Ryuto slammed into the battlefield like a meteor.
Boom-!!!
A shock wave exploded from his landing point like a typhoon sweeping through. The seven or eight Uchiha ninja surrounding Mito Uzumaki and Rena were blown away, kunai and all, crashing to the ground far in the distance.
Dust billowed.
Ryuto straightened, the dark gold plates on his body clattering to the ground. His tenfold weight load was off.
He swept his gaze around.
Grim.
Too grim.
He had visited the Uzumaki Clan Grounds before. The once-orderly houses now leaned every which way, fires burning everywhere. More people lay on the ground than remained standing. Most wore the Uzumaki Clan's red clothes, stained even redder by blood.
Several familiar young faces had sparred with him on the training field before, grinning as they asked him how exactly to train their "ki." Now they lay motionless in the rubble.
Ryuto clenched his fists.
"R-Ryuto?" A trembling voice came from beside him.
Rena Uzumaki supported Mito Uzumaki, who could barely stand. Both were covered in wounds, their chakra fluctuations as weak as candles flickering in the wind. Rena's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Y-you really came?" Rena's voice trembled with tears.
"I said I would." Ryuto's voice was cold. He looked at Mito. "Can you hold on?"
Mito Uzumaki's face was pale. She nodded, then shook her head. "The sealing jutsu took too much out of me. My chakra's almost gone. These monsters... and the Uchiha. They came prepared."
Ryuto looked in the direction she pointed.
On the other side of the battlefield, he finally saw the sources of the "frenzied chakra" he had sensed. They weren't people at all, but tailed beasts. The Uchiha had used their Sharingan to control the Two-Tails, Four-Tails, and Five-Tails.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Several Uchiha ninja who hadn't been knocked unconscious by the shock wave charged again, their shuriken trailing fire.
Ryuto moved his feet.
He vanished.
The next second, he appeared beside the first ninja and threw a punch.
Thud!
The man flew sideways, knocking down half a wall.
The second ninja was only halfway through his Fire Release hand seals when Ryuto appeared before him, pressing a palm against his hands.
Zzz-
Ki poured straight in, scattering the chakra in his meridians into disarray. The ninja screamed and collapsed.
The third, the fourth...
Ryuto left golden afterimages across the battlefield. Wherever he passed, Uchiha ninja fell like wheat before a scythe. There was no flashy ninjutsu, just pure speed, strength, and precise destruction through ki.
Simple, brutal, effective.
In barely a dozen seconds, the area where Mito and Rena had been surrounded fell quiet.
The surviving Uzumaki clan members looked at Ryuto as though a god had descended to earth.
"Take the wounded and fall back," Ryuto told Mito. "Leave this to me."
"You, alone..." Mito started to say something.
"I'm enough." Ryuto cut her off and looked toward the center of the battlefield.
There, a figure wearing Uchiha clan clothing, a katana strapped to his back, was slowly approaching.
Wherever he passed, Uzumaki clan members and Uchiha ninja alike instinctively cleared a path.
Uchiha Izuna.
He stopped roughly twenty meters from Ryuto. His Sharingan was already active, its three tomoe slowly rotating.
"We meet again," Izuna said calmly. "This time, it isn't a chance encounter, is it?"
Ryuto said nothing.
Izuna glanced at Mito Uzumaki and Rena, whom Ryuto protected behind him, then at the fallen Uchiha ninja around them.
"So, you've made your choice?" Izuna asked. "You're taking the other side? Making enemies of us Uchiha for these Uzumaki clan members?"
Ryuto smiled.
It was a cold smile.
"Enemies?" he said. "Weren't we already, the moment you laid hands on my friends?"
He raised his right hand, aiming his palm at Izuna.
Ki began gathering.
It wasn't the diffuse golden light of an ordinary Ki Blast, but a highly compressed golden sphere condensed into a single point, spinning wildly in his palm with a low hum.
Izuna's Sharingan abruptly contracted.
He could feel it. That energy was on a completely different level from their previous fight! Dangerous!
"To answer your question," Ryuto said.
He thrust his palm forward.
Whoosh-!!!
A golden beam only as thick as a thumb, condensed to the utmost, tore through the air straight toward Izuna's face!
It was too fast!
Izuna's pupils shrank sharply, and he dodged sideways as fast as his body could move.
Boom!!!
The golden beam grazed his shoulder and struck a house fifty meters behind him that hadn't completely collapsed yet.
There was no explosion.
Starting at the point of impact, the house silently disintegrated and vanished. A hole over five meters across pierced it from front to back, its edges as smooth as a mirror.
A small hill farther beyond the ruins had also been pierced.
The entire battlefield fell deathly silent.
Even those rampaging monsters seemed to pause.
Izuna lowered his head and glanced at the spot on his shoulder where the beam had grazed him. A small patch of clothing was scorched, and his skin burned.
He raised his head and looked at Ryuto, his Sharingan spinning faster.
"Very good," Izuna said, a trace of fighting spirit finally entering his voice. "Now that's more like it."
He began forming hand seals.
Ryuto didn't wait for him to finish.
He took a deep breath, spread his feet slightly, lowered his center of gravity, and cupped his hands near his waist.
Golden ki surged from his entire body. It wasn't flame, but streams of light that seemed almost solid, rushing wildly toward his cupped palms and compressing.
The ground around him began to shake.
Loose stones floated into the air.
The nearby ninja, whether Uchiha or Uzumaki, all struggled to breathe, as though an invisible force were pressing down on them.
"Wh-what is that?!" an Uzumaki clan member cried out.
Mito Uzumaki stared fixedly at the golden point of light between Ryuto's palms as it grew brighter and smaller. Her expression changed. "He's compressing energy... compressing it to the limit... that lunatic! Is he trying to blow this whole place sky-high?!"
Uchiha Izuna couldn't continue his hand seals.
His Sharingan locked onto the mass of energy in Ryuto's palms. The destructive power within it made his scalp prickle.
"Interesting..." Izuna licked his lips, his gaze turning completely serious. "Now you're worthy of being my opponent!"
He changed his hand seal.
"Fire Style: Majestic Destroyer Flame!"
An immense sea of fire swept toward Ryuto.
Meanwhile, the point of golden light between Ryuto's palms had been compressed to its limit, radiating a glare as dazzling as the sun.
The charge was complete.
He looked at the sea of fire rushing toward him, and at Uchiha Izuna behind it.
The battle began.
Before you continue