Chinoike Clan

Hell Valley.

That was a tale from even longer ago than when Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara had faced each other in battle.

Before Kumogakure had been established in the Land of Lightning, there had existed a clan known as the Chinoike Clan. Their Kekkei Genkai was the Ketsuryūgan, renowned for its Genjutsu. It was said that once someone fell under their Dojutsu, escape was absolutely impossible. Beyond Genjutsu, they had also inherited all manner of techniques performed with blood, making them immensely powerful.

But after gaining power, the Chinoike Clan Leader had also harbored political ambitions. He had his daughter marry into the Feudal Lord's household in the Land of Lightning as a concubine. The girl had been gentle and beautiful, yet that had drawn the jealousy of the principal wife. Unfortunately, not long after the Feudal Lord married the girl, he died of illness.

Thus, the Feudal Lord's death was pinned on the Chinoike Clan.

Hell Valley was where that clan had been exiled.

As one of the Shinobi World's powerful Kekkei Genkai clans, even the Feudal Lord could not easily uproot them entirely. Thus, the principal wife had sought outside aid from the Land of Fire.

The ones responsible for exiling and guarding the Chinoike Clan had been the Uchiha Clan!

Shisui recalled the intelligence Shikaku Nara had given him as he raced along the cliff face like a phantom. Though still young, his talent for the Body Flicker Technique unquestionably made him a second Namikaze Minato.

Moreover, after awakening the Mangekyo, his extraordinary dynamic vision allowed him to fully control the state of God Speed.

Namikaze Minato and the Raikage had needed years upon years of training and combat experience before their minds could keep up with the speed of their physically enhanced bodies. The Uchiha Clan, however, merely needed to awaken the Sharingan to master it perfectly.

That was the privilege of superior bloodlines in the Shinobi World.

And the Ketsuryūgan could rival the Sharingan. Who knew what kind of record it had achieved during the Warring States Period?

With a sharp whoosh, Shisui descended into Hell Valley.

The sight that greeted him made even someone who had experienced war tremble...

The entire valley was shrouded in a pale red mist. Yet to the Sharingan, every drop of blood, every white bone, and every mummified corpse was crystal clear.

Crimson pools wound through every corner of the valley. Their bottoms were piled with bones—human and animal alike. Almost no skeletons were intact; they had all been shattered and scattered everywhere.

The stench of blood is strong. Was there just a slaughter here, or has it always been like this?

Just as Shisui was thinking that, a crunching footstep sounded behind him. His Body Flicker Technique moved, his Ninja Blade left its sheath, and the tempering of war kept the ten-year-old in a state of utmost vigilance at all times.

Slick!

The sharp, thin blade met no resistance as it sliced into flesh.

Shisui stopped his wrist and withdrew the Ninja Blade, which had already cut the newcomer's skin. He stared in puzzlement at the person before him, who had suddenly gone completely still.

She was a woman in her thirties, expressionless, with bright red blood seeping from the scars on her cheeks. A strand of pale yellow hair drifted down, severed by the airflow from the Ninja Blade. Had Shisui withdrawn his sword any later, he could have sliced open half her face.

"Excuse me..."

After a moment of silence, just as Shisui opened his mouth, the woman's eyes suddenly turned blood-red. A strange vertical line appeared at the center of her once-round pupils, resembling those Toads of Mount Myoboku.

Then, the blood spilling from her cheeks began to turn purple and swell like a beating heart. Red turned purple, purple turned black, black turned gleaming, until it seemed as though her blood vessels were about to burst. Faint blue veins could even be seen rising beneath her skin...

At last, the woman's entire body expanded and became wrapped in a purple-black membrane.

"Her Chakra is going berserk. This is bad!"

Since entering Hell Valley, Shisui had kept his Sharingan in its Three Tomoe state. The strange woman's previously faint Chakra, after she had been injured by his Ninja Blade and begun bleeding, suddenly surged to nearly a hundred times its former amount in the span of a blink.

Like a pot of oil being ignited, like a bomb being detonated!

Accompanied by an incomparably massive explosion, cracks split open the rock walls on both sides of the entrance. Pale red pool water surged forth, sweeping up white bones and mummified corpses like blood dragons, creating a terrifying scene that seemed like the end of the world.

"Turning human bodies into bombs—is this the Ketsuryūgan's ability?"

Prepared in advance, Shisui used the Body Flicker Technique to evade the heart of the explosion. Yet this forced him deeper into Hell Valley.

Step, step, step...

Footsteps sounded one after another as more than a dozen people emerged from every direction, their sclera blood-red and their pupils black.

They wore ragged clothes and had blank expressions. Each one moved toward Shisui like a puppet.

"They have the aura of living beings. These people are still alive, but I don't know why they have lost consciousness."

At that moment, more than a dozen pebbles whistled through the air like Shuriken toward Shisui Uchiha.

Clang! Clang!

The Ninja Blade swung swiftly, forming a curtain of steel that kept every Hidden Weapon at bay.

"The pebbles aren't fast, and they aren't powerful. Even if they hit me, they won't cause fatal injuries. This is a feint!"

A shinobi's battle was about analysis, devising strategy, and killing in a single strike.

The enemy still hidden within Hell Valley was mysterious and unfathomable, very likely wielding the Ketsuryūgan that had contended with the Sharingan during the Warring States Period. To prepare for the even more dangerous battle ahead, Shisui did not use the Mangekyo, nor did he use the Genjutsu or Body Flicker Technique he excelled at most.

"My intelligence shouldn't have revealed much, yet the enemy still hasn't appeared. Why?"

Just then, Shisui suddenly noticed wounds appearing on the bodies of the dozen or so people walking slowly toward him.

"The pebbles from earlier injured them before flying at me. Could it be..."

Before the clues in his mind could coalesce into an answer, what had happened to the woman at Hell Valley's entrance happened again to these dozen people.

More than a dozen human bombs swept through the valley in the blink of an eye. Unless one had Namikaze Minato's Flying Thunder God, neither the Body Flicker Technique nor the Substitution Technique could evade such a vast attack.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Amid the blinding flames, the area around Hell Valley seemed to have suffered a massive earthquake. The enormous Barrier set outside the valley by the Uchiha ancestors split with countless cracks like a thin, brittle sheet of paper, then lost its power to restrain.

"An Uchiha demon? I never expected such powerful Dojutsu Power from someone so young."

Using the deaths of more than a dozen clan members to blast open the Barrier, a young man with short pale yellow hair, a short beard, crimson sclera, black pupils, and a pale purple vertical mark at the center of each pupil fled the prison that had trapped his clan for untold years. He held a newborn infant in his arms.

"If Chino weren't with me, I'd truly like to test the Sharingan's power."