Outside Senju Tobirama's laboratory, cold fear and burning fury collided in the heart of the Uchiha reconnaissance squad leader. He clenched his teeth, forcing back the roar that had nearly burst from his throat. His Sharingan frantically recorded the sacrilegious scene inside the lab—the grayish-white bodies, the vacant Three-Tomoe Sharingan, and Tobirama's cold, clinical demeanor.
I have to... get this message back!
He fought down the urge to charge in and destroy everything at once, then signaled the squad members behind him—who were trembling with nearly as much shock and rage—to retreat immediately. It was a dangerously urgent command.
But just as they tried to silently melt into the shadows and escape—
"Vmm..."
Inside the lab, Senju Tobirama seemed to sense something. He furrowed his brow, pausing his work. He wasn't relying on hearing or sight, but on an extreme sensitivity to fluctuations in the barrier. The talismans the Uchiha squad had used to infiltrate had produced a nearly imperceptible ripple as their emotions surged.
"Rats." Tobirama spat out the word, his voice cold.
The instant he spoke, the vacant eyes of the two Reanimated Bodies in the corner of the lab—the earliest ones completed, and relatively stable—snapped toward the Uchiha squad's hiding place. Their stiff bodies burst into motion at a speed that defied their appearance. Like two gray wraiths, they crashed straight through the lab's outer wall!
"Retreat!" the Uchiha squad leader roared. No longer bothering to hide, he spun his Three-Tomoe Sharingan at full speed and hurled a kunai at the approaching Reanimated Bodies.
The kunai landed precisely in the eye socket of one Reanimated Body, but it was like stabbing into rotten wood. There was no blood, no scream. The body merely paused, pulled out the kunai, and rapidly healed as gray-white dust gathered in its damaged socket!
"Physical attacks barely work!" another Uchiha cried out as he unleashed Fire Release Ninjutsu, engulfing one Reanimated Body in scorching flames.
When the flames died down, the body was charred all over. But gray light coursed through its cracks, and its blackened skin crumbled away before quickly restoring itself. It charged again! Their strength and speed might have been inferior to what they had in life, but their immortality was enough to drive any opponent to despair!
"Move!" The squad leader made a snap decision, knowing they would die if they kept fighting. He led the squad in a fighting retreat, hoping to lose their pursuers through speed.
But the Reanimated Bodies never tired and never feared injury. They clung to the squad relentlessly. Worse still, new commotion erupted from the direction of the laboratory. The unstable Uchiha Reanimated Body, whose resurrection had only just been completed, also came charging out with a roar. The Three Tomoe in its vacant eyes spun erratically as it indiscriminately released stray fireballs and fragments of genjutsu in every direction. Chaos engulfed the scene.
"Stop them!" Tobirama's voice rang out from the lab, cold and merciless. He didn't pursue them himself, apparently more concerned with the lab's data and the still-unstable jutsu.
The chase through the heart of Senju territory was brutal and bizarre. The Uchiha elites fought with everything they had, using their Sharingan to predict attacks, ninjutsu to bombard their foes, and genjutsu to disrupt them. But against undying creations of the dead, their resistance grew increasingly futile.
One squad member, trying to cover the leader's retreat, was seized in a crushing embrace by the unstable Uchiha Reanimated Body. The next instant, a violent explosion rang out—the squad member chose to detonate an Explosive Tag in his final moments, taking the Reanimated Body with him.
Boom!
Smoke billowed as fragments of the Reanimated Body flew through the air, then slowly gathered back together. The Uchiha warrior, however, was gone without a trace.
The squad leader's eyes nearly burst with fury, but he could only use the blast's shockwave to speed up his escape. The three remaining squad members fell one after another while holding off their pursuers. They sacrificed themselves for the slender chance that their leader could flee with the intelligence.
In the end, only the badly wounded Uchiha squad leader managed to shake off the Reanimated Bodies. Thanks to his Sharingan's keen perception and the openings his comrades had bought with their lives, he dragged himself back to the Uchiha Clan Compound in a desperate flight.
When he delivered the intelligence to Uchiha Izuna, drenched in blood and barely clinging to life, the entire Uchiha leadership fell into deathly silence once more.
"...He controls the dead... bodies with gray-white cracks... immortal... they can even use the ocular jutsu they had in life..." As Izuna listened to the squad leader's halting, terrified report, his face turned paler than paper. His fingers gripped the table so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
He could almost see the battlefield of the future: Uchiha ancestors dragging their battered bodies forward, raising their blades against their own descendants! What kind of despair was this? What kind of humiliation?
"Ugh—" Rage, exhaustion from the past several days, and the excessive strain on his Dojutsu Power overwhelmed Izuna. He suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood and staggered, nearly collapsing.
"Lord Izuna!"
Izuna raised a hand to stop them and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. A near-mad, obsessive fire blazed in his eyes. "Senju Tobirama... you sacrilegious demon! The Uchiha will never rest until you're dead!"
He turned sharply toward the dying reconnaissance squad leader. "You did well! You're a hero of the Uchiha! Your sacrifice will not be in vain!"
He knew he had to do something. He had to stop this jutsu! Before Tobirama perfected it any further, he had to find a way to counter it—or... destroy it!
But Uchiha Madara was still recovering from severe injuries, Izuna's eyesight was rapidly deteriorating, and their clan was short on high-level fighters. They had little chance of winning a direct confrontation.
An overwhelming sense of crisis coiled around Izuna's heart like cold vines, pushing him toward an even more extreme course.
The news spread through the Uchiha leadership like a plague, bringing unprecedented fear and fury. Uchiha Cang heard about it too, and his heart sank.
It's accelerating... Impure World Reincarnation appeared far earlier than expected. Tobirama's research is downright terrifying...
He could feel the despair and hysteria spreading through the clan. He knew Izuna had been driven into a corner and might well make an even more irrational decision.
That night, Uchiha Cang sat alone in his room, his consciousness sinking into the realm of "Weaving Logic." The harmonious pulse of Internal Seeking flowed gently, helping him hold on to a shred of calm. He tried to work out what he would do if he were Izuna.
Storm the laboratory? The odds of success were practically zero. Assassinate Tobirama? That was even more absurd. Then... could he only work against the jutsu itself? Find a way to counter the dead?
His thoughts raced. Impure World Reincarnation was, at its core, a Summoning Technique—a combination of a Contract Seal and soul manipulation. How could it be countered...?
A powerful Sealing Jutsu? The Uchiha weren't skilled in that. Attack the caster directly? Easier said than done. Or... disrupt the link between the soul and the sacrifice?
He tried to reason it out. Could he use the insight of his Two-Tomoe Sharingan and his faint, nearly nonexistent sense of his own "Causality" to develop some way to counter the force of "deathly stillness" and "Dissonance"?
He focused, and his Two Tomoe slowly rotated. He couldn't touch Causality directly like someone with a Mangekyou, but he could vaguely sense a kind of "harmony" or "Dissonance" between his own state and his surroundings. To him, the presence of Impure World Reincarnation was the very essence of "Dissonance."
He tried to draw in the harmonizing pulse sought by "Weaving Logic," then project it outward through the gaze of his Two-Tomoe Sharingan. It wasn't an attack, but more like a "probe."
His target was a wilting potted plant on the desk.
He did his best to maintain inner peace and harmony, then used his gaze to convey the faintest image of "life" and "harmony."
A moment later, the plant's wilted leaves seemed to... unfurl by the tiniest, almost imperceptible amount. Or perhaps the faint life within it had briefly been "soothed," its disorder eased ever so slightly?
The effect was nearly negligible. Besides, the target was a plant, not a resentful spirit bound by a contract.
But Uchiha Cang felt a stir in his heart.
Perhaps... he was on the right track? He couldn't cleanse or destroy the jutsu, but could the utmost "Inner Harmony" create even the faintest "repulsion" or "neutralization" against that "external evil and Dissonance"?
This would take long, focused practice, and a deeper understanding of that "deathly stillness and Dissonance"...
He knew this was only a tiny first step, and that the road ahead was long, with little hope in sight. But it was the only possible path he could think of for now, one rooted in his Two-Tomoe Sharingan and the realm of "Weaving Logic."
Outside, Izuna was driven into a corner. He ordered the collection of every fragmentary record concerning summoning, sealing, and souls. At the same time, he used his Mangekyou more often, maintaining control through brutal measures and planning a reprisal.
The blasphemous prototype of the Forbidden Jutsu had pushed the conflict between the two clans into a bloodier phase ahead of schedule.
Caught in the current, Uchiha Cang continued his dull and dangerous practice of "Weaving Logic" and faint "Harmonization," all the while watching with cool detachment.
He saw Kagami Uchiha grow and worry, and watched the other clan members grow ever more extreme.
The path he was trying to follow—"Inner Harmony Defense"—was like groping through a thorny darkness for a faint Fire Fly. He didn't know whether it could light the way ahead, or even whether he could survive.
The message from the dead had become a death sentence. The thorny road offered no choice but to press on. As for the Mangekyou, he still knew little beyond a vague reverence and a distant feeling rooted deep in his bloodline. He knew it was powerful, but not what it truly entailed.
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