Fugaku moved through a landscape of ruin, his every sense extended to a razor's edge. The cacophony of battle was a constant, oppressive blanket: the shriek of kunai meeting, the crump of distant explosions, the guttural cries of the wounded and the dying. Periodically, the very ground beneath his feet would tremble, a deep, resonant shudder that was distinct from the more localised blasts of the Explosion Corps he was currently engaged with.
One such tremor, heavier and deeper than the others, rippled through the street, causing dust to rain from the shattered facades of nearby buildings. Fugaku's balance, honed to perfection, didn't falter. He dismissed the vibration as just another detonation in the chaotic symphony of the assault.
After all, the entire place was a powder keg. He couldn't afford to be distracted by the specifics of his father's fight, no matter how cataclysmic it sounded. His duty was here, with the First Division, protecting the village's heart from the invaders who had already resigned themselves to death.
Uchiha Daichi, his father, was a paradox. He had not been the most naturally talented shinobi of his generation; that title had often been whispered alongside the name of Fugaku's uncle, a man of flashier, more destructive prowess.
But Daichi possessed a cold, calculating brilliance that shone brightest in the forge of war. The Second Great Shinobi War had been his stage. While other clans boasted of legendary single combats, Daichi had accrued merit through ruthless efficiency and strategic victories that had saved countless Konoha shinobi and turned the tide of entire battles.
It was this record, this clout built on the bones of Iwa and Kumo shinobi, that had secured him the title of Clan Head. The village respected him, and the clan, for all its pride, trusted a winner. That was why he was a target. The other villages recognised that while they had superiority in quantity, Konoha and Kiri held the advantage in quality. Tipping the scales before the final, outright war meant decapitating the enemy's leadership. Assassinating a figure like Uchiha Daichi was a near-suicidal mission, but one Iwa was willing to invest its most destructive assets in.
And the Explosion Corps was their most destructive asset. Dealing with an Uchiha was always a tactical nightmare thanks to the Sharingan's predictive capabilities. Iwa's solution was simple: unleash such overwhelming, area-denying power that prediction became meaningless.
You can see the punch coming, but can you dodge the entire mountain it brings down? They had even planned for the legendary Mangekyo Sharingan, suspecting Daichi might possess it. Their intelligence suggested that the ultimate defence, the Susanoo, could be breached by force of a sufficient magnitude. Gando and his corps were that magnitude.
Fugaku's thoughts were cut short as a trio of Iwa shinobi emerged from a cloud of settling plaster dust. Their uniforms were torn, their faces smeared with grime and blood, but their eyes held the fanatical gleam of men who had already written their epitaphs. They were the best of the best, the survivors, and they were burning their life force like cheap coal to fuel one last, glorious inferno. The air around them shimmered with the intensity of their chakra, a visible, desperate aura of power.
"The pup of the Uchiha hound," one of them, a man with a scarred lip, spat.
Fugaku didn't waste breath on a retort. His Sharingan spun, capturing every minute detail. He saw the subtle shift in the lead shinobi's weight, the twitch of a finger towards a weapons pouch. They were on guard against genjutsu; their chakra flows were erratic, deliberately disordered to make illusory infiltration difficult. Standard procedure against the Uchiha. It meant he couldn't rely solely on his clan's signature advantage. This would be a test of his comprehensive skill.
"Swish! Thwip! Thwip!"
A volley of senbon, their tips glowing a faint blue—poisoned—shot towards him. Fugaku's body became a blur. He didn't merely dodge; he flowed between the needles, his movements economical and precise. As he moved, his hands flashed through seals with practiced speed.
"Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"
A stream of fire erupted from his lips, but instead of a single fireball, it split into a dozen smaller, fist-sized orbs that curved through the air like vengeful spirits. The Iwa shinobi scattered. One, the scarred-lipped leader, met the attack head-on.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!" A slab of rock erupted from the ground, absorbing the fiery assault with a series of sizzling thumps.
But Fugaku had already anticipated this. He hadn't expected the Phoenix Flowers to connect. They were a distraction. While the first shinobi was behind his wall, and the second was diving for cover behind a collapsed cart, the third had chosen to ascend, leaping onto the remnants of a second-story balcony to gain a height advantage. A predictable tactical move.
As the leaping shinobi reached the apex of his jump, Fugaku was already there. He had used the cover of his own fire jutsu and the enemy's distraction to execute a Body Flicker, appearing directly in the man's path. The Iwa shinobi's eyes widened in shock. Fugaku's hand snapped out, not with a kunai, but with two fingers extended.
"Juken!"
The Gentle Fist. A technique rarely seen outside the Hyuga clan. But Fugaku was a student of all arts. His fingers struck precisely at a key chakra point on the man's sternum.
There was no loud impact, just a soft tap. But the effect was immediate. The shinobi's chakra flow stuttered and collapsed. He gasped, his body going rigid mid-air, and plummeted to the ground below like a sack of stones.
The remaining two enemies reacted instantly. The one behind the cart hurled a cluster of explosive tags wrapped around a kunai.
"Fwoosh-CLANG!"
The cart exploded into splinters. Fugaku, already moving, used the force of the blast wave to propel himself backwards, his flak jacket whipping in the hot wind. He landed in a crouch, his eyes never leaving his opponents.
The leader emerged from behind his earth wall, his hands a blur of seals. "You're agile, Uchiha. Let's see you dodge this! Earth Release: Hiding Like a Mole Technique!"
He vanished into the ground.
A classic pincer manoeuvre. The visible enemy on the surface to pressure him, the hidden one below to strike from an unexpected angle. Fugaku's Battle IQ, a sharp, cold engine in his mind, calculated the variables. The ground here was packed earth and rubble, perfect for the mole technique. The hidden shinobi would likely strike at his feet, aiming to immobilise him.
The second shinobi charged, a wakizashi in each hand, swinging them in a furious, wide arc.
"Die!" he roared.
Fugaku parried the first strike with his own tantō, the clash of steel ringing loud.
"Shiiing!" He ducked under the second swing, feeling the wind of the blade pass millimetres above his scalp.
'Now.'
He could feel the subtle vibration beneath his feet—the mole user was almost upon him. Instead of retreating, Fugaku surged forward, inside the wakizashi user's guard. He slammed his forehead into the man's nose with a sickening crunch.
As the man staggered back, blinded by pain and tears, Fugaku didn't finish him. Instead, he grabbed the man by the front of his flak jacket and, with a powerful heave, spun and slammed him down onto the exact spot where the mole user was about to surface.
"THUD!"
The ground erupted. The mole user, expecting soft flesh, instead found his comrade's body slammed onto him. There was a grunt of pain and surprise from underground. The wakizashi user on top screamed as the force of the impact from below broke his spine.
Fugaku didn't pause. He dropped a single explosive tag onto the tangled heap. "Fire Style: Dragon Flame Bomb." He exhaled a tiny spark onto the tag.
"KABOOM!"
The ground erupted a second time, this time with gory finality. When the dust settled, there was only a crater and silence.
Fugaku stood panting slightly, his tantō still held ready. He scanned the area, his Sharingan confirming no other immediate threats. The fight had lasted less than a minute. It had been a brutal, efficient display of taijutsu, ninjutsu, and tactical genius.
He had used his enemy's momentum against them, turned their own techniques into traps, and had never wasted a single movement. This was the superiority of Konoha's quality, the kind of skill that made Iwa's high command so desperate.
He took a moment, wiping a smear of blood from his cheek. The immediate sector was clear. The sounds of battle elsewhere in the compound were beginning to die down. The Explosion Corps had been contained, at a terrible cost.
And then it happened.
His head jerked to the north, not because of a sound, but because of a feeling. A shift in the very pressure of the air, a surge of chakra so immense, so dense, so profoundly alien that it dwarfed every other sensation on the battlefield. It was a presence that felt like a mountain being born in an instant.
His Sharingan, almost of its own accord, focused on the source, several hundred meters away. Through the haze of smoke and the skeletons of buildings, he saw it.
A colossal figure, towering over the devastation. It was a spectral warrior, clad in glowing, orange-bronze armour that seemed forged from pure energy. It had a humanoid torso, powerful arms, and a horned, demonic face that was both terrifying and majestic. It stood immobile, a silent titan amidst the ruins.
Fugaku's breath caught in his throat. He had only ever heard the legends, seen the vague descriptions in the clan's most secret scrolls.
It was a Susanoo.
It was his father's Susanoo.