Within the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, the storm of despair raged without end.
Dense volleys of senbon poured down from every direction and angle like a swarm of steel bees, tearing through the air with teeth-grating shrieks. Countless dazzling flecks of light reflected off the ice mirrors, adding to the chaos.
"Ugh!" Sasuke grunted as a senbon struck his calf at a vicious angle, the sharp pain making him stumble. His One-Tomoe Sharingan spun frantically, trying to locate Haku's real body. But this power, awakened involuntarily by the overwhelming terror of the massacre night and still beyond his full control, proved inadequate against Haku's absolute speed and the interference from the mirrors' reflections. Pain stabbed through his eyes, and even his vision began to blur.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura's cry was filled with helplessness.
"Bastard! Come at me if you've got the guts!" Naruto roared, swinging his kunai clumsily but desperately as he tried to take some of the pressure off Sasuke. He even used his body to block the senbon aimed at Sasuke, and several bloody cuts instantly appeared across his arms and back.
"It's useless." Haku's voice echoed through the mirrors, ethereal and cold, with a barely perceptible sigh. "In my world, struggling only prolongs the pain."
Just then, the wound in Sasuke's leg and the strain on his Sharingan caused another fatal hesitation in his movements!
Haku silently emerged like a phantom from an ice mirror behind Sasuke's flank. Cold light gleamed at his fingertips as several senbon shot out soundlessly, aimed straight at the vital points along Sasuke's neck and spine! The angle was vicious, the speed blinding. Sasuke had no time to react!
"Sasuke!!!"
An almost throat-tearing roar exploded!
It came not from Sasuke himself, but from Naruto beside him!
Without hesitation, without even time to think, Naruto acted on instinct. He slammed into Sasuke, knocking him aside, and placed his own body directly in the path of the lethal senbon!
Thuck! Thuck! Thuck!
The dull sounds of senbon sinking deep into flesh reached Sasuke's ears with terrible clarity.
Time seemed to freeze.
Sasuke rolled across the ground from the impact. He whipped his head around, and what he saw nearly froze his blood-
Naruto stood where Sasuke had been, no fewer than ten icy senbon buried deep in his back and shoulders! Blood rapidly soaked his orange jacket!
"You loser... you..." Sasuke's mind went blank as he stared in disbelief at the always noisy boy he called an idiot.
Naruto swayed, his face contorted with agony, yet he still struggled to force an ugly smile. "You bastard... Sasuke... I couldn't... just stand there and watch you die..."
Before he could finish, his strength gave out, and he fell straight forward.
"Naruto!!!" Sakura let out a heart-wrenching scream.
Sasuke stared at Naruto's fallen body, drenched in blood because he had saved him, and at the cold senbon still embedded in his flesh...
The endless darkness, cold, and loneliness of the massacre night engulfed him again... But this time, a searing, blinding light tore through that icy darkness-it was that idiot... that loser... Naruto Uzumaki!!!
An indescribably complex torrent of emotion-overwhelming rage! Hatred of his own weakness! The terror of losing... or rather, the fear of losing this "unexpected" presence before him!-erupted like a volcano in his chest!
"Aaaaaaargh!!!"
Sasuke roared in pain and fury. His eyes burned with agony as though seared by branding irons!
Shhk!
He felt something within his eyes forcefully break through a barrier!
The next instant, the single tomoe in his left Sharingan spun at an unprecedented speed, stretching and splitting! It became two tomoe!
His right eye, however, remained in its one-tomoe state! The violent emotional shock and fluctuations in chakra had actually triggered an incomplete evolution in one eye under extremely unstable conditions!
Even so, the instantaneous improvement in his motion perception and visual acuity was enormous!
The world slowed before his eyes! The trajectories of the senbon flying everywhere became clear! He could even faintly make out the afterimages of Haku moving at high speed within the ice mirrors!
"What?!" Genuine shock crossed Haku's face beneath his mask. He had never expected someone to shield another with his body, much less that it would provoke the Uchiha boy's Sharingan into evolving!
"How dare you... how dare you do that to that idiot!!!" The two tomoe in Sasuke's left eye spun wildly, locking onto the ice mirror where Haku had just appeared. Boundless killing intent surged out, mingled with a fury he had never felt before! Forgetting his wounded leg, he hurled every shuriken in his hands toward it with all his strength, sending them shrieking through the air!
Meanwhile, outside the ice mirrors!
Now! Tobirama's voice was as sharp as an ice blade. Naruto's severe injuries have provoked the Uchiha brat, and Haku's rhythm is broken! Strike three inches from the lower-left corner of the second ice mirror directly ahead of you! That was the chakra circulation node when he moved just now! Use Water Severing Wave to break through it!
Ling, who had been waiting for an opening, did not hesitate! His hand seals were already complete!
"Water Release: Water Severing Wave!"
An extremely concentrated jet of high-pressure water shot out soundlessly, striking the precise node Tobirama had indicated!
Shhk!
A small hole bored through the ice mirror, and web-like cracks instantly spread around it!
An assault from within and without!
Sasuke's sudden outburst and Ling's precise external strike briefly stalled and disrupted Haku's control over the mirror array!
"Naruto! Sasuke!" Sakura sobbed as she rushed toward the fallen Naruto.
"Damn brats!" Zabuza also noticed the change within the mirror array, and his assault faltered.
Kakashi seized that fleeting opening. A cold gleam flashed in his Sharingan. "Lightning Blade!"
The balance of the battle abruptly tipped, driven by Naruto's self-sacrificing protection, Sasuke's incomplete yet rage-filled awakening, and the strike Ling and Tobirama had long awaited! For the first time, blazing emotion and precise calculation had carved a crack into the icy demonic mirrors!
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