"Naruto: My Ninja Skills"Chapter 148: Flash of Lightning
"Sasuke-sama, it's been a while."
When Yūshin led his team to the Senju Clan's village, he found Sarutobi Sasuke acting as greeter... Having someone from outside the Senju Clan handle this role was quite an interesting attitude.
Well, Sarutobi Sasuke was famous and respectable, so no one found it strange.
"Hello, Yūshin-sama. Welcome to Lord Hashirama's wedding. Please follow me."
Sarutobi Sasuke personally led Yūshin toward the wedding venue. When they passed a certain location, he stopped and said to Yūshin:
"If you've brought gifts, please place and register them here."
He had to say this because Yūshin's group had already taken their gift out of the sealing scroll and covered it with red cloth and red flowers, with Nara Hideyuki and Hatake Sakumo carrying it between them.
What? Why not put the gift in a gift box? Nonsense—who would hide such a congratulatory gift? If Yūshin wasn't worried about appearing too much like a nouveau riche and attracting resentment, he would have loved to parade the gift around the Senju village twice like a triumphant fisherman.
"It's Yūshin-sama! Welcome back to the Senju Clan."
The ninja responsible for registering, cataloging, and organizing gifts were delighted to see Yūshin.
"Yūshin-sama, what precious congratulatory gift have you brought?"
Yūshin maintained his smile and said:
"Thank you all for your hard work. This small gift hardly expresses my respect—it can't convey my blessings for Lord Hashirama."
The word "precious" was apt, because Yūshin's gift was indeed both valuable and heavy.
Nara Hideyuki and Hatake Sakumo carried the gift before the Senju ninja. Perhaps because Hideyuki was physically frail, when setting down the gift, he fumbled clumsily and accidentally pulled off the red flower covering it.
"I..."
Yūshin felt like the room was full of pumps stuck in cavitation, sucking air instead of water.
"Yūshin-sama, this... isn't this too precious?"
"Our Land of the River Source is in a remote location after all. Besides this, we don't have much else presentable. My friendship with Lord Hashirama and Lord Tobirama goes without saying, and this also represents our Daimyo Shimizu Kiyosuke's admiration and appreciation for the Senju Clan and Lord Hashirama..."
"Daimyo-sama's personal letter—please be sure to deliver it to Lord Hashirama."
Yūshin was wholeheartedly helping Shimizu Kiyosuke with his wholehearted endeavors. Throwing out such a large gold brick, the purpose definitely couldn't just be showing off wealth.
True to its meaning, this really was a "door-knocking brick."
After some pleasantries here, Sarutobi Sasuke led the group toward the wedding venue again.
The gold brick displayed before several Senju ninja made their emotions soar... Strange, this thing couldn't be eaten or drunk, just golden and heavy, yet somehow it always made hearts race.
"Yūshin-sama truly deserves to be Lord Hashirama and Lord Tobirama's close friend—what an extraordinary congratulatory gift."
"Yes, a gold brick has much more visual impact than the same weight in koban coins."
"To avoid vulgarity, Yūshin-sama even had it specially engraved... uh, what's etched on it?"
The gold brick's surface was intaglio-carved with primitive rock painting-style artwork. The main content showed a man, a woman, and a string of children... Being rock paintings, the male and female figures in their daily life and hunting scenes wore very little clothing—where would primitive people get clothes? Animal skins weren't easy to process, right?
"Uh, the symbolism is very good."
"Mm, high artistic achievement."
Marriage, from the clan's overall perspective, was about racial continuation. How do you continue the race? Naturally through sacred procreation.
Everyone tried hard to keep straight faces, thinking this gift must be displayed in the most prominent position.
After Yūshin arrived at the venue, Sarutobi Sasuke wanted to guide them to the VIP seats in front, but Yūshin politely declined and just found a peripheral seat.
"Doesn't seem like a traditional wedding. I thought the marriage ceremony between two ancient ninja clans would be particularly formal," Nara Hideyuki observed after surveying the surroundings.
"Very normal. We're in wartime after all... This wedding is grand in scale but simple in process, which fits my understanding," Yūshin replied matter-of-factly.
In this era, who had the heart for elaborate ancient ceremonies? Senju Hashirama and Uzumaki Mito would show up at the venue briefly, then everyone could move freely—talk business if they wanted, or leave if they preferred.
At this moment, a Senju ninja passing by Yūshin's side cleverly concealed his actions from others' sight and slipped a note into Yūshin's hand.
Yūshin unfolded it in his palm. The note had nothing special—just reminding him to be careful and cautious... The Senju Clan's entire attention was focused on the wedding, and no one had noticed anything unusual, but someone seemed to sense a strange atmosphere.
Yūshin crumpled the note in his palm, feeling things weren't so simple. The Senju-Uzumaki marriage was meant to further their relationship—even the most stubborn head wouldn't allow bloodshed at a wedding. What would that make the Uzumaki Clan?
Moreover, by now, though the "Senju Five" had expanded slightly, Yūshin still felt someone had infiltrated this group full of purity, friendship, and light... Though it was hard to say initially, after so much time, he felt Senju Tobirama should have noticed something.
After noticing, with his devious personality, he definitely wouldn't choose to expose it but would choose to blend in... Putting himself in those shoes, Yūshin would do the same.
Sigh, one bad apple...
When the guests filled the venue, Senju Butsuma appeared first, followed by the newlyweds. The atmosphere in the venue became increasingly festive.
Look at Senju Hashirama—the "God of Shinobi" was as stiff as a marionette. Look at the bride—she appeared poised and graceful, her various ornaments and veils unable to hide her deep red hair.
There wasn't much to see between the two. Yūshin had already sent his fertility gift in advance, which counted as his maximum blessing for them.
His gaze fixed on Senju Butsuma, calculating whether Uchiha Madara could step up and quickly get this clan leader to exit the stage... There was no place for him at the wedding, nor in the Shinobi World.
Speaking of Uchiha Madara, Madara couldn't possibly be unaware of such a major event.
What he cared about wasn't the wedding itself, but the trend of various powerful ninja clans gravitating toward the Senju Clan... In ordinary Uchiha ninja's view, this trend was extremely unfavorable to their side.
But Madara was different. He cared about this matter, but not as much as one might imagine.
"Big brother, while they're all gathered together, shouldn't we try launching a surprise attack?" Uchiha Izuna came to Madara's side and said.
Though he made this suggestion, he actually knew deep down that making decisions and taking action now was somewhat late.
If Uchiha Madara had intended to launch a surprise attack beforehand, they would already be inside the Senju village by now.
Madara shook his head:
"They're definitely on high alert today. Think about Senju Tobirama's personality and methods—at least today he won't make any mistakes."
Why did Madara dislike Tobirama? If Tobirama were useless, Madara wouldn't care about him. It was precisely because he wasn't useless that he seemed so annoying... This person's annoyance index with Madara was second only to Yūshin.
Though he said this, Madara's unwillingness to act today also had factors of not wanting to do something tasteless... Fighting could happen anytime—did they have to cause trouble at someone's wedding? Wasn't that disgusting?
Izuna's face showed worry:
"But after today, once the gathered ninja reach some agreement, the Senju Clan's power will expand rapidly. The war situation will become greatly unfavorable to us Uchiha."
Madara glanced at his brother, then shook his head and said:
"Unnecessary worry, Izuna. You still haven't seen through the essence and breaking point of our war with the Senju. No matter how many forces the Senju unite, what we brothers need to do won't change..."
"I'll deal with Senju Hashirama, you deal with Senju Tobirama. After that, the high tower the Senju Clan built will instantly collapse."
Izuna truly lived up to being Izuna—his bones were filled with Uchiha arrogance and optimistic spirit. After hearing his big brother's words, he immediately showed an expression of sudden understanding... It seemed to be exactly like that. Big brother's words were completely correct—he had been narrow-minded.
From this perspective, Madara's view was actually similar to Yūshin's. Both believed the Senju's core was the Hashirama brothers... The question was, could the Madara brothers really achieve a "weak point breakthrough" against the Senju Clan?
For some unknown reason, when talking about dealing with the Hashirama brothers, Madara suddenly felt his heart skip a beat, as if some bad premonition surfaced. But when he tried to carefully discern what this was about, the feeling disappeared again.
Though Madara thought he completely didn't care about what Sasuke had said to him before, that hidden worry was actually buried in his subconscious.
However, Izuna's next words completely diverted Madara's attention:
"I just don't know what era Shizune drifted to. When will we three brothers meet again..."
Madara was silent for a while, then said: "We three will reunite eventually."
Strange, wasn't it? Senju Hashirama was getting married over there, but Uchiha Madara here was feeling life's loneliness and solitude.
...
The cheering waves in the venue brought the dazed Yūshin back to his senses.
"What happened?" he asked Nara Hideyuki beside him.
"Someone's stirring things up, wanting Hashirama to put on some kind of show," Hideyuki answered.
Ninja fought and killed all day—it was quite oppressive. Having a rare chance to vent was understandable if they wanted to cause some excitement.
Speaking of show effects, Yūshin bringing Lan, a former Uchiha ninja, to attend a Senju wedding was already quite the show.
Fortunately, after losing his Sharingan, Lan had almost no Uchiha characteristics. If someone with Uchiha Sasuke or Izuna's appearance came here, no questions needed—beating them to death definitely wouldn't wrong any good person.
Yūshin looked at Senju Butsuma sitting in front, forcing a smile while clapping, and felt he couldn't let this old fool ruin the situation that had been achieved through everyone's hard efforts... Those signs should be nipped in the bud.
So Yūshin stood up without warning and said to everyone:
"Don't make things difficult for people. Lord Hashirama isn't good at these things. How about I perform some comedy for everyone instead?"
Many people recognized Yūshin. Frankly, in such situations people were easily dominated by their inner mischievous nature. They didn't care which specific big shot made a fool of themselves—as long as it was a big shot making a fool of themselves, it would make them happy. Undoubtedly, the Fireflies Village leader was also a big shot.
"Good, good! Let's see Yūshin-sama's performance!"
"Yūshin-sama, don't lose face!"
Yūshin came to the wedding stage in front. He waved Senju Hashirama and his wife off the stage... Hashirama was incredibly grateful.
If it were an ordinary day, Hashirama could also liven things up quite well, but today was different—he felt uncertain and couldn't get energetic.
"Next, I'll play a game with everyone called 'Always Behind You.' Just shout out a location, and before the person at that location can turn around, I'll appear behind them..."
"Yūshin-sama, what if you can't do it?"
"If I can't do it, I lose. If I lose, I'll give everyone a highest-level secret technique."
"Great!"
Everyone cheered thunderously—they hadn't expected watching a show could have unexpected rewards.
"Then... let's begin!"
"Table 25, seat 3."
As soon as this shout fell, the person sitting in that seat was stunned for a moment before realizing he was the target.
He quickly turned around, only to find Yūshin already standing behind him.
At this moment, Yūshin was bathed in azure lightning, silent as a ghost.
Using White Zetsu characteristics to hide his presence, Light-Weight Rock Technique making Yūshin incredibly light, and Storm Release as propulsion achieving maximum efficiency—these combined gave Yūshin teleportation-like speed.
Storm Release was different from Lightning Release—Storm Release had excellent controllability. Yūshin could stimulate hand cells if he wanted to stimulate hands, or make chakra explode in his legs if he wanted it in his legs.
Even considering blood's high water content, Yūshin could not only make lightning flow through his meridians but also through his blood vessels.
The surrounding ninja all widened their eyes—they couldn't understand why Yūshin's "Lightning Release" had no noise.
At this moment, they all had a feeling of "hearing thunder in silence."
Or rather, distant lightning poured down like a waterfall, but for some unknown reason, no sound could be heard... Too eerie.
"Excellent!"
"Table 16, seat 6."
"Table 21, seat 5."
"Table 11, seat 1."
To witness this bizarre speed, some people began calling out their own seat numbers. However, even with advance preparation, even calling out their position and immediately turning their heads without time delay, their necks still couldn't turn faster than Yūshin's speed.
"Table 1, seat 2."
Yūshin hadn't arranged any "plants," but finally, someone decided to watch the excitement without fearing trouble.
Table 1 seated important "family members" from both wedding parties. Seat 1 was Uzumaki Ashina—on one hand he was an honored guest from the bride's side, on the other hand he was the eldest, so even just considering respecting elders, he had to be seated in the "head seat."
So who sat in seat 2? No need to say.
Senju Butsuma instinctively turned his head, then saw Yūshin's figure already standing still behind him.
Butsuma only felt his throat go dry and his neck itch, cold sweat instantly flowing down from his temples.
He suddenly recalled the scene of Yūshin calmly holding up Uchiha Tajima's head.
For some unknown reason, in his memory, the face on that head suddenly changed to his own features.
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