Chapter 496: The Final Struggle of the Land of Grass's Daimyo
The elder stumbled back three steps, his sandals scraping harshly against the stone floor. The color drained from his wrinkled face, leaving behind a sickly, ashen pallor.
"Impossible... This is absolutely impossible!" he sputtered, his voice cracking under the weight of his own denial. "Lord Tsuchikage has been a man of iron his entire life! He is the unyielding bedrock of this village! How could he possibly bow his head to Konoha?!"
"Because if he doesn't bow, he dies!"
Kitsuchi suddenly erupted. The sheer force of his roar rattled the glass in the windowpanes. Hot tears spilled over his dust-caked cheeks, cutting clean tracks through the grime of battle.
"You have no idea what we are facing!" Kitsuchi bellowed, his massive chest heaving. "Father poured his very life force into a barrage of Dust Release, and he didn't even scratch the opponent's defense!"
He thrust a trembling finger toward the courtyard outside, where the shivering, traumatized remnants of their once-mighty army huddled together in the cold. His voice dropped into a hoarse, strained rasp.
"If Father hadn't swallowed his pride and surrendered, the men returning today wouldn't be these few thousand living, breathing souls. They would be thousands of mangled corpses!"
All the elders froze in place. The air in the room grew suffocatingly heavy. Not a single one of them could force a sound past their throats.
Dust Release was ineffective?
Just how monstrous had that Uchiha Akira become?
"And..." Kitsuchi took a deep, shuddering breath, his tone dropping to a heavy, deathly pitch. "Uchiha Akira gave us a final choice."
"Incorporate the entire Village into Konoha."
"Or wait for his army to arrive and completely wipe the name Iwagakure off the map of the Ninja World."
Half an hour later.
Iwagakure, Tsuchikage Building, Supreme Conference Room.
The dozen or so elders seated around the massive circular table wore expressions so dark they seemed ready to drip ink. The younger high-ranking officials standing along the walls looked utterly dejected, their heads hung low in defeat.
A long, oppressive silence stretched through the room.
Finally, a Hawk Faction elder slammed his open palm against the wooden table. He stood up abruptly, his chair screeching against the floorboards.
"Absurd! This is simply absurd!" he spat, his eyes wide with manic defiance. "Incorporate into Konoha? Let us, Iwagakure, one of the prestigious Five Great Ninja Villages, become Konoha's dogs?"
"This is not just a disgrace! This is a betrayal of the Will of Stone!" The elder swept his gaze across the room, demanding agreement. "I propose we immediately gather all remaining forces. Relying on our geographical advantages, we will defend Iwagakure to the death!"
"That's right!" another elder chimed in, a frantic, desperate light flickering in his eyes. "Iwagakure is easy to defend and hard to attack! We are surrounded by natural mountain barriers! As long as we hold the Village, no matter how strong Uchiha Akira is, he shouldn't think he can break in easily!"
"At worst, we'll go down fighting!"
The crowd suddenly grew impassioned. Voices rose over one another in a chaotic chorus of agreement. This group of elders, men who had spent decades living in absolute comfort and safety behind their desks, suddenly displayed an unmatched level of backbone.
In truth, no one wanted to lose the immense power and status resting in their hands. Once incorporated into Konoha, these local tyrants would be stripped of their authority. They would become nothing more than commoners.
"Go down fighting?"
Kitsuchi, who had been sitting in the corner with his head buried in his hands, suddenly let out a cold, sharp sneer.
"Heh..."
"Hahahaha!"
His laughter grew louder, echoing off the stone walls. It was a hollow, broken sound, filled to the brim with irony and total desolation.
"What are you laughing at?" the Hawk Faction elder demanded, glaring daggers at Kitsuchi.
Kitsuchi slowly stood up. His massive frame blocked out the overhead lights, casting a giant, imposing shadow over the squabbling elders.
"I'm laughing at your sheer, blinding naivety."
He leaned forward, planting his heavy hands flat on the table.
"Do you really think that by hiding behind some rocks and terrain, you can stop a Perfect Susanoo?"
"Have you ever looked up at a Perfect Susanoo towering hundreds of meters into the clouds?"
"Even a fully unleashed Tailed Beast would look like a helpless pet before a monstrosity of that magnitude."
Kitsuchi's voice grew dangerously quiet, forcing the elders to lean in. "You should all be very familiar with the destructive power of Lord Tsuchikage's Dust Release. Add to that the combined Ninjutsu bombardment from thousands of our elite Iwagakure ninja."
"And the result?"
"We couldn't even break through Uchiha Akira's defense!" Kitsuchi roared, slamming his fist onto the table. The wood splintered under his knuckles. "What makes you think that relying on a few mountains can stop Uchiha Akira's advance?"
The conference room plunged back into a dead, horrifying silence. The frantic light in the elders' eyes extinguished, replaced by the cold, creeping dread of reality.
After a long time, Kitsuchi gave a miserable, exhausted laugh.
"Go down fighting?"
"Stop dreaming."
"The fish will certainly die, but that net... won't break."
He looked around the room, meeting the terrified eyes of the men who had just been calling for war.
"The reason Father sacrificed his dignity and chose to surrender was to preserve the last remaining bloodline of Iwagakure. If we choose to resist now..." Kitsuchi spoke emphatically, grinding out each word with absolute certainty. "Then Lord Tsuchikage's sacrifice will be utterly meaningless."
"When the Konoha army arrives, Iwagakure will be left with nothing. Not even a chicken or a dog will survive the slaughter."
"Is this the Will of Stone you want?"
Those final words acted like a hammer, completely shattering the elders' last remaining psychological defenses.
One of the oldest men in the room, an elder named Taishi, slumped heavily into his chair. His cloudy eyes stared blankly at the ceiling as he muttered to himself.
"Then... is it... over just like that?"
"Is Iwagakure... really going to perish?"
Kitsuchi closed his eyes, hiding the fresh wave of grief threatening to spill over.
"As long as the people live."
"As long as the bloodline remains."
"Iwagakure... lives on in our hearts."
At the exact same time, far beyond the borders of the Land of Earth.
Within the various small nations surrounding the Land of Fire, Uchiha Akira's iron will began to spread outward from Konoha. Like a suffocating shadow, it blanketed the surrounding countries. An unmatched, ruthless purge was sweeping through the continent with the unstoppable force of a thunderbolt.
Land of Grass, National Capital.
This once prosperous and bustling city was now completely paralyzed, shrouded in a suffocating atmosphere of impending slaughter. The streets were entirely empty. Every shop window was boarded up, and every door was tightly bolted.
Only fully armed samurai and wandering ronin patrolled the tense streets and narrow alleys, their hands resting nervously on the hilts of their blades.
Daimyo's Residence, Council Hall.
The Daimyo of the Land of Grass wore a magnificent ceremonial robe woven from the finest silk, yet this lavish garment symbolizing his supreme power was now soaked through with cold, clammy sweat.
He paced back and forth across the grand hall, his bare feet slapping erratically against the polished tatami mats.
"Still no news?"
The Daimyo stopped abruptly, spinning around to roar at the commander of the guards kneeling rigidly on the floor.
"What about those mercenaries? What about those rogue ninja?" The Daimyo's voice cracked with panic. "Are they all in position?!"
The guard commander kept his head pressed low to the floorboards, his voice trembling violently.
"Re... Reporting to the Daimyo."
"They... they have all arrived."
"The three hundred rogue ninja we hired for a heavy price, the five hundred samurai in the country loyal to you, and... the two thousand civilian conscripts."
"They have all been deployed outside the palace walls."
Hearing those numbers, the Daimyo's frantic expression softened just a fraction. An armed force of nearly three thousand people. It gave him a fleeting, desperate sense of confidence.
The Daimyo collapsed heavily onto his gilded throne. His trembling fingers snatched a porcelain teacup from the low table beside him, and he gulped down the lukewarm liquid in one desperate swallow.
"That Uchiha Akira is simply going too far!" he spat, his chest heaving. "This is the Land of Grass! I am the Daimyo of the Land of Grass! A monarch protected by the gods themselves!"
"He actually wants to abolish my country? Wants me to step down and get lost like some filthy commoner?"
"In his dreams!"
The Daimyo hurled the teacup onto the floor. It shattered into a dozen jagged pieces, the sharp sound echoing through the vast room.
The surrounding vassals and nobles stood as quiet as cicadas in the dead of winter. Not a single one of them dared to speak a word of comfort.
In fact, they all knew the bitter truth in their hearts. This was just the Daimyo trying to bolster his own failing courage. Even the Great Nations, military superpowers armed with actual Tailed Beasts, had been brutally beaten down by Konoha. What could their tiny, insignificant Land of Grass possibly do to contend with a monster like Uchiha Akira?
But they were also the leeches of the current system. Once the nation was incorporated into the Land of Fire, the Daimyo would be finished. And they, the parasitic nobles who relied on the Daimyo to suck the blood of the common people, would also be finished.
This was nothing more than the pathetic, thrashing struggle of cornered beasts.
"Report!"
A shrill, blood-curdling cry suddenly pierced the heavy silence from outside the hall.
A messenger, his armor slick with fresh blood and his face pale with terror, stumbled through the sliding doors and collapsed onto his knees.
"Lord Daimyo!"
"It's... it's bad!"
"They... they're here!"
The Daimyo stood up abruptly, his pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks. His heart hammered wildly against his ribs.
"Who? Who's here?!"
"Ko... Konoha..."
Before the bleeding messenger could even finish his sentence, a deafening roar obliterated his words.
The heavy wooden doors at the entrance detonated inward. A terrifying shockwave, choked with pulverized stone and jagged wood splinters, ripped directly through the grand hall.
Several wealthy nobles standing near the entrance were caught directly in the blast. Before they could even scream, the sheer force of the air pressure sent them flying backward like broken dolls. They slammed heavily against the thick wooden pillars, their spines snapping on impact, dying on the spot.
"Aaaaah!"
Screams of pure terror and cries of agony instantly filled the entire hall.
The Daimyo was so terrified his legs completely gave out. He slumped onto the floor beside his throne, his face as pale as a sheet of paper, his mouth opening and closing without a sound.
The thick cloud of dust slowly began to settle.
At the ruined entrance of the hall, ominous figures wearing Konoha's dark green flak jackets slowly emerged from the smoke.
The leader stepped forward, his boots crunching over the debris.
He had pitch-black hair and glowing, blood-red eyes. The iconic fan family crest embroidered on the back of his high-collared shirt looked particularly striking, illuminated by the flickering firelight of the burning courtyard outside.
It was an elite of the Uchiha Clan, Uchiha Enka.
He held a long, wicked sword loosely in his right hand. Fresh blood dripped steadily from the steel blade, pooling onto the tatami mats. His gaze was incredibly cold, devoid of any human empathy as he looked down at the trembling nobles.
And behind him stood the true nightmare.
Besides the heavily armed Uchiha elites, there was also a large group of ninja wearing Kusagakure headbands.
They were precisely the Kusagakure ninja who had surrendered to Konoha on the battlefield earlier, now returning to their homeland to drag their former masters down into the abyss.
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