old man" (Butsuma) was or what schemes he might hatch, because he had a way to keep the "younger one" in check. If it truly came down to schemes and conspiracies, he would make Senju Butsuma taste the bitterness of a father-son fallout. As the saying goes: there are no fathers and sons on the battlefield.
"That scroll of yours… you'd best hide it a little," Tobirama reminded him, unable to help himself.
Although it was far too early for looting, and Tobirama personally only cared about the extermination of the Hagoromo, he knew that his lack of interest didn't apply to everyone else. Genma was sensible enough not to strip the place bare like a hamster moving house, but there was no doubt that the most valuable items had already fallen into his hands—the Hagoromo Clan Leader's earlier reaction had made that much clear.
Genma looked surprised and immediately explained, "This is the scroll I use to seal the Kyuubi's chakra. Why should I hide it?"
Tobirama glanced at the chakra cloak on Genma, which had already depleted more than half its energy, and shook his head. Fine, that's a good enough excuse. I'll believe whatever you say. Both men found the other to be somewhat exasperating, and so they stopped speaking. Genma quickly left the war-torn village and headed toward the Medical Corps' temporary camp.
On the way, he spotted his own "Red Cross" rescue teams and greeted them. They were doing well; by only treating Senju shinobi, they were working with people they were familiar with, minimizing the risk of chaos. After gaining some distance from the village, Genma paused and looked back. The sounds of chaotic fighting had faded into a faint background hum, while the fires and thick smoke danced quietly against the night sky. From this vantage point, away from the heat of the slaughter, the acts of vengeance and retribution almost seemed like a bloody form of performance art.
Soon, Genma arrived at the temporary camp. He scanned the situation and found that the team had already rescued a dozen or so seriously wounded men—or rather, they only chose to rescue about a dozen. An organization's members always reflect their leader. Genma was always cautious, so the shinobi under him were equally prudent. There were only ten guards at the camp, so they only rescued an equivalent number of patients. If they rescued too many and the patients suddenly turned on them, what then? The probability was low, but one could never be too sure.
Genma looked at the Senju shinobi, who were barely clinging to life, and nodded to himself. His people had done well. Being able to breathe was already a luxury; there was no need to ask for the world.
"Lift the limit on the number of people," Genma ordered. "I will be staying here to help as well."
"Yes, Lord Genma!"
With Genma present, they no longer needed to be so cautious. Now was the perfect time to build goodwill and expand their reputation. These wounded soldiers were effectively "meat loudspeakers"—they were vital promotional resources that couldn't be allowed to go to waste. Consequently, the number of wounded in the camp began to rise rapidly. However, as dawn approached, the rate of increase slowed down.
"Is the enemy's final counterattack over? It seems it's time to clean up the battlefield."
A decrease in wounded usually signaled a drop in combat intensity, and Genma assumed the battle was nearing its end. However, he was mistaken. Wiping out a major clan was never as simple as crushing a minor one. The decrease in casualties was simply because everyone was exhausted after fighting through the night, causing them to consciously slow the tempo of the battle.
A while later, a Yamanaka shinobi responsible for monitoring the perimeter spoke to Genma. "Lord Genma, the group of enemies that lured the Kyuubi away is about to return to the battlefield. The enemy is about to receive fresh reinforcements."
"I understand. It has nothing to do with us; everything depends on the Senju now."
Genma thought to himself that it was better they returned. It would be more of a headache if they vanished entirely. He wondered if the Senju were truly up to the task; why was the fight against the Hagoromo remnants still so back-and-forth? It seemed they lacked a decisive, "one-hammer" finishing move and could only grind the enemy down bit by bit. Why don't they just go all out? He felt the Senju should have brought Hashirama to the battlefield.
Of course, this was the talk of someone who didn't have to bear the burden. Genma knew enough to leave powerful shinobi behind to guard the Firefly base; did he really think the Senju didn't know to do the same? If they committed their entire strength, they would just be inviting someone to raid their home. No one was a fool. Yet, if Hashirama were here, there would be no need for this tug-of-war. Let the Kyuubi trample through once, then let Hashirama trample through again, and the matter would be settled. Wouldn't that have reduced their casualties significantly?
But Genma's logic was flawed for this era. He was preoccupied with casualty rates, but to a clan leader of this time, sacrificing lives for victory was a matter of course. It wasn't that they didn't care about the lives of their clansmen, but rather they viewed death in battle as entirely normal. If one were so afraid of death, they wouldn't be fighting wars in the first place. The ideology of the older generation of shinobi was cold-blooded to the point of being farcical, but that was the defining characteristic of the age. Did Senju Butsuma feel no pain over the death of his kin? Of course he felt it, but he accepted it as standard practice. It was only natural that Genma couldn't reconcile his thoughts with theirs.
The battle raged on for another two days and one night. It wasn't until the evening of the third day that the dust finally settled. By then, Genma and his team had saved fifty or sixty people. It wasn't that they didn't want to save more, but they had simply run out of chakra. The opportunistic looters who had come to watch the show had all withdrawn by the morning of the second day, leaving the cleanup to the Senju and the other three allied clans.
Genma did a rough calculation. The Senju and their allies had committed a total of three hundred men. By the end of the war, their mortality rate would certainly exceed one-third—and that was only because the Firefly organization had provided battlefield medical support. Without them, the death toll would have been much higher. To have such a "favorable" battle turn into such a mess, Genma really wanted to ask Senju Butsuma why he didn't just die on the field himself.
But Butsuma didn't see it that way. They had indeed made sacrifices, but they had completely annihilated the Hagoromo Clan. Everything had to be viewed through the lens of the investment-to-return ratio. By that metric, Butsuma felt a sense of profound success. A mere one-third casualty rate? The data had never looked so beautiful. Truly, if such old relics died sooner, it would be a major contribution to the development of the shinobi clans.
Once the fighting had completely ceased, campfires were lit in the medical camp. After celebrating with the others, Senju Butsuma heard of the situation here and came to visit the wounded. When he saw Genma and his Firefly shinobi standing among the piles of injured, he knew he had to suppress any untoward thoughts he might have been harboring.
"Is this how the Senju Clan fights its wars?" Genma whispered to Tobirama, who was mingling among the wounded.
Tobirama opened his mouth, but for the third time in this war, he found himself speechless. What could he say? He couldn't exactly admit he was looking forward to his father's early passing. Putting aside why Tobirama was in the camp—shinobi can get injured, after all—Genma reached out and patted his shoulder. "In any case, the victory I was pursuing has been achieved."
Tobirama remained silent for a moment before finally speaking. "I have a premonition that this old style of warfare is coming to an end… Even the state of the shinobi world will change because of this battle of annihilation against the Hagoromo." He couldn't say exactly what would change, but he knew change was coming.
While the fires of war were still burning bright, Uchiha Sasuke arrived at the territory of the Uchiha Clan. He didn't need a map; he knew this place by heart. This was the ancestral home of the Uchiha, and theoretically, the ground zero for the "Battle of the Pacific." He observed the village's condition for a moment before revealing himself and walking toward the main gate.
"Halt! Who goes there?" the gate guards shouted, immediately stopping Sasuke's advance.
Even though Sasuke was facing Uchiha from a foreign era, it didn't matter. He possessed the ultimate "all-access pass." Sasuke's eyes bled into red, manifesting the three-tomoe before shifting into the shape of the Mangekyo.
"Step aside," Sasuke commanded. "I have business with Uchiha Madara."
"The Mangekyo Sharingan… just who are you?" Even for shinobi of this era, the Mangekyo Sharingan was an incredibly rare sight. This man was a stranger; could he be an Uchiha who had been living in exile? Had the Mangekyo truly been lost to the outside world? The guards were visibly shaken.
"I am an Uchiha from the future," Sasuke said coldly. "Tell Uchiha Madara exactly that."
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