Roaring flames engulfed the Orange-Haired Shinobi, bound in layer upon layer of wire, and burned him to ashes. After a brief struggle and a few screams, the stench of charred flesh filled the dim room.
Shingetsu paled at the nauseating smell. She lowered her head to look at her trembling hands. They looked as pale and clean as ever.
Yet those very hands had just snuffed out a human life without hesitation.
So disgusting...
Boom-
An explosion right beside her jolted Shingetsu out of her nightmare-like daze. It seemed Ji's dying screams had exposed her position.
No time to stand here dazed. I have to get out!
Shingetsu hurriedly turned and ran, taking several deep breaths to force down her nausea. But just as she was about to rush through the doorway, a pellet marked with the character for "poison" appeared in her field of vision.
"Brat, I've finally caught you."
Smoke laden with toxins instantly spread through the room. Although Shingetsu covered her mouth and nose and tried to evade it at once, the poison carefully concocted by Kang, a seasoned medical shinobi, could seep into the body through the skin!
"Ugh..."
Shingetsu, who had been about to swing her blade at him, faltered. Overwhelming dizziness and pain crushed her. The chakra that should have flowed smoothly through her body ground to a halt. Whenever she tried to force it to move, excruciating pain erupted throughout her body, as though countless needles were piercing her flesh. Even her Sharingan was forced to shut down.
This poison had been designed specifically to deal with shinobi. The more chakra its victim used, the faster the toxins spread, until they died.
Soon, Shingetsu's vision darkened. Her abundant chakra made the poison especially effective against her. She struggled backward, driving her blade firmly into the floor to give herself something to lean on and remain standing.
"Hah. Useless."
Kang strolled into the room, his black robes blasted to shreds, without even looking at the struggling Shingetsu. His contemptuous gaze swept over his companion's charred corpse, and his hideous face, previously concealed beneath layers of black robes, twisted into a malicious grin.
"You couldn't even leave a proper corpse. Trash."
Beneath his torn robes, Kang's ravaged body was covered in ugly scars left by sharp weapons and puncture marks from drug injections. The scars bulged and curled, and the needle marks were densely packed-a truly horrifying sight.
Noticing Shingetsu's gaze, the ugly man immediately turned toward the prey he already considered trapped. When he saw her pale skin and delicate features, extreme jealousy and hatred flashed in his eyes.
"Hey, Uchiha brat. Where's the other brat?"
"..."
Of course, Shingetsu had no answer to give him. Enduring the pain, she silently gathered her strength and tried to activate her Sharingan again.
"Not talking? Then I'll kill you and look for her afterward."
Kang glanced indifferently at the silent little girl before him. His utterly cold eyes clearly regarded her as a corpse. As he spoke, he swept his black robes aside, revealing syringes filled with strange toxins on his arm, and aimed them at the immobilized Shingetsu.
"Anyone who sees me like this dies!"
At that critical moment, Shingetsu finished gathering her strength and abruptly opened her eyes. Her brilliant, blood-red Sharingan perceived the weaknesses in everything.
Enduring the pain spreading throughout her body, Shingetsu wrenched her blade free and shot forward like lightning. Only one thought remained in her muddled mind: cut through Kang's death lines!
Dozens of poisoned needles flew toward Shingetsu. She nimbly twisted her body, successfully evading the successive attacks coming straight at her. But avoiding every needle had exhausted all her strength.
So when Kang viciously thrust the dagger concealed in his hand toward her forehead, Shingetsu's pupils contracted sharply, yet her body continued along its intended course, swinging her blade.
She no longer had the strength to dodge this blow.
"Shingetsu!"
By chance, Chinatsu had finished preparing the antidote and followed the sounds of fighting here just in time.
Her familiarity with the Orphanage's layout had allowed her to avoid the traps and find a safe route. A terrible premonition filled her, making her heart clench and tremble, but she had sworn to protect Shingetsu and summoned the courage to follow.
When she saw the unfamiliar shinobi in black robes and Shingetsu thrusting their blades at one another, her mind went blank. Her body, however, instinctively moved to protect her, grabbing Kang from behind and dragging him back as he tried to stab Shingetsu with his dagger.
Kang had been concentrating entirely on fighting the brat before him. Caught off guard by Chinatsu's pull, he was knocked out of position almost immediately, never having excelled at taijutsu. His eyes bulged with rage as he drove an elbow backward into Chinatsu's abdomen.
"Let go, brat!"
Struck by the adult male shinobi, Chinatsu nearly coughed up blood. It felt as though all her organs had been knocked out of place. Her vision went black, the taste of blood filled her mouth, and she almost fainted on the spot!
Even so, Chinatsu gritted her teeth and held Kang back, enduring his repeated elbow strikes through sheer willpower. Trapped in her grip, Kang watched Shingetsu's blade draw within inches of him. Imminent death made his hair stand on end, but alongside his terror rose boundless fury and resentment!
"You damned brats... you're coming with me!"
At the very instant Shingetsu's blade sliced through his body along its death line, Kang unexpectedly chose not to counterattack. Instead, he thrust his dagger backward into Chinatsu!
Seeing the panic in Shingetsu's eyes, Kang curled his lips into a contemptuous, venomous smile, even as he realized death was unavoidable.
I won't let you get away with this!
In an instant, Kang's body was severed in two, his vicious eyes forever frozen in place. At the same time, Chinatsu's abdomen was pierced, and she collapsed helplessly.
"Chinatsu!"
Ignoring Kang, whose death was certain, Shingetsu hurriedly caught Chinatsu as she fell. Seeing blood pouring out and soaking most of her clothes, she quickly took out a Blood-Enhancing Pill and fed it to her, pressing hard against the wound to stop the bleeding. Yet an ominous purple discoloration spread across Chinatsu's skin with every breath. Within seconds, it had crept from the wound to her face.
"Shin... getsu... anti..."
With the last of her strength, the dying Chinatsu placed the antidote she had prepared into Shingetsu's hand. Dark purple bruising, heralding death, gradually crept over her young face, as though it might claim her life in the very next second.
"As expected of a genius of the Uchiha Clan. Killing two of my useless companions in succession at such a young age-truly impressive."
A man with short white hair and green eyes leaned against the doorway, a strip of white cloth wrapped around his forehead and red markings at the outer corners of his eyes. He studied the unusual Sharingan with interest.
This late arrival never even glanced at the two corpses on the floor. His indifferent face and teasing tone showed that he cared nothing for his companions' deaths, raising the question of whether he had deliberately sacrificed them.
In fact, that was exactly what he had done. With a bounty of a full three hundred million at stake, he had never intended to share it with anyone.
"Lady Shingetsu, let's make a deal. How about handing over that dying woman?"
Silver flashed as Di swung his enormous sword one-handed, its length only slightly shorter than his own height. His tone was gentle, but his words were unmistakably a threat.
"I'll let you, a distinguished Uchiha genius, keep living. All it'll cost you is that dying orphan. What do you say? Fair, isn't it?"
"...Die."
As though she could not hear the newcomer, Shingetsu swallowed the antidote Chinatsu had given her. Then she ceased every unnecessary activity, shutting out sound, thought, and even sight, abandoning all reason and common sense to pour her entire focus into operating the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.
The death lines in her vision grew clearer than ever before.
Master, I'm sorry.
I don't think I can keep my promise to you.
Her remaining reason let out a brief cry before she cast it aside. Blood streamed from her eyes, mouth, and nose-a sign of her brain's screams and struggles. Yet Shingetsu discarded all those distractions in an instant, including her promise to Madara Uchiha.
It was not that she failed to understand what Madara meant when he told her to survive in a crisis, even if she had to abandon her companions. She simply discovered that she could not do it.
Di's steps stopped involuntarily. His mind could not comprehend her actions, but his body struggled and recoiled as death approached. The confident smile froze on his face, replaced by madness. This seemingly rational but truly deranged man numbed himself with even greater insanity the moment fear struck.
"Why...? I'm afraid? Hahaha, I'm actually afraid!"
Shingetsu neither saw nor noticed the frenzied Di. At that moment, she wanted only to become an instrument for observing death.
The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception could give tangible form to the abstract concept of death. Precious, rare, a luxury... any term for something scarce could describe these eyes. Whoever possessed them lived with death as their constant shadow.
The "death" these mystic eyes perceived was not merely biological death. More often, it was the cessation of things on a conceptual level.
Bringing something from existence into nonexistence-that was the true meaning of "death."
In other words, the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception could kill anything, including space, air, and gods. It was only Shingetsu's body and consciousness that constrained their power.
To see something's death, she had to understand it. As a human, Shingetsu could easily comprehend the death of living beings. But once she tried to see the death of things beyond that boundary, the human part of her began to crumble. Thus, she had always instinctively restricted the mystic eyes' power.
Now, however, she unleashed her entire brain to comprehend death, heedless of the consequences or whether she lived or died. Her brain was burning, crying out like an engine running at excessive speed. Perhaps very soon, Shingetsu's body and personality would utterly disintegrate.
As though it knew its host was nearing death, the God Tree parasitizing Shingetsu's sea of consciousness also howled in anguish. Faced with death, it abandoned its stinginess. Power connected to the God Tree's source poured frantically into Shingetsu's body, constructing functions compatible with her mystic eyes and desperately healing her furiously overworked brain.
At the same time, the Senju bloodline lying dormant within Shingetsu's body gradually awakened under this power, resonating with the God Tree.
I see it...
The instant she saw that point, Shingetsu brought her blade down with precision, stabbing it into Chinatsu's abdomen. Almost immediately, all the purple discoloration vanished from Chinatsu's body, and her breathing returned to normal.
At the cost of nearly burning out her brain and bringing her body to the brink of collapse, Shingetsu finally saw the poison inside Chinatsu. Her blade had not pierced Chinatsu's death line-it had killed the poison in her body.
Di, who had watched the entire scene, stared in horror. He could not understand what had just happened.
But now, he no longer needed to consider that question.
Before him, the little girl raised her head. Blood nearly covered her pale face, yet her expression remained indifferent and icy, like a demon that claimed human lives. Her blood-red eyes, shimmering with iridescent hues, were breathtakingly beautiful-and utterly cold.
Fear and combat instinct made his body swing his sword in retaliation, but Shingetsu did not retreat. Her long blade slid lightly along the enormous sword's death line. And just like that, the incredibly hard weapon in Di's hand, forged from rare chakra metal, shattered into countless fragments.
"Monster! You monster!"
Di roared in fear and revulsion, nearly every muscle in his face contorted. His howl resembled that of an enraged beast, but Shingetsu and her blade still reached him in the blink of an eye.
At that moment, killing seemed to be Shingetsu's only remaining instinct. She knew her body and brain were about to collapse. Before that happened, she had to kill this man!
Just follow the death line and cut!
Shhk-
It was the sound of a sharp weapon slicing human flesh.
Her blade was only half a finger's width from the death line, but Shingetsu's swing stopped. Several hard bone spikes had erupted from Di's chest, piercing both her body and the hand gripping her blade.
"The Kaguya... Clan..."
"Hahahahaha!"
The bone spikes in his chest withdrew into Di's body, and Shingetsu crashed to the floor. But he was not finished. Di pulled a sharp bone blade from his back and drove it through Shingetsu's abdomen, pinning her firmly to the floor like a butterfly pierced by a steel needle.
"I am indeed a member of that clan. But ever since I cut my hair short, hardly anyone has recognized me."
Removing the white cloth wrapped around his forehead, Di revealed his full appearance: bright red dots above his eyebrows, red markings at the corners of his eyes, distinctive white hair and green eyes, and the ability to freely manipulate every bone in his body. Clearly, the man before her was a member of the Kaguya Clan who had awakened Shikotsumyaku!
"You really are stupid. Teeth aren't much different from bones, you know."
Derangement, insanity, arrogance-the Kaguya Clan's seemingly heaven-cursed bloodline still flowed through Di's mind and body, even after his defection.
At that moment, Di completely forgot the terror of the Uchiha Clan and the Demon of the Battlefield. Or rather, the gift before him far outweighed the price. His entire attention had been captured by those strange yet exquisite Sharingan.
So what if that terrifying man hunts me down? These eyes are worth it!
"Lady Shingetsu, I'll be taking your eyes!"
As though time had slowed once again, Di's hand approached Shingetsu with agonizing slowness. Yet at this distance, his sharp nails seemed poised to puncture her eyelids and extract those priceless eyes in the next instant. Though she could still see the death lines, Shingetsu no longer had the strength to cut them, her body collapsing after losing too much blood.
"Die..."
Now, she could neither hear nor see anything. Only the God Tree's dying howls echoed in her ears, while her connection to that tree deepened at a frantic pace!
"Die!"
With that shout, torn from her with all her remaining strength, the chakra inside Shingetsu suddenly erupted. The lawn on the Orphanage grounds trembled as her chakra spurred it to grow.
Soon, thick roots coiled and twisted like great dragons poised for flight, bursting from the ground and rapidly growing into towering trees. They tore through the roof and walls, transforming the entire Orphanage into an ancient forest!
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