Chapter 47 — The Third Mizukage's Doubts
The core area of the Yuki clan compound had been reduced to ruins.
Broken corpses littered the ground—some barely recognizable.
Kaguya and Yuki shinobi lay tangled together in death, bodies fused in their final moments of mutual destruction, flesh and bone shattered beyond distinction.
Before this vision of hell, the arrival of the Third Mizukage and elite ANBU swiftly brought the chaos under control.
Only a handful of Kaguya clansmen still remained standing.
Even they were barely holding on—bodies riddled with wounds, bone armor shattered, skeletal blades chipped and broken.
Turning slowly, Kaguya Gengon looked at the late-arriving Mizukage.
A twisted smile crossed his face—mocking, relieved, and utterly exhausted.
"Third Mizukage!" he roared, voice hoarse yet resolute.
"The Yuki have gone too far! The Kaguya will not suffer such humiliation!"
Before anyone could react, under the Mizukage's stunned gaze, Gengon thrust a bone spike violently into his own chest.
The light in his eyes faded in an instant.
His body swayed—but he refused to fall.
Standing upright to the very end, his breath vanished completely.
Silence fell.
Then, as if responding to an unspoken command, the remaining Kaguya followed suit.
Those still capable drove bone spears into their hearts.
Those who could no longer manifest bone…
drew their kunai.
Steel pierced flesh.
One by one, they chose death.
In that moment, the Kaguya clan's final dance came to its end—not with retreat, not with surrender, but with absolute, irreversible resolve.
They completed their revenge against the Yuki clan in the most brutal way imaginable—and in doing so, carved a blood-soaked full stop at the end of their own history.
Staring at the devastation of the Yuki compound and the mountains of corpses, the Third Mizukage's expression darkened until it seemed ready to drip with water.
This single night had nearly severed the Yuki clan's bloodline at the root.
Their elites were annihilated; their inheritance teetered on the brink of extinction.
"Secure the area. Treat the wounded," the Mizukage ordered coldly.
"And investigate everything. I want answers. What drove those lunatics into madness—again?"
He couldn't understand it.
An armed coup was an unforgivable crime in any hidden village.
He had already shown restraint—executing only the ringleader and sparing the majority of those who followed Kaguya Naoto in the rebellion. Even the subsequent punitive measures should not have pushed the Kaguya to such suicidal extremes.
There had to be something else at work—something he had failed to see.
The chaos and investigation continued until dawn.
Soon, clues began to surface.
Mist ANBU discovered a blood-soaked, badly damaged letter on Kaguya Gengon's body—a crude sketch map, its handwriting rough and hurried.
The paper itself was ordinary, commonly used within the village, leaving no trail to follow.
Then came the breakthrough.
Based on the map, investigators searched the marked location within the Yuki clan grounds and uncovered signs of violent struggle. The walls and floors bore clear gouges left by Dead Bone Pulse, unmistakable traces of Kaguya resistance.
More critically, they found the body of the Kaguya ninja who had vanished earlier—the one secretly redeemed by Namikaze Yami.
He was dead now, likely collateral damage from the night's slaughter.
But the frostbite scars on his organs—especially his lungs—were unmistakable.
Ice Release damage.
At first glance, the truth seemed obvious.
The Third Mizukage studied the compiled evidence in silence, his brow furrowed deeper with every report.
All signs pointed toward the Yuki clan secretly imprisoning and torturing a missing Kaguya ninja—an act later exposed to Kaguya Gengon by an unknown party, triggering the clan's final, desperate retaliation.
The surviving Yuki elders trembled as they cried out in protest.
"We would never do such a thing! Please, Mizukage-sama, see reason!"
"That house has been abandoned for years! How could we possibly have held someone there?"
Yet even they could not explain why the body appeared within their territory—nor the undeniable Ice Release damage etched into it.
Too perfect.
The Mizukage's sharp gaze swept over the so-called "irrefutable evidence," yet his doubts only deepened.
It felt as though an invisible hand had been plucking at the Kaguya clan's most fragile nerves—first the Ice Release surveillance, then the conveniently discovered prison site.
Everything was flawless.
And that perfection was precisely what made him distrust it.
He was almost certain now:
Someone had deliberately exploited the Kaguya clan's obsession and madness—turning them against the Yuki.
With nothing more than a crude sketch letter, two of Kirigakure's great bloodline clans had been shattered.
The Yuki were crippled, their elite ranks hollowed out.
The Kaguya were effectively erased—only the elderly, the weak, and a handful of youths remained.
Who could have done this?
For now, however, stability came first.
The Third Mizukage drew a slow breath and issued his judgment.
"Though the Yuki clan are victims in this incident, their negligence in securing their territory contributed to this disaster. Effective immediately, the Yuki clan will submit to ANBU oversight and internal restructuring."
He paused, his voice turning colder.
"All surviving members of the Kaguya clan are to be imprisoned and placed under strict guard."
With those words, the Kaguya's honor, future, and name were erased from Kirigakure without mercy.
On the surface, the punishment seemed even-handed.
In secret, however, the Mizukage ordered ANBU to continue tracing the origin of the anonymous letter—and the unseen mastermind behind it all.
Meanwhile, Namikaze Yami was already moving quietly through the chaos.
After investing so much effort, it was finally time to reap the harvest.
Because the investigation was still ongoing, the bodies of fallen shinobi had been temporarily confiscated by the Mizukage's tower instead of being returned to their clans.
That oversight created the perfect opening.
Using Kagura's Mind Eye to track chakra signatures, Yami shadowed a transport squad carrying "evidence" and fallen shinobi at a distance.
Even though security around the Mizukage Tower remained tight, constant movement inevitably created gaps.
When he sensed the Kaguya "vegetative" body—now officially confirmed dead—being moved into a sealed, unobservable barrier zone, Yami knew the moment had arrived.
Whoosh.
With the activation of the Flying Thunder God Technique, Yami slipped silently into the depths of the Mizukage Tower.
Deep underground—likely among vaults preserving Uzushio's inherited legacies—the chamber was layered with seals and barriers.
It resembled a morgue.
Rows of wooden slabs held the bodies of fallen shinobi, the air heavy with death.
Yet instead of revulsion, a smile crept uncontrollably across Yami's face.
Anyone witnessing it might have thought him deranged.
"Pawn."
[Scan complete. Appraisable items detected:]
Kaguya clan corpses (intact) ×13 — 80 points each
Kaguya clan corpses (damaged) ×37 — 40 points each
Yuki clan corpses (intact) ×17 — 50 points each
…
The harvest had only just begun.