It was too illogical. The Uchiha had suffered a heavy blow just that morning. It was unthinkable that they would launch a counterattack the same night.
There had to be a reason for all this that he didn't know.
If he didn't figure it out, he wouldn't be able to rest in peace.
"Why...? You ask why?" Izuna shrugged and asked with malicious glee, "Well, why do *you* think we've appeared at this moment?"
Perhaps because he was cornered and his mind was in chaos, Hagoromo Masanari's expression suddenly changed, and he shouted, "It's Tobi! Tobi told you, didn't he? That bastard! He pretended he wanted to cooperate with my Hagoromo clan, but he was secretly siding with the Uchiha! Bastard! Bastard!"
Toward the end, Hagoromo Masanari was seething with rage. He stomped his foot hard on the ground, and the chakra-infused strike shattered the stone tiles of the courtyard.
Izuna blinked, surprised that Hagoromo Masanari's imagination would run so wild as to reach that conclusion.
But on second thought, from Hagoromo Masanari's perspective, it wasn't an impossibility.
*Whatever, think what you want,* Izuna thought to himself. The Sharingan in his eyes spun slowly as he held a kunai between his fingers, ready to strike.
"Wait, Uchiha Izuna!" Hagoromo Masanari cried out when he saw Izuna preparing to attack. "This Tobi fellow is fickle! He first said he wanted to ally with my Hagoromo clan, but then he secretly conspired with you Uchiha. Don't you find that suspicious?"
"How about this? Our two clans join forces. We'll annex the four northwestern clans first, and then we'll go settle the score with that bastard Tobi."
Izuna almost laughed out loud at his words. Without replying, he threw the kunai at Hagoromo Masanari.
Seeing that negotiations had failed, Hagoromo Masanari had no choice but to fight back.
After dodging two kunai, a faint glint from the rings at their bases caught his eye.
*Wires? The Uchiha's Shuriken Manipulation Jutsu!*
Hagoromo Masanari formed a one-handed seal. "Secret Art: Yang Release: Golden Crow!"
A brilliant light expanded, corroding the threads attached to the kunai.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
With just a single hand seal, Izuna unleashed the Uchiha clan's most basic and practical Great Fireball at Hagoromo Masanari.
"Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"
A wall of water rose from all sides, protecting Hagoromo Masanari in the center. For a moment, scalding hot steam billowed between them.
"Heh!" Izuna chuckled softly. He formed hand seals, and two shadow clones appeared to his left and right. The three of them charged forward.
*They're all solid! A new type of clone jutsu?* Hagoromo Masanari was startled. He quickly used his clan's unique sensory technique to find the real body.
*It's no use! I can't sense it!*
The principle was the same as when Uzumaki Naruto would later use this technique against Hyuga Neji's Byakugan.
As long as the chakra was distributed evenly among all the shadow clones, unless one possessed eyes of the three-tomoe Sharingan level or higher, or sensory abilities on par with Senju Tobirama in his prime, there was no hope of finding the original.
*Clang!*
One of the three Izunas drew a kunai and clashed with Hagoromo Masanari's tachi.
Less than a second later, the other two leaped from behind, kunai in hand, and stabbed down from above.
Hagoromo Masanari twisted the hand holding his sword, temporarily deflecting the first Izuna's kunai, and lashed out with a horizontal kick, striking his opponent in the abdomen.
*Poof!*
With a sound like a bursting balloon, that Izuna vanished in a puff of white smoke.
Hagoromo Masanari quickly swung his sword to block all the kunai coming from above. At the last moment, he caught one of the deflected kunai in a reverse grip and threw it back, hitting the other Izuna in mid-air.
*Poof!*
The body was struck and immediately dissolved into white smoke.
*Another clone!*
"Then you must be the real one!" Hagoromo Masanari fixed his gaze on the last Izuna. With a low growl, he focused the last of his remaining chakra.
"Hagoromo Style: Feather Pierce the Void!"
For a fleeting moment, a hazy, silver-white chakra enveloped Hagoromo Masanari's body, and the blade of his katana was coated in the special silver-white Yang-natured chakra.
The next instant, like an arrow drawn taut on a bowstring, he shot forward.
It was a straight, piercing sword technique.
Its principle was somewhat similar to the future Third Raikage's Hell Stab.
In the blink of an eye, Hagoromo Masanari's final, chakra-fueled strike pierced through the mid-air Izuna's abdomen.
"Vice-Clan Head!" Uchiha Ise shouted in the distance.
From his angle, he could see that Hagoromo Masanari's sword had punched a hole right through Izuna's stomach.
"Die!" came the voice of the Saito clan head, followed by the buzzing sound of a blade coated in wind-natured chakra.
Uchiha Ise was startled. A Jonin's reflexes kicked in; before his mind could even process the threat, his body reacted instinctively, and he leaped back to dodge.
Nevertheless, a deep gash was carved from his right shoulder down to his stomach.
Uchiha Ise quickly clutched his stomach. Thankfully, his intestines hadn't been sliced open.
*Poof!*
But in the distance, something unexpected happened.
The last Izuna, impaled in mid-air by Hagoromo Masanari's sword—the one everyone thought was the real one—dissipated once again into white smoke.
For a moment, everyone who had been watching that part of the battlefield, including Hagoromo Masanari who was about to breathe a sigh of relief, was completely stunned.
*What... what's going on? That wasn't the real one either?*
While everyone was baffled, one of the kunai scattered on the ground suddenly went *poof* and transformed back into a person.
The reappeared Izuna had no time to waste on everyone's shock. He had already formed an oversized Rasengan in his hand.
"Great Ball Rasengan!"
He shot behind Hagoromo Masanari, and before his opponent even had time to turn, he slammed the Great Ball Rasengan squarely into his back.
The Great Ball Rasengan.
It wasn't a technique Izuna had activated from the system, but one he had mastered on his own after obtaining the Wind Release: Rasengan.
Unless it was absolutely necessary, Izuna didn't want to touch his Skill Points. He was more focused on obtaining the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan as quickly as possible.
Feeling the twisting pain in his back, Hagoromo Masanari's eyes rolled back. The intense agony made him open his mouth wide, but not a sound came out.
A dozen seconds later, a massive spherical wound had been gouged into his back, and he collapsed heavily.
"Still breathing."
Izuna pulled out a kunai and casually tossed it down, piercing Hagoromo Masanari's throat.
The heavily injured Uchiha Ise clutched his wound. After desperately forcing the Saito clan head back, he stared in disbelief. "He used the Transformation Technique... to turn into a kunai?"
Once Uchiha Ise figured out the principle, the others quickly caught on as well.
The trick wasn't complex, but to devise and execute such a strategy in the heat of battle was no simple feat.
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