It had failed.
In the end, Jūbei had failed.
In the face of disaster, humanity would always unite like never before.
And that unity could create miracles.
It did not matter whether someone was good or evil, nor which side they belonged to.
Shisui Uchiha’s unique Mangekyō Sharingan ability was Kotoamatsukami, and Kotoamatsukami: Radiance was one of its applications.
It could create an illusory world and draw a person into it, granting them salvation and transforming them into the kind of person Shisui believed they should be.
But watching Konoha being destroyed had allowed Shisui to break through.
At the cost of one of his eyes, he had transformed what had previously been a technique that merely consumed ocular power into reality, bringing the illusory Light of Salvation into the real world.
Unfortunately, this radiance could not purify souls.
At most, it could dispel evil.
Even so, it had eliminated one of the calamities afflicting Konoha!
"The Uchiha are beyond forgiveness. This is all I can do!"
Having lost one eye, Shisui fell into the arms of the Uchiha following him.
Shōmei hurried forward to support him.
Falling against the young Uchiha’s chest, Shisui grabbed Shōmei’s hand and earnestly warned him,
"Shōmei, you can’t live a good life while harboring hatred in your heart. The Uchiha shouldn’t live consumed by hatred."
"Don’t become someone like Uchiha Kei."
"You are the hope of the Uchiha’s future!"
Shisui had high hopes for this child, just as he had once had high hopes for Obito.
Although Shisui and Obito were roughly the same age, Shisui was a candidate for the position of Hokage, whereas Obito was merely a graduate of the Academy.
Shisui liked Obito’s sunny personality and admired Shōmei’s refined demeanor.
In Shisui’s mind, this was what the Uchiha of the future should be like.
Not someone like the rumored Uchiha Kei, who was always talking about war and whose heart was filled with resentment and grievance.
Having received Shisui’s affirmation, Shōmei nodded.
"Yes! Big Brother Shisui, I’ll remember!"
He also believed that the future of the Uchiha depended on him.
One day, he would replace Uchiha Kei and become the leader of those powerful Uchiha.
At least, Shōmei had already managed to convince himself of that.
The dark clouds over Konoha dispersed, but the plague remained.
Tsunade, who was famously terrified of blood, looked at the countless severed limbs scattered across the ground.
She had no time to maintain her usual image of someone who feared blood.
If she didn’t act now, the Konoha of the future would become nothing more than a rehabilitation center for the disabled.
The moment Tsunade took action, she proved worthy of her reputation as the granddaughter of the First Hokage, the God of Shinobi.
Katsuyu: Great Division—Tsunade’s Healing Corps!
Katsuyu split into countless smaller slugs.
With Tsunade supplying them with chakra and directing their efforts, the smaller Katsuyu transmitted her chakra to every injured shinobi and treated them with the Mystical Palm Technique.
With one person giving everything she had, this woman treated the wounded throughout the entire village while simultaneously suppressing Konoha’s plague.
But she was still only an extraordinarily powerful medical shinobi.
She could treat illness.
She could heal injuries.
But she could not bring the dead back to life.
Those who had died were dead.
This time, Konoha had lost at least eighty percent of its population.
At least half of its shinobi were gone.
With the support of the Great Toad Sage, Jiraiya entered Sage Mode.
"Sage Art: Sage Mode—Sage Technique Barrier!"
The Sage Art reactivated Konoha’s previously disabled barrier.
Together with Jiraiya’s Sage Technique Barrier, it helped suppress the earthquake.
Unfortunately, almost none of Konoha’s buildings remained standing.
Konoha Village could no longer even be called a village.
On the battlefield, the Yellow Flash of Konoha, Minato Namikaze, arrived at precisely the right moment.
At last, the balance of the battle changed.
After rescuing the critically injured, Minato returned to the battlefield.
Combined with his extraordinary talent and the power of his techniques, people finally understood what made him so terrifying.
It was simple.
One man was equivalent to an elite shinobi force.
The powerful Uchiha who had been able to move freely through the Konoha shinobi ranks, forcing more than twenty thousand shinobi to remain helpless and endure their attacks—
There were fewer than two hundred of them.
It seemed to prove that the Uchiha were invincible.
Fighting a hundred opponents alone wasn’t merely a myth.
But the moment Minato arrived, the situation changed.
"Flying Thunder God: Mutual Instantaneous Rotation—Spiraling Flash Super Round Dance Howl Four-Style: Multiple Sealing!"
Minato shouted an absurdly long and flashy technique name.
But in reality, the principle behind it was simple.
He used the Flying Thunder God Technique to establish coordinates within a barrier, then continuously teleported around the barrier, allowing a single person to attack multiple targets simultaneously.
The Uchiha, who were already exhausted, simply had no way to resist.
In an instant, Minato disarmed and sealed them, stripping them of their ability to resist before gathering them all in one place.
Hiruzen Sarutobi finally shattered Jūbei’s turtle shell as well.
The activation of his ultimate technique had already left Jūbei with very little strength to resist.
The full-scale intervention of Konoha’s Kage-level shinobi also reinvigorated Konoha’s morale.
The power of Fear was weakening.
Jūbei had exhausted almost every resource at his disposal.
"Adamantine Breaking Head Pursuit!"
The Third Hokage shattered Fear Armor with a single strike.
Jūbei, who had been seeking death all along, realized that the tide had turned.
He spat out the name of his final attack and lunged directly at the Third’s face.
Unfortunately, this was an assassination-style technique.
And unfortunately for Jūbei, his taijutsu was simply far inferior to the Third’s.
Hiruzen Sarutobi seized Jūbei by the hair with one hand and drove his fist into Jūbei’s chin.
Jūbei’s final offensive technique had failed.
Uchiha Jūbei was defeated and captured.
But most of his strategic objectives had already been accomplished.
Kill as many people in Konoha as possible.
Destroy Konoha Village.
And, ideally, drag Konoha into hell alongside him.
Each of these objectives was more difficult than the last.
They were practically impossible goals.
Yet he had accomplished a significant portion of them.
Holding the unconscious Jūbei by the head, the Third looked around Konoha.
The ruined landscape was painfully glaring.
But Sarutobi had no choice but to force himself to rally.
He shouted words of encouragement toward the people of Konoha who had suffered because of the war.
"Ringleader Uchiha Jūbei! Bow your head!"
Hiruzen’s voice was powerful and commanding.
Unfortunately, the cheers he had expected never came.
The war had finally come to an end.
The survivors looked up at the empty sky, not a single cloud remaining.
Then they looked down at the ruined earth beneath their feet, where not even an intact roof tile remained.
Finally, they looked around at their friends and relatives.
There wasn’t a single person who wasn’t injured.
Everyone seemed like a deflated balloon.
There was nothing worth celebrating about this victory.
One person began to sob.
Then another.
Before long, the sound spread throughout the entirety of Konoha.
That morning, everyone had still been happily celebrating.
How had it come to this?
By afternoon, they had lost their homes.
They had lost their families.
What had happened?
Why had this happened?
This was not what the Third wanted to see.
Konoha needed a target for its hatred.
Someone against whom everyone could vent the emotions building inside them.
Sarutobi slammed Jūbei’s head onto the ground, attempting to stimulate everyone’s courage by humiliating the enemy.
"Shinobi of Konoha! Citizens of Konoha!"
"Today, we suffered this disaster for no reason other than the Uchiha’s warmongering and arrogance!"
"They attacked us without provocation!"
"Now, the attackers have been punished!"
"It is time to demand justice from the Uchiha!"
The sadness could not be allowed to spread.
Konoha was now completely destitute.
It needed resources to rebuild.
Whether the daimyō would provide money to a village that had lost everything was uncertain.
But there was another group outside the village that was practically overflowing with wealth.
The Uchiha.
They had become the perfect target for plunder.
Sarutobi calculated the situation.
In the end, he had still won.
If this man named Jūbei hadn’t gone so far—
If he hadn’t tried to destroy everyone—
Then perhaps his good students would never have taken action.
But once they had acted, they had effectively made enemies of the Uchiha.
They had boarded his ship.
And once they were aboard, getting off would not be easy.
In Sarutobi’s estimation, Uchiha Kei had fewer than three hundred clansmen.
Now, more than two hundred of them were in his hands.
That was the perfect bargaining chip.
As for the several thousand rogue shinobi under Kei’s command?
So what?
Those people lacked resources.
His own clansmen and shinobi should be able to fight them to a standstill.
At present, Sarutobi had four or five thousand members of his own clan, another four or five thousand Konoha shinobi, and nearly ten thousand shinobi from the other clans who had suffered relatively little damage.
With twenty thousand shinobi and five Kage-level combatants, forcing Uchiha Kei to compromise was still possible.
And if that didn’t work, he could pressure Uchiha Fugaku.
Although Fugaku had more than a thousand clansmen, his personality was weak.
He should be easier to manipulate.
Having made his calculations, Sarutobi slammed Jūbei onto the ground in front of everyone.
He then prepared to stomp down on him, intending to completely obliterate this criminal and awaken the beast within Konoha’s survivors.
"It is time to settle accounts with the Uchiha!"
"People of Konoha! Take back everything we have lost from our enemies!"
The Third felt that the situation had shifted back in his favor.
He stood proudly, preparing to crush Jūbei beneath his foot and declare war on Uchiha Kei.
The Sarutobi Clan never fights a losing battle!
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