Hane Genma sprinted wildly through the forest. Unconsciously, he had lost his steady breathing rhythm and began to gasp involuntarily.
Along the way, he had eliminated several enemies and rescued a few squads of ninja from the Firefly organization, instructing them to continue moving toward the designated location before resuming his search of the forest.
He looked a bit like a headless fly; perhaps because his subconscious remained in a state of extreme tension, his chakra consumption was significantly faster than usual.
As he ran, Genma suddenly stopped in his tracks. He caught the faint scent of blood lingering in the air.
The surroundings seemed a little too quiet.
He quickly turned toward the direction of the bloody scent and soon saw five or six friendly shinobi lying on the ground. Several broken longswords were stuck in the center of this small battlefield. Blood had stained the earth—which carried a faint smell of rot—into speckled brown patches. Snapped tree trunks and the scorched smell of exploded Paper Bombs filled the air... This tragic battle had ended only moments ago.
Genma's footsteps paused unconsciously for a split second before he accelerated again. He crouched down to check their injuries, only to find that aside from one who was completely dead, the others were merely in a near-death state from severe wounds.
It was illogical. Why had the enemy spared them?
Genma immediately began treating the critically wounded, but when he placed his palm on the abdominal wound of a ninja lying on their side, the person suddenly reached out and gripped his wrist. The ninja's face was covered in blood and grime, with one side severely swollen, and mud caked from chin to chest.
Genma observed carefully, only then recognizing the person's identity.
"Chihori?"
Chihori couldn't speak at all. She released her grip on Genma's hand and struggled to raise her arm, pointing in a specific direction.
Genma immediately understood her meaning. He performed the Shadow Clone Technique, leaving a clone and half of his chakra behind to do whatever possible to save their lives. Meanwhile, his main body rushed rapidly in the direction Chihori had pointed.
Genma chased faster and faster, completely disregarding his chakra consumption. Even after pursuing for a long distance, he still hadn't heard the slightest sound of combat.
Another hour passed before Genma finally discovered a half-dead enemy. Half of this man's body had suffered severe burns, yet he seemed to be struggling to move forward in a specific direction. Upon seeing Genma, a dazzling, somewhat pure lightning chakra suddenly erupted from his body... A Storm Release ninja.
The lightning on the enemy's body flowed, eventually converging onto his remaining good arm, dyeing it as bright as a fluorescent tube.
Genma ignored everything else and charged straight at him. As their figures crossed paths, he abruptly drew his sword! Simultaneously, the special armored gauntlet covering his right arm violently spewed out a massive amount of high-speed, high-temperature steam. This caused his arm, which had already been swung in a wide arc, to accelerate suddenly along its predetermined trajectory.
Pu!
While dodging the enemy's attack, Genma smashed the opponent's head with his sword, sending brain matter splashing. He passed by the enemy's body with almost no deceleration, not even sparing a thought to absorb the opponent's chakra.
A few minutes later, he saw the next enemy. This was also a Storm Release ninja in a half-crippled state. His overall condition might have been slightly better than the previous one, but not by much, so this enemy met the exact same fate. Under normal circumstances, Genma couldn't instantly kill such elite shinobi, but right now, he was merely harvesting easy kills.
He continued forward until he encountered a third enemy who was in almost pristine condition. Only then was Genma forced to halt his advance.
Less than ten kilometers ahead of where Genma was rushing, Uchiha Nanami was stumbling forward with unsteady steps. She could no longer lift her right arm, which swung uncontrollably at her side, while her left hand pressed firmly against her flank.
There was a fist-sized puncture wound there, penetrating almost entirely from the front left of her abdomen to the back right. The wound showed signs of severe cauterization, to the point where her spine was easily visible through the hole. Behind her, she left a trail of blood that faded in and out.
After crossing a stream, she finally collapsed.
"This... is fine as well..."
Nanami took a deep breath, then tried hard to hold it. Her left hand ignored the wound on her abdomen and instead pressed against the ground, trying her best to prop up her upper body. After struggling to stand once more, she didn't flee any further. Instead, she washed her face with one hand by the river.
By the moonlight barely filtering through the gaps in the forest canopy, Nanami saw her reflection clearly... Her face was bloodless, her eyes dull and lightless. She tried to pull at the corners of her mouth, but in the end, she couldn't manage a smile.
"Problems caused by the Uchiha are solved by me, an Uchiha... I still overestimated myself."
She brushed back the damp long hair from her forehead, dragged her body with difficulty, and leaned against a large tree by the stream. She did not regret her efforts tonight or the fate she now faced; she only felt guilt for the senseless disaster the Firefly organization had suffered because of her.
"It's just somewhat laughable that only at the final moment did I understand that my method of using the Mangekyo Sharingan was wrong all along... Little Seven's origin explained everything."
"By borrowing the power of the Sharingan, placing myself here, I had the ability to see through the future and borrow the light of the path ahead to bring a glimmer of dawn to the current era... Peace, lasting peace, might truly not be a dream."
"A pity. I was never a smart person, and now, everything is too late."
Thinking this, she used her left hand to lift her right arm to her abdomen, then used her left fingers to manipulate the fingers of her right hand one by one, struggling to form hand seals. She could no longer use the power of the Sharingan; in her final moments, she used nothing more than a Summoning Technique.
After Little Seven appeared, the fox sniffed at Nanami's abdomen and then began to circle her incessantly. Nanami wanted to reach out to comfort Little Seven, but found she couldn't do it.
"Little Seven... don't move around... I have something important to ask of you."
Nanami spoke with difficulty, but as she spoke, she seemed to no longer feel the physical pain, and her words gradually became fluent.
"Take my eyes away. Don't let them fall into enemy hands... You know how to use them."
"How is Firefly doing now? Afterwards... I don't know if Genma will blame me, or if he will hate the Uchiha."
"Genma... I always feel like he's hiding many secrets, burying heavy things deep in his heart. He seems to live such a tiring life."
"By the way, if this Ninja World remains the way it is now, remember to help me throw him into an era of endless peace and gentle warmth..."
As she spoke, Little Seven's pacing limbs suddenly stopped. The fox fell silent, snuggling down beside Nanami and pressing its cheek against her forehead. At this moment, half of Little Seven's face seemed to merge into Nanami's body.
A moment later, it raised its head again. By now, Nanami's closed eyelids had sunken slightly.
The fox remained guarding Nanami's side, refusing to leave. Even in the Ninja World, there are small places where one lingers, refusing to depart; and short periods of time one gets trapped in, wishing never to have lived through.
But just then, a mass of black, oil-like shadow suddenly sprang from underground, directly covering Nanami's body. Little Seven, sitting by her side looking up at the night sky, remained completely unaware of this.
Black Zetsu believed he had calculated everything, but in the end, he was still one step late. He didn't even realize that the pair of Mangekyo Sharingan he so desperately desired was right there on the fox, inches away. Finding nothing, regardless of what he thought, he could only retreat and hide once more.
About ten minutes later, Genma finally arrived. He came to an abrupt stop on a tree branch. With just one glance, he felt instantly drowned in an indescribable emotion.
The clouds in mid-air were thoroughly scattered by the summer night wind. Bright moonlight projected onto the earth through the gaps the stream had carved through the forest.
The girl leaned sideways against the large tree. The stream murmured, its sparkling waves reflecting her image, as if making her silent form lively once again. The white fox stood guard by her side. Swarms of fireflies lingered under the canopy, like a brilliant galaxy spilled across the scene.
It was a picturesque view, completely frozen in time.
Genma leaped down from the high vantage point, unwilling to make even the slightest sound. He walked involuntarily to the edge of the stream, yet for some reason, he could not bring himself to cross the water to the incomparably quiet opposite bank.
Was it simply that he didn't want to disturb this?
Genma's right hand reached across his chest, his palm resting on his left shoulder. The pain from the wound there made everything feel incredibly real.
Was the relationship between Genma and Nanami that of friends? It didn't seem right to say so. Was it romance? Definitely not. Were they comrades chasing the same ideal? That didn't seem to be the case either. Perhaps Genma simply viewed Nanami as someone who could walk the same path with him indefinitely.
Just that.
Was it just that?
Just like Little Seven moments ago, Genma, for some unknown reason, also looked up at the night sky. In the future Konoha era, some believed that ninja who mastered the Ninja World's fastest jutsu, the Flying Thunder God, were often cursed: they would always fail to arrive in time for the most critical moments.
Genma had a similar thought now. He didn't even know how late he truly was.
Actually, shortly after the battle began tonight, Genma had harbored a bad premonition, though he hadn't noticed it at the time... The organization was under attack by the Uchiha clan, and Nanami, caught between the organization and the Uchiha, had seemed a little too willing to dedicate herself, too willing to sacrifice, right from the start.
Genma looked at Nanami's left hand and discovered that what she held in her hand at the very end was nothing more than the organization's forehead protector.
At that moment, the sound of clothes brushing against leaves came from behind Genma again. Someone was approaching rapidly.
"Nanami?"
The man jumped down from the tree, rushed forward a few steps, glanced at Genma's back, and then his gaze landed on Nanami across the stream... It was Uchiha Tajima.
"Get lost!" he shouted at Genma as he strode forward.
Strange. Genma's mood had been incredibly calm, yet solely because of this man's appearance, his emotions swung from one extreme to the other.
Genma's rage was like an erupting volcano; it could no longer be suppressed. To match his extreme mental shift, every cell in his body squeezed out the last shreds of energy, and an unprecedentedly intense chakra suddenly erupted from him.
Genma merely twisted his heel slightly, and his body turned sideways with immense speed. Simultaneously, his right hand, which had been resting on his left shoulder, and his right arm, which was wrapped in front of his neck, whipped toward the back right like a lash. His arm sheared through the air, enveloping the entire forest in a massive sonic boom.
The sudden eruption of chakra pierced the armor covering his right arm like a hornet's nest, and an invisible blade extended from his palm.
Uchiha Tajima's Mangekyo Sharingan activated autonomously in that instant. He foresaw a terrible future, yet it was an unavoidable one.
What Genma used instinctively at this moment wasn't even a jutsu, but a technique of extreme chakra control and release.
It was a super-high-density chakra jet.
No...
It was a torrent of the soul.
He didn't even feel the slightest sense of resistance in his hand.
And so, Uchiha Tajima's head was sliced off with ease.
"Trash."
Genma cursed aloud, though no one knew exactly whom he was cursing. There indeed should have been someone to 'get lost' here, but that person was not Genma.
Tajima's head hit the ground. Only then did the skeletal structure of Susanoo begin to emerge behind his body... It was too fast; he hadn't had time to react at all.
The moment his head landed, it was instantly wrapped in a mass of black "oil." At the same time, a chakra longsword spun through the air from a distance, piercing precisely into that head. The blade skewered the skull and sank deep into the ground.
Black Zetsu, willing to expose himself, helplessly snatched a pair of eyes and immediately turned to flee.
Lan quickly arrived at Genma's side, steadily supporting him as he nearly collapsed... In that instant just now, he had exhausted all the chakra in his body, even squeezing out his life energy to unleash it all at once. It went without saying that extreme weakness would follow such an outburst.
The two stood there, neither speaking.
A while later, Nara Hideyuki and another unfamiliar ninja arrived beside them. The scene before them left Hideyuki unsure of what to say. After a moment of silence, he decided to report the important news he had just received.
"Lord Genma, I don't know why, but the enemy is retreating."
It seemed Senju Tobirama had made his move. His actions were faster than imagined, yet... still not fast enough.
Genma turned his head, paused for a moment, looked at the stranger beside Nara Hideyuki, and asked, "Who are you?"
"I am Yamanaka Keiya, Lord Genma."
If not for him, how could Hideyuki have pinpointed Genma's location? Genma knew he must have used the "Spirit Transformation" secret technique. He asked again, "Where is your main body?"
"I don't know yet."
What a bold heart.
Genma then refocused on Nara Hideyuki. Sensing that his condition was still decent, he asked, "Hideyuki, can you still fight?"
"I have no problem, Lord Genma."
"Then see who else has combat strength. Organize a squad to pursue... Do not let them withdraw easily."
"Yes, Lord Genma."
Nara Hideyuki and Yamanaka Keiya exchanged a glance, accepted the new order, and prepared to execute the new interception mission.
Lan supported Genma as he sat by the river, then silently followed the other two.
The stream flowed quietly, and silence returned to the forest.
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