The flash of the blade fell like a bolt of silk.
Tajima instinctively raised his sword to block.
Clang!!!
This collision far surpassed any previous one.
Tajima was slammed into the ground, creating a deep crater, and blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
Uchiha Tajima struggled to get back up, his Sharingan filled with blood vessels, his breathing heavy.
"Who exactly are you... There shouldn't be anyone of your level in this era!"
Uchiha Tajima said, gasping for breath.
Uchiha Katsu stood not far away, his robes fluttering in the wind, his Mangekyo slowly rotating.
He did not answer, only raised his hand.
The next moment...
Sage Mode, activated.
Natural energy surged into his body like a tide. Unique markings appeared around his eyes, and his aura suddenly rose to a suffocating level.
Tajima's expression completely changed.
'Senjutsu?!'
'How could anyone in the Uchiha of this era possibly know senjutsu?!'
'Could this person also be a transmigrator like me?!'
Uchiha Katsu gave him no more time to be shocked.
His figure shot forward like an arrow. The blade, carrying the sharpness of natural energy, turned into a dazzling white light and slashed straight down.
Tajima resisted with all his strength, and the blades of the two collided again.
This time, Tajima was sent flying, crashing heavily through three large trees before finally coming to a battered stop.
"Cough, cough!!!"
He knelt on the ground, coughing violently as blood kept spilling from the corner of his mouth.
His sword already had obvious cracks in it.
Uchiha Katsu slowly walked closer and looked down at him from above, his voice calm.
"Just a warning."
"You can reform, you can accumulate strength, and you can even secretly promote reconciliation... but don't try to bring Konoha's establishment forward to this point in time."
"History has its own rhythm. If you forcefully rewrite it, the chaos you bring will be far greater than you imagine."
Tajima breathed heavily, his expression incredibly complicated.
He was not a fool.
The strength of the person before him had already far exceeded his understanding.
If the other party really wanted to kill him, any of their exchanges just now would have been enough to take his life.
"You... were you ordered by someone?", Uchiha Tajima asked with difficulty.
Uchiha Katsu did not answer.
He only gave Tajima one last look before his figure gradually disappeared into the forest.
"Remember my words."
"If you go too far again next time, it won't be me who deals with you."
As his voice fell, he had completely disappeared.
Tajima leaned against the broken tree trunk and remained silent for a long time.
The dense forest returned to calm, leaving behind only scorched black earth and deep blade marks.
Meanwhile, in a completely different place, Black Zetsu was smugly completing his own "system mission," completely unaware of the fierce battle that had just taken place.
The two lines never intersected.
Arisu stood on high ground, quietly watching everything, the corners of his mouth curving slightly upward.
The chess pieces were all continuing to maintain the order of this cycle according to his arrangements.
At the same time, Black Zetsu's actions were also unfolding across the board in secret.
He did not appear directly in the core areas of the Uchiha or Senju. Instead, he set his sights on a small clan caught between the two clans, the "Haikawa Clan."
The Haikawa clan grounds were not large, and their strength was ordinary. However, because their location happened to lie in the border conflict zone between the Uchiha and Senju, they had been forced to survive between the two sides for years.
———
[Late One Night]
The Haikawa clan head was sitting alone in his simple clan head's room handling affairs when he suddenly felt a chill at the back of his neck.
A cold, sticky chakra instantly invaded his body.
"What... What is this...!"
His vision went black, and his consciousness was forcibly suppressed.
The next second, Black Zetsu completely took control of this body.
Black Zetsu moved his hands and feet, the corners of his mouth pulling into a cold arc.
"Perfect... There's already a ready-made shell to use."
He quickly found out about the recent movements of the Haikawa clan. In order to advance the reforms and stabilize the border, Uchiha Tajima had once sent an envoy to test the possibility of an alliance and proposed providing limited protection and resources in exchange.
The envoy was still staying at the Haikawa clan grounds, waiting for an official response.
Black Zetsu did not hesitate.
The next morning, he summoned the Uchiha envoy in his capacity as the Haikawa clan head.
The envoy had just stepped into the meeting hall and had not even had time to bow when Black Zetsu suddenly attacked.
A short blade precisely pierced the envoy's throat.
Blood splattered.
The envoy widened his eyes and looked at the "Haikawa clan head" in disbelief. A gurgling sound came from his throat before his body went limp and fell.
Black Zetsu expressionlessly pulled out the short blade and coldly ordered, "This man intended to persuade our clan to betray us. He has been executed on the spot. Throw his body to the Uchiha border and let them come collect it themselves."
Although the clan members were shocked, they did not dare disobey the clan head's orders.
The Uchiha envoy's body was soon abandoned in the wasteland at the border between the two clans.
When the news returned to the Uchiha clan grounds, Tajima's face was dark.
And Black Zetsu's actions went far beyond this.
He began systematically creating chaos.
First, he secretly sent people disguised as Senju patrol teams to attack Uchiha border outposts, leaving behind deliberately forged traces of Wood Release and fragments of the Senju clan crest.
Then, in turn, he had people disguise themselves as Uchiha shinobi and create similar bloody conflicts at the Senju border, deliberately leaving behind "eyewitness accounts" related to the Sharingan.
Casualty reports from both sides kept being submitted.
The atmosphere along the Uchiha and Senju borders quickly became tense.
The friction that had originally begun to ease once again became highly charged.
On top of that, Senju Butsuma had been worrying about not having an excuse.
Because the Uchiha had been too honest lately, and now he had an excuse.
Black Zetsu was not satisfied with simple attacks.
He continued using the identity of the Haikawa clan to simultaneously pass false information to both sides.
To the Uchiha, he said, 'The Senju had secretly gathered their forces and were preparing to annex the Haikawa, using it as a stepping stone to attack the Uchiha'.
To the Senju, he said, 'The Uchiha were drawing in the surrounding small clans, intending to form an encirclement'.
The vigilance and hostility on both sides continued to rise.
In just a few weeks, the border conflicts escalated from sporadic friction into continuous small-scale battles.
Patrol teams fought whenever they encountered each other, outposts were repeatedly destroyed, and the casualty numbers began to accumulate.
Black Zetsu hid beneath the skin of the Haikawa clan head, watching all this coldly, the smile at the corners of his mouth growing deeper.
"The system wants chaos... Then I'll give them enough chaos."
He even deliberately let the Haikawa clan get "injured" in the conflicts, then separately asked the Uchiha and Senju for help, further pinning the attention of both clans firmly to the border.
Uchiha Tajima had no choice but to divert a large amount of energy and manpower to deal with the sudden deterioration along the border.
The internal reforms that had originally been progressing quite smoothly were forced to slow down.
The Senju side was similarly thrown into tension and began reinforcing the border again.
The hatred and wariness between the two sides were rekindled little by little by Black Zetsu.
He had completed the core requirement of the system mission, continuously creating undercurrents and conflicts without exposing himself, successfully disrupting the pace of Uchiha Tajima's reforms.
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