"Could it be that even the renowned Uchiha Xuantou doesn't dare attack when he sees me?"
Murotsu stepped back, dodging his opponent's follow-up attack, wiped his split lip, and grinned brazenly.
"Get past me first!"
"Scum!"
Opposite him, Nagato, whose body Xuandou had just reconstructed through Yang Release, continued attacking with a cold expression. The two swiftly tangled again.
Their punches and kicks moved like the wind, leaving trails of afterimages. The captured ninja could not intervene even if they wanted to.
Xuandou glanced at Murotsu with little interest.
He had no intention of responding.
Even though Murotsu had encountered some opportunities and reached the level of a top ninja, he was still nowhere near the point of requiring Xuandou to act personally.
Simply put, Murotsu was not worthy of his intervention.
Had he not needed Murotsu and Shoujuse to undo Uchiha Hikari's seal, both would have been captured on the very first day Shoujuse escaped.
Why would he have allowed them to roam free for so long?
At that moment, Xuandou still did not know that just a minute before his arrival, Murotsu had been thinking that Uchiha Xuantou was nothing special.
"Lord Xuandou!"
"Your Majesty, First Emperor..."
"Your Majesty!"
The ninja Uchiha Hikari had captured and mentally altered abandoned their earlier dejected demeanor and bowed to Xuandou in greeting.
Clearly, with Xuandou's intervention, these ninja had not been brainwashed by Uchiha Hikari.
"My apologies, Your Majesty. I failed to control myself and caused you to reveal yourself," the Bearded Chunin said remorsefully as he stepped out of the crowd.
When he saw that scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan, Xuandou's voice had sounded in his ears, so the Bearded Chunin had obediently pretended that his mind had been altered.
He had originally intended to follow orders and keep up the act.