Chapter 74: The Breaking of Restraints
Uchiha Raizen arrived at the scene to find a tableau of utter despair. Uchiha Madara was on his knees, his body trembling as he cradled two lifeless forms in his arms. In one arm was his brother, Uchiha Senna, his vibrant smile forever frozen. In the other was his bride, Uchiha Yana, the hope for a new life he had seen in her eyes now extinguished.
Raizen's heart clenched, a physical pain in his chest. Madara had just begun to emerge from the shadow of his brothers' deaths, only to be plunged into an even deeper abyss. The two people who represented his future—his last remaining brother and the woman who offered him a chance at happiness—were gone.
"You arrived quickly. It seems you understood our true objective after all," Senju Butsuma's voice was calm, almost conversational, as he stood amidst his clansmen.
A rage, colder and sharper than any he had ever known, erupted within Uchiha Raizen. "BUTSUMA! YOU WILL DIE FOR THIS!" he roared, his voice tearing from his throat.
As the fury consumed him, a profound shift occurred within his very being. It was as if a seal he never knew existed had shattered.
Ding! Host has broken through a world restriction. The constraint on the Sharingan has been lifted!
Power flooded his ocular nerves. His Sharingan, which had stubbornly remained at two tomoe, spun violently, the patterns sharpening and a third tomoe snapping into place with perfect, brutal clarity. He had finally achieved the Three Tomoe Sharingan. But there was no joy, only a cold, focused wrath that matched the new precision of his vision.
Senna, who he had joked with about his own wedding just that morning, was dead. Yana, who had dared to hope for a life beyond being a pawn, was dead. The cost was too high.
"Uchiha Raizen," Senju Hashirama's voice called out, filled with a pained resolve as he stepped forward. "Our quarrel is not with you. Do not force our hand further."
Raizen ignored him, his gaze locked on the broken form of his clan's heir. "Madara! Get up!" he commanded, his voice cutting through Madara's grief. "Hatred is not a chain to drag you down! It is a weapon to make you stronger! The Patriarch will have felt this battle. If we hold on, we can make them pay for this today! This debt of blood will be settled!"
"Pay… today…?" Madara's voice was a broken whisper that twisted into a manic, guttural laugh. "HEHEHE… HAHAHA! I WILL KILL YOU, SENJU BUTSUMA!"
Madara surged to his feet. A torrent of black, corrosive flames erupted from him, and a terrifying skeleton of pure chakra began to form around his body, wreathed in that same black fire.
"The Mangekyō?!" Senju Butsuma's calm finally broke, his eyes widening. "To awaken that cursed power so young… The plan changes. Hashirama, contain Uchiha Raizen. I will deal with Madara myself!"
As Butsuma spoke, a potent, natural energy radiated from him. Raizen's newly enhanced perception flared in alarm. Sage Mode! The Senju patriarch had also mastered it, and his control was so refined Raizen hadn't detected it during their previous clash. He was a far more terrifying opponent than Raizen had calculated.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Projectile Technique!" Hashirama attacked, the massive water dragon roaring to life. Though not yet at his brother's level, his power was formidable, already brushing against the threshold of a clan leader's strength.
"Such a paltry stream? Hmph! Fire Release: Majestic Destroyer Flame!" Raizen met the water dragon with a sea of black flames that evaporated the water on contact, the two techniques canceling each other out in a massive cloud of scalding steam.
While Raizen engaged Hashirama, the main event unfolded. Madara, encased in his skeletal Susano'o, clashed with the Sage Mode-enhanced Butsuma. Butsuma was a blur of speed and power, but he dared not touch the corrosive flames of the Susano'o.
"Fire Release: Susano'o's Fury!" Madara roared, unable to land a clean hit on the elusive Butsuma. He unleashed a cataclysmic wave of black fire that incinerated everything in a wide arc.
Raizen saw it then—a trail of blood streaming from one of Madara's Mangekyō eyes.
He's overusing it already! The toll was immense. But the result was terrifying. The power of this single, amplified technique dwarfed Raizen's own rapid-fire barrages. This was the qualitative leap of the Mangekyō, a power born from the deepest agony, unleashed at a devastating cost. Seeing the sheer destructive force, Raizen abandoned his offensive against Hashirama and focused on a tactical retreat, creating distance from the expanding inferno. The battle had escalated beyond anything he could have predicted.