Trapped in a Deadly Encirclement, Fugaku's Decisive Abandonment

Nawaki had not even finished speaking when the first wave of earth bullets came hurtling in.

"Earth Release: Earth Barrage!"

Six earth bullets shot from the canyon walls, their paths crisscrossing to seal off every escape route around the three of them.

Nawaki grabbed Mikoto and rolled two meters to the right. Slamming both hands onto the ground, he raised a Wood Wall at an angle, forcefully knocking back two earth bullets. The explosions shook loose gravel from above, which came raining down with a clatter.

Fugaku sliced apart one earth bullet with his blade and retreated three steps. His Sharingan spun rapidly, tracking every enemy's movement through the darkness.

"The right flank is the weakest! Only eight people!" Fugaku's voice carried over the explosions. "I'll open a gap. Follow me—"

"What about the left flank?" Mikoto shouted.

Her Sharingan was active too, clearly counting the figures flooding in from the left. Twenty-one. One of them possessed far more chakra than the rest—a Hidden Stone jonin.

Fugaku did not look at her.

After forming his final seal, he unleashed a Great Fireball toward the right flank, and blazing light illuminated the entire canyon.

"Mikoto, hold back the left flank."

Mikoto's hands froze.

She stood there, the red glow of her Sharingan reflecting off the rubble at her feet. Her voice was soft. "Lord Fugaku, there's a jonin on the left flank. Alone, I—"

"You have the Sharingan."

Fugaku finally turned his head and looked at her.

Just once.

There was neither guilt nor hesitation in his gaze. Only calculation. Cold, precise calculation, down to two decimal places.

"As long as I return alive, the Uchiha Clan will not fall into chaos. You are an Uchiha Clan ninja. This is your duty."

After saying that, he did not wait for an answer. With a turn of his blade, he charged toward the right flank.

Toward the eight people. Toward the weakest direction. Toward survival.

Mikoto stood where she was, watching Fugaku's back disappear into the firelight.

She remembered many things.

The day the clan elders summoned her into the council hall. "Marrying Fugaku is the best arrangement for the Uchiha Clan."

The day she nodded. "I understand."

The day Fugaku took her away from the school corridor. "Don't interrupt."

Three words.

So from beginning to end, she had never been a person in that man's eyes.

She was a chess piece. Placed on the board when useful, and when she was not—discarded.

An Earth Release: Rock Spear shot in from the left, grazing past her shoulder before exploding against the rock wall behind her and blasting out a fist-sized crater.

Blood seeped from her shoulder, and only then did Mikoto snap back to herself.

"Get her! Don't let the Sharingan escape!"

The Hidden Stone ninja from the left flank closed in. Twenty-one people spread into a fan-shaped formation, unleashing wave after wave of Earth Release.

Mikoto clenched her teeth and formed hand seals.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"

A massive fireball roared forth, swallowing the three men charging at the front. But those behind them trampled over their companions' ashes and continued forward. Earth walls rose one after another, slicing the range of her Fire Release into fragments.

She fired a second one. Then a third.

By the fourth, her hands had begun to tremble.

Not from fear. Her chakra was being drained dry. She was only twelve; she had only so much chakra. Three S-rank Fire Release techniques had already consumed sixty percent of it.

"Little girl, that should be about enough, shouldn't it?"

The Hidden Stone jonin slowly walked out from behind the crowd. He was around forty, with a thick beard. Earth Release chakra gathered in his hands without being unleashed, as though he were teasing a cat.

Mikoto backed into a dead end of the canyon. Cliff walls hemmed her in on three sides, while twenty enemies stood before her.

Her left leg had been cut open by flying rocks while she was dodging earlier. Blood had soaked through her ninja shoe, and every step made a sticky sound.

"Uchiha girl, those eyes of yours are quite nice." The bearded jonin licked his lips. "Take her alive. Bring her back to the Land of Earth. The village has been short on bloodline limits—"

He did not finish.

Because Mikoto had reversed her kunai.

Its tip pointed at her own heart.

Her hand no longer trembled.

The three tomoe in her Sharingan spun one final time before the red slowly faded away.

There was no point wasting so much chakra maintaining the Sharingan.

She had said what needed to be said.

She had seen what she needed to see.

Fugaku would not come back. Neither would Root or the Anbu.

Nawaki—

Mikoto closed her eyes.

She remembered what she had heard on the street the evening before last.

"If there ever comes a day when you don't want to endure anymore, there's somewhere you can go."

Sorry. I can't go.

She drove the kunai three inches toward her chest.

Then it stopped.

A hand reached out from behind her, its five fingers clamping tightly around the wrist holding her kunai. The grip was so strong there was no room for resistance, forcibly fixing the blade half an inch from her chest.

Mikoto's eyes flew open.

That hand was steady and warm. Thin calluses covered its knuckles, marks left by years of forming seals.

"I told you, the gates of the Senju Clan are open to you."

The voice came from above her, lazy as though they were not on a battlefield at all.

"And here you are, not even through the gate yet, already wanting to leave?"

Mikoto looked up.

Nawaki stood behind her.

No—that was impossible. Where had he come from?

He had clearly been on the right flank moments ago. Between the right flank and this dead end on the left stood more than thirty Hidden Stone ninja. How had he gotten through?

Before Mikoto could ask, Nawaki had already released her wrist and stepped in front of her.

The bearded jonin's smile froze on his face.

"You—"

Nawaki did not form seals.

He raised his right foot.

The rocky ground beneath it creaked.

Then he kicked.

Just one kick.

At the instant chakra flooded into his heel, the explosive power of his Sage Body crushed through the rubble beneath his feet, the air, and the bearded jonin's two layers of Earth Release defense.

Boom—!

The bearded man's body flew more than forty meters, smashing through two stone pillars before finally embedding itself in the rock wall across the canyon. Spiderweb cracks spread across the dented surface as rubble pattered down.

Embedded in the crater, he spat a jet of blood three feet away.

The remaining Hidden Stone ninja all took a step back.

Nawaki turned and looked at Mikoto.

Mikoto looked at him.

Moonlight leaked through the canyon's cracks and fell across his shoulders. There were several scratches on his clothes, but no blood. Those scratches had been left by ninja tools grazing him as he passed through the Hidden Stone crowd.

He had really forced his way through.

More than thirty people—he had carved straight through them head-on.

"I said something before. Did you remember it?" Nawaki reached out, took the kunai from Mikoto's hand, and casually tossed it aside.

Mikoto opened her mouth, but no sound came from her throat.

Nawaki did not wait for an answer. He turned back to face the twenty Hidden Stone ninja and the jonin struggling to free himself from the cliff wall.

His hands slowly came together.

The ground began to tremble.