At this moment, Uzushio Village had been swallowed by the dim night.
The blood mist surging up in the distance had turned even the moon scarlet.
Many of those who looked up instinctively took half a step back. Noise and unease rose swiftly like boiling water.
However, several Ninja leaped out to control the scene, preventing any riots or stampedes.
"What's going on?"
"Did the power go out?"
"Why did it have to happen today?!"
"Could enemies have invaded?"
The moment those words were spoken, silence fell around the speaker.
Disbelieving shock appeared on the faces of those illuminated by moonlight, followed by a massive commotion that even the Uzumaki Ninja found difficult to control.
Darkness was like a surging tide, roaring as it washed over the entire street.
Many people stared at each other, their faces filled with panic and helplessness, as if they could hear one another's thunderous heartbeats and rapid breaths.
They did not know what had happened, but they could sense that something terrifying was quietly unfolding.
"What's going on?"
Uzumaki Yoake suddenly crouched low, gripping his daughter Yoriko's small hand tightly, his expression turning exceptionally grim.
The street fell deathly silent. Nothing could be seen, and nothing could be heard.
"All Ninja, organize the villagers and head toward..." Yoake shouted, just about to say something.
Then, in the next instant, he felt a deep chill. He instinctively raised his head and looked toward the profound night sky.
"It's here." Nagato's tone was calm, as though he had expected it all along.
"Ahahahaha!"
The first thing to break the dead silence was an exceptionally piercing laugh, sharp like an infant's cry.
Then, beneath the faint moonlight, two figures fell from the sky with an incomparably heavy impact, like hammers smashing viciously into everyone's hearts.
"Everyone, it's time to clear the field, ahahahaha!"
As the grating laughter rang out, Yoake's pupils abruptly contracted, reflecting that azure light!
The azure radiance rising among the crowd reminded them of the dawn sun rising over the coastline.
The morning sun could dye half the sea and sky, and it could illuminate every face here, making the eyes of all who witnessed it ache.
No, that was not the "morning sun."
"Run!!" Uzumaki Yoake let out an incomparably shrill roar.
In the next moment, that light bloomed to its utmost brilliance, like a newborn sun in the darkness.
But what it scattered was not sunlight.
It was lightning!!
"Lightning Release..." At the very center of the azure radiance, Raiga Kurosuki raised the Lightning Blade: Kiba, his tone indifferent. "Lightning Burial!!"
An azure pillar of light that pierced the heavens descended from the night sky.
On the ground, it rapidly formed an irregular sphere.
If the lightning in the sky was a fleeting branch, then this was the giant tree that grew after lightning struck the earth.
Boom!!!
The pillar's final streak of white light blazed brilliantly, nearly illuminating all of Uzushio Village and more than half the pitch-black sky.
"Cough, cough! Cough!!"
Uzumaki Yoake looked stunned. Though his consciousness had returned, his ears were still ringing.
"Hey! Hey! Wake up!"
The shouts beside him seemed to draw closer from afar, and his senses gradually began to return.
Soon, a numbness spread throughout his body, accompanied by waves of pain in his head. Then thick black smoke and the stench of sulfur flooded Uzumaki Yoake's nostrils all at once.
There was even a strange scent of flesh.
That nauseating smell made his face turn pale, and he could not help retching.
"Bleurgh!! Cough, cough!"
With tears and snot streaming down his face, Yoake lay sprawled on the ground as his vision gradually returned. The white static before his eyes slowly became a hazy orange-red.
"What... happened..." Yoake's expression twisted as he reached up to support his throbbing head.
When he opened his dry eyes and blankly looked up, he was completely dumbfounded.
Firelight—firelight soaring into the heavens.
Scorched earth—scorched earth as far as the eye could see.
Before him lay nothing but desolation, thick white smoke, and charred ground.
"Awake now? Do you need me to slap you again?"
At that moment, a cold yet childish voice sounded beside him.
Yoake instinctively turned toward it, only to see that blindfolded brat looking at him, with his daughter Yoriko still in his arms.
"Yoriko!"
His eyes widened at once. He braced himself against the ground and half-crawled up, but the dizziness made him fall again. No matter how hard he tried, he could not stand.
Only when Nagato reached out and supported his arm did he avoid collapsing to the ground.
"Before the attack came down, you shielded your daughter with your body. She only suffered a few scrapes."
Nagato turned to look into the distance, his tone complicated as he said softly, "If someone hadn't blocked that ninjutsu..."
By then, Yoake's muddled mind had cleared, and he recalled that horrifying Lightning Release ninjutsu.
"The... villagers..."
His face deathly pale, he looked toward the center of the explosion as the dust cleared, seeing a huge crater amid the ruins and scorched earth.
More than a hundred meters beyond the crater's center lay dozens of charred figures, their fates unknown.
Under the light of the burning flames, four scorched corpses still stood within that square-shaped pit.
They maintained the final movements from before their deaths, their hands forming the Tiger seal.
"That seal... the Four Violet Flames Formation."
Staring at the four charred corpses whose faces could no longer be distinguished, Yoake's voice was hoarse like a broken bellows. "They used the Four Violet Flames Formation to protect the other villagers, at the cost of their own lives."
The Four Violet Flames Formation was a barrier ninjutsu that required four people to activate together, and its final seal was the Tiger seal.
That Lightning Release ninjutsu had only taken a few seconds to prepare. In other words, those four Ninja had not hesitated in the slightest...
"I take back what I said." Nagato suddenly spoke. After pausing, he continued, "Being immersed in false peace is disappointing, but the will to protect one's companions shines brightly enough."
These so-called "relatives" still had something he could acknowledge.
At that moment, Nagato's expression suddenly tightened.
Two figures slowly emerged from the cloud of dust.
"My, my, how disappointing."
Munashi Jinpachi bared his sharp teeth in a grin, then looked toward Raiga Kurosuki and let out a cruel, strange laugh. "Your strongest move was actually blocked."
Raiga Kurosuki, holding a Lightning Blade in each hand, ignored him. He merely looked regretfully at the four scorched corpses still standing and sighed, "Of the countless funerals I have held, this is the one that has moved me most."
Seeing that he was being ignored, Munashi Jinpachi snorted coldly and looked toward Uzumaki Yoake, who was leaning against a wall in the distance.
"Hm?"
Munashi Jinpachi blinked, puzzled. "Weren't there two people over there just now?"
As his words fell, he suddenly heard a faint buzzing sound.
In the next instant, that small figure silently appeared behind him.
Five pale, rough fingers gripped a short blade, stabbing fiercely toward Munashi Jinpachi's neck.
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