Chapter 26: Mutual Destruction
The sudden appearance of the already-dead Minato Namikaze left everyone involuntarily stunned.
Except for Aburame Torune.
For Root ninja, completing the mission was paramount. Everything else was irrelevant.
Root ninja killed by the Shinra Tensei blast didn't matter. The Fourth Hokage's sudden "resurrection" didn't matter either.
The only important thing was completing Danzo-sama's mission—eliminating that evil Uchiha!
So the moment Yasushi's gaze shifted away, Aburame Torune immediately launched a surprise attack.
The complete-body Susanoo normally required awakening the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Yasushi had forcibly manifested it through his ocular technique's special properties, but the cost was enormous chakra consumption.
He'd first been blasted by a human bomb in an enclosed space. After releasing the Nine-Tails, Konan's explosive tag bombardment showed him no mercy, covering him completely.
To minimize the blast radius, he'd been forced to cancel Susanoo, relying on the Mangekyo Sharingan's powerful perception to dodge Konan's explosive tag rain.
Then Pain entered the field. Shinra Tensei was an indiscriminate attack. Of course, he wouldn't activate Susanoo at that moment to shield Konoha forces from disaster.
The result was that when Aburame Torune launched his surprise attack, Yasushi had no Susanoo protection—his defenses were at their most vulnerable.
However, the Mangekyo Sharingan's powerful perception allowed him to detect Torune's approach in time. He hastily drew his blade to block.
With a clang, both blades collided. Purple traces rapidly spread from where the blades met, covering most of the blade in moments.
Those were rapidly reproducing nano-sized insects.
Yasushi quickly released the blade and tossed it away. His left hand flicked out a shuriken to disrupt the enemy while his body lunged backward, intending to open distance and activate Susanoo.
But Aburame Torune knew that once Susanoo manifested again, he'd completely lose this opportunity. So he charged forward recklessly, ignoring the shuriken embedding in his body, only pursuing Yasushi's figure relentlessly.
He punched, kicked, even bodily charged forward. Each attack carried suicidal determination, attempting to make the Rinkaichū on his body touch Yasushi.
Seeing his objective so clear, Yasushi immediately abandoned the idea of activating Susanoo. He didn't use any jutsu, only continuously throwing shuriken at him. Each shuriken precisely avoided vital points, deliberately prolonging this cruel cat-and-mouse game.
Within moments, Aburame Torune resembled a porcupine, bristling with shuriken, blood streaming from countless wounds, injuries covering his entire body.
But he remained silent, only relentlessly charging forward with his head down.
Yet the taijutsu he normally took pride in held no secrets before the Mangekyo Sharingan's powerful perception.
Every time he swung his blade or kicked, Yasushi could predict his taijutsu trajectory, easily dodging.
"Hahaha..." Yasushi laughed heartily, mockingly taunting: "Say, you don't actually think I became a jonin purely because I'm an Uchiha, do you?"
"Whether taijutsu, genjutsu, or ninjutsu—Uchiha jonin stand among the pinnacle few in the shinobi world!"
"But unfortunately..."
That night's scene of corpses strewn throughout the compound resurfaced in Yasushi's mind, making his blood boil. The fury and hatred in his heart grew even harder to suppress. His chakra gradually began running wild.
His voice carried bone-deep hatred as he roared loudly.
"Hypocritical Hiruzen Sarutobi, black-hearted Danzo Shimura, jealous great clans, ignorant ordinary ninja, and the indifferent Konoha villagers..."
"You all joined hands, causing the Uchiha clan's extinction!"
"You all... deserve death!"
Yasushi's Sharingan spun wildly, the sinister aura around him growing considerably heavier.
The Sharingan was also a broken bloodline limit. Yin Release chakra quantity was completely determined by mental state. The more extreme the emotions, the stronger the chakra often became.
In his towering rage, Yasushi's original intention to toy with Aburame Torune completely vanished.
Killing intent surged like a breached dam, impossible to restrain.
His hands formed rapid seals. His mouth opened, and a fire dragon surged forth, releasing a deafening roar as it rushed wildly toward Aburame Torune.
"Fire Style: Great Dragon Fire Technique!"
Moreover, during his previous shuriken throwing, he'd attached a specially-made transparent wire to one of them.
Using this wire as a conduit, Aburame Torune couldn't possibly dodge this jutsu attack.
But Aburame Torune didn't dodge at all. He seized the opportunity when Yasushi paused while exhaling jutsu, completely abandoning defense and pouring all his chakra into the Rinkaichū, charging bodily forward.
Whoosh!
The instant the flames struck him, Aburame Torune immediately ignited like a human candle, burning fiercely. Purple toxic fog roiled in the flames, releasing an acrid burnt stench.
But carrying flames across his entire body, he charged from the inferno and successfully closed in on Yasushi, pressing one hand against Yasushi's arm.
"Got you!"
Aburame Torune's voice had become hoarse beyond recognition, yet it carried the wild joy of victory.
He gripped Yasushi tightly, chakra surging wildly, driving the Rinkaichū on his body surface to rapidly reproduce in massive quantities, crawling toward Yasushi.
Visibly, Yasushi's arm began turning purple bit by bit.
Simultaneously, two more Root ninja suddenly emerged behind Aburame Torune, charging forward with no regard for life or death. One had explosive tags burning beneath him while the other rapidly formed seals.
"Earth Style: Earth Prison Dome of Magnificent Nothingness!"
The ground violently shook. Familiar prison walls rose from all sides again, trapping all three inside.
Yasushi snorted coldly. The Mangekyo Sharingan in his eyes spun wildly. Half-body Susanoo manifested again, shattering the cramped stone prison while protecting both him and Aburame Torune within its chest cavity.
Simultaneously, blade light flashed in his hand as he slashed toward Aburame Torune.
But Aburame Torune only focused on driving the Rinkaichū's reproduction, not even dodging the attack, only barely shifting his body.
With a wet thud, where the blade light fell, blood splattered. Aburame Torune was cleaved diagonally from shoulder to back, cut into two sections. But even after falling, his eyes still stared fixedly at Yasushi, planning to watch how Yasushi died.
With a thunderous boom, the suicide bomber successfully rushed to Susanoo's vicinity, embracing Susanoo and detonating.
But this stone prison was maintained by only a single ninja. The scale was too small—it had already been burst by Susanoo.
Without the prison's confinement, the explosion's power was severely diminished.
However, this explosion used far more explosive tags than before, still blasting Susanoo into turbulent instability, its armor covered in cracks.
Yasushi's left eye streamed bloody tears. His entire body gasped for breath.
Most importantly, due to the explosion, Yasushi had focused entirely on maintaining Susanoo's defense with no way to resist the Rinkaichū's erosion. Nearly half his entire body had already turned purple.
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