A battle between ninjas was usually a war of information.
Once the details of someone's abilities were exposed, it became easy to counter them.
Against a taijutsu specialist, you used genjutsu or ninjutsu. Against a ninjutsu specialist, you got in close and stabbed them. Against a ninja with a Kekkei Genkai, you found the areas where they were weakest.
That was how ordinary ninjas fought.
Everyone in the Shinobi World knew the Uchiha Clan inside and out. Weren't they just the ones with the Sharingan? If you were alone, run as soon as you saw one. If you outnumbered them, sneak up behind them. Everyone had long since gotten used to dealing with the Uchiha.
But what kind of Uchiha was this guy supposed to be?!
What Uchiha Yuji had shown them was completely different from the intelligence about the Uchiha circulating through the Shinobi World.
Even his ordinary punches and kicks carried terrifying force. His Taijutsu didn't seem like the Uchiha's at all; it was more like the Senju Clan's.
And that strange technique that absorbed chakra and ninjutsu, then turned them back on their users—that kind of ability was unheard of.
Shū's death was inevitable now, but the intelligence about Uchiha Yuji that he had bought with his life was something Ganga could only carry on his shoulders. He had to plan a way to deal with Uchiha Yuji, bearing the weight of that sacrifice.
His Taijutsu was incredibly powerful. They absolutely couldn't fight him at close range!
Did his ability to absorb ninjutsu and turn it back on them require physical contact, or could he absorb any ninjutsu?
Shū of the Explosion Corps was already a fairly renowned ninja among the Iwa ninja, and they all knew how powerful he was.
He was a powerful ninja on an entirely different level from them, one who bore the name of Explosion Release.
Yet the mighty Explosion Release user they had looked up to had been killed in the blink of an eye.
Just how strong was this Uchiha before them?
The thought had barely crossed their minds when the Iwa ninja felt a chill run through them. Their limbs began to weaken.
"What is it? Why have you stopped?" Uchiha Yuji raised his chin slightly and folded his arms across his chest. The clothes embroidered with the Red and White Fan snapped in the gale.
The Mangekyō Sharingan reflected the expressions on the Iwa ninja's faces.
They looked panicked, their pupils contracted. Some were even trembling, their Kunai shaking in their hands.
"Oh, I see. You're afraid."
"So much for the famed toughness of the Iwa ninja."
"You're a disappointment."
The moment the last word fell, the ground beneath his feet began to shake violently.
The earth quaked like a dragon rolling over, but Uchiha Yuji's body didn't budge.
Centered on him, the ground rapidly sank. In just a few blinks, it had dropped hundreds of meters.
Brown earth surrounded him on all sides, with only the blue sky above.
"We haven't lost our fighting spirit! Shū's sacrifice has only made me angrier!" Veins stood out across Ganga's forehead as he sprang upright from his crouch.
He formed Hand Seals rapidly and shouted to everyone around him.
"Shū's sacrifice was worth it! He secured precious intelligence for us. We absolutely cannot let his death be in vain!"
"We are united as earth! We are unyielding as rock! No one can defeat us!"
These weren't empty words. The Iwa ninja truly lived by them.
"Raaaah!"
A loud roar could make people forget their troubles for a moment. With conviction, they could overcome any fear.
Courage gradually chased the fear from their eyes, and their trembling bodies stood firm on the earth.
The Iwa ninja, their fighting spirit restored, followed Ganga in unleashing their ninjutsu.
Even from the bottom of the sunken pit, Uchiha Yuji could faintly hear the Iwa ninja roaring their defiance.
Under the effects of their ninjutsu, the edges of the platform on all four sides began to collapse. Heavy, massive rocks came hurtling down from beyond his field of vision.
The thick rocks completely blotted out the blue sky. They blocked the sunlight, and in the shadows, Uchiha Yuji's lips curled into a faint smile.
"Now this is more like it. If I beat you so easily, there'd be no joy in victory. Crushing an entire army that's united and unafraid... I can already taste the bitterness of it on my tongue."
"If my enemies are an army with unbreakable resolve..."
"Then I'll get a little serious too."
In the shadows, the blood-red Mangekyō Sharingan spun rapidly.
Black armor emerged from the void and covered Uchiha Yuji in an instant. It was chakra darker than darkness itself—a giant of destruction.
We won!
When the rocks filled the pit created by Earth Core and nothing stirred below, the thought surfaced in Ganga's mind.
Ninjas were a profession with high attack and low defense. Many powerful ninjas capable of reshaping the terrain could still be killed by an ordinary Kunai to the kidney.
If a Kunai could kill a Kage, then a collapsing mountain could easily crush someone to death.
But the instant after that thought arose, he felt an unusual tremor. It wasn't the familiar rumble of collapsing rocks.
Its cause appeared before his eyes the next moment.
Dark chakra shot into the sky. The ground cracked, the air roared, and visible ripples swept outward, hurling everything around them aside.
There was no sign of movement at all. The enormous Susanoo simply appeared on the earth in an instant.
Its fifty-meter frame towered like a small mountain. Thick Chakra Armor covered the giant, and its blood-red eyes swept across the surrounding area.
Merely standing on the earth, its terrifying chakra brought back the fear that had once ruled the Iwa ninja.
"Scatter!" A terrified shout rang out in every direction.
Susanoo raised its massive arm, and a pair of black blades that seemed to absorb even the light rose high.
Ganga's pupils contracted. He dropped into a crouch at once and slammed his palm against the ground.
"Earth Style: Earth Core!"
This time, instead of sinking, the ground surged straight upward.
As the ground beneath its feet rose, Susanoo's target rose with it. Even if it swung its arm down, it would strike empty air.
That was how it should have gone.
But the very next moment, a dark blade flashed before his eyes again. Susanoo had appeared on the ground once more.
The long sword trailed a solid shadow of chakra and crashed into the Iwa ninja's formation, its force sharp and overwhelming.
A beam of Yin Release Chakra shot forward like a cannon blast, and a powerful shock wave spread in every direction.
The Iwa ninja, who had just found their courage and firmed their resolve, were torn apart like paper and hurled away like dust.
Blood and screams instantly filled Ganga's mind.
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