The Uchiha Clan's forward position.
The place was in chaos, with ninjutsu constantly slamming into the position.
Clad in armor, Uchiha Takashi cautiously poked his head out, only to nearly have his skull split by a flying kunai. Frightened, he immediately ducked back down.
Outside, the Uzumaki Clan was continually attacking the Uchiha Clan's forward position. Over the past two years, because the Uchiha Clan had focused on defending against outside attacks, the Uzumaki Clan had achieved little.
Clearly, the Uzumaki Clan would not stop until they had torn a chunk of flesh from the Uchiha.
"Water Release: Water Bullet!" A sudden barrage of water bullets struck overhead at the position where Uchiha Takashi was hiding.
He looked up and out, discovering a group of Uzumaki clansmen charging toward him.
Quite a few of them were children like him, looking no older than six, yet these people were the Uzumaki Clan's main force.
"Fire Style: Fire Dragon Bullet!" Aka Uchiha formed hand seals without hesitation and unleashed his ninjutsu. A mass of fireballs shot from his mouth toward the distant Uzumaki clansmen.
Quite a few of the Uzumaki children were struck by the Fire Dragon Bullets before they could even react, dying on the spot.
"Is the Uzumaki Clan using children as cannon fodder? Have they gone mad?" Homura Uchiha said through gritted teeth. "They're cutting off their own future!"
Uchiha Takashi spoke while forming hand seals. "No, the Uzumaki Clan is highly fertile. Their clan is full of vitality, so they don't have as few children as our Uchiha Clan does.
"They generally outnumber us and have more children, but only so many geniuses can emerge, so they throw the other, useless children onto the battlefield."
Aka Uchiha called out, "Fire Style: Majestic Destroyer Flame!" A vast sheet of flame spewed from his mouth, burning fiercely before him.
"Don't they realize how important the younger generation is? They just send children up here to die? What's the point of that?"
Uchiha Takashi said, "Fire Style: Fire Shuriken Jutsu! ...To the Uzumaki Clan, sacrificing a few untalented children to deplete our chakra and damage our defensive lines is meaningful enough."
In the Warring States Period, children without talent were no different from trash. They had no so-called human rights; they were simply thrown onto the battlefield as cannon fodder.
In truth, the Uchiha Clan had previously been much the same as the Uzumaki Clan. The reason the Uchiha Clan no longer did this
was still Ryō Uchiha. The New Shoots Plan he had proposed focused on nurturing the next generation, and the Uchiha Clan's talent was generally not low; it was merely a question of stronger or weaker.
Compared to other ninja clans, the Uchiha Clan could be said to possess very high talent. Even their dead last would be a genius in another clan.
Not to mention that the Uchiha Clan's greatest talent lay in their eyes. Once they awakened their eyes, their combat strength would rise exponentially.
Whether an Uchiha awakened their eyes did not depend on talent, but on emotion. Thus, through Ryō Uchiha's efforts, he had successfully protected the Uchiha Clan's children.
"Multiple Nest Chains!" While they were talking, they suddenly heard a shout from afar. An Uzumaki clansman slammed both hands against the ground.
Before him, several golden chains burst out of the earth and flew straight toward Uchiha Takashi.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Fang!" Aka Uchiha reacted swiftly, and Homura Uchiha immediately followed. "Lightning Release: Lightning Needle!"
"Fire Style: Rushing Fire Charge!" Uchiha Takashi also swiftly formed hand seals. Lightning and flames collided with the chains with a crisp clang.
Fortunately, the chains stopped advancing, and the Uzumaki clansman's expression turned somewhat grim.
The Uzumaki clansman did not give up. "Damn it! Bind them!" At his furious shout, the chains that had stopped advancing and fallen to the ground actually rose again, attacking Uchiha Takashi and the others once more.
"Fire Style: Fire Dragon Technique!" A huge fire dragon spewed from Aka Uchiha's mouth, opening its enormous maw and biting viciously into the incoming chains.
As the fire dragon tore at them, the chains connected to the ground were snapped apart. The Uzumaki clansman who had cast the jutsu spat out a mouthful of blood and flew backward, where several people behind him quickly caught him and carried him away.
In front of him, many Uzumaki clansmen were still charging toward Uchiha Takashi and the others.
Naturally, the three showed no mercy to their enemies. They picked up the ninja blades beside them and charged, using ninjutsu in conjunction with their blades to cut down every enemy rushing at them.
Soon, the Uzumaki Clan retreated in defeat. Uchiha Takashi sat on the ground, exhausted, his hand trembling as he gripped his ninja blade.
Homura Uchiha was not much better off, the chakra emanating from his entire body extremely faint.
Compared to their sorry state, Aka Uchiha was doing somewhat better. He held a ninja blade that kept dripping blood, but his aura was not as weak as theirs.
"You two have been slacking off in training, haven't you? How are you already spent after killing so few people?" Aka Uchiha asked with a frown.
Uchiha Takashi could not even be bothered to respond to Aka Uchiha. This guy always mistook talent for hard work. He was naturally stronger physically than the two of them and had more chakra.
Hadn't they seen how he had spewed one Fire Style jutsu after another from his mouth while fighting just now? The Fire Style and Lightning Release jutsu he had unleashed alone already equaled Uchiha Takashi's and Aka Uchiha's combined total.
Even so, Aka Uchiha still showed no sign of exhaustion and instead had strength to spare.
After resting for a while, Uchiha Takashi slowly climbed to his feet and joined the other clansmen in clearing the battlefield.
With his head lowered, he kept scanning the surrounding corpses and collecting equipment from the ground. Just as he reached toward one corpse,
the corpse suddenly moved. Aka Uchiha merely gave him a calm glance, then raised his ninja blade and plunged it down hard.
The corpse twitched once more, then went completely still.
Only after confirming that the man was thoroughly dead did Uchiha Takashi continue collecting the equipment on his body, taking all his kunai, concealed weapons, and the Military Rations Pills he carried.
Just as he was about to continue looking for equipment, he suddenly heard Aka Uchiha's voice. "Fire Style: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet!"
Uchiha Takashi abruptly raised his head, only to see Aka Uchiha continuously spitting fire bullets into the distance. A patch of bushes in the distance instantly caught fire.
Within the burning bushes, a figure seemed to be darting about.
"Someone's there!" Uchiha Takashi immediately grew alert and hurriedly called Aka Uchiha and the other clansmen over to surround the area.
Seeing that escape was impossible, the person inside charged out without hesitation, kunai in hand, ready to take them down with him.
"Genjutsu: Entrancement Technique!" Before the figure could approach, however, an Uchiha clansman with Mitsudomoe cast a genjutsu and brought him down.
The instant the man fell, everyone swarmed around him and tied him up.
Only when Uchiha Takashi stepped closer for a look did he discover that the person before him had black hair and did not seem to belong to the Uzumaki Clan.
Uchiha Takashi's gaze moved from the man's neck to his arm, where several stripes caught his attention. After a moment's thought, he said, "From the Senju Clan?"
The Uchiha clansman with Mitsudomoe nodded. "That's right, he's from the Senju Clan. He was probably sent to observe the battle between us and the Uzumaki Clan, but we discovered him."