Fugaku's Battle

"Blue flames?"

Kazama Sousuke stared at the terrifying pillar of fire that had instantly vaporized his five elite puppets. The contempt in his eyes had vanished completely, replaced by a cold, snake-like wariness.

As a renowned elite jonin of Sunagakure and Grandma Chiyo's prized disciple, he had seen countless fire release experts.

But a fire technique hot enough to instantly melt specially-made Chakra Conductive Metal was rare—very rare.

"The Uchiha Clan really are troublesome."

Kazama Sousuke jerked one hand, and the massive scroll on his back unfurled once more.

"Secret Technique: Machine Light Shield Seal!"

Just as the blue fire pillar was about to engulf his body, a pale blue light shield condensed from chakra burst forth from the mouth of a humanoid puppet in front of him.

"Sssssss—!!!"

The searing heat and chakra shield clashed violently. Though the blue flames had immense penetrating power, under the elite jonin's unreserved chakra output, the fire pillar was finally deflected, grazing past Kazama Sousuke's left ear and blasting a boulder behind him into molten magma.

"That was close."

Kazama Sousuke touched his singed sideburn, his expression twisting into a vicious snarl.

"To amplify a C-rank technique to this level, you can be proud of yourself, Uchiha brat."

"But the gap between us isn't something a bit of fire release can bridge!"

"Puppet Technique: Thousand-Armed Manipulation!"

With his fingers dancing wildly, the remaining twenty-odd puppets came to life.

They were no longer stiff wooden dolls but had transformed into a well-coordinated army.

Some puppets opened their mouths to spew purple poison mist, others extended arms firing poisoned senbon needles, and more insidiously, a few short puppets burrowed underground, attempting a sneak attack from below.

"Hyuga Hiroshi!" Uchiha Fugaku barked.

The jonin Hyuga Hiroshi displayed strength befitting his rank.

He thrust both palms outward, the veins around his Byakugan nearly bursting.

"Eight Trigrams: Vacuum Palm!"

Several invisible chakra shockwaves struck the ground with precision, shattering the earth-type puppets attempting the ambush into fragments.

"Underground is clear! But there's high-concentration neurotoxin in the air—the poison mist is spreading!" Hyuga Hiroshi shouted a warning, his body flickering as he used Gentle Fist to instantly kill two Sunagakure chunin trying to flank Kazama Sousuke's guards.

Though the Hyuga and Uchiha didn't get along, and he wasn't happy about Uchiha Fugaku being captain, this was a battlefield. They could settle scores back in the village, but scheming against each other in combat was a fatal mistake.

"Poison, huh."

Uchiha Fugaku held his breath, weaving through the dense rain of senbon at high speed.

He pushed his Sharingan's dynamic vision to its limit. The barely visible poisoned needles seemed to move in slow motion to his eyes.

"Clang, clang, clang!"

His short blade traced afterimages, deflecting every attack that came close.

But Kazama Sousuke was an elite jonin. His assault was relentless, never giving Fugaku a chance to form hand seals.

"What's wrong, Uchiha brat? All you can do is dodge?"

Kazama Sousuke grinned savagely, his fingers twitching slightly.

"Zing—"

An extremely faint sound of something cutting through the air.

It wasn't an ordinary chakra thread. It was a cutting wire laced with special metal filaments, nearly invisible in the rainy night.

Uchiha Fugaku's instincts screamed a warning. He jerked his head back on reflex.

"Slash!"

A gash instantly appeared on his cheek, so deep it nearly reached the bone. If he had been even 0.1 seconds slower, half his head would have been sliced off.

"Tch, dodged it?" Kazama Sousuke licked his lips in disappointment. "Next one's your neck."

"Captain Fugaku!"

In the distance, Namikaze Minato had just finished off a few small fry. Seeing the situation, he tried to move in for support, but two defensive puppets summoned by Kazama Sousuke locked him down tightly.

"Don't come over!"

Uchiha Fugaku wiped the blood from his face. The crimson liquid streamed down his cheek, making his Three Tomoe Sharingan look even more eerie and savage.

The pride of the Uchiha would not allow him to be suppressed in front of his subordinates.

"Just a puppet-monger."

Uchiha Fugaku's chakra suddenly surged. The cold, violent chakra even distorted the rain around him.

"Nishikawa Tetsu said that invisible threads are still physical objects."

Uchiha Fugaku abruptly closed one eye, locking onto Kazama Sousuke with only a single eye. Instead of forming hand seals, he held his short blade horizontally in front of him.

"Are you finally giving up resistance?" Kazama Sousuke sneered, manipulating all his puppet threads into a death net that closed in on Fugaku.

"Then die!"

In that instant.

Uchiha Fugaku's eyes snapped open, his Three Tomoe spinning wildly as if trying to merge into a single shape within his crimson pupils.

"Genjutsu: Binding Stake Technique!"

Though not on the level of the Mangekyo's Tsukuyomi, this was a genjutsu capable of halting a tailed beast for a single moment—a technique of the Uchiha Clan.

Kazama Sousuke's dancing fingers froze abruptly.

In his mental world, countless massive stakes materialized out of thin air, driving deep into his limbs and torso, locking him in place.

"Genjutsu? Using genjutsu on me, a puppeteer?"

Kazama Sousuke was, after all, an elite jonin with formidable mental strength.

He stiffened for less than a second before breaking free of the genjutsu through sheer willpower and a sharp bite to his tongue.

"How naive! That little time won't let you—"

Yet when his consciousness snapped back to reality, what he saw was a sight that made his guts twist in terror.

That single second of paralysis might have been useless for an ordinary shinobi.

But for Uchiha Fugaku, it was enough.

He didn't choose to form hand seals for a ninjutsu—too close, and the enemy could react.

Instead, he chose the most reckless course of action—

Uchiha Fugaku directly took the high-concentration chakra-infused fire oil Nishikawa Tetsu had given him into his mouth, then spat it in a spray across Kazama Sousuke's dense web of chakra threads.

In the next moment, the short blade scraped violently against the puppet's metal shell, sparking a shower of embers.

"Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique!"

The flames raced along those chakra threads and oil stains, surging upstream at an impossible speed!

"What?!"

Kazama Sousuke watched the blue fire madly crawling along the puppet threads connected to his fingers, and in terror, he tried to sever the chakra lines.

But the oil Nishikawa Tetsu had concocted was highly adhesive—once it latched on, there was no escape.

"Boom!"

The blue flames followed the threads and instantly scorched Kazama Sousuke's ten fingers.

"Aaaaaah! My hands!"

The ten fingers linked to the heart—the searing agony of high-temperature burns tore a wretched scream from the elite jonin.

But he wasn't dead yet. As a veteran of the battlefield, Kazama Sousuke clung to his last shred of viciousness even through the pain.

He jerked his head back and spat a poison needle from his mouth, aiming straight for Fugaku's throat at point-blank range.

"Die with me! Mutual destruction!"

This was his final, desperate counterattack.

If this had been the Fugaku of before, he might have fallen for it.

But now, Fugaku recalled Nishikawa Tetsu's seemingly joking words:

"Senior, your left ribs are a defensive blind spot, but precisely because it's a blind spot, it can sometimes serve as bait."

Uchiha Fugaku made no move to dodge. Instead, he stepped forward, letting the poison needle miss his throat and bury itself deep into his left shoulder.

"Pfft!"

The needle sank into flesh.

But at the same time, Uchiha Fugaku's right hand pressed against Kazama Sousuke's chest.

There, an Explosive Tag was affixed.

A cruel smile curled at the corner of Uchiha Fugaku's mouth, his blood-red eyes brimming with mockery:

"You're the one who dies."

"Detonate."

"Boom!!!"

A dull, heavy explosion.

Kazama Sousuke's chest caved in instantly—his heart and lungs blasted into pulp in that single moment.

His eyes bulged wide. He couldn't even leave a final word before his body crumpled like mud drained of its bones.

Elite jonin, Kazama Sousuke, fallen.

"Huff... huff..."

Uchiha Fugaku staggered back two steps. The numbness spreading from his left shoulder robbed half his body of sensation—that was Sunagakure's poison.

"Captain!"

Namikaze Minato and Hyuga Hiroshi, having finished off the surrounding grunts, arrived in an instant.

"Don't move."

Nishikawa Tetsu leaped in from behind, a dose of antidote in hand, and without a word, plunged it directly into Fugaku's neck.

"This is an Antidote Serum. It can suppress most neurotoxins. Fugaku-senpai, you're ruthless, taking a poison needle with your bare body."

Nishikawa Tetsu stared at the blackened puncture wound on Fugaku's shoulder. His tone was reproachful, but his eyes were full of admiration.

Uchiha Fugaku's face was pale, his Chakra nearly depleted, yet he still forced himself to remain standing. He only cast a cold glance at the corpse at his feet.

"An elite jonin. Nothing special."

He turned his head and surveyed the surroundings.

The river channel was blocked by fallen rocks, the supply ship had sunk, the escort unit was completely wiped out, and even the enemy commander had been slain.

"The mission."

Fugaku's voice was weak, but still firm:

"Complete."

The rain continued to fall, washing away the bloodstains on the ground.

Hyuga Hiroshi looked at Uchiha Fugaku with a complicated expression. He had begun to grasp what the pride of the Uchiha meant, but he could not understand it.