"Is that… Chizumi's ocular jutsu?"
Tsunade frowned as she gazed into the distance and muttered, "To cause such a racket inside the village… did he run into a strong opponent?"
"Shizune!"
Tsunade's expression hardened. She turned to the woman beside her. "Keep an eye on the Hyuga group and make sure they don't go wandering around in the middle of the night."
Shizune froze, then blurted, "Tsunade-sama, are you…?"
Tsunade was blunt. "That guy Chizumi is making way too much noise, and he's the type who doesn't care about consequences once he starts fighting. I'm going to check it out so he doesn't wreck the surrounding buildings and force the village to spend extra on repairs."
Shizune: "???"
Wait a second…
Since when did Tsunade-sama care this much about the village? Isn't that the Hokage's job? And hasn't Tsunade-sama long stopped involving herself in shinobi affairs?
Hmm…
"She probably just wants to help Uchiha Chizumi and needed a clumsy excuse, right? When she gambles or won't pay back loans, her skin's thick as armor. But in moments like this, she suddenly cares about saving face…" Shizune saw right through her, muttering as she hugged Tonton.
"Um…"
A curious yet timid voice sounded. "E-excuse me, did something happen in the village?"
Shizune turned and found it was Hyuga Hinata, the main-house young lady.
Oh, right.
At this point, the Hyuga clan no longer recognized her as their main-house heiress.
Other Hyuga main-house members stood behind Hinata.
Shizune could only give a brief explanation.
"Uchiha Chizumi?" The only special jōnin among the main-house ninja drew in a sharp breath. Staring at the two Susanoo—one crimson, one dark violet—he couldn't help swallowing.
Maybe…
Maybe Uchiha Chizumi actually showed restraint toward the Hyuga main house.
After all, if he cut loose with power like that inside the Hyuga compound, there wouldn't be many main-house survivors, would there?
…
"Elder Fukasaku, Elder Shima—that's Susanoo, isn't it?"
Jiraiya stood atop a tall building, face grave as he looked toward the Uchiha compound.
Fukasaku nodded. "Aye. The one with the magma aura should be Uchiha Chizumi's Susanoo. What a fearsome presence! Even from more than two kilometers away you can feel it, like the aura of a demon."
Shima said, "For someone who controls power like that… and yet he's not the Child of Prophecy. What a shame. If his ideology weren't so extreme, he might have been the true savior."
…
"Chizumi-sensei…"
"Father…"
Escorted away by Police Force shinobi to a safe distance, Sasuke stared blankly at the two Susanoo straining against each other.
He never imagined it would turn into this—his father labeled a villain by Absolute Justice.
And instead of repenting his crimes, his father had actually attacked the Police Force!
Chizumi-sensei hadn't ordered the Police to seize Father right away—that already showed he'd given Father a chance.
If Father had been willing to surrender, maybe he'd only need to reflect for a few months in Konoha Prison—at most two or three years—and he'd be out.
But…
Father chose to make an enemy of Absolute Justice. Those actions, that mindset…
Exactly like big brother.
"Mother…" Sasuke glanced at Uchiha Mikoto beside him and saw her staring off into the distance.
Just looking at her profile, he could tell she'd suffered a shock to the heart.
Maybe it was because of the strangeness Father was showing, catching her completely off guard.
His voice pulled Mikoto from her daze.
Her fine features flickered with complexity and pain.
"Sigh…"
In the end it became a weary sigh. "Sasuke, your father… has never been able to make peace with situations he can't control. He always thought you and I fail to see the village clearly. But in truth, the one blinded all along… was him. And he never reflects on it."
"He made the exact same choice as Itachi. And his end… might be the same as Itachi's…"
Hearing this, Sasuke realized her voice was tight with a suppressed sob.
He opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say.
He knew his mother was torn—on one side, him; on another, her husband; and on yet another, Absolute Justice, which could make the Uchiha better.
And the one who had brought Absolute Justice into their home… was Mother.
"Mother…" Sasuke grit his teeth and said earnestly, "You're not at fault. If Father hadn't clung to such extreme ideas—if he hadn't crossed the line of justice—Chizumi-sensei would never have moved against him."
"The root of the blame…"
"Is Father."
…
Crack—
A faint but razor-clear sound, like ice breaking, stabbed into Uchiha Fugaku's ears.
His scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan pinholed to the limit.
He stared at his Susanoo's arms in disbelief—
The arms, once wreathed in deep, roiling chakra, were spiderwebbing with fine, unmistakable cracks!
Those cracks were crawling outward like a web.
Worse—at the edge where his colossal dark-violet naginata bit against the crimson lava blade, dense fractures were erupting like mad!
The whole weapon keened as if under unbearable strain, the long shaft bending into an exaggerated crescent, on the verge of snapping apart at any moment.
"How is that possible?!"
A storm raged in Fugaku's heart; his face was painted with shock he couldn't accept.
"The same Mangekyō Susanoo! Just from adding Lava Release's properties… could the gap be this huge?!"
He couldn't make sense of it.
Reality gave him no time.
In the instant his focus wavered, the giant lava-forged ninjato in Chizumi's Susanoo erupted with a power far beyond before—overwhelming and irresistible.
Clang—
Crack!!!
Rumble!!!!
With a sky-splitting crash like a mountain caving in, Fugaku's crack-riddled dark-violet naginata shattered in midair like brittle glass.
It exploded into countless violet chakra shards, scattering—
Then vanished into the air.
The crimson lava blade didn't slow. It swept through like a hot knife through cold butter.
Slash—!!!
A crimson arc of death flashed and was gone.
Both already fractured arms of Fugaku's violet Susanoo were severed at the roots!
They slammed into the ground with titanic thuds, threw up clouds of dust, then unraveled into primal chakra motes.
The leftover force scythed along the ground as a blazing red wind shear.
Rumble—!!!
The earth was ploughed as if by a giant's iron share.
In an instant, a trench several meters deep, more than ten wide, and nearly running clear across the Uchiha compound was carved into the land.
Its walls were smooth as mirrors—glassy from the sudden heat!
Dark red magma oozed and dripped along the bottom.
A suffocating heat and sulfur stench rolled out!
Cold beads of sweat slid from Fugaku's brow down his stiff cheeks.
He could feel the soul-melting burn of that crimson wind as it grazed by.
Suddenly—
He snapped his head up, pupils quivering with stark terror.
Ahead, Uchiha Chizumi's crimson Susanoo hadn't stopped.
It was swelling—skyward—at a jaw-dropping pace!
Thirty meters…
Fifty…
And still climbing!
A vaster flood of crimson chakra surged up from below like a tsunami, condensing into a complete lower body—massive pelvis, thick legs, feet shod in heavy armor.
At last the giant stood revealed in its full form—reaching the heavens!
At the same time, its torso and limbs layered over with slabs of old, brutal crimson armor.
Magma-like lines coursed over the plates; jets of scorching air blasted from the joints.
Like a lava demon clawing up from the deepest hell of the eighteenth layer—
It towered over the Uchiha compound!
Fugaku had to crane his neck to the limit just to barely meet the burning, hell-cold eye sockets beneath that colossal helm.
His face went chalk-white, blank with shock.
The battle will and force within him—hard-won and resolute—popped like a pricked balloon, drained in an instant.
His Susanoo—armless and half-bodied—didn't even reach a third of the other's height.
Even whole, at best he'd strike its knee.
Even if he jumped with everything he had—he might not reach its waist.
This absolute gap in size and power was like a six-year-old child facing a fully armored giant.
A bone-deep helplessness and smallness drowned him.
The next instant—
The crimson lava blade—grown massive along with the Susanoo—rose high in Chizumi's giant's hands.
Despite its immense size, its speed didn't slow; if anything, focused power made the downstroke's wind pressure even more terrifying.
Boom!!!!
Before the blade even fell, compressed air turned tangible and, like a typhoon, swept through the entire Uchiha compound!
Nearby buildings blew apart like paper and were crushed to dust!
The ground shuddered and groaned!
Fugaku stared up at the world-blotting, doom-flaming edge, and the last light in his eyes died.
Through that fatal blade he seemed to see what his eldest had seen at the end.
"Itachi…"
He rasped, barely audible. "I think I understand… that despair you felt before you died. It isn't fear of death. It's the hopelessness of throwing in everything and not budging the enemy an inch."
Boom!!!
In his final vision, everything before him warped and melted like wax tossed into a furnace.
The Susanoo he'd been so proud of—condensed from his strongest ocular power—was as fragile as a fancy block of butter before that lava blade.
Even before contact, the extreme heat was already melting and vaporizing Susanoo's defensive weave.
Use Izanagi?—the thought flickered instinctively through his mind.
Pointless.—A heartbeat later, cold reality crushed it.
Against a disparity like this, even sacrificing an eye for one resurrection…
And then what?
Face the same invincible force again?
Fugaku couldn't even muster the will to consider any other Mangekyō arts.
Because—
They'd be useless.
As the heat ripped his skin with burning agony, as death's shadow swallowed him whole—when he could already smell his own hair singeing—
Uchiha Fugaku made his last, and only remaining, choice.
He jerked both hands up, hooked his index and middle fingers, and dug into his own Mangekyō Sharingan sockets!
Squelch!
Two Mangekyō Sharingan—warm with fresh blood, patterns eerie—were wrenched from his skull.
"Chizumi!!!"
With every last shred of strength, he hurled the bloody eyes toward a relatively safe distance.
"Bring my eyes… to Sasuke!!!"
Enemy or not, he would not let these precious eyes meet the same end as his elder son's—destroyed.
The Uchiha's future… might still need this power.
This was the last thing he could do—as a father, and as a former clan head.
Itachi had opposed Chizumi for Konoha's "peace."
And he—for the Uchiha's "future."
Even in defeat, he would do one last thing for his clan.
Slash—!!!
The next moment, that colossal lava blade finally tore through the already hollowed dark-violet Susanoo, and, with world-scorching heat, swallowed Uchiha Fugaku—whose eye sockets were now two bleeding holes.
Human flesh cannot exist for even an instant under a Lava Release strike like that.
Every cell, every nerve, every bone in Fugaku's body screamed in ultimate agony—
And then, in a fraction of a second, evaporated and turned to vapor.
No scream. No struggle. No trace.
As if he had never existed in this world.
The smoke and searing gusts slowly thinned.
"A villain who threw himself into the abyss, moved by his own theatrics in the end. Figures—Uchiha Itachi inherited your mental illness."
Uchiha Chizumi's cold voice rang out.