The immense serpent pupils of Tagitsuhime reflected the figure standing atop the Wood Human's head. Her heart was already surging with turmoil, her eyes filled with disbelief—she even felt an absurdity she had never known before.
She had lived for a thousand years and had seen countless strange beings who followed their own so-called "Way of Ninja."
Yet someone like this Uchiha ninja before her, who dared to charge into Ryūchi Cave's Sacred Ground all alone, merely for the sake of a vague, illusory ideal of "punishing evil and upholding good"—there had been no such case before!
She could sense Tagorihime's faint aura embedded within the rock wall.
She saw Ichikishimahime's body, smoke still rising from the horrifying penetrating wound through her chest.
Even the remnants of Manda's corpse not far away still exuded the stench of burnt flesh.
A sharp, chilling terror pierced her very soul like frozen needles.
'No… I must buy time!'
'The White Snake Sage is powerful—she must have sensed the ferocity of this battle by now! As long as I can hold on a bit longer, she will definitely come to save us!'
"You—human ninja…" Tagitsuhime endured the searing agony surging within her colossal body. Lifting her massive serpent head, she forced herself to calm down, her voice hoarse as she spoke: "On what basis do you judge good and evil? You must know—you and I aren't even of the same species!"
Her huge vertical pupils locked onto Keizumi. "We of Ryūchi Cave abide by the natural law of the strong devouring the weak—the law of survival, evolution, and slaughter! That is our Way of Ninja!"
"By what right do you, humans, use your hypocritical moral standards to condemn the acts we commit in accordance with our own law of existence as 'heinous crimes' of evil?!"
Uchiha Keizumi gazed at her indifferently. Those scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan eyes did not ripple in the slightest.
Her rhetoric about "natural law" and "human morality" passed through his ears without leaving a trace.
"Because I'm human."
Uchiha Keizumi's voice was icy and emotionless.
That brief reply completely stunned Tagitsuhime—and choked off every word she had been about to say.
Uchiha Keizumi had no interest in arguing with a red-named villain.
He slammed his palms together.
Instantly, the magma beneath his feet turned crimson and softened, as though a volcano suppressed for millennia had finally found an outlet. The thick, scalding flow surged upward like boiling blood, exuding a breath of annihilation.
The molten surge rapidly gathered and took form. In the blink of an eye, it condensed into a ferocious dragon head, several times larger than the Wood Human's, forged entirely from lava!
The molten dragon head looked vividly alive—its jaws gaped wide, revealing fangs made of flowing magma.
Rivulets of molten rock dripped from its mouth like drool, striking the ground with a sizzling burn and sending up plumes of white smoke.
That colossal lava dragon head lunged straight toward Tagitsuhime!
"Hiss—?!"
Tagitsuhime's pupils instantly shrank to pinpoints. The deadly sense of crisis made every scale on her body stand on end!
In that desperate instant, she twisted her massive serpent body with all her might, trying to roll aside.
However, her enormous size after returning to full serpent form became a fatal burden—her movements appeared clumsy and slow before the onrushing lava dragon head.
A horrifying sound—like a red-hot branding iron pressed into butter—suddenly rang out. In the instant Tagitsuhime's tough scales touched the molten fangs of the lava dragon head, they melted away like snow under blazing fire.
The terrifying heat of the magma instantly carbonized every bit of flesh and bone it touched.
"Hssaaahhh!!!"
A soul-tearing pain like a tsunami engulfed Tagitsuhime's entire consciousness. Her massive serpent body was bitten cleanly in two!
At the severed point, everything was charred black; her internal organs and shattered bones were exposed to the air, only to be quickly carbonized by the remaining heat of the magma!
The upper half of her serpent body thrashed wildly, while the lower half went limp, collapsing weakly as the scorched wound split open under the heat.
Blood gushed forth like a bursting flood—only to vaporize instantly in the scorching air.
A shriek so wretched it no longer sounded like a serpent's echoed under the dome of Ryūchi Cave, filled with endless pain and despair, reverberating for a long time.
On the other side, Ichikishimahime witnessed with her own eyes the gruesome sight of Tagitsuhime being bitten in half by the lava dragon head.
Her mind raced frantically under the weight of fear.
'Manda is hot-tempered and not that close with me! Orochimaru is just Manda's summoner! As for White Snake Sage's orders… no command is worth more than my life!'
'If I stay here, I'll be killed for sure!'
'Run! I must run!'
'I have to get away from this Uchiha lunatic!'
Her enormous serpent head whipped around, and Ichikishimahime unleashed all her desperate will to survive.
Ignoring the agony of her injuries, her massive body twisted violently.
She crushed the shattered rocks under her coils again and again, desperately fleeing toward the deeper reaches of Ryūchi Cave.
Had she fled from the start, perhaps she might have escaped.
Now, it was far too late.
In the next instant, countless thick vines—each with a diameter of several tens of centimeters—burst from the solid ground, surging upward with unstoppable force.
They carried a clear intent to hunt, locking onto Ichikishimahime's enormous serpent form like a school of sharks smelling blood.
[Whoosh—!]
One especially thick vine shot out like lightning, wrapping tightly around the frantically lashing tip of her serpent tail with unerring precision.
"What?!"
Ichikishimahime felt a sudden constriction at her tail, followed by an immense pulling force that halted her headlong flight and even dragged her massive body backward with a heavy lurch.
Before she could turn around in horror to see what had happened—
[Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh—!!!]
More vines surged forth like a dark brown tidal wave, sweeping over her from all directions. They coiled around her midsection, abdomen, and even her neck, binding Ichikishimahime firmly in place like living constrictors.
She let out a desperate hiss, thrashing madly, struggling to break free.
She even opened her jaws wide, trying to bite through the vines with her fangs!
But the toughness of the Wood Release far exceeded her imagination. The vines, brimming with vast life force, were extraordinarily resilient—her venomous fangs could only leave shallow marks, completely unable to sever them!
The densely packed vines constricted tighter and tighter, like giant pythons strangling their prey.
[Crack!]
[Crack!]
[Crack!]
A chilling series of bone-snapping sounds erupted in rapid succession like bursting beans—the sound of her serpent bones fracturing under the relentless crushing power of the vines.
The intense pain and suffocation instantly engulfed her!
Ichikishimahime felt as though her internal organs were being crushed out of place—her lungs could no longer draw in even a breath of air. Her massive serpent eyes bulged in agony and hypoxia, the veins within them bursting red.
Her eyes were filled with the utmost terror and despair.
Her struggling quickly weakened.
Only unconscious spasms remained.
…
At the same time, in Konohagakure.
Inside the Hokage's office.
Smoke coiled thickly through the room, almost obscuring the figure of Sarutobi Hiruzen. His brows were tightly furrowed; the ember on his pipe flickered as he wrestled with exhaustion over the "Sarutobi Nadeshiko incident," which had exposed internal traitors and spies from Kumogakure.
The key issue was that he was certain there was more than one member of the Sarutobi Clan secretly colluding with Kumogakure spies—but he still didn't know who.
[Bang!]
The office door was abruptly flung open.
An ANBU shinobi wearing an animal mask dropped to one knee, his voice urgent: "Hokage-sama! There's been an incident within the Uchiha Police Force!"
Sarutobi Hiruzen lifted his bloodshot eyes and rasped, "What's got you so flustered?"
The ANBU shinobi took a deep breath and reported rapidly, "Uchiha Fugaku… has been impeached by his own clan members! He publicly declared that tomorrow he will formally submit his resignation to you—relinquishing both his position as head of the Uchiha Clan and as captain of the Konoha Police Force!"
"What?!"
Hiruzen's hand, still holding his pipe, trembled violently. Ash scattered down in flakes.
For a moment, he wondered if the thick smoke had made him hallucinate.
The Sarutobi Nadeshiko affair had already left him in a state of utter exhaustion—and now the Uchiha Clan chose this exact moment to stage a coup-like power play?
How could Fugaku have been driven out by his own people?
Instinctively, he took a deep drag of sharp, biting tobacco, forcing the burning heat to jolt his weary nerves awake as he tried to think calmly.
"Who led the impeachment against Fugaku?" Hiruzen's voice was low.
"It was Uchiha Izumi, subordinate of Uchiha Keizumi!" the ANBU shinobi replied without hesitation. "This internal coup against Uchiha Fugaku was orchestrated by Uchiha Izumi, Tsunade-sama, and the ninja cat Tachibana Jirō working in close cooperation."
"In addition, a large number of mid-ranking Uchiha Police Force shinobi, along with many ordinary Uchiha clansmen, joined in. The movement was quite formidable."
The ANBU paused, then added, "According to observations, Uchiha Fugaku's conservative and conciliatory policies in recent years—both internal and external—seem to have built up widespread discontent among the clan. Many believed he failed to uphold the Uchiha's honor and interests…"
"Wait…"
Sarutobi Hiruzen cut off the ANBU's rapid report, catching a crucial name.
"Tsunade?!"
It took him a moment to even process it. "She's not an Uchiha ninja—how did she get involved?"
The ANBU answered, "Because when Utatane Koharu-sama led ROOT operatives to arrest Uchiha Izumi and the others, it was Tsunade-sama who intervened to stop her. Afterwards, Tsunade-sama personally escorted Koharu-sama and the ROOT ninjas to the Police Force headquarters."
Sarutobi Hiruzen: "…"
He slowly set down his pipe, his fingers unconsciously tapping the desk.
A long, weary sigh escaped him.
"Hah… I suppose I now understand why Fugaku chose to step down so decisively."