Uchiha Yu shifted his gaze to the battlefield around the Gedo Statue, where the scattered Edo bodies of the Sarutobi clan were slowly reconstituting themselves.
Before they could recover, Uchiha Yu used Susanoo to release crimson light, branding them with the Yasakani seal.
At that moment, inside the prison space, Tobirama and Hashirama's eyes widened at the sight of the "Gedo Statue."
They had already been extremely curious about it—it was a monster they had never seen before.
"Brother, sense it!" Tobirama urged.
As a researcher in the shinobi world, one could be uninterested in women, but never uninterested in strange creatures.
Even in a state of being sealed, nothing could stop Tobirama's burning desire to seek out the truth.
"Alright!" Hashirama had just agreed—
But in the next instant, both of them went completely blind. Sight, hearing, and sensory perception were all cut off.
Tobirama's face turned ashen. He cursed loudly: "Fuck!"
Hashirama quickly added: "Uchiha Yu, you can't be this shameless!"
"You want to know what it is? Then trade me something—hand over a forbidden technique, or help me modify one. Information in exchange." Uchiha Yu's voice echoed in the dark, confined space.
He didn't bother wasting words with the Senju brothers. His focus was already on the Gedo Statue.
In the shinobi world, only those with the Rinnegan could summon the Gedo Statue.
Obviously, Uchiha Yu was an exception.
There was only one such statue in the entire shinobi world, sealed within the moon.
The so-called Gedo Statue was the husk of the Ten-Tails after its core chakra had been stripped away, yet it still retained a stubborn vitality.
The terrifying power it contained was unlike that of any other tailed beast.
Uchiha Yu's own Gedo Statue was noticeably larger than the one sealed in the moon, and its vitality was even more vigorous.
This made it clear that the statue he had obtained as a mission reward was not the same one sealed in the moon, though they both required the same tailed beasts.
Moreover, Uchiha Yu could clearly sense a connection between himself and the statue, threads similar to the link he had with the Sanbi and Rokubi he had already sealed.
For now, he couldn't place the Sanbi and Rokubi into the statue.
Before capturing all nine tailed beasts, the Sanbi and Rokubi served as chakra batteries, while the statue was his summoned enforcer—the division of roles was clear.
With these thoughts in mind, Uchiha Yu maneuvered his complete-body Susanoo before the Gedo Statue.
He raised his right hand and pressed it upon its head, pulling it into the extradimensional space tied to him.
Boom—
The towering Gedo Statue vanished with a thunderous crash, leaving only a set of terrifying footprints before the shelter.
Uchiha Yu restored Hashirama and Tobirama's vision and hearing.
The first thing the two brothers did was search for the monster, but it was nowhere to be found.
Then, Susanoo's massive wings stirred, lifting into the air before landing at the rear of the Uchiha ranks on Mt. Hokage.
The crimson glow slowly dissipated, Susanoo's form fading until it disappeared completely.
Uchiha Yu swept his gaze across the crowd behind him.
Tsunade and Shizune, like Kushina and Rin before them, were forced to wear masks to conceal their identities.
The heirs of Konoha's major clans, apart from Sasuke, had been placed under Nonoyu's charge.
Shinno, stood blankly at the back of the group.
"Brother, before we secured the shelter, quite a number of civilians had already left the village," Tamao reported with reluctance.
As he spoke, he dragged Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzō before Uchiha Yu.
"Let those people go."
Uchiha Yu spoke without sparing Hiruzen and Danzō a glance. Instead, he walked to the shattered edge of Hokage Rock, gazing down at the streams of civilians who had fled.
They were already far away, their figures reduced to mere specks on the horizon.
Most of those who left had ties outside of Konoha, and some wished to follow the remnants of its former forces.
The ones who remained were all born and raised on this land.
Even if told to leave Konoha, they had nowhere to go.
Uchiha Yu withdrew his gaze and looked upon the ruins of Konoha at the foot of the Hokage Rock. The village walls to the east, west, south, and north had largely collapsed. Streets lay broken, and nine out of ten buildings were gone.
Smoke billowed.
Flames raged.
At the very core of Konoha, the four Hokage stone faces had crumbled into rubble.
The Hokage building lay half-collapsed.
The hospital, the academy, the lakes, the bridges—destroyed in the war. Some structures could only be recognized by their outlines and positions.
In particular, the areas trampled by the Gedo Statue, the Wood Release Buddha, and the complete-body Susanoo had sunk into the earth, pocked with countless craters, like the remains of a battle of gods.
The fires spread from the wooden buildings, as if intent on devouring the last untouched remnants of the village.
Inside the shelter, the civilians—certain now that the war was over—looked upon their broken homes and wailed, men and women alike.
"Back then, Madara and I stood here and gave the village the name Konoha. I never imagined… it would end like this."
Hashirama's voice was thick with grief.
But Uchiha Yu's expression remained calm as he replied, "This is nothing."
Hashirama was left speechless.
Nothing?
The entire village was gone. The civilians once bound to it were now homeless, wandering without direction.
It was no different from the Warring States era—this was one of the greatest tragedies in shinobi history.
The suffering that awaited the homeless civilians was beyond measure.
"You…" Hashirama was so incensed he couldn't form words.
Of course, Uchiha Yu knew why Hashirama felt this way—he hadn't witnessed Konoha's true destruction before.
When the Deva Path of Pain hovered over the village and unleashed Shinra Tensei, not a single building had remained standing.
At that moment, Tsunade, wearing an ANBU tiger mask, stepped out from behind Uchiha Yu and spoke with sorrow:
"Since the Uchiha have already claimed Konoha, the first matter before you is rebuilding the village. But with the current manpower, resources, and finances, I doubt anyone will be willing to help the Uchiha rebuild.
And even if some did, it would take more than ten years to restore Konoha's layout to what it was before its destruction."
She stared directly into Uchiha Yu's face, but found nothing in his clear, dark eyes—no ripple of emotion at all. That silence made her fall quiet.
Tsunade had seen this expression before.
The calmer he looked, the more it meant he already had a solution.
Hashirama nodded in agreement. "Tsunade is right. I don't object to you taking Konoha, but how will you rebuild it?"
"Heh… the Uchiha—driven by emotion like puppets, always shouting about killing—how could you expect them to know how to rebuild a village?"
Tobirama sneered, gritting his teeth.
His anger was not only for Konoha's destruction, but also personal—resentment at Uchiha Yu for denying him the chance to study the Gedo Statue.
Faced with the Senju brothers' questions, Uchiha Yu's lips curved into a faint smile. He replied casually:
"Of course I can't rebuild the village. But someone skilled in such things can. Look—he's here."
At his words, Tsunade, Hashirama, and Tobirama looked around. At last, Tsunade spotted an old man flying swiftly toward them from the distance.
°°°
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