In the stillness of Uzushio Village, moonlight shone clear and bright. The tides were like a cradle in the night, gently soothing the villagers.
Uzumaki Changshou gazed at the distant sky, longing for Uzumaki Ashina's return.
"Clan leader, perhaps you're the only one who can negotiate with those two outside the village. If they really start fighting..."
"The losses to Uzushio Village could be beyond reckoning!"
His unease grew stronger and stronger. Uzumaki Changshou even changed into his combat gear, intending to take a group of men to guard the village entrance.
Even if the fighting between Uchiha Tajima and Butsuma Senju spread to the village, he could at least serve as its first line of defense.
Jing Xiu slipped into Uzushio Village without a sound.
He had already investigated the village's defenses. Has Uzumaki Changshou gone to the entrance?
Jing Xiu glanced at the dense forest near the village entrance. Uchiha Tajima and Butsuma Senju were facing off there, and the slightest misstep could reduce the entire forest to flat ground.
"I suppose I should thank you two, though my plan would have worked just fine without your help!"
He also glanced at the bright moon overhead. "It's almost time! Uzumaki Clan, you will pay a terrible price for ganging up on Izuna and killing him."
"I don't care about the struggle between the Uchiha and the Senju, but you should never have laid a hand on Izuna!"
"Feel pain!"
With that, Jing Xiu bit his finger and rapidly formed hand seals with both hands.
At the village entrance, Uzumaki Changshou led several dozen Chunin in reinforcing the village's protective barrier, consuming a considerable amount of materials.
Yet after strengthening the barrier, his unease only grew more pronounced.
Boom!
An enormous cloud of smoke engulfed all of Uzushio Village.
The tides turned fierce and turbulent. One moment, they had been a gentle mother; the next, they became a raging destroyer.
A towering column of water shot into the sky, surging straight toward the clouds.
Within that column, the Three-Tails slowly emerged. His immense body resembled a moving mountain range.
His scales gleamed with a faint blue light, and his eyes were like two enormous gemstones, radiating a cold, imposing glow.
The moment he appeared, he let out a deafening roar that shook all of Uzushio Village.
He swung his massive tails, raising towering waves that crashed violently toward the village.
The waves were like razor-sharp blades, destroying the village's houses and trees in an instant. Wails and cries for help rose one after another.
Uzumaki Changshou stared blankly at the scene before him. He was so overwhelmed by disbelief that he even forgot to move.
Even the elder who held the highest standing and greatest strength among the ninja left to guard Uzushio Village reacted this way.
The ordinary Chunin, Genin, and civilians fared even worse.
In the northwestern corner of Uzushio Village, Shiliu, who had just celebrated her fifth birthday and was about to start learning the trade at her family's ramen shop, stared blankly at her hands.
Along with the bright red bloodstains, her parents' dying screams lingered there: "Run!"
Flour scattered across the ground mixed with rainwater, spreading into a "white" stream along the chaotic street.
It seemed almost as though her parents were showing her the way forward.
There was no terror in Shiliu's eyes, no sorrow. Apart from those thin threads of white, she could see nothing.
"Watch out!"
A Genin saw Shiliu running dazedly toward the Three-Tails' feet and shouted a warning.
The earth trembled as Isobu's barbed tail slammed down. The little girl Shiliu became a splash of crimson, like the pomegranate she was named after.
It mingled with that thread of white and flowed with it to the Three-Tails' feet.
As Uzumaki Changshou watched the devastation in the village, all his spirit seemed to drain away. He murmured, "Uzushio Village... is finished!"
"Cough, cough!"
Jing Xiu spat out several mouthfuls of blood. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a family of three-more precisely, a young couple holding their newborn child tightly in their arms.
Amid the Three-Tails' roar, the family of three fell into eternal sleep without the slightest power to resist.
He glanced at Uzumaki Changshou, who had collapsed like a heap of mud nearby, then blended into the chaos and quietly left Uzushio Village.
Despite his caution, Jing Xiu's brow twitched as he passed through Uzushio Village's defensive barrier.
Uzumaki Changshou seemed to have found a reason to keep living. "Everyone! An unidentified person has been spotted fleeing. That villain must be the culprit who summoned the Three-Tails."
"We're going to avenge the village!"
Jing Xiu had not expected Uzumaki Changshou to be so accomplished with barriers. He had used his original method to pass through, only to trigger the newly reinforced barrier's alarm.
"What a nuisance!"
Once he had left the range of Butsuma Senju's and Uchiha Tajima's senses, Jing Xiu stopped.
Several dozen breaths later, Uzumaki Changshou caught up with Jing Xiu, leading over a dozen Chunin.
He saw Jing Xiu's Sharingan, identical to the Three-Tails' eyes, and a face that looked exactly like Izuna's.
How could Uzumaki Changshou fail to understand why this calamity had befallen Uzushio Village?
"You demon! For the sake of your brother alone, you would send nearly ten thousand people from Uzushio Village to their graves with him?"
"Is your heart made of stone?"
Jing Xiu gave the trembling Uzumaki Changshou a faint smile. His left hand rapidly formed hand seals, while his right already held a Ninja Blade named Light Thunder.
Light Thunder was similar to Arc Light in its overall design, but it was a straight Tang-style blade rather than a gracefully curved katana.
"Lightning Release: Light Thunder, first flash."
Though the flash of lightning was barely noticeable, it still jolted the nearly broken Uzumaki Changshou back to his senses in the boundless darkness.
But when he saw Jing Xiu again, half of the dozen or so Chunin who had joined him in the pursuit were already on the ground.
A thin line of blood marked each of their throats.
Six Adamantine Sealing Chains shot out from behind Uzumaki Changshou, wrapping him and the remaining five men up like rice dumplings.
Jing Xiu merely smiled in disdain. "Lightning Release: Light Thunder, second flash."
Uzumaki Changshou clutched his neck in disbelief. Blood was gushing from it.
The second flash differed from the first. Building on the first flash, Jing Xiu doubled back and delivered another slash in the opposite direction along the path of his previous cut.
It was like sawing through a log, drawing the saw back and forth.
But Jing Xiu was too fast. To Uzumaki Changshou, he seemed not to have moved at all, yet the illusion of Jing Xiu flickering twice remained in his eyes.
Jing Xiu had combined Chidori's speed boost with the movement enhancements of the Five Thunder Orthodox Method. It was essentially an upgraded version of Zhang Chulan's Thunderclap from the world of Outcasts.
After eliminating Uzumaki Changshou and his party, Jing Xiu glanced at Light Thunder in his hand, feeling fairly satisfied. It isn't as powerful as I expected, but it still qualifies as a rare divine weapon!
"Cough, cough!"
He spat out several more mouthfuls of blood. "Forcibly suppressing the Three-Tails' consciousness is still too much for me!"
Jing Xiu took out a sheet of silver paper.
Rather than paper, it was more accurately a piece of silver foil forged exceedingly thin.
It was covered in densely packed blood-red runes. This was the Blood Contract Scroll Jing Xiu had used to bind the Three-Tails and suppress his consciousness.
Using the blood at the corner of his mouth, he made alterations to the Blood Contract Scroll, then poured a large amount of chakra into it before finally letting out a long breath.
Black Wolf came to Jing Xiu's side and asked with concern, "Are you all right?"
Jing Xiu waved a hand. "The rest is up to you. Are you confident you can deal with Uzumaki Ashina?"
Black Wolf said nothing more, but the fire of battle blazed in his lone remaining eye.
Jing Xiu took out a Jade Talisman and infused it with a little chakra to sense his target. Then he chose a direction and set off in pursuit.
Ahead of him was Madara Uchiha, who had been running at full speed for days without rest!