Chapter 16: The Great Reversal! The Ancestral Mad Laugh! Uchiha Setsuna's Resolve!
The camp ruins, ravaged by countless ninja battles, lay in complete disarray.
Inside the towering barrier,
the ground was littered with shuriken, broken threads of wire, chunks of shattered earth, withered branches, and cracked tiles—remnants of fierce combat.
At the center of it all, following Uchiha Ci's calm and ghostly words—
Moroi flinched violently, like someone suffering from battle trauma.
Don't be fooled by his ferocity earlier—right now, he looked utterly battered.
His crimson cloak was shredded by razor-thin wire threads; beneath it, cleanly sliced wounds oozed fresh blood.
The sharp pain from those wounds made him draw a hiss of breath between his teeth.
If not for the sealing scroll he carried—one that allowed him to use the Sealing Restraint Array without forming hand seals—
He might have truly perished at the hands of this newly risen Uchiha genin.
Moroi narrowed his eyes, not daring to let his guard down. He formed a minor hand seal and scanned Uchiha Ci up and down with a sensory jutsu.
Only then did he exhale in relief.
Pressing forward with his long blade, he smirked arrogantly and said coldly:
"Brat, at this point, you still think you can trick me? I've already checked. Right now, your chakra is nearly depleted, your stamina less than a tenth of what it was—and you're still bound by my Lightning Binding Kill."
"With your current strength, even a substitution jutsu would be impossible!"
Moroi's lips curled in confidence, as if victory had already been sealed.
"You've lost."
"There's nowhere left for you to run. All that's left is death."
Yet Uchiha Ci's gaze remained eerily calm—so calm it was unsettling. Making Moroi hesitate in landing the killing blow — he almost got killed by underestimating this brat once, who knows what tricks he'll pull off this time.
But just as Moroi said, his condition was terrible.
Forget substitution jutsu—even a simple rope escape technique was beyond him now.
But at that moment, a faint smile of relief appeared on Uchiha Ci's face. He murmured quietly:
"Finally… finally… finally…"
"What are you mumbling?" Moroi frowned, staring at him intently.
After that intense exchange, even now—despite holding the advantage—he dared not be careless.
Uchiha Ci, however, simply met his gaze with a faint smirk, speaking with the serenity of a storyteller:
"You know…?"
"Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for this moment?"
"And now—"
Uchiha Ci's eyes gleamed with madness. His lips curled into an ecstatic grin:
"I've finally… reached it!"
"Nonsense! Utter madness!"
Moroi scowled at the boy, clearly insane in his eyes, and barked:
"Whatever last words you have—save them for the afterlife!"
"Die!"
He decided not to waste another breath.
Both hands gripped his blade tightly. He took a step back, lowering his stance, and leveled the sword at Uchiha Ci's chest.
The tip aimed directly at the boy's heart.
With one thrust, the brat would never speak again.
Moroi's eyes sharpened— and he drove the blade forward!
In his mind, he could already see Uchiha Ci collapsing in defeat.
But then—
Bound tightly by the Lightning Binding Kill,
Uchiha Ci suddenly threw back his head and let out a loud, manic laugh:
"Heh heh heh… Hahahahaha! Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha—!"
The laughter rose in waves—
From mocking chuckles, to roaring laughter,
to the point where he almost couldn't breathe, tears of mirth streaming down his face.
Lowering his head, Uchiha Ci looked at Moroi with utter disdain.
"Kumo-nin… You didn't actually think you'd won, did you?"
As his words fell—
Moroi's blade slashed through the high collar of Uchiha Ci's black robe.
But what he saw underneath made his entire body tremble.
His smug grin froze.
His hand, mid-thrust, stopped dead.
"Th-this… what is this?!"
"What is it?" Uchiha Ci burst out laughing, voice filled with mania.
"Let me tell you exactly what this is!"
Enduring the paralyzing lightning coursing through his body, Uchiha Ci's eyes hardened.
He grabbed his collar—
and ripped the black robe open!
Beneath it—
A well-built young man's torso, bathed in morning sunlight.
But covering his entire body—
Was a layer of tightly packed explosive tags, forming a skin-tight armor!
Black ink patterns of "爆" (Explode) crawled over his flesh from head to toe—every inch covered.
The sheer number of tags could easily flatten the entire village!
A chill ran down Moroi's spine. His scalp tingled violently. His whole body trembled uncontrollably.
This brat…
had worn explosive tags as clothing?!
Are you insane?!
Completely insane!
You could die just from tripping over!
Uchiha Ci felt the lightning's grip loosen—
the Lightning Binding Kill seals on the ground flickered and broke as Moroi's chakra wavered in shock.
Ci rolled his shoulders, leapt lightly to the ground, and looked at Moroi with cold indifference.
"The one who's truly won…"
"Is me."
With that, Uchiha Ci's hand clutched the tags on his chest.
A single tug—
and the entire forest would ascend to the heavens with him.
Silence.
The battlefield fell utterly still.
---
Outside the barrier, three figures watched the fight with intense focus.
When Moroi unleashed Flame-Sealing Jutsu, Binding Array, and Lightning Binding Kill, the situation flipped completely.
Hunter and prey had switched places. Uchiha Ci was now trapped, moments from death.
"Ci!"
Elder Uchiha Setsuna gasped, nearly rushing forward to break through the barrier with a grand-scale jutsu.
At this point, Uchiha Ci's worth in Setsuna's eyes had far surpassed what it once was.
A prodigy who mastered the Uchiha-Style Threaded Shuriken Technique beyond his years, who easily learned Dragon Fire Jutsu and Phoenix Sage Fire: Claw Crimson.
And more than that—
He could combine those techniques creatively into combinations that even Setsuna himself found astonishing.
In Setsuna's eyes, Uchiha Ci was no longer the useless boy who couldn't awaken his Sharingan.
He was—
A genius among geniuses!
As one of the clan's top strategists, Uchiha Setsuna understood better than anyone how a Sharingan could be awakened—through emotional trauma and pain.
He could have easily orchestrated such pain to force awakenings.
But that method was artificial, a "pulling up the seedlings" approach—granting power without the mind to handle it. Such Sharingan only became burdens or treasures others would covet.
Uchiha Ci was different.
His talent was enough to bear that power!
In fact, just moments ago, Setsuna had already devised a scenario—so tragic and overdramatic—that it could push Uchiha Ci all the way to awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan, becoming the ultimate "beautiful madman."
But now, the tables had turned!
This newly awakened genius was about to die in a foreign land—
A devastating loss for the Uchiha, and for Setsuna's hawkish faction.
Setsuna bit his lip, eyes flashing with resolve.
He decided to use Izanagi—
To erase one of the Kumo-nin blocking him, shatter the barrier, and rescue Uchiha Ci by force.
"This talent… must not die here!"