The Uchiha compound, usually a place of controlled chaos and simmering pride, was blanketed in a suffocating silence. The news had spread like a poison: Tajima Uchiha, the indomitable clan head, the master of the Mangekyou, had been brought low. Not in a glorious battle against the Senju, but by a cowardly ambush from within.
Indra, Madara, and Izuna burst into their father's chambers. The air was thick with the cloying scent of blood and medicinal herbs. Tajima lay on his futon, his face ashen, his breathing a shallow, rattling whisper. A deep, chakra-poisoned gash ran across his chest, and several kunai wounds oozed dark blood. The sight of their pillar of strength brought so low sent a jolt of pure, undiluted terror through Madara and Izuna.
Indra did not gasp. He did not cry out. His face, for a single, horrifying second, became a mask of absolute, featureless calm. It was the stillness of the deepest ocean trench, where unimaginable pressures waited to crush anything that dared to descend.
He moved to his father's side, his Six Eyes already analyzing the damage, tracing the paths of the corrupted chakra, the shredded tissue, the faltering heartbeat. He did not ask for tools. He did not chant a jutsu. He simply placed his hands over the worst of the wounds. His palms began to glow not with the gentle green of medical ninjutsu, but with a brilliant, silvery-white light, a fusion of his own immense chakra and the purified Primordial Energy or Natural Energy he now commanded.
The light seared into the wound. The poisoned, blackened flesh hissed and smoked, not burning, but being unmade, erased at a cellular level and replaced with vibrant, healthy tissue at an impossible speed. The chakra poison, a vile concoction designed to resist all known antidotes, dissolved before the raw power of creation itself. In less than a minute, the ghastly wounds were gone. Only pale, new scars remained. Tajima's breathing deepened, the rattling ceased, and color flooded back into his face. His eyes fluttered open, meeting the blazing blue of his eldest son.
The room, filled with anxious elders and medics, was utterly silent, stunned by the display of what could only be described as divine healing.
Indra slowly stood, his gaze sweeping over the assembled elders. The calm on his face was gone, replaced by an expression so cold it seemed to suck the warmth from the room.
"Who," he asked, his voice a low, quiet thing that carried more menace than a scream, "dared to lay a hand on my father?"
The killing intent that rolled off him was not the cold, predatory chill of the Uchiha. It was the scorching, annihilating heat of a star going supernova. It was a physical pressure that made the lantern flames gutter and the elders take an involuntary step back.
Great Elder Amara, his own face grim, stepped forward. "Indra," he said, his voice heavy. "It was the radicals. Nearly fifty of them. They have grown bold, festering in the shadows. They believe our clan has grown 'soft' under your father's leadership and your… mercy." He spat the last word like a curse. "Their leader is Heru Uchiha. Saho's father."
The name was a spark on a trail of gunpowder.
Indra did not respond. He did not nod. He did not even seem to hear. There was only a subtle distortion of air, a faint swish, and he was gone. The tent flap hadn't even finished swaying.
In the Senju compound, a mirror scene was unfolding. Butsuma Senju lay bleeding, his body a testament to the ferocity of the ambush. Tōka arrived, her usual fiery demeanor replaced by a terrifying, focused stillness. She pushed the medics aside, her hands glowing with a green light so intense and precise it seemed to rewrite biology itself. She didn't just heal the wounds; she forced his body to regenerate, knitting bone and muscle with a speed that defied nature. Within minutes, Butsuma was coughing, his eyes opening to see his daughter's face, not filled with relief, but with a cold, murderous fury.
"Who did this?" she demanded, her voice cutting through the anxious murmurs in the room.
The Senju elders shifted uncomfortably, unwilling to admit the rot within their own ranks.
It was Tobirama who broke the silence. He strode into the room, his arms laden with intelligence scrolls, his pale face set in lines of grim analysis. "It's the same as the river incident, Sister," he stated, his voice devoid of emotion. "The radical factions of the both Uchiha and our clans have formed a temporary alliance. Their target was Indra Uchiha."
He unrolled a scroll on the floor, pointing to coded messages. "They sought to eliminate the 'War God' before he could 'corrupt' the clans further with his peace. Our father and Tajima discovered the plot. They went to confront them, to stop this madness before it provoked a retaliation they knew would be… apocalyptic."
He looked up, his crimson eyes meeting Tōka's. "They were ambushed. Fifteen loyal clansmen from both sides died shielding them. If not for that sacrifice, both Clan leader's would be dead."
Tōka closed her eyes. She could see it. The betrayal. The hypocrisy. These fanatics, hiding behind their banners of 'purity,' were willing to slaughter their own to prevent a future they feared. And they had targeted him. They had tried to kill her John.
A cold rage, purer and more focused than any she had ever felt, crystallized within her. She reached out with her senses, a technique honed by her Justice System and her own prodigious talent. Her chakra expanded, a vast, invisible net spreading across the land, searching for the taint of their hatred.
And she found them.
A hundred men, camped in a small, poor village a day's travel away. But it was not a camp; it was a scene from hell. Her sensory perception painted a graphic, horrifying picture in her mind. The village men lay dead in the streets. The wails of women, being physically assaulted by the very shinobi who were supposed to protect the Land of Fire, echoed in her psychic ears. The terrified whimpers of children, hiding in cellars, their innocence being brutally torn away.
Her face, already pale, drained of all remaining color. She swayed on her feet, her knuckles white where she gripped the edge of her father's futon.
"Princess?" an elderly woman elder asked, her voice trembling. "What is it? What do you see?"
Tōka's eyes snapped open. They were no longer the eyes of a kunoichi, or a sister, or a daughter. They were the eyes of Vidya Joyce, the advocate who had sent a corrupt politician to the gallows. They were the eyes of a woman whose love had been threatened.
Her voice, when it came, was a trembling whisper, yet it carried a terrifying, excited edge. "Elder… the breath of a wounded lion is far more terrifying than its roar."
The elders stared, uncomprehending.
She stood, her whole body thrumming with power. The air around her crackled. "An unforgivable beast has been unleashed," she continued, her whisper gaining volume, turning into a cold, clear declaration. "And no one… no ONE… can stop him now."
Her gaze swept over them, and for the first time, they saw the War Goddess not as a weapon for their clan, but as a force of nature with her own absolute morality.
"Do they think," Tōka's voice dropped to a deadly, venomous hiss, "that there is only one beast that rules this forest?"
With that, a vortex of chakra erupted around her. The mats on the floor were scorched. The elders were thrown back a step. And in the next instant, she was gone. Vanished. The space where she stood was empty, leaving only the lingering, ozone scent of her rage.
The main hall was left in a stunned, ringing silence.
An elderly Senju man finally found his voice. "We… we must dispatch a team! To find the radicals and bring them to justice!"
Tobirama, who had been quietly collecting his scrolls, let out a short, humorless bark of laughter. Everyone turned to look at him.
"What is the point," Tobirama said, his tone utterly flat, "of searching for a bunch of dead men?"
"What are you saying, boy?" the elderly woman snapped.
Tobirama looked at them, his red eyes seeming to glow in the dim light. "You all know the power of the Uchiha War God. The river annihilation was a mere demonstration. Twenty men, erased from existence without a trace. And now…" he gestured to the empty space where Tōka had stood, "they have angered our Senju Lioness. Do you truly believe that rabble has any chance of seeing the next sunrise?"
He shouldered his scrolls, his expression one of grim finality. "No. If we are lucky, our cleanup crews might find a few scattered body parts. Call back the search parties. There is nothing for them to find but the aftermath of a judgment we are no longer qualified to deliver."
He walked out of the hall, leaving the elders to grapple with the terrifying truth. The children they had raised, the prodigies they had nurtured, had evolved into something beyond their control. The War God and the War Goddess were no longer just weapons in a clan war. They were the righteous, furious storm that was coming to cleanse the forest of the jackals who had dared to wound the lion. And the world would soon learn that when a lion is wounded, its mate does not weep. She hunts.
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