Next Bonus, 100PS!!
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New week. Let's Push!!
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The Uchiha front line. A lone cliff hung over the battlefield.
A bitter wind swept the stink of blood and dust up from the killing fields, howling across the cliff and rattling the dead trees along its edge.
Uchiha Kitsune stood alone on the stone outcrop, his high-collared Uchiha uniform snapping sharply in the cold.
Past fifty now, he no longer had the reckless edge of the man who had once crossed the river in funeral white. Frost had crept into his temples, and the eyes that once shook the shinobi world had lost the arrogance of youth.
In this age of war, where lives ended fast and early, a man around fifty was already old.
"Clan Head." An Uchiha elder hurried over and bowed, his face ashen.
Kitsune saw the look on his face and sighed inwardly.
Great. More bad news—
"Our final offensive... collapsed."
"With winter almost here, our food, weapons, and supply lines can't keep up anymore. If this drags on any longer, the entire army will be trapped on this battlefield until it starves..."
The elder's voice fell away.
The cliff sank into dead silence.
Only the wind kept howling through the open air, whipping Kitsune's greying hair across his forehead.
Kitsune said nothing for a long time. His back stayed perfectly straight.
At last, a heavy sigh forced its way out of his throat. "I understand. Go."
His voice was hoarse, his gaze still fixed ahead.
"Send the order. The whole army prepares to withdraw."
"The main force leaves first. I'll personally lead an elite rearguard, set up decoys, and stall the Senju pursuit."
Defeat weighed down Kitsune's voice.
"YES!" The elder's suspended heart finally dropped back into place. He bowed at once, then turned and hurried away to pass on the order.
The cliff was left with only Uchiha Kitsune again.
Alone in the freezing wind, Kitsune stared toward the Senju Clan's territory. His eyes churned with so much resentment it almost swallowed him whole.
How could he accept this?
Back then, he had crossed the river in white, led the full strength of the Uchiha in a lightning strike, seized both the northern and southern Naka River territories in one push, and smashed the Senju until they were running for their lives.
Back then, he had been riding high. He thought he could flatten the Senju homeland with a snap of his fingers, wipe out his clan's ancient enemy, unite the shinobi world, and end the chaos of the era.
Uchiha Kitsune had truly believed he could unify the shinobi world.
Who could have guessed the war would turn on him and drag into a twenty-year grind?
The Uchiha were never afraid of a hard fight. At first, he thought the Senju were only making one last desperate stand and would break before long.
But the Senju fought like lunatics. They held their borders and refused to give up an inch. The Sarutobi Clan threw everything behind them, and the Uzumaki Clan supported them through blood ties. Their sealing techniques and massive chakra reserves became an uncrossable wall in front of the Uchiha.
Twenty years of brutal war, and the Uchiha couldn't advance a single step.
What chilled Kitsune to the bone was the sudden rise of Senju Futen.
A twenty-year-old youth had stepped onto the battlefield and revealed terrifying talent from the start. Somehow, he could already face Kitsune head-on, becoming the new wall the Uchiha could not get past.
"DAMN IT! THESE USELESS EYES!" Kitsune suddenly raised a hand and clutched both eyes. His knuckles went white from the force. Sharp, needle-like pain stabbed through his sockets, followed by a deep ache that felt carved into his bones. The backlash from his ocular power was eating him alive.
"Fuck..." Kitsune growled under his breath, teeth clenched, his body trembling.
From the day he awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, he had known the fate of those eyes.
Brief overwhelming power in exchange for irreversible blindness.
Kitsune's Mangekyō was not a simple brute-force boost. It was a rule-breaking ability that could twist fate itself.
For years, he had done everything he could to suppress his ocular power, rarely using the Mangekyō at all. Even then, the damage to his eyes grew worse by the day. Now he stood at the edge of total blindness.
"Why??" Kitsune suddenly threw his head back and roared into the screaming wind. "Why did the Uchiha ancestors never leave behind a way to fix the Mangekyō's side effects??"
"A power this absurd, and it comes with a death sentence... Did none of our ancestors ever search for a way around it?? Or did they never even reach the level I have??"
No one answered.
Only the wind carried his roar away, scattering it across the empty cliff.
Decades of obsession. Twenty years of war. A dream of unification so close he could almost touch it, yet forever out of reach. Blindness closing in step by step...
All his despair and resentment detonated at once, shattering the cold, disciplined mind he had spent a lifetime sharpening.
Uchiha Kitsune was about to lose it.
In the end, he shouted words eerily similar to Uchiha Senichi's. "FATE!!! IT'S FATE!!! ALL OF IT IS FATE!!!"
Uchiha Kitsune howled at the sky like a madman. Blood vessels spread through his scarlet eyes, and the frost-white hair at his temples whipped wildly in the gale.
He looked like a cornered beast driven to the edge by destiny itself. Not a trace remained of the warlord who had once dominated the shinobi world.
The Uchiha elder who had just gone down the mountain heard the wailing from the cliff and shuddered. He quickly turned back.
"What the hell was that noise?" The elder scratched his head. Then he saw Uchiha Kitsune losing his mind on the cliff, and a chill ran down his spine.
"Great. Is the Clan Head still sane?"
"What if this draws the Senju over here?"
The Uchiha elder almost fell apart on the spot.
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At the same time.
"Hm?? What was that?"
"Why did that sound like Uchiha Kitsune?" Senju Futen scratched his head, completely confused. He had been leading several elite Senju on patrol when a voice suddenly came from one direction, shouting "fate" over and over again.
Futen immediately spread his senses and soon picked up a familiar chakra signature.
"It actually is him??"
"What's stuffed between Uchiha Kitsune's ears? How does he make a rookie mistake like this?"
Joy appeared on Futen's face. Today was his lucky day.
"Clan Head? What happened?" one of the elite Senju behind him asked.
A faint smile appeared on Futen's face. "It's our old friend, Uchiha Kitsune. Come on. We're taking him alive."
The elite Senju immediately lit up with excitement.
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Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions and ninjutsu detonated through the forest.
Blood poured from Uchiha Kitsune's eyes as he fled in a frenzy. Behind him came Senju Futen and a group of elite Senju, closing in fast.
"Hahaha! Fate! Of course it's fate!"
"Fate itself led the Senju right to me! Goddamn fate!"
Kitsune laughed from sheer fury as he ran, cackling like a lunatic.
The Uchiha Clan was withdrawing right now. From his current position, there was no way they could send reinforcements in time.
Kitsune fled until he reached the edge of a sheer cliff.
Then three large words came into view.
They hit him like lightning.
"Foxfall Cliff??"
Kitsune stared at the three words carved beside the cliff, then looked down at the bottomless drop beneath his feet.
Those words looked like they had been carved by a giant hand.
As if fate itself had arranged this too.
Uchiha Kitsune laughed.
"Kitsune! Surrender!" Senju Futen stared at him coldly. "You have nowhere left to run!"
This generation's Asura reincarnation held nothing but hatred for Uchiha Kitsune.
After all, hatred was also a bond.
"Hahahahaha!!! Senju Futen, you were never my equal! If not for my eyes, you'd already be dead!" Uchiha Kitsune closed his eyes and laughed bitterly. Then he suddenly roared at the sky, "Fate, you want me dead? Fine! I'll die for you!"
The moment the words left his mouth, Uchiha Kitsune jumped off the cliff without hesitation.
Senju Futen's face changed. He moved to stop him, but it was already too late.
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At the bottom of the cliff.
Uchiha Kitsune slowly opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was a massive fox with nine enormous tails.
"I... I'm not dead?"
Kitsune muttered to himself.
The Nine-Tails looked like it could barely keep a straight face. "You would be if I hadn't caught you on reflex."
"But... but isn't this Foxfall Cliff?" Kitsune said weakly. "Wasn't fate supposed to bury me here?"
"Foxfall Cliff?"
The Nine-Tails scratched its head, then said, "Oh, right. I wrote that. I fell from up there once, so I named it after myself."
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