"Hehe… Keizumi-kun, I know the trouble with those eyes of yours… Not long ago, someone even passed along intelligence about them to me. Just listening, I found it a bit chilling!"
Orochimaru's voice hissed with a serpentine undertone, his hand seals not slowing in the slightest.
"I absolutely can't allow you the chance to use those bizarre dōjutsu!"
His jaws opened wide and spewed out a torrent of blackness that made the scalp crawl—it was a flood of black serpents!
"Hisss——!"
Tens of thousands of monstrous black snakes, each as thick as a thigh and their scales gleaming with a strange metallic sheen, surged out madly.
As they poured across the blazing magma flowing along the floor, shockingly, their scales only gave off a sizzling burn.
Aside from a few wisps of black smoke and some scorched edges, their advance did not slow at all!
"These little fellows I cultivated specially to counter your magma—their scales possess extremely high resistance to heat. Even if thrown into a volcano's crater, they can still survive for a full minute."
"In a shinobi battle… a single minute decides a great deal, hehe."
As Orochimaru had said, the swarming black snakes had a terrifying endurance to high heat.
The magma on the ground was far from enough to stop their advance.
Even more frightening, each snake opened its gaping, fang-lined jaws!
And within every mouth was gripped an exceptionally sharp longsword, each weapon's blade or hilt etched all over with tiny, intricate black curse seals!
Orochimaru had unveiled one of his most classic abilities.
—Man spews snake.
—Snake spews sword.
"Keizumi-kun… this is a little gift I prepared especially for your so-proud 'Lava Release Elementalization'…"
Orochimaru's voice, mingled with the dense hissing of serpents, carried clear mockery and absolute confidence: "A special elementalization like the Hydrification Technique? Indeed, it lets you ignore the vast majority of physical attacks in this world, and even some elemental ones…"
"But what about certain space-time ninjutsu, and those jutsu that act upon the soul, including forbidden curse seals that directly target chakra?"
His golden slit-pupils locked firmly onto Keizumi.
As though trying to savor the "vessel's" panic.
Watching the torrent of serpents flooding the corridor like a black tide, their bodies radiating a strange metallic sheen and the glow of curse seals, Orochimaru's sickly confidence was nearly overflowing across his face.
"Don't mistake me for one of those arrogant shinobi. Against an enemy like you, Keizumi-kun, I am taking this very seriously. To deal with you, the genius of Konoha, I have made many necessary preparations."
"This is what it means to be an experienced shinobi."
…
As the battle on Uchiha Keizumi's side grew fiercer, the conflict within the Uchiha Police Force headquarters had also reached its peak.
Uchiha Fugaku's face was as grim as though he had lost his parents.
With deep disappointment, he looked at Uchiha Izumi before him.
Once a young girl who had been so close with Itachi, she had now changed into someone unrecognizable. She was even openly mounting a challenge against him, the Uchiha clan head, and there were outsiders present here who were not of the clan.
Facing the girl's pressing questions, Uchiha Fugaku clenched his fists, then released them again.
Expressionless, Fugaku said: "Toward the Uchiha clan, toward the Police Force, toward Konohagakure, I have no shame in my heart."
He lowered his gaze upon Izumi and slowly said: "Just because you alone believe I am unfit to serve as clan head or as captain of the Police Force does not mean I must step down at your whim."
"I became clan head, became captain, because I had the recognition of the clansmen, and also the recognition of the Hokage."
"But what if we do not recognize you now?!" Suddenly interrupting was a special jōnin of the Police Force. This special jōnin was himself a member of the Uchiha radical faction, one who had long looked with disdain upon Uchiha Fugaku.
This Uchiha special jōnin spoke bluntly: "Back then, those who put you into the position of clan head and captain of the Police Force were the old ones of the Uchiha clan."
"Now those old ones are either already dead at Keizumi's hand, or retired, no longer meddling in the clan's affairs."
"Now it's time for us of the younger generation to choose the leader we recognize, isn't it?!"
As his words fell, more Uchiha echoed in support: "When you decided to spare Uchiha Itachi, you already lost the right to lead the clan! All the more now, when you even dare to openly oppose Absolute Justice."
"For the captain of the Police Force to reject justice… heh! If that spreads, the Police Force's face will be utterly disgraced by you. Then what right do you have to lead us?"
Another Uchiha coldly said: "You claim you have no shame in your heart, meaning you believe you have contributed to the clan. But we cannot see what contributions you've made."
"All we see is the Uchiha clan being endlessly pushed aside by the village. All we see is you bowing your head almost in servile humility before Utatane Koharu when you speak to her."
"If that counts as contributing to the Uchiha clan, then you might as well openly turn the Uchiha into the Hokage's dogs."
"Then at least I could respect you a little. Because you'd be openly trying to bring all our people to serve as loyal hounds of Konoha's upper echelon."
Uchiha Fugaku: "…"
He felt many clansmen deeply misunderstood his actions.
He absolutely never intended to make the Uchiha serve as the Hokage's lapdogs.
But under this emotional onslaught, Fugaku realized that even if he tried to explain, they probably would not listen; they would only believe what they wanted to believe and what they had seen.
Uchiha Fugaku inhaled deeply and gazed at the assembled Police Force shinobi, but said little to that group and instead turned his head to look at the other Uchiha clan members.
Among those clan members were not all shinobi; most were Uchiha civilians, and none of them had opened their mouths.
And these civilians were actually the majority within the Uchiha clan.
It was only that their voices had been drowned out by the shinobi's voices.
Fugaku still had a sliver of hope for them—he hoped these civilians, who were generally quite distant from [Absolute Justice], might understand some of the burdens of their clan head.
"What do you all think?" Fugaku asked them.
He was attempting to give the Uchiha civilians a chance to speak.
But the next second, Fugaku regretted it.
"…Fugaku-sama, if you truly care about the Uchiha, why did you keep Uchiha Itachi?" an older Uchiha civilian with graying temples summoned the courage to ask. "Just because he's your eldest son, must you keep a massive hidden danger that could one day slaughter the entire Uchiha clan?"
"Before Uchiha Keizumi killed Uchiha Itachi, we all lived in constant fear. Afraid that one day we'd wake up and find not our family but Itachi's butcher's knife. We were terrified of becoming corpses under his blade."
"To avoid him, I even secretly moved my child out of the Uchiha quarter and had him live somewhere else in the village. We… we were already that frightened."
He looked at Fugaku and continued, "If not for Uchiha Keizumi stepping in to stop the Itachi who finally went mad the other day—"
"We would all have been killed! We civilians have no power to resist shinobi!"
The sincere voices from the Uchiha civilians left Fugaku speechless.
Uchiha Fugaku remained silent for several seconds before finally uttering things like—"Not having carried out actions in the strict sense yet does not truly count as evil," "I have my own difficulties; after all, he is my child," "Itachi is not as extreme as you think,"—words meant to bare his heart.
But his heartfelt words only made the Uchiha civilians look at him with even greater disappointment.
Fugaku suddenly realized that his thoughts and those of his clansmen were simply not on the same wavelength.
They could not understand him, just as he could not understand them nor Itachi.
"Fugaku…"
An elderly Uchiha coughed; the wrinkles on his face shifted slightly as he said to Fugaku, "You have been clan head and captain of the Police Force for so long… sigh, if you truly respected the clan's opinion as you appear to, then perhaps it's time for you to step aside and rest."
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