25 Minutes, 38 Seconds

The forbidden chamber in the Uchiha Clan Compound was shrouded in silence. Izuna lay on a specially made bed of ice crystals, his fingers bulging with veins as they gouged five furrows into it.

A Chakra pressure from some higher dimension was tearing his sanity apart, and muscle memory drove him to spring up and fight.

"I can still... wield a sword..." The instant Izuna's spine tensed, all the Chakra chains let out a piercing shriek of metal fatigue.

Madara Uchiha drove his Gunbai into the ground with a crash. "Don't waste your Chakra."

His younger brother's contorted face was reflected in his Sharingan. "It's Utsusemi."

Those simple words made his brother's tensed muscles go slack, and he fell back onto the bed.

The moment Chakra tore apart the forbidden chamber's stone door, the clan physicians all saw a figure floating within a halo of light.

Silver hair cascaded like a river of stars, the Tenseigan shimmered with an ageless radiance, and a plain white robe remained utterly still amid the storm of energy.

The staff in her hand shattered the stone door. She lowered her eyes, emanating a suffocating, sacred pressure.

Yin-Yang Release Chakra dripped onto Izuna's wound.

The oldest clan physician suddenly fell to his knees and wept. "This is the legendary power of the Sage of Six Paths made manifest... To think we'd be fortunate enough to witness a miracle!"

Utsusemi's healing technique overturned every principle of medicine.

Without forming a single hand seal, she simply brushed a hand over Izuna's chest, and the gruesome wound vanished like morning mist beneath the sun.

When she touched his tightly shut eyelids, the Yin-Yang Release Chakra surged into turbulence.

Utsusemi's feathery lashes trembled. "The blood-kin mutual devouring curse... has returned."

Beneath her calm voice lay an undercurrent of danger she had left unspoken during the previous treatment.

"It seems the curse I stripped away last time had already taken root deep in your bloodline."

Her iridescent sash danced without a breeze, while vein-like curse markings crept along Izuna's Chakra pathways toward his heart, eating away at them like living things.

"The curse has entered its final stage." Utsusemi's gaze passed between the brothers before finally settling on Madara.

"This is a sacrificial contract. Izuna's life force is flowing back into you through your blood connection."

"Explain!" Madara roared, suddenly pressing a hand to his chest as an unfamiliar burning sensation spread through his Chakra pathways.

Utsusemi seized Madara's wrist. Chakra pierced precisely into his blood vessels, drawing several strands of blood between the two of them.

The threads of blood twisted into a miniature vortex in midair before being swallowed by the contract sigil on Izuna's chest.

"Every moment..." She released his hand. "Your Chakra is consuming Izuna's life."

A frozen silence fell over the forbidden chamber, and the clan physicians all took half a step back.

Their trembling gazes focused on the faint, flickering thread of blood connecting the brothers.

Madara Uchiha pulled open his bloodstained collar, revealing a contract mark over his heart, perfectly symmetrical to the one on Izuna.

"Izuna!" He lunged to the bedside and seized his brother's wrist.

The Chakra Threads between them blazed, and Izuna's Chakra flowed back into Madara along the thread of blood.

"Brother..." Izuna whispered through pale lips. "This is..."

His faint laughter was flecked with blood, yet his empty eye sockets turned unerringly toward Utsusemi. "Our destiny... the Uchiha's..."

Utsusemi stepped between them, rapping the Six Paths Staff sharply against the edge of the bed. "Quiet!"

Threads of Yin-Yang Release light wrapped Izuna's entire body in a glowing cocoon. "Yin-Yang Release can heal his body, but the contract..."

Utsusemi gazed at Madara. "This curse requires a connection between the sacrifice and the one being sacrificed... unless..."

"Explain!" Madara reached for her, but his hand struck an invisible barrier.

He recognized it as the same defense that had protected the brothers from the Fire Style explosion at the training ground last time.

"Unless you entrust Izuna to me and I take him away from this timeline." All warmth left Utsusemi's voice.

He staggered half a step back, the barrier created by the Limitless Cursed Technique separating him from Utsusemi.

A Truth-Seeking Orb pierced the Susanoo skeleton, shattering it into fragments of Chakra.

"Where are you taking him?" A dark, frenzied tide churned in Madara's eyes. His Mangekyō spun backward at an unnatural speed, blood seeping from the corners of his eyes with every revolution.

"Outside time." Utsusemi guided the cocoon of light toward a spatial rift. "My spacetime barrier, the Spacetime Tower. His curse will be temporarily frozen."

The threads of light suddenly accelerated, dragging Izuna's cocoon into the air toward the spatial rift taking shape.

Madara Uchiha's Mangekyō pattern spun wildly as he finally noticed something amiss.

His friend, always so full of emotion, now had nothing but coldness in her eyes.

"The price?" The words he forced out carried the taste of blood.

"Form an alliance with the Senju," Utsusemi said calmly. "Put down the Kunai of hatred. Do you still remember... the ideal Hashirama once confided to me?"

She looked straight into those uncanny Sharingan eyes. "The vow to build a village that children from both clans made by the river."

"Make that ideal a reality! Otherwise..." A brilliant blue light erupted from her Tenseigan, forcing everyone to shield their faces with their sleeves. "I'll take Izuna away this instant, and we'll vanish forever into the river of your time."

The Uchiha clansmen all shuddered and backed away. The oldest clan elder suddenly prostrated himself and cried out, "The dawn of the Uchiha!"

The others came to their senses as if waking from a dream and bowed one after another, the sounds of their prostrations rising and falling.

Countless Sharingan turned toward their clan head, their eyes burning with a reverence they had never known before.

Madara Uchiha's Susanoo armor suddenly broke apart, dissolving into countless purple lights that scattered into the air.

His right knee slammed into the ground. "I agree."

The simple promise brought the flow of Chakra in the forbidden chamber to a halt, and the clansmen erupted in restrained cheers.

A dazzling radiance burst from Utsusemi, engulfing Izuna's cocoon of light completely like a swirling galaxy.

Her fading voice echoed within the barrier. "From this moment on, the Uchiha bloodline..."

Her voice was like moonlight passing through layers of gauze, leaving a meaningful silence before it vanished entirely.

Her figure had already become a blue meteor tearing through the night sky.

She passed through the heavy rain clouds over the Land of Fire, the conical sonic boom spreading through her eardrums with a faint sting.

Using a coordinate on Tobirama's specially made map as an anchor, she cut precisely into the Land of Hot Water, arriving behind a roaring waterfall where few people ever ventured.

The instant her dew-covered boot touched down, the rotting floor groaned beneath her weight.

"Twenty-five minutes, thirty-eight seconds..."

Utsusemi slammed down on one knee in a superhero pose, the dull thud of the impact especially clear in the silence.

A chill shot up her spine, climbing from her tailbone to the back of her neck.

Breaths that seemed to tear at her lungs echoed in her chest, and the cold sweat soaking her back had long since plastered her clothes to her skin.

Nausea churned in her stomach and kept rising, bringing a sour, metallic taste to her throat.

Every step of the carefully choreographed show of force had been like dancing on a knife's edge.

The world-shattering pressure of Six Paths Mode needed a convincing performance behind it.

And psychologically suppressing the entire Uchiha clan had been more like building a tower of blocks on the edge of a cliff.

When the red glow of the Sharingan had finally gone out, one by one, Utsusemi's fingers, hidden inside her sleeve, had pressed the Flying Thunder God Mark on the end of her Kunai's handle into the skin of her palm.

She had needed to suppress the entire Uchiha clan with absolute power, especially their clan head Madara, who could have attacked at any moment.

Their slender bond of friendship had been as fragile as a spider's thread.

All 865 simulations had been for this moment!

As the radiance of Six Paths Mode withdrew, aftershocks rippled through her muscle fibers.

Fortunately, the final result had been a textbook bloodless conquest.

Utsusemi curled up on the mold-spotted floor, her carefully crafted appearance already undone.

The Chakra Cloak peeled away from her body like a receding tide, revealing underclothes soaked by moisture from the clouds.

The white robe symbolizing holiness had fallen away, revealing an ordinary yukata from the hot spring inn.

Her snow-white, sacred-looking silver hair faded back to long black locks, blending into the dust on the floor.

The Tenseigan glimmered with a cold light in the darkness, illuminating the irrepressible smile of victory at the corner of Utsusemi's mouth.

She clearly remembered the crisp sound of Susanoo shattering.

The acute sense of danger as she walked the line between life and death had made even her soul tremble.

Months of rigorous training under the Senju brothers had enabled the visitor from another world, who had almost failed an eight-hundred-meter fitness test, to control the battle with precision.

She was no longer the slow-reacting novice who stood still to cast techniques, but had grown into a warrior skilled at planning ahead.

Although she lacked practical combat experience, that required long-term accumulation and could not be made up for with short-term intensive training.

After all, they had all grown up fighting on battlefields from childhood.

Utsusemi lay on her back on the dusty floor, letting the dust cover her body.

The fire of victory flickered in her eyes. "My first real battle, and I faced Madara Uchiha head-on and fought the entire Uchiha clan."

She smiled, the joy and pride of victory appearing on her face. "Even Hashirama and Tobirama would surely be proud of this unexpected, complete victory."

At their next training session, perhaps she should formally thank Hashirama... and Tobirama, who was always wearing a stern face.

Without their careful guidance, she would not be who she was now.

A victory with no one to witness it seemed a little lonely.

Now she only had to wait a full six hours, just enough to cover the most dangerous part of Six Paths Mode's cooldown.

That also left four minutes and twenty-two seconds as an emergency buffer.

The time limit on Six Paths Mode was like a sword of Damocles hanging over her head.

The Senju brothers truly were her guardian angels. Without them, she would have struggled to survive in this cruel ninja world.

Curl up in the Spacetime Tower and wait for peace to arrive?

No, she was destined to be the player commanding the board of fate, not a beggar kneeling at its feet and pleading for mercy.

In the infirmary where spacetime stood still, Izuna remained in the position he had been frozen in, waiting for fate to restart like an insect in amber.

Itama Senju stood guard in the first-floor hall. This ninja, who had willingly set aside both his personal grudge and the generations-old feud for Utsusemi's sake, was now the final safeguard.

If she lost the battle, the Flying Thunder God Formula sealed in the Kunai inside her sleeve...

Would instantly launch her to the rendezvous point on the border of the Land of Hot Water, after which she could use the cover of night to teleport back to the Spacetime Tower for refuge.

Once the morning light pierced the darkness, the treatment ritual that walked the line between life and death would begin.

The next thing to unravel was the curse entwining Izuna.

Elder brother Utsusemi lay on the dust-covered floor. "Honestly, I'm exhausted."