Next Bonus, 100PS!!
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"Then I suppose we'll see how that works out."
Manji let his words hang in the cold air. He stood up from the frozen riverbank and brushed snow off his straw cloak. He stayed calm and unbothered, as if the most dangerous man in the shinobi world hadn't just yelled at him.
Inwardly, he sighed.
He had hoped a few words might make Kitsune think twice. Maybe even convince him to step back from the brink.
It hadn't worked. Kitsune's resolve had turned to stone. He was set on unification, and only force could stop him now.
Fine... Then it would be up to Asura's next reincarnation to deal with him.
Manji let go of the invisible force holding Kitsune still. The pressure faded away like mist. "I'll be on my way."
He had only taken half a step when a sharp voice snapped behind him.
"Don't you MOVE, old man!"
"You're going to explain yourself! Who the hell ARE you??" Kitsune gripped the war fan with both hands. His Sharingan eyes glowed, and his body was ready to attack.
The more Kitsune thought about it, the less sense it made. An old man had shown up out of nowhere, knew his name, told him to stop a war, and used a strange technique to pin him down. Now he was just going to walk away?
If Kitsune let this man leave, the questions would haunt him.
"The more you know, the worse it gets for you. Best to stop asking." Manji didn't turn around.
"GO TO HELL!"
Kitsune lunged from the snow. He swung the war fan in a hard, horizontal arc at Manji's back, chakra crackling along its edge.
Manji frowned. It was no surprise that Senju Tobirama would one day believe all Uchiha were unstable. Kitsune used to be calm, cautious, and patient, but now he strikes out when things go awry. Perhaps the Mangekyō affects people, or maybe the invisible scars from killing someone you loved most changed him.
Manji didn't look back. Didn't move. Didn't acknowledge the attack at all.
BANG.
The war fan hit empty air three feet from Manji and stopped cold. An invisible wall, as solid as stone, took the full blow without moving.
The recoil numbed Kitsune's arms, and his mind raced.
"Too much killing intent is bad for the soul." Manji's voice floated back.
Manji had mastered Shinra Tensei and Banshō Ten'in. Gravity and repulsion moved at his command. The wall Kitsune hit was just a carefully shaped repulsive force.
It was the same technique he used earlier to trap Kitsune's arm. By precisely controlling attractive and repulsive forces, he created an inescapable hold.
Shock and anger surged in Kitsune. His Sharingan glowed brighter, the three tomoe spinning faster, and the pattern in his eyes changed, forming something new.
Mangekyō Sharingan.
"Oh?"
Manji glanced over his shoulder and saw Kitsune's changed eyes.
Each Indra reincarnation's Mangekyō had a unique power. Kitsune's was something Manji had never seen before.
"In that case, show me what your Mangekyō can do."
He sounded more like someone watching a demonstration than someone fighting for his life.
Kitsune's body locked up.
The shock almost made him lose his cool. The Mangekyō Sharingan was the Uchiha Clan's biggest secret. Even the elders barely understood it. No one outside the clan should have known about it, much less recognized it by name.
Whoever this old man was, he knew things that went beyond anything in the shinobi world's history.
"Then you DEFINITELY can't leave here alive!"
In an instant, fear turned into killing intent.
Kitsune attacked. Fire Release, blade strikes, kunai volleys—he threw everything he had at Manji in quick succession.
Manji handled every attack with ease. He absorbed, deflected, and stopped them with barely any movement. The attacks disappeared as soon as they reached him, like waves crashing against a cliff.
"If you don't use your Mangekyō's ability, you won't be able to touch me." Manji gave the advice without any hint of anger.
Kitsune flinched.
Not only did this man know about the Mangekyō, he knew it came with a unique ability. Kitsune had kept his power hidden from everyone. He hadn't used it once since awakening it. No one had ever seen it.
And now this old fisherman was asking him to show it off, like a teacher testing a student.
Kitsune stopped holding back.
He lowered all his defenses. Gripping his weapons—left on the war fan, right on the katana—he sprinted toward Manji with complete determination. Without a plan or concern for his safety, he launched a relentless attack, risking everything for power.
Manji blinked at the intensity. He hadn't thought Kitsune would go this far.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Kitsune moved so fast his body blurred, leaving afterimages as he circled, attacked, pulled back, and attacked again.
In the middle of his attack, Kitsune quickly formed hand seals. Explosive tags appeared on the ground, on the rocks, and on the trees.
On himself...
"Explosive Tag Inferno Formation!" Kitsune roared the words.
Manji's expression didn't change.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM——!!!
The explosion tore the snowfield apart. Fire shot into the sky. The frozen river broke into shards, and snow and debris blasted out in a hot shockwave.
When the smoke cleared, the blast zone was a blackened crater.
Kitsune's body was in the snow, clothes ragged. No pulse, chakra, or breath—he was clearly dead.
Manji looked down at the corpse and raised an eyebrow.
'Did he really just blow himself up?'
'A suicide attack? Was that really what just happened?'
In the next moment, Manji stretched his senses to their limit. He felt a familiar chakra at the edge of his awareness.
He looked at Kitsune's body.
It was dissolving, fading away like a dream. The body shimmered, lost its shape, and vanished.
Manji understood immediately.
So that was it. That was Uchiha Kitsune's Mangekyō ability.
Izanagi.
It was the power to rewrite reality. Death, injury, or any bad outcome could be turned into an illusion and erased. As long as the Mangekyō stayed active, the user could keep escaping death. It was almost like immortality.
A shadow sprang from behind Manji's back. Kitsune's voice, filled with exultation:
"GOT YOU!"
He had used Izanagi to undo his own death, hid his presence, moved behind Manji, and went for a killing blow at the one moment Manji might let his guard down.
Manji didn't turn around.
A blinding white light detonated outward.
A single crow's eye manifested in the air.
Kitsune's body froze. Every muscle, chakra path, and nerve locked up at once. He lost all momentum, and his limbs went limp.
He dropped to his knees in the snow. No resistance left. No strength to fight back. Nothing.
Just before the white light took over, Kitsune saw crow feathers fill his vision like black snow and a pair of eyes looking down at him with cold authority.
Then everything went dark.
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He sat up suddenly on his cot, heart racing and sweat on his face.
He looked around. Warm lamplight filled the tent. The familiar tiger-skin cushion was under him, and battle maps were spread out on the desk.
This was his command tent—the Uchiha main camp.
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