But powers that could normally level a small nation and strike fear into the Shinobi World were like ants trying to topple a tree when faced with the thousand-meter-tall Black Susanoo Armor—no more than a tickle.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Countless Ninjutsu struck the black armor in rapid succession, producing nothing but dull thuds. They couldn't even leave a deeper white mark before dispersing into a sea of chakra.
Black energy swirled around the Susanoo Armor like an invisible barrier, stopping every attack without so much as a ripple.
Despair gradually crept across the ninjas' faces. Their arms ached and trembled from making Hand Seals nonstop, and they had already spent most of their chakra. Yet the colossal figure before them remained utterly still, like an immovable sacred mountain.
As Sarutobi Hiruzen stared up in horror, Uchiha Genki controlled the world-destroying Susanoo Armor and ignored the barrage of attacks around him. He strode toward the heart of Konoha, step by step, before finally stopping above the Sarutobi Clan's compound.
The land that had carried on the Sarutobi Clan's legacy for generations now shuddered violently beneath the Susanoo Armor's arrival. Roof tiles rained down, and fine cracks spread across the ground.
The next moment, a cruel smile flashed in Genki's eyes as he slowly raised the Eight-Handled Sword in the Susanoo Armor's hand.
The long blade sliced through the night with unstoppable force, crashing down on the Sarutobi Clan members fleeing in panic below!
"No!!" Sarutobi Hiruzen let out a despairing roar, but he couldn't reach them in time.
"Shhk—!!"
The piercing sound of flesh tearing rang out across the land once more. Hundreds of Sarutobi Clan members, young and old, men and women alike, were cut down by that single strike.
Blood gushed like a waterfall, staining the compound's stone tiles red. Severed limbs littered the ground, and the once-peaceful compound became a living hell.
Shrill screams and desperate cries mingled together, plunging every Sarutobi Clan member present into utter terror.
Then, as Sarutobi Hiruzen watched in absolute fury, the Susanoo Armor's enormous hand reached into the crowd with the precision of a pickpocket. Ignoring the ninjas trying to stop it, it reached straight for them.
A terrified child's cry rang out as a little boy in an orange jacket, with his unmistakable hairstyle, was seized in the giant hand and lifted into the air.
"Konohamaru! No!" The moment Sarutobi Hiruzen recognized the child, it felt as if an invisible hand had clamped around his heart. His blood ran cold.
Heedless of his frail, aged body, he stumbled toward the Susanoo Armor. His hoarse voice rang with heart-rending despair and pleading as he roared, "Uchiha Genki! Stop this! This is all my fault! I failed to stop it! If you want someone, come for me! Don't hurt Konohamaru!"
The child in its grasp was none other than his precious grandson—Sarutobi Konohamaru!
"Hahahahaha!!" Uchiha Genki's frenzied laughter rang out from above, filled with vengeful glee and twisted excitement. "So you can feel fear after all, Sarutobi Hiruzen! So even you, the lofty Third, can know such despair! Hahahahaha!!"
He raised the Susanoo Armor's giant hand slowly, bringing Konohamaru closer. His blood-red eyes fixed on Sarutobi Hiruzen, who struggled wildly below, and his hoarse voice rang out with a force that pierced the heart. "Your family matters to you... but mine didn't matter to me?!
"All you can do is watch as your grandson is about to be tortured to death before your eyes. But what about me? I killed the mother and sister I wanted most to protect with my own hands! I should've died long ago!"
"But I can't die!" His voice rose sharply, filled with a resolve to destroy everything. "I'll destroy the entire Shinobi World! I'll make every Shinobi World across every parallel universe disappear completely! At the end of the world, I'll go and be with my family! No one can stop me!"
"Uchiha Genki!" Jiraiya, standing nearby, could bear it no longer. His eyes were wide, veins bulging on his forehead as he pointed at Genki in the air and condemned him furiously. "Everyone suffers! I sympathize with everything you've been through, but that doesn't give you the right to take it out on innocent people! Konohamaru is just a child! How are you any different from the murderers who destroyed your clan?!"
Uchiha Genki merely shot him a cold glance, the corner of his mouth curling into a strange smile. His voice dripped with mockery and malice. "You think I can't find the people you care about? Do you know? The Child of Prophecy you've spent your whole life searching for is Asura's reincarnation! His name... is Naruto Uzumaki! Hahahahaha!!"
"What?!" Jiraiya shuddered as if struck by lightning. His pupils contracted, his face full of stunned disbelief.
The Child of Prophecy?
Naruto Uzumaki?
The two names exploded in his mind like bombs.
As Jiraiya stared in speechless shock, Uchiha Genki let out an even more frenzied laugh, his voice brimming with the glee of a cruel prank. "Naruto Uzumaki! Hahaha! Sounds familiar, doesn't he?! He's the son of your student, Minato Namikaze! The orphan with the Nine-Tails sealed inside him! Hahahaha!!"
"You dare touch Naruto?!" At those words, Jiraiya flew into a rage. Senjutsu Chakra surged wildly around him, and his eyes blazed with fury and killing intent. Staring straight at Genki, he warned him, each word deliberate: "I'm warning you! If you so much as hurt a hair on Naruto's head, I'll kill you! I'll make you suffer worse than death!"
Uchiha Genki only grew more frenzied and excited. He threw back his head and laughed so loudly the sound shook the heavens. "Hahahahahaha!! So you can feel fear after all!
"Are you scared?! Don't be! Don't be! I'll send Tsunade down to join you, too!
"I'll chop your corpses into mincemeat! I'll keep you apart forever! You won't even be able to see each other in hell!
"Hahahahaha!!
"You spineless hypocrite! You don't dare stand up to the village elders or face the truth—you're nothing but a coward who runs away! Hahahaha!!"
With that, Uchiha Genki ignored the furious Jiraiya and turned his gaze back to the utterly despairing Sarutobi Hiruzen.
As Sarutobi Hiruzen watched in utter despair, the Susanoo Armor's giant hand brought the screaming, sobbing Sarutobi Konohamaru—who kept crying, "Grandpa!"—up to Genki.
The next moment, a child's scream, shrill beyond words, cut through the battlefield and rang across the sky.
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