The crushing defeat on the Blood-Weeping Plain was like a basin of ice water, dousing the last embers of unrealistic fervor within the Uchiha Clan. What came back was not the glory of victory, but an even longer list of the dead, wave after wave of wailing, and a cold that seeped into their bones. The clan's strength had fallen to rock bottom. Nearly half its elite had been lost, its allied minor clans were turning against it, and even the crazed remnants of the Kaguya Clan had grown restless after witnessing Madara's ruthlessness and the Allied Forces' tenacity. They could turn on the Uchiha at any moment.
Inside Naka Shrine, Uchiha Madara's presence had become even more dangerous and unpredictable. The shame of defeat, the cries of his clansmen, and the moment on the battlefield when Tobirama and Hashirama had forced him back together gnawed at his heart like venomous snakes. The darkness in his Eternal Mangekyou was nearly overflowing. He couldn't accept this outcome. Uchiha pride would not allow him to surrender in such a humiliating fashion.
"It isn't over..." he whispered to the empty shrine, his voice hoarse and twisted. "How could the Uchiha's flame be extinguished so easily? Even if we have to die, we'll take the whole world down with us!"
His fury and obsession drove him to an even more reckless decision. If they couldn't win a conventional war, then they would keep tearing into the enemy by the most extreme means, no matter the cost, until one side had shed its last drop of blood!
The next few weeks became the darkest period in the borderlands of the Land of Fire.
The Uchiha abandoned their old tactics. Instead of seeking a head-on battle, they broke into small units and launched a relentless series of suicidal terrorist attacks.
First suicide attack: Burning the provisions in blood and fire
Their target wasn't a group of shinobi, but an important supply route carrying food to the rear of the Senju Alliance. A squad of Uchiha fanatics made no attempt to conceal themselves. They charged straight at the supply convoy along the fastest, most direct route. They didn't even bother engaging the Allied shinobi guarding it. Instead, they hurled themselves at the supply carts and detonated every Explosive Tag on their bodies at the last moment!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions rang out one after another, and blazing flames devoured the precious food. The guards killed every fanatic, but could only watch as the supplies burned to ash. This suicidal tactic seriously threatened the Allied Forces' supply lines and shook them to the core.
Second suicide attack: The illusion prison's explosion
Several Uchiha jonin skilled in genjutsu slipped into an outpost jointly guarded by the Sarutobi and Shimura clans. They didn't attack directly. Instead, they simultaneously unleashed their strongest wide-area genjutsu—Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes! The shinobi inside fought back desperately, but some still fell victim to the technique and began attacking one another in their illusions.
At the very moment the genjutsu reached its peak, the Uchiha jonin reversed the flow of Chakra through their own meridians!
"For the Uchiha!!!"
With a crazed shout, their bodies swelled like balloons before exploding violently! It wasn't just a physical blast. The explosion was mixed with a powerful, distorted wave of genjutsu Chakra!
The outpost was instantly leveled. Even the shinobi who survived the blast suffered permanent mental damage and went mad. The terrifying method of turning themselves into genjutsu bombs was unheard of!
Third suicide attack: A hell of bone spikes
This time, they even used the remaining Kaguya madmen. Several Kaguya clan members, driven completely insane by the Uchiha's last stocks of forbidden drugs and genjutsu, were deliberately led toward a research team of Uzumaki Sealing Jutsu specialists.
These Kaguya had long since become little more than beasts. They attacked any living thing they saw. They feared no death, and their Shikotsumyaku abilities were pushed to the limit. They could even erupt with a forest of bone spikes from their bodies for a short time, covering a vast area.
The Uzumaki sealers were powerful and skilled at restraint, but they had never faced enemies so reckless, or whose attacks were so bizarre. They eventually sealed or killed every one of them, but a young and exceptionally gifted Uzumaki sealer was pierced by bone spikes in the Kaguya's final outburst, leaving him gravely wounded and near death. The loss to the Uzumaki Clan darkened Tobirama Senju's expression until it seemed he might drip with gloom.
These suicide attacks did cause the Senju Alliance considerable trouble and casualties, greatly intensifying the panic. Everyone in the borderlands lived in fear, as if a Uchiha madman clutching Explosive Tags might burst out of the shadows at any moment.
But that was all.
As far as the overall war was concerned, these attacks were like the dying roars of a wounded beast: terrifying and pitiful, but powerless to change the fact that it was heading toward extinction.
The Senju Alliance was far larger and more resilient than anyone had imagined. Hashirama and Tobirama quickly adjusted their strategy, strengthening the guards along their supply lines and adopting more flexible scouting and counter-infiltration measures. They also developed defensive tactics and sealing barriers to counter the Uchiha's genjutsu and suicide attacks. In fact, facing this shared threat only brought the alliance closer together.
More importantly, the Uchiha Clan was draining the last of its blood at an astonishing rate through these attacks of self-destruction.
Every suicide attack meant the permanent loss of several, sometimes more than a dozen, well-trained Uchiha shinobi. Many of them had even awakened the Sharingan. The clan's population had already plunged after the Battle of the Blood-Weeping Plain, and now the situation had grown even worse. Nearly every household in the clan's lands hung white mourning banners, and weeping could be heard day and night.
Their resources were completely exhausted. Food, medicine, ninja tools... everything had run out. The clansmen were gaunt and sallow, and the wounded couldn't get proper treatment. They could only wail in agony as they waited to die. Even at Naka Shrine, Madara had almost no resources left to use and could no longer support a large-scale operation.
Despair was no longer an emotion. It had become a tangible presence in the air, something they could breathe in.
Even their last shred of fighting spirit was worn away by the cruel reality. Even the most radical Uchiha Hi-kaku could no longer speak of continuing the fight as he looked at the clan's desolate state. He knelt before Madara, his forehead pressed to the cold floor, his voice hoarse and desperate:
"Clan head... stop... Please... we can't keep going... The Uchiha... will be wiped out!!"
His sobs rang through the silent shrine like a heavy hammer.
The few surviving elders also fell to their knees, trembling and weeping.
"Clan head, leave something of the Uchiha alive..." "If we keep fighting, Lord Izuna won't rest in peace..." "Please, make peace... Even if the terms are humiliating... as long as the clansmen can live..."
Uchiha Madara stood before them, his body rigid. He listened to the elders' sobs below him and to the faint cries coming from the clan's lands in the distance. The madness in his Eternal Mangekyou slowly ebbed away, replaced by a deeper exhaustion and emptiness, almost like death itself.
He slowly walked to the shrine entrance and pushed open the heavy doors. Outside, there were no longer clansmen brimming with fighting spirit. Only a world shrouded in gloom, wounded people everywhere, and children with hungry, bewildered eyes.
He tried to gather Chakra. The immense power within him, enough to destroy the world, still surged through his body. If he wished, he could still summon Susanoo and launch one final, devastating charge.
But then what?
Kill every enemy he could see? And then what? What would remain of the Uchiha? Beyond his name being remembered as that of a demon of destruction, what would there be?
Izuna had entrusted his eyes to him in the hope that he would lead the clan to prosperity, not to utter annihilation without a trace.
An unprecedented sense of helplessness, mingled with immense pain and confusion, finally overwhelmed him.
He slowly closed his eyes. Only after a long while did he speak, his voice dry and hollow, to the elders kneeling behind him:
"...Send someone... to tell Hashirama Senju..."
"The Uchiha... agree to negotiate."
This time, it was no longer a strategy or a probe. It was a true surrender—forced and humiliating.
At last, the Uchiha's frenzy gradually subsided in the utter hopelessness, leaving behind only their exhausted gasps.
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