The mist permeating the battlefield was dispersed by a sudden gale.
"Morning Peacock!"
Might Dai swung his arms at high speed, his fists creating flames through friction with the air, while shockwaves and fire danced across the sky like a peacock spreading its tail.
Under this magnificent scenery, a cold killing intent was revealed. Jinin Akebino flew through the air like a tattered sack, fire raining down on him. Explosions rang out as the water mist instantly evaporated, yet he didn't make a sound.
The blunt sword slipped from his hands and slammed into the ground. The charred Jinin Akebino fell at Fuguki Suikazan's feet, dead.
The blue steam around Dai's body dissipated. He staggered, his skin cracking in large areas as blood flowed uncontrollably.
Shisui used Body Flicker to reach Dai's side, helping him sit down slowly.
Shisui was filled with respect for the ninja in his arms, his movements becoming increasingly gentle.
He had witnessed Dai's Taijutsu firsthand; that Morning Peacock was incredibly powerful. Shisui asked himself if there was a better way to defend against it; when speed reached a certain level, even a three-tomoe Sharingan couldn't keep up.
Not everyone could endure being unknown and self-disciplined, only to unleash it all in a single moment to protect those precious to them. Dai had earned Shisui's respect with his strength and conviction.
"Dad, how are you?" Genma and the other two appeared from somewhere.
Guy looked at his father in horror. After opening the seventh gate, Dai seemed to have aged a dozen years in an instant, covered in blood and breathing weakly. It was terrifying.
"I'm fine, Guy... A man shouldn't... cough, cough... cry." Dai struggled to look up and flashed a toothy grin at Guy.
"Dad!!!"
The scene of father-son devotion didn't distract Makiya. He clapped his hands and spat out another sea of fire.
Fuguki Suikazan: "..."
Damn kid, how much chakra does he have?
With insufficient chakra for a large-scale Water Style, Fuguki Suikazan gripped Samehada, its spiked hilt glowing with blue light.
As the sea of fire approached, he swung Samehada, carving a gap through the flames. Fuguki Suikazan's dark chestnut hair curled from the heat, and his eyes turned bloodshot.
In a daze, he seemed to see two red lights rising from behind the sea of fire.
The tomoe in Makiya's eyes spun as he extended his left hand to manipulate the flames.
The sea of fire that Samehada had sliced open suddenly sprouted countless tentacles, wrapping around Fuguki Suikazan's limbs from all directions. Intense heat and pain flooded his brain, and a miserable scream echoed within the flames.
Samehada received the same treatment. It could devour chakra and even bite through a Tailed Beast Ball, but it couldn't absorb fire that had undergone nature transformation.
Its deep blue spikes turned crimson, looking like a boiled crab. The fire tentacles curled around Samehada, wrenching it from the hand that had held it so tightly, and tossed it into the lava.
Fuguki Suikazan's head drooped, his spirit flagging. Suddenly, a surge of chakra mysteriously welled up within him.
"Samehada, is that you?"
Fuguki Suikazan struggled to move his hands. The fire scorched his body, but the pain seemed to have passed a threshold, triggering a protective mechanism in his brain. Seizing the moment, he formed hand signs as his chestnut hair shot outward like steel needles.
"Ninja Art: Needle Senbon."
The fire tentacles suddenly vanished, and the sea of flames dissipated without its source. The heavily injured Fuguki Suikazan struggled to look up, his grin widening.
That Uchiha Makiya had actually been pinned to the ground by his hair. He was dead!
He had only intended to distract the kid to find an opening to escape, but he hadn't expected the brat to be so unlucky as to be killed through the fire in a single hit!
Samehada couldn't wait to pounce on the boy, devouring his chakra. As streams of pure chakra flowed back to him, Fuguki Suikazan gradually recovered his strength.
Shisui of the Body Flicker was nothing special either. Samehada easily drained his chakra, and Fuguki Suikazan cut him down with a few swings. As for Dai and the three Genin, they were dealt with with a casual slash.
Having dealt with the enemies, Fuguki Suikazan gathered the scattered ninja swords, packed them hurriedly, and left. The commotion of the battle was too great; his current state was far from safe.
After a brief rest, he found the way back to the main camp. He didn't dare stop, running at full speed. He didn't even remember what he encountered on the road; by the time he came to his senses, he was back at the base.
Fuguki Suikazan felt strangely irritable. He wandered around the base's hidden outposts but still felt uneasy. He pulled out the map and personnel list he had seen before and looked at them repeatedly until he felt more at ease.
The war continued. Konoha, having lost two great generals, launched a retaliation but was wiped out by the forces he led. He became a hero of the Mist, his name spreading throughout the ninja world. He returned to the village in glory, personally reconstructed the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, became the Mizukage, and married three hundred beauties. The Mizukage building was filled with women, but when he turned around, he found they all had fat faces exactly like his own.
"Nani?!"
Fuguki Suikazan cried out in alarm. The scene before him blurred as lights and shadows shifted. He was back on that battlefield, the air filled with scorching currents, and the people who should have been dead were standing alive before him.
He was kneeling on cooled lava, his limbs tightly bound by steel wires. Samehada was nowhere to be seen.
"Did you get it all down?" Makiya turned to ask Ebisu.
"I got it." Ebisu was writing furiously, the scroll covered in dense text.
"All of this... was an illusion?" Fuguki Suikazan took a long time to recover his senses, his voice dry and his tone disbelieving.
"Of course." Makiya crossed his arms, his tone indifferent. "Since when were you under the impression that I wasn't using Genjutsu?"
Fuguki Suikazan: "..."
Makiya was acting like a badass. His eyes were actually dry and uncomfortable, and he really wanted some eye drops, but with a crowd watching, he couldn't lose face, even if he didn't have Aizen's charisma.
In truth, the Genjutsu could have stopped once the base's personnel list was revealed. Afterward, Makiya had just been playing around; since the battle was settled, he wanted to test his limits.
After learning Genjutsu from Shisui, he hadn't had a chance to practice it.
Only after trying did he realize that fast-forwarding time in an illusion consumed a lot of ocular power. The life he arranged for Fuguki Suikazan afterward was a series of skips, like a stage play with scenes performing in turns.
"Shisui, the Genjutsu you taught is truly amazing."
Shisui shook his head. "It's because you learned it well. I couldn't maintain a deceptive illusion for that long. Your ocular power is incredible!"
Comparison was truly frustrating. Makiya had massive chakra, so how did he have so much ocular power too?
Shisui suddenly felt a sense of defeat. Even a genius like him, when encountering someone even more gifted, realized there was always someone better.
Fuguki Suikazan was in a daze, gritting his teeth as he accepted the situation. His expression shifted, and he suddenly began to kowtow to Makiya and the others, curling his body into a standard dogeza. Unfortunately, his belly was too big, preventing him from leaning all the way down.
"I surrender! I surrender! Please don't kill me!"
His humble tone formed a sharp contrast with his hulking physique. "I know a lot of information, important village secrets! I still have value!"
A cold blade flashed, and his large head flew into the sky, a look of bewilderment frozen on his face as blood erupted from the stump.
The headless corpse fell. Makiya pried open Fuguki Suikazan's right hand to find a signal flare hidden in his severely burned palm.
Makiya turned to Shisui and Genma's team. "Let's split up and find the swords. Seal them immediately once found. The summoning contracts for these blades are controlled by the Mist. Once they realize the Seven Ninja Swordsmen are dead, they'll try to summon them back."
"Okay."
"Don't worry, I'm good at finding things!"
The group immediately moved out. Dai tried to get up to help, but Makiya held him down. "Uncle Dai, just rest."
With that, Makiya created a shadow clone to treat Dai's body while his main body began searching based on his memory.
Perhaps keeping Fuguki Suikazan for an intelligence trade would have been more profitable; after all, he was a refined egoist who would do anything to survive.
But Makiya didn't trust enemies. He only trusted information he interrogated himself. Working with someone so unscrupulous meant being sold out the moment it was convenient. It was easier to just kill him.
After half an hour of cleaning the battlefield, the group finally gathered all seven blades. Unfortunately, the swords had sustained various degrees of damage; the worst was the Executioner's Blade, which was left with only a handle.
After sealing the swords and bodies one by one, the group immediately set off back to headquarters.
On the way, Makiya's thoughts began to wander.
It was common knowledge that the Executioner's Blade could absorb iron from blood to repair itself, even if only the handle remained.
The question was: if you threw three pieces of the Executioner's Blade into a blood pool, would three blades grow back?
While Makiya was traveling, the plain battlefield welcomed groups of visitors: Mist ninjas, Konoha ninjas, and even rogue ninjas and samurai employed by nearby nobles.
Wave after wave of people climbed the mountains and looked down at the dark brown plain, lost in thought.
"This place... was originally a forest, right?"
"What on earth happened?"
"..."
A team of Konoha ninjas happened to encounter a team of Mist ninjas. Seeing their enemies, their eyes turned red with hatred, and the slaughter erupted once more.
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