Chapter 48: The Weight of Death
The Konoha Nara squad had arrived too late.
The moment they entered the battlefield, they were hit by the acrid smell of molten metal mixed with evaporating ice.
Everywhere they looked, they found shuriken and kunai scorched by flames, along with shattered trees, rocks, chunks of earth, and fragments of craters scattered across the ground.
Black smoke lingered low over the battlefield, forming a thick cloud.
Through the thin, stubborn haze, two figures could be seen slowly making their way forward.
"Cough, cough... Shisui, that defensive technique you used just now was incredible. Without it, we'd definitely be dead."
"Gōenji-nii, you should take some of the credit. You exhausted so much of their chakra. Otherwise, they probably would've kept fighting, and we might not have been able to defeat them."
The two voices reached the ears of Nara Akira and the others.
A familiar figure soon emerged from the smoke, stepping slowly across the scorched earth.
"Are you two all right? Shisui, Gōenji... Wait. Gōenji, where are your teammates?"
Nara Akira approached them and looked around.
He couldn't see Gōenji's teammates.
But he already had a bad feeling.
The previous battle had been incredibly intense. They weren't even jōnin, so there was a good chance they had died on the battlefield.
Gōenji's expression darkened.
"I'm afraid..."
Everyone could feel the weight of his emotions, especially Uchiha Shisui, who was supporting Gōenji's exhausted body. His expression was particularly grim.
The death of comrades was something none of them wanted to face.
Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan had awakened because of such a loss, yet he would rather have never possessed that power at all.
"Let's look for them first. Maybe they're still alive."
...
Gōenji passed through the towering forest of bones and reached the edge of the battlefield.
He stopped in front of a corpse surrounded by crows.
As he approached, the crows cried out and scattered into the sky, revealing the corpse in its entirety.
Numerous insects crawled across the body, feeding on the freshly dead flesh.
Gōenji crouched down and picked up the pierced Konoha forehead protector belonging to Ryōma.
He clenched it tightly.
His knuckles whitened around it.
"Captain, I'll definitely surpass White Fang someday. Don't underestimate me!"
Ryōma's words resurfaced in his mind.
So did that confident smile.
And the image of Gōenji himself secretly imitating Ryōma's swordsmanship.
Ryōma... I'll surpass White Fang's swordsmanship for you.
I'll fulfill your dream for you.
A faint smile appeared at the corners of Gōenji's lips.
His fingers gently rubbed the forehead protector.
Suddenly, Nara Akira silently placed a hand on Gōenji's shoulder.
Then he handed him a short sword.
The blade was stained with dried blood.
"Judging from the battlefield, this should have belonged to him. Take it as a memento of your comrade. Keep it."
Clang!
Gōenji placed the forehead protector inside his ninja pouch.
Then he discarded his own sword and slid Ryōma's sword into its sheath.
He slowly closed his eyes.
"Still not strong enough."
Everyone who witnessed the scene could feel the heaviness in his heart.
They had seen scenes like this countless times during the war.
They understood what he was feeling.
Shisui spoke quietly.
"Gōenji-nii, you mustn't—"
"Don't worry. I'm not that fragile."
Gōenji interrupted him.
"I understand that this is simply the reality of war. It's just... we've been comrades for years, so my emotions got the better of me for a moment."
He slowly forced a smile onto his heavy expression.
"By the way, did you find Ryōma and Fūjin?"
"We found only a set of clothes and this forehead protector."
A Konoha shinobi appeared carrying a set of clothes and a forehead protector.
"Based on the evidence, they were probably eaten by some kind of wild beast."
Everyone fell silent.
"As for Fūjin, she may still be alive."
Another shinobi appeared, carrying a shriveled corpse.
"This is one of the Mist Village's Shikotsumyaku users, isn't it? There are traces of Aburame clan insects on the body. It's likely Fūjin returned and killed him while he was weakened."
"I also used sensory ninjutsu to search the surrounding area. There's no sign of Fūjin nearby. She may have already returned to the base to provide support."
Hearing that, Gōenji finally breathed a sigh of relief.
At least one of them was still alive.
He hadn't expected two people to die during a single mission.
They had both been capable shinobi.
Ryōma, Zē, and Fūjin had all been outstanding in their own ways.
At least in Gōenji's eyes, their abilities when they were young were comparable to the members of Konoha's future generation of prodigies.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
"Let's go. We're heading back to base."
...
Konoha Base, Kirigakure Front
Gōenji sat with Ryōma's sword in his hands, continuously wiping the blade with a leaf.
"Susanoo..."
The scene of Shisui manifesting Susanoo appeared in his mind.
"It really can allow its user to reach the level of a Kage."
The sight had been spectacular.
Even more impressive than it had been in the anime he remembered.
Only seeing it in reality could truly convey that kind of overwhelming presence.
But Gōenji had almost no chance of awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan.
The deaths of his comrades had caused his emotions to fluctuate, but they hadn't reached the point necessary to trigger an evolution of his Sharingan.
His instincts told him that he was still a long way from that stage.
In other words, Susanoo wasn't suitable for him.
The assassination attempt by the Hidden Mist Village had caught him completely off guard.
More importantly, it had dealt a serious blow to the confidence that had been building inside him.
He knew he had become somewhat arrogant lately.
He possessed the Sharingan bloodline.
An enormous chakra reserve.
The physique and foundations of the Uchiha clan.
And the extraordinary mind of a transmigrator.
Deep down, he had indeed become arrogant.
Whenever he went on missions, he increasingly felt that he had become incredibly powerful. He was already an elite jōnin, and he could even imagine himself fighting ten opponents at once, like Namikaze Minato and the other legendary shinobi of his generation.
Reality had been brutally honest.
His ninjutsu training over the past few months had produced tremendous progress. His overall strength had increased dramatically, and among jōnin, he was already quite powerful.
But...
When he truly faced elite opponents, the battle wasn't nearly as easy as he had imagined.
If there had been even one more enemy, he might have died.
This experience had taught him a profound lesson.
He didn't want to die.
From now on, he would place even greater emphasis on close-quarters combat and make himself stronger.
He also needed to conceal his talent.
He couldn't continue attracting attention the way he had before.
"Next, I need to develop stronger ninjutsu—or perhaps a forbidden technique—to expand my offensive range."
The battle had also made him realize another problem.
Through Mathematical Chakra Form and the principle of leverage, his existing Fire Release techniques could already produce considerably greater power.
But they still weren't enough to completely overwhelm an elite opponent.
He needed a technique capable of deciding a battle in a single strike.
Something like Uchiha Itachi's Amaterasu.
Shisui's Kotoamatsukami.
Susanoo.
A decisive ability that could instantly turn the tide of battle.
Gōenji lowered his head and stared at the sword in his hand.
The blade reflected a cold gleam.
Concentrate the extreme heat of Fire Release entirely into the tip and edge of the blade.
No flames.
No explosion.
Just temperature.
He had been thinking about this for a long time.
Concentrating all that heat into a single point would produce an extraordinarily high temperature.
Anything touched by that concentrated heat would be completely destroyed.
The problem was that accomplishing it would be incredibly difficult.
But if he succeeded, it would undoubtedly become one of his trump cards.
A powerful technique capable of deciding the outcome of a battle.
And it was also a sword technique.
Perfect for fulfilling Ryōma's dream.
The technique didn't even have a prototype yet.
But Gōenji had already decided on its name.
It would be called—
Blade of Lingering Flame: Blade of the Rising Sun.