Chapter 338: Enter If You Dare! The Heavenly Imperial Space
Uchiha Akira's footsteps ceased.
The quiet night air shattered. Three sharp, concussive blasts echoed down the empty street, followed instantly by thick plumes of white smoke billowing across the cobblestones.
The swirling haze parted. Three figures stepped forward, shedding the last remnants of their Transformation Jutsu to reveal their true, unmistakable forms.
The First Hokage, Senju Hashirama.
The Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama.
And standing beside them, the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Akira's crimson eyes swept over the trio, his expression utterly devoid of surprise.
"What, back again?" he drawled, the words dripping with dry amusement.
He did not bother waiting for a response. A knowing sneer curled the corner of his mouth as he brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve.
"No need to guess. Only Orochimaru would bother digging you old fossils out of your coffins. There is simply no one else pathetic enough to try." His gaze sharpened, locking onto the cracked, ash-like skin of the reanimated dead. "It seems the last lesson I taught him was not deep enough."
"Uchiha Akira!"
A hoarse, suppressed roar ripped from Hiruzen Sarutobi's throat.
The old man's chest heaved violently beneath his battle armor, his dark eyes burning with absolute venom as they fixed upon the young man standing before them.
It was him. This arrogant Uchiha brat.
He had taken everything. The prestigious mantle of Hokage. The legacy of his reign. Even his very face carved into the Hokage Rock had been mercilessly blasted away into dust. Worse still, his bloodline, the proud Sarutobi Clan, had been ruthlessly uprooted and slaughtered under Akira's command.
Overwhelming hatred boiled over in Hiruzen's chest, twisting his aged features into a mask of pure fury.
"You usurper!" Hiruzen spat, pointing a trembling finger at the current ruler of the village. "You annihilated my Sarutobi Clan! You slaughtered the Shimura and the Utatane! You have thrown the entire village into absolute chaos!"
Hiruzen took a step forward, his voice cracking with raw emotion.
"How do you still have the face to stand here? You destroyed Konoha! You trampled over everything that First-sama, Second-sama, and I painstakingly built! You are Konoha's greatest sinner!"
Facing this blistering barrage of accusations, Akira remained utterly unmoved. His posture was relaxed, his hands resting casually at his sides as though he were watching a particularly clumsy performance by a street clown.
"Are you quite finished?" Akira asked, his voice dangerously quiet. "Hiruzen, have you finally gone senile in death? Sinner?"
Akira scoffed, a dark, mocking laugh escaping his lips.
"Before I took over, what exactly was Konoha? Do you truly not know, or are you just lying to yourself?" He took a slow, deliberate step forward, the sheer weight of his presence pressing down on the street. "Internal rot and external threats. A corrupt, decaying leadership hoarding power while other hidden villages eyed our borders like starving wolves! Your so-called strongest ninja village was nothing but a fragile illusion of prosperity, conjured up by you and your pathetic cronies to hide your own incompetence!"
Akira's voice suddenly cracked like a whip, echoing off the surrounding buildings.
"Open your dog eyes and look around you! Today's Konoha has annexed Kirigakure! We have utterly annihilated Sunagakure! Our territory is vast, far surpassing the borders held by any previous generation!"
He closed the distance by another step, looking down his nose at Hiruzen's ashen face.
"The military might of our shinobi and the prosperity of the common people have reached an unmatched peak. The Konoha under my absolute rule is the strongest iteration of this village in the entire history of the shinobi world. We stand alone at the absolute pinnacle!"
Akira sneered, his crimson eyes flashing with cold contempt.
"And you, Hiruzen... the Konoha under your pathetic reign was nothing but a hollow shell. Strong on the outside, rotting from the inside out. How dare a useless, cowardly failure like you presume to lecture me on how to govern?"
The blood rushed to Hiruzen's head, his face flushing a dark, angry red beneath the cracks of his reanimated skin. He opened his mouth to shout, but another voice cut him off.
"Evil Uchiha!"
A cold, commanding roar shattered the tension. Senju Tobirama could no longer stand by and listen.
A chilling, suffocating wave of killing intent erupted from the Second Hokage's body, so dense that the ambient temperature in the street plummeted instantly. Frost began to edge the cobblestones beneath his feet.
"Sharp-tongued brat!" Tobirama snarled, his crimson eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "No matter how eloquently you twist your words, you cannot change the fundamental truth. You are a tyrannical dictator who has dragged Konoha straight into the bloody abyss of war!"
Hearing this, Akira slowly shifted his gaze from the trembling Hiruzen to the furious visage of Senju Tobirama.
He looked the Second Hokage up and down, his eyes sweeping over the blue armor and the white fur collar with agonizing slowness.
Then, Akira smiled. It was a cold, razor-sharp expression.
"A defeated foe dares to speak of bravery?"
Those simple words hung in the freezing air.
In an instant, they completely shattered Tobirama's ironclad composure.
A defeated foe. This arrogant Uchiha brat actually dared to call him a defeated foe to his face.
Memories flashed through the Second Hokage's mind. The last time he had been dragged back to the world of the living, summoned by Hiruzen using an incomplete Edo Tensei, his immense strength had been severely restricted. Bound by those limitations, he had been utterly crushed by the very man standing before him. It was a stain on his pride, an unbearable humiliation for the legendary creator of the reanimation jutsu.
"Brat..." Tobirama hissed, the water vapor in the air beginning to condense around him. "You are asking for death!"
Terrifying chakra pressure surged from Tobirama's body, cracking the ground beneath his boots. His figure blurred, his muscles tensing as he prepared to launch himself forward.
"Tobirama! Stop!"
A broad, heavy palm slammed down firmly onto Tobirama's shoulder, anchoring him in place.
"Elder Brother! Let go of me! I am going to kill this arrogant brat right now!" Tobirama roared, struggling against the iron grip.
"Calm down!" Senju Hashirama commanded, his voice low and vibrating with an authority that brooked no argument.
The First Hokage's usually jovial expression was entirely gone, replaced by a deep, unyielding seriousness. He turned his deep gaze toward Akira, a flicker of complex emotion passing through his dark eyes.
The God of Shinobi could sense it. The young man standing casually before them possessed a terrifying, fathomless strength. It was a suffocating aura of power, so vast that even Hashirama himself felt a distinct, heavy pressure weighing against his chest.
"Young man," Hashirama began, his tone measured and calm. "I only wish to ask you one thing. My granddaughter, Tsunade... what is her situation now?"
Akira looked at the legendary founder of the village. Out of a faint sliver of respect for the man's sheer strength, the mocking sneer faded from his lips.
"She is doing very well," Akira answered, his tone shifting to a matter-of-fact calm. "Sometime ago, I personally sought her out and invited her back to the village. Right now, she serves as the head of Konoha's Medical Department. The entire medical infrastructure of the village operates under her direct management, running flawlessly and saving countless lives."
Tsunade had actually returned? And she was leading the Medical Department under this Uchiha's regime?
Hearing this, the heavy tension radiating from Hashirama vanished in an instant. His stern face broke into a massive, blindingly bright smile of pure relief.
"Oh, ho! Is that so! That is truly wonderful news!" Hashirama laughed, his shoulders dropping as he let out a joyful sigh. "Thank you for looking after my little Tsuna, and for helping her finally find her true calling again!"
Watching Hashirama completely drop his guard and thank the enemy, Hiruzen felt a wave of absolute dizziness wash over him. He swayed slightly on his feet.
It was over. In just a few sentences, the First Hokage had already been completely won over by this silver-tongued devil.
Akira ignored the Third Hokage's despairing expression and glanced casually at the dark windows of the surrounding houses.
"This is not the place to talk," Akira stated, his voice cutting through the night breeze. "The citizens of my village are resting. Whether you three wish to fight or talk, we will not do it here."
He raised his chin, his crimson eyes glowing with a dangerous challenge.
"If you have the guts, follow me."
As the last syllable left his mouth, the very fabric of reality beside him warped and tore. A pitch-black spatial rift ripped open out of thin air, its jagged edges humming with terrifying, otherworldly chakra.
"Dare to come?"
Akira threw the taunt over his shoulder. Without the slightest hesitation, he stepped directly into the gaping void, his tall figure instantly swallowed by the darkness.
The spatial rift remained open behind him, suspended quietly above the cobblestones like a gaping maw waiting for its prey.
Hiruzen stared at the swirling black void, his undead heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Could it be a trap? A specialized sealing dimension designed to trap reanimated shinobi? Should he risk following, or command a tactical retreat to regroup with Orochimaru?
Hashirama studied the rift for a long moment before exchanging a quiet glance with his brother and his former student. He let out a long, heavy sigh that seemed to carry the weight of decades.
"Let us go," Hashirama said simply.
With that, the God of Shinobi took the lead, his heavy armor clinking as he strode resolutely into the spatial rift, disappearing into the dark.
Tobirama let out a sharp, cold snort. Utterly devoid of fear, the Second Hokage marched forward, his blue armor vanishing into the void right behind his brother.
Finally, only Hiruzen remained alone on the empty street.
He stared into the deep, churning darkness of the rift, a fierce struggle warring in his dark eyes. Caution screamed at him to flee, to find another way. But the memory of his slaughtered clan, his ruined legacy, and the sheer, burning hatred in his chest ultimately won out.
Gritting his teeth, Hiruzen stepped forward and plunged into the abyss.
The moment the Third Hokage's figure completely vanished, the jagged edges of the dark spatial rift folded inward, sealing shut with a soft, echoing hum.
The street returned to absolute, undisturbed quiet.
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