Chapter 178: Uchiha Kagami's Last Peace
"The old director mentioned that the research window for this project was far too short. They only managed to synthesize a single vial of the soothing agent. Injecting it into the body should theoretically alleviate the immense drain on your ocular power."
Uchiha Kagami paused, his brow furrowing with lingering concern as he added, "But if we are looking at a protracted, long-term war... the efficacy might fall short of ideal."
Stelle offered a relaxed, easy smile from her hospital bed. "It's fine. That old Senju is highly capable. If he claims it's 'not ideal,' it means it has actually already met our baseline expectations."
Counting the years, quite a bit of time had passed since Kagami first awakened his Mangekyo Sharingan. As the Captain of the Konoha Military Police Force and a Hokage Advisor, he was frequently thrust into high-stakes combat. He had been forced to activate his Mangekyo countless times, and that was even with him being incredibly frugal with its usage.
Being assigned to the brutal meat grinder of the Land of Lightning battlefield this time meant Kagami would be under an astronomical amount of pressure.
Earlier, when the medical staff had stepped out, Stelle had taken advantage of her brief downtime to immediately rummage through her System space. She still had a stash of purified Hashirama cells left over from when Mie and Black Zetsu had collaborated to awaken the Rinnegan. Now, they would finally come in handy.
By secretly injecting a refined dose of Hashirama cells into Kagami and allowing them to fuse with his chakra network, the curse of his eyes would be broken. He would no longer face the looming threat of total blindness.
Of course, this required Kagami to be careful. As long as he didn't suddenly sprout a massive Wood Release: Cutting Technique in the middle of a crowded battlefield, everything would be fine. If that actually happened, the political fallout between the Senju Clan and the Uchiha Clan would spiral into absolute, apocalyptic chaos. There would be no way to explain it to the village elders. Absolutely none.
It was a pity Kagami didn't have a biological brother; otherwise, she could have just helped him awaken the Eternal Mangekyo and saved herself a step.
Logically speaking, given the horrific state of her flesh, Stelle's injuries should have been agonizingly painful. Yet, she sat there acting as if absolutely nothing was wrong, not letting out a single hiss of discomfort.
Senju Tetsuya, the male healer who had recently been promoted to hospital director, continually praised her iron-willed endurance while treating her second major wound. He was literally wiping away tears with his sleeve as his hands glowed with mystical palm jutsu.
"Stelle, it's okay to cry out if it hurts," Tetsuya choked out, his voice thick with emotion. "You protected everyone in the village. Now that the village is safe, you don't have to keep forcing yourself to be strong."
Shouting and screaming in pain? That wasn't necessary in the slightest. Could she really do something so embarrassing in front of an audience?
Stelle kept her expression perfectly flat. "I'm fine. Keep going."
The clash between Purple Flame and Black Flame was no ordinary fire jutsu collision. The sheer destructive feedback from such a close-range energy detonation was unimaginable to normal shinobi. If she weren't a literal cheater with a system-backed physique, she would either be buried six feet under or scattered as ash in the wind by now.
Senju Tetsuya, her overly sentimental former teammate, was clearly overactive in his imagination. While treating her burns, he even had a nearby nurse wipe his tears for him, bringing down the mood of the room until everyone looked like they were about to burst into weeping.
After finally leaving the operating room, Tetsuya prescribed her a mammoth amount of medication for pain relief, nerve calming, and heavy anesthesia. Just looking at the dosage, it felt potent enough to knock out an entire herd of charging elephants.
Stelle's cheek twitched slightly. Figuring it was just her old classmate's heavy-handed goodwill, she knocked back the entire concoction in one go just to save face, even though the phantom pain wasn't even noticeable to her.
Black Zetsu had just been caught by her and was currently too traumatized to show his face anywhere near Konoha. The other nations were busy tearing each other apart and had no time to launch a sneak attack on her hospital room. It was perfectly safe.
Relaxing her mind, she decided to fully embrace the opportunity to slack off, letting the heavy medication pull her into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Late that night, Stelle woke up in a groggy daze. The room was dark, illuminated only by the pale moonlight filtering through the blinds. She glanced over and found that Uchiha Kagami hadn't left for his own quarters. Instead, he had fallen asleep leaning awkwardly against the edge of her hospital bed, his hand gripping hers in a vice-like hold.
Stelle's eyes darkened slightly in thought. She gave her arm a subtle tug, trying to pull her hand back, but found that Kagami's grip was locked tight even in his sleep.
Did Uchiha Kagami deliberately persuade little Minato Namikaze to go home tonight just so he could stand guard himself?
It was completely unnecessary. The hospital had a small army of nurses and elite doctors revolving around her ward twenty-four hours a day, and there was a squad of Anbu stationed right outside her door. If she needed anything, she just had to clear her throat and a crowd would rush in.
Why wouldn't any of these people listen to reason?
She stifled a yawn with her free hand and prepared to shake Kagami awake to tell him to go back to a real bed. She called his name twice, but the man didn't even twitch.
'[System, Kagami is a Kage-level shinobi. How could he be sleeping so soundly that he doesn't hear me?]''[He is likely just pushed to his absolute physical limit and fell into a deep sleep,]' the System replied promptly.'[During the time you were unconscious, he didn't do anything but sit there and watch over you. I have the logs. Ever since he returned to Konoha these past few days, he hasn't slept a wink, running himself ragged helping you handle the political fallout. This is his first actual rest.]''[He's just been watching me?]''[Affirmative. He looks consumed by self-reproach. After all, when he first became a disciple back in the day, both Uchiha Madara and Uchiha Izuna explicitly instructed him to take good care of you. Now that you're lying in a hospital bed in a semi-crippled state, he is practically dying of guilt.]'Stelle stared down at Kagami's exhausted, peaceful face for a long moment. She scratched her cheek, remaining silent in the moonlit room.'[Since you put it that way, I feel a bit awkward about this whole setup. Fine. In a couple of days, I'll revise the village policies again to funnel more political benefits toward the Uchiha Clan. Making him the greatest, most successful clan leader of the Uchiha aside from Madara himself will surely make Kagami very happy.]'
The next morning, Stelle actively urged Director Tetsuya to bring in the ocular power soothing agent for Uchiha Kagami.
Before the injection could take place, she casually strolled over to the medical tray and flawlessly swapped the newly synthesized soothing agent with her vial of equally colorless, odorless Hashirama cells.
These weren't just any crude, unstable Hashirama cells. Mie had run extensive tests beforehand, formulating the most perfect, genetically stable Hashirama cell serum in existence. It carried zero side effects, meaning there was absolutely no risk of a creepy, pale wooden face growing out of Kagami's shoulder.
Because of this refinement, the integration was seamless.
After being injected with the serum and resting in the observation ward for a few hours, Uchiha Kagami's body showed zero adverse reactions. Instead, his vision—which had been steadily blurring at the edges for years—gradually sharpened into perfect, crystal clarity.
And this was merely the beginning. When he stepped onto the battlefield and pushed his eyes to their limit again, Kagami would find that his eyesight was only getting stronger, returning to its peak state and no longer suffering from the Mangekyo's degenerative curse.
Director Tetsuya checked Kagami's eyes with his diagnostic jutsu and looked utterly baffled by his own handiwork.
"Is the efficacy of my new medicine really this extraordinary? Strange... truly strange."
He turned around, intending to examine the leftover residue in the vial to verify his formula, but his reaction time was far too slow. Stelle had already quietly disposed of the original vial and the equipment, leaving no trace of the swap behind.
Tetsuya rubbed his chin in thought. "I suppose my research direction was flawless from the start, and I just nailed the synthesis on the first try. Now I can finally rest easy."
Uchiha Kagami didn't linger in Konoha for much longer. After sharing a quiet, earnest goodbye with Stelle, he strapped on his armor and rushed back toward the front lines.
That was the cruel nature of war; people always gathered for the briefest of moments, only to immediately part ways and run back into the fire. No one knew what the future would hold. Everyone was simply working themselves to the bone, fighting tooth and nail just to see tomorrow.
However, as he leaped through the trees and gradually moved further away from the village gates, Uchiha Kagami looked back over his shoulder at Konoha. The lingering feeling of panic in his chest didn't decrease with the distance; instead, it twisted into a sharp, intense foreboding.
What exactly was going to happen?
By this time, massive, large-scale battles had already begun to erupt across the international borders.
The catastrophic battle between Stelle and Mie had been entirely too sensational to cover up. The resulting 'Rift Abyss' gouged into the earth just outside the village was right there, visible for miles and utterly impossible to hide from scouting patrols.
Consequently, news that the Fourth Hokage had sustained severe injuries after fighting a mysterious powerhouse leaked out like a sieve.
Although Konoha's ally, Karaku Village—which had consistently provided harassment tactics and logistical support—was now wiped off the map, that wasn't the focal point for the enemy nations. The most critical piece of intelligence was that Ida Mutsuki was injured.
Spies embedded within the Land of Fire immediately transmitted this golden opportunity through their respective intelligence networks, delivering the news straight to the desks of their Kage.
Upon receiving the confirmation, the Kage overseeing the various battlefields immediately ordered large-scale offensives to capitalize on Konoha's perceived weakness. They were still primarily testing the waters, probing for structural cracks, but the sheer volume of troops deployed to the borders escalated by the day.
In the Land of Rain battlefield, which served as a miserable, rain-soaked strategic buffer zone, the military forces of three great nations engaged in brutal, large-scale combat. The collateral damage caused countless small villages within the Land of Rain to be reduced to smoking craters and rubble.
Desperate to protect the last remaining pure lands of his country, Hanzo of the Salamander deployed a massive number of his own shinobi to violently repel the three invading nations.
On the primary front lines, Hiruzen Sarutobi was locked in a tense defensive stalemate against the Second Tsuchikage, Mū. Meanwhile, Sakumo Hatake led the vanguard against the main invasion force of the Land of Wind.
Jiraiya's three-man team was tasked with pinning down Hanzo in the Land of Rain, ensuring the legendary leader couldn't ambush Konoha's rear supply lines, while retaining the flexibility to reinforce the battles against the Land of Wind and the Land of Earth at a moment's notice.
Any lethal toxins deployed by the Hidden Sand Village's puppet brigade were consistently analyzed and neutralized by Tsunade in record time, rendering their greatest advantage entirely useless.
Because of this ironclad coordination, the battlefields bordering those two countries were defended as solidly as an impenetrable fortress. There was little need for immediate concern there.
On the contrary, the pressure bearing down on the Land of Lightning and Land of Water battlefields was suffocatingly high. To prevent a total collapse, Konoha's absolute elites were continuously funneled into these two meat grinders.
Recognized as the village's premier intelligence gatherer, Dan Kato was assigned directly to Danzo Shimura's side, using his unique jutsu to intercept enemy movements and secure vital information.
As the war situation grew increasingly intense and chaotic, the first major faction to crack under the pressure and be beaten into a steady, bloody retreat was the forces of the Hidden Sand Village.
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