"Damn it, what kind of Ninjutsu is this? It's so powerful! My left-eye Mangekyo can absorb any Chakra, yet it can't absorb Uchiha Kaede's Ninjutsu. At this rate, I'll lose. No, I can't—I absolutely cannot fail."
Swallowed by the giant beast made of lightning, Fugaku's Susanoo was nearly gone beneath the relentless torrents of thunder. Yet he kept fighting. Surrender? That word didn't exist in Uchiha Fugaku's vocabulary.
"Give up, and you still have a chance to live."
Even facing the threat of death, he remained calm, his spirit unbroken. His determination to fight never wavered; even in a seemingly hopeless situation, he kept searching for a chance to win. Uchiha Fugaku was a capable ninja.
He just wasn't a capable clan leader.
Fugaku said nothing. He knew what Kaede had chosen.
"Fugaku, you have to survive!" Youyou sighed.
The Rune energy in her body was completely spent. Changing the weather here by herself was no simple feat. From this point on, everything would be beyond her control. The Thunder Beast that had swallowed the Susanoo would run wild, return to nature, and become a force of true destruction.
"Roar!" Winter sprang up and caught Kaede as she fell, then leaped again and landed in front of the elders. She hurriedly crouched down and wrapped herself in Rune energy.
What was Natural Energy without control? Destruction.
A mushroom cloud erupted where the Thunder Beast stood. Silence. Not a sound could be heard—the blast had exceeded the range of human hearing. The world changed color, turning a powerless white. The black thunderclouds scattered, and a shock wave that seemed capable of destroying everything swept across the land like a bursting flood.
The surrounding snow-capped peaks vanished, along with the snow that had accumulated over the years. The valley became a plain,