After a long while, the old man's lips curled into a cold smile. "You're nothing but a pack of people hiding behind the Sharingan! You want us to be your dogs? Dream on!"
Kosuke's gaze turned slightly cold. He had never expected to easily persuade these proud "wolves," wounded by abandonment.
"Then, a trade..." He slowly swept his sharp, blade-like gaze across the wary crowd. "I need one boy and one girl from your clan with the purest bloodline potential."
As he spoke, crimson light suddenly seeped from Kosuke's Mangekyō Sharingan, and he raised a hand to toss out a sealing scroll.
The instant the scroll hit the ground, it unfurled on its own. Amid the swirling dust, piles of food, medicine, and a small number of ninja tools gradually appeared, glaringly conspicuous in the haze.
"In exchange, this will be enough to keep you barely alive in the Ninja World!"
The Hagoromo Clan Leader's face twisted instantly. His fingers clenched around his cane so tightly that their tips turned white, his knuckles nearly bursting through the skin.
The clan members gradually gathering nearby stared as hungrily as wolves eyeing prey. Their scorching gazes passed over the clan's ninja and shifted between the supplies on the ground and their clan leader.
The wind and sand lifted the hems of their tattered clothes, revealing shriveled ribs and cracked skin beneath.
Feeling the yearning and pleading looks cast by his people, the old man painfully closed his eyes, his aged body trembling uncontrollably.
"Could it be... that the Hagoromo Clan has truly fallen this far?"
Suddenly, he snapped his eyes open. Bloodshot veins churned within his clouded pupils, and his voice was dry and hoarse. "...Bring them over."
Before his words had even faded, two sallow, emaciated children with terrified eyes were ruthlessly pushed out of the crowd by their parents. They stumbled and collapsed onto the ground.
The girl used the last bit of strength in her body to hide behind the boy. Her cracked lips and frightened eyes made her look exactly like a startled fawn.
Kosuke nodded expressionlessly and waved for his subordinates to take the two children away.
He did not spare the Hagoromo people another glance. Turning around, he calmly vanished from the Hagoromo Clan Land beneath countless intertwined gazes filled with humiliation, resentment, and a trace of pitiful relief.
"Clan Leader!!" A young ninja cried out, his eyes nearly splitting apart. "You... you're just letting them take away the clan's future hope?!"
At that moment, the one-armed old man's once-upright figure suddenly hunched over, as though his spine had been pulled out.
"What else could we do?!" The captain of the guards abruptly turned around, his bloodshot eyes sweeping over the clan members. "Turn around and look at them! Look at those hands that can't even hold a kunai steady! Pride?! Can pride fill your stomachs?!"
"If it hadn't been for back then..."
The captain of the guards wanted to continue, but a dry cough interrupted him.
"Shut up!!"
The clan leader suddenly let out a beast-like roar, instantly silencing everyone.
His chest heaved violently, while endless pain and self-reproach churned in his clouded eyes.
After a long time, he spoke in an extremely exhausted, hoarse voice, barely maintaining his last shred of authority. "That's enough. Third Brother... count the supplies and distribute them."
He paused in his hunched posture. Every word weighed a thousand pounds. "Tomorrow... we will hold the clan leader selection ceremony..."
After saying that, he straightened his bent back once more and, amid deathly silence, took heavy step after heavy step toward that ruined house.
"Clan Leader!"
"Clan Leader..."
Meanwhile, Kosuke, having left the Hagoromo Clan, appeared within the Land of Water.
He sensed the Kaguya Clan's territory, thick with the stench of seawater and the aura of death.
Unlike the destitute Hagoromo Clan, the Kaguya Clan still retained its bone-chilling ferocity.
Yet a sickly frenzy and a scent of decay faintly drifted through the air—the aura of the Kaguya Clan's unique Bloodline Disease, omnipresent and inescapable.
Kosuke went directly to the outskirts of the Kaguya Clan Land, ignored the guards, and released his powerful Chakra fluctuations.
He knew very well that he could not use the same strategy on the Kaguya Clan as he had on the Hagoromo Clan.
If he wanted to subdue them, he had only one option: defeat the bones they took such pride in!
Boom!
With a deafening blast, the stone walls of the Kaguya Clan Head's residence exploded apart!
Amid flying rubble, a massive figure as huge as a boulder rose instantly within the clearing just inside the clan gates, carrying smoke, dust, and a violent aura.
Kaguya Hōseki!
His half-bared upper body was covered in vicious bone spikes and sickly pale markings.
Irregular bone protrusions bulged beneath his skin, while muscles twisted around his skeleton like vines, brimming with explosive strength.
His bloodshot eyes frantically shifted between madness and brief flashes of clarity, his heavy breathing resembling that of a savage beast.
His exposed muscles and bone spikes quivered restlessly, as though he would choose someone to devour the very next second.
With his chaotic gaze, Hōseki locked tightly onto the abrupt figure beyond the clan gates. A muddled growl came from his throat. "An Uchiha... from the Land of Fire?"
The instant his voice sounded, Kosuke's eyes outside the gates suddenly changed!
An exquisite Mangekyō pattern emerged and spun, scarlet light blazing forth in an instant, clearly illuminating Kaguya Hōseki's jagged body, covered in bone spikes and sickly markings, within its bloody glow.
"Roar—! Uchiha! Intruder! Die!"
At that moment, Kaguya Hōseki's reason was swallowed by the pain and madness brought about by his Bloodline Disease.
He did not need any reason at all. He suddenly threw back his head and roared.
His entire body shot toward Kosuke like a cannonball.
In the blink of an eye, his right arm mutated. A ghastly white bone blade tore through the air with a terrifying howl, chopping straight toward Kosuke's face!
The battle erupted in an instant, its brutality and savagery far surpassing any of Kosuke's past clashes with the Senju.
Kaguya Hōseki had completely abandoned defense. Every strike was an attempt to trade injury for life.
Bone blades, bone spikes, and bone bullets poured down upon Kosuke like a torrential storm, turning the clan gates into a battlefield of carnage in moments.
Relying on the insight of his Mangekyō Sharingan and his exquisite Body Flicker Technique, Kosuke darted and weaved through the storm of bone blades, his fingers flashing through hand seals. "Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!"
Scorching Chakra rapidly formed in his chest, then burst from his mouth as a roaring sea of flames that swallowed Hōseki's enraged figure.
Whoosh~
The flames were brutally torn apart. At some point, Hōseki's entire body had been covered in a grim white bone armor.
Only a pair of eyes, reddened by the firestorm, remained fixed upon Kosuke as he let out a chilling laugh.
"Roar! The Clan Head is mighty!"
"Go! Kill that Uchiha!"
The sudden shouts wildly stimulated Hōseki's already excited nerves.
"Hahaha! Uchiha! Die!"
With an excited expression, Hōseki charged fearlessly at Kosuke once more.
"Kaguya! Let me see just how hard your bones really are! Hahahaha..."
Hōseki's charging figure reflected within Kosuke's rapidly spinning Mangekyō as an exaggerated grin spread across his lips.
"Susanoo!"
Before you continue