Give Him a Try

"Damn it!! Damn it!!!"

Staring at the clone that had burst apart before him, Heizhi seethed with anger. He did not understand why he had become the scapegoat they abandoned.

"No, I can't just sit here and wait to die! I have to do something!"

Once his anger passed, reason regained control. Heizhi lowered his head, his gaze dark as he considered how to escape Chuntai City.

But...

Crackle-!

Boom!

A bolt of Lightning Release instantly shattered the roof of the Town Mayor's Residence. Within the lightning, a boy's silhouette silently broke through the night.

Uchiha Gen stood atop the high wall.

His eyes gleamed a clear scarlet in the darkness as he gazed down impassively at Heizhi below.

"Hello there."

Uchiha Gen looked down at Heizhi just like that. As his Observation Haki sensed the strange power in Heizhi's body, distinctly different from chakra, the corners of his mouth involuntarily lifted.

"How could you get here so quickly! Don't... don't you people from Konoha worry about us attacking Chuntai City's civilians?!!! Those Public Security Officers outside are all my men!"

Seeing Uchiha Gen bathed in Lightning Release, Heizhi's pupils abruptly contracted. Although Uchiha Gen looked like nothing more than a young child...

What he feared were the people behind this child. Since this boy could appear here so openly, did that... mean the other Konoha Ninja had arrived too?

Where are they?!!

Cold sweat covered Heizhi's forehead as he nervously scanned his surroundings. Yet... apart from the crackle of Lightning Release erupting around Uchiha Gen, there was no other sound in the entire Town Mayor's Residence.

"Stop looking. Right now, I'm the only one here. As for those men of yours outside, I'm really sorry, but one of the people who came this time happens to specialize in dealing with crowds."

Uchiha Gen raised his hand slightly, Lightning Release dancing at his fingertips.

Meanwhile, on the streets of Chuntai City outside the Town Mayor's Residence.

Countless insect silhouettes flitted through the streets. Atop the city gate, Shibi Aburame calmly controlled as many as a hundred and eighty giant humanoid insects.

At that moment, Shibi Aburame was like the commander of all the Battle Insects.

At the same time, elsewhere, Maruboshi Kosuke was advancing rapidly toward the place where the Jashin Cult imprisoned the children, with two Anbu Ninja beside him.

How could anyone who became an Anbu Ninja lack a few tricks?

Over the past two days, because the Jashin Cult had suddenly begun abducting children without restraint, they had also successfully located where the children were being held.

As they hurried along, a hint of worry crept into Maruboshi Kosuke's eyes.

Gen... please don't let anything happen to you. I'll come help you as soon as we rescue those children. The wielder of the blood release kekkei genkai, Fujii Sakura...

Although the blood cancer caused by his bloodstain disease leaves him able to use only half his strength, Fujii Sakura was still around Elite Jonin level at his peak. Shibi... is this arrangement really all right...?

Meanwhile, inside the Town Mayor's Residence.

Lightning Release ran rampant!

"Just you??? You're the only fucking one, and you dare come here! Do you know who I-"

Before he could finish, a cold blade was already at the space between his brows.

Holding the Demon Blade Thousand Blades in one hand, Uchiha Gen unleashed a sudden burst of spectral blue fragments amid the lightning. The blade's momentum condensed into a single line, thrusting straight at the fatal point between Kuroji's brows.

Utter speed. Utter cold.

Faced with Uchiha Gen's attack without any windup, Heizhi's pupils contracted sharply. At the last possible instant, he threw his head back and retreated at speed.

Slash-!

The demon blade's tip skimmed his face, its edge slicing across Heizhi's cheek and drawing a thin line of scarlet droplets.

Blood flew into the air.

It was that single drop of blood.

That instantly lit a crazed red glow in Heizhi's eyes.

"Hahaha... every fucking one of you wants to push me around, huh! You Konoha brat! I'm going to kill you before I die, no matter what!"

As blood-red light flickered in his eyes, Heizhi advanced instead of retreating. His body twisted unnaturally, and the flesh around his wound instantly writhed and joined together, healing without a trace in a flash.

"Offer your life to the great Lord Jashin!! Die!!"

As he closed in on Uchiha Gen, Heizhi laughed maniacally and abruptly formed hand seals.

In an instant, dark red curse markings blazed to life across the grounds of the Town Mayor's Residence!

"Secret technique-Blood Prison!"

As his words fell, dark red waves of blood instantly surged across the entire ground. Countless streams of viscous blood gushed from the eye pattern at the center of a triangular formation, forming a blood domain swept by a bloody wind that instantly engulfed the entire courtyard compound.

"Even if I die, I'm taking someone with me! You Konoha brat, behold this power bestowed by a god! Within this blood domain, I'm invincible!"

Immediately afterward, the blood in Heizhi's palm began bubbling like boiling water!

"Blood Scythe!"

Scarlet blood stretched, took shape, and solidified in his palm, becoming a huge, viciously curved blood-red scythe. Its blade was densely serrated, and corrosive drops of blood still dripped from its edge. The instant they hit the ground, they ate into the flagstones, raising black smoke.

Gripping the Blood Scythe, he moved with eerie unpredictability, completely abandoning the normal ways a human body exerted force. Stepping on the blood covering the blood domain, he surged forward with the Body Flicker Technique.

"Die!"

The Blood Scythe swept horizontally, its blood-red blade wind tearing through the air with a chilling, murderous force as it cut straight toward Uchiha Gen's neck.

Uchiha Gen's gaze remained calm and unruffled.

The three tomoe of his Sharingan rotated in his eyes, breaking down and seeing through every layer of his opponent's movements.

"You're... not Fujii Sakura?"

"Don't fucking mention that bastard!!"

Amid his furious roar, the Blood Scythe was already upon Uchiha Gen.

Uchiha Gen neither dodged nor retreated. The Demon Blade Thousand Blades suddenly turned in his hand.

In an instant, a layer of pitch-black armament haki silently coated the blade.

At the same time, crimson fire release chakra flooded into its edge.

Uchiha: Flame Leaping Sword!

The spectral blue blade fragments, wrapped in crimson flames, crashed into the enormous blood-red scythe!

Clang-!!

A piercing metallic crash shook the entire residence.

The bloody aura of the Blood Scythe clashed violently with the intense heat of the flames coating the demon blade. The blood mist filling the air was instantly scorched dry and vaporized.

Heizhi used the force to flip backward, landing with a savage smile on his face.

"So that bastard had planned for all of this... From the very first day I was exposed, he'd already thought of throwing me to the wolves.

"All that furious cursing back then was just to make me lower my guard. Hahahaha, he was right... I really am an idiot."

Hearing Fujii Sakura's name from Uchiha Gen, Heizhi immediately put everything together, and a cold glint involuntarily entered his eyes.

"So that Fujii Sakura left you here to draw attention while he ran away himself. Heh, should I praise him?"

Uninterested in learning about the tangled love and hatred between this man and Fujii Sakura, Uchiha Gen flicked the Demon Blade Thousand Blades in his hand and closed in again.

Right now, he was more interested in giving the Jashin Cult follower before him a try.