Send Those Pitiful Souls to Hell (Please Keep Reading! Please Vote with Monthly Tickets!!)

"No, wait, why?"

Tetsuya Uzumaki looked at the Clan Elders, his voice dry and hesitant. "If we stay here, we'll die. We really will die!"

"I know. But we will not run!"

Killing intent flashed through the Great Clan Elder's clouded eyes, and a cold smile appeared on his face. His voice was hoarse and low. "Even if we are destined to perish, we must make those bastards pay in blood!"

"So you know this is certain death too?" Tetsuya said softly. "You insist on staying here and dying together?"

Perhaps these Clan Elders had once been Ninja, but they had long since stepped behind the scenes and become the rulers of a nation.

They had probably forgotten how many years it had been since they had last fought.

Even if these frail old men got fired up, grabbed their canes, and fought the enemy to the death, the most likely outcome was that they would simply become more sacrifices.

"No. It isn't dying together."

One Clan Elder shook his head, rejecting Tetsuya's words. Looking at the other Ninja, he smiled. "It is us old men who will stay behind and use these old lives of ours to cover the safe evacuation of the young."

"How can that be..." The Uzumaki Ninja present changed expressions at those words. Just as they were about to speak, another Clan Elder interrupted them.

"Although those bastards in Konoha have now betrayed us, I still acknowledge the Will of Fire that Hashirama Senju once spoke of."

The Clan Elder with the gentler, more rational temperament said, "These old bones of ours do not have much time left. But we have not decayed so far that we need the young to cover our retreat and bring up the rear."

"We cannot let our students and