"You monster!"
Whether it was fear talking or pride, even the Third Mizukage himself couldn't have said. He just forced his broken body forward and attacked.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet!"
The form was textbook — a classic opener. But this time his chakra reserves were clearly thinner.
The dragon that rose from the lake was smaller than before, but still massive, a coiling column of water that dragged the surrounding lake up with it as it lunged for Uchiha Sogetsu.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet."
Such a simple jutsu. Sogetsu didn't even bother to be creative; he simply mirrored it.
Two water dragons slammed into each other midair, snapping apart in a detonation of spray.
Through the curtain of falling water, Sogetsu kicked off the surface and burst forward at full speed, a predator cutting through the rain, golden sheen still faintly glimmering on his scale-covered skin.
The Mizukage tried to sidestep, but the wreckage in his ribs screamed and dragged his movement half a beat slow.
Tch. If I weren't hurt—
Too late to matter. His only option was to brace. He brought both arms up to block.
"Leaf Style: Strong Whirlwind."
The sweeping kick came down like a steel whip, wrapped in detonating air.
Bone crunched.
The Mizukage's forearms lit with pain as something gave way. He was hurled back again but managed to twist in the air and land in a half-crouch on the water, boots skidding.
He slapped his hands together, dragging chakra up from a well that was starting to scrape bottom.
"Uchiha Sogetsu…"
Blood smeared from the corner of his mouth as he clapped once, voice cracking into a roar.
"Sink to the bottom of this lake and stay there!"
Chakra exploded off him like a tidal shockwave, kicking concentric rings across the lake, physically shoving the surrounding water aside.
"Water Release: Raging Dragon Maelstrom!"
He spat the jutsu out with everything he had left.
Fwoom.
The world answered with a ripping howl.
A line of water, compressed to an absurd density, fired from his mouth like a beam of pale blue light.
All the impact and pressure of a flood were forced into that humming thread. It lanced across the lake, carving a furrow several meters wide; the surface on either side sheared away as if sliced with a razor, the two walls of water hanging for a heartbeat before collapsing.
Sogetsu ducked, body snapping into a low lean, and Body Flickered sideways, skimming a bare arm's length past the attack.
BOOM.
The "thin" stream struck the lakebed and the rock simply opened.
Fish unlucky enough to be caught in the line didn't even have time to understand it. One instant they were swimming; the next they were in two pieces, cut so cleanly their front halves still kicked forward on reflex while blood fanned out behind, turning the depths red.
What a blade, Sogetsu murmured, eyes narrowing behind where his glasses used to sit. A water sword that sharp…
"Don't think you can dodge it forever—it's not done yet!"
The Mizukage refused to let go. He twisted his torso and dragged the water line with his gaze, sweeping it sideways.
This was as close to all-in as he ever played. If this didn't kill Sogetsu, he would be the one running out of time.
The compressed stream scythed across the surface.
Where it passed, waves split and toppled; spray burst up in white geysers; water itself seemed to be cut at the waist.
Sogetsu leaned back until his body was nearly horizontal, the water blade hissing past his nose, then used the recoil to flip, plant both feet on the lake, and explode forward directly toward the Mizukage.
He's coming straight through?
The Third Mizukage bared his teeth. Idiot. I'll cut you in half.
He started to drag the blade back around—
And his brain snapped.
A spike of pain drove through his skull. Rage surged up, white-hot and irrational, so strong it made his hands tremble.
Then, just as sharply, the anger folded in on itself and curdled into grief.
Grief fractured into giddy, hysterical joy.
Joy plunged into despair.
The Third Mizukage — who had faced wars, coups, assassination attempts, and bloodline maniacs — suddenly found himself laughing and sobbing at the same time.
"Ha… hahahaha… hrrk… ugh…"
"Damn it, what is— I… ahahahaha— I'll kill you!"
"No… Uchiha Sogetsu isn't the enemy."
"No, he is the enemy!"
Voices that were not his screamed over each other in his skull, a flock of crows flapping and clawing at his thoughts.
He clutched his head. The jutsu snapped; the bladed stream shattered back into harmless spray. Every nerve felt like it was firing random signals; his skull felt too small for his brain. It was like someone had rammed red-hot wire into his mind and was stirring.
"Genjutsu," he spat between his teeth. "Damn… genjutsu."
He tried to force his breath steady and slammed his chakra pathways sideways, scrambling the flow in the classic anti-illusion pattern.
The pain didn't stop.
"What did you do to me, Uchiha Sogetsu?!"
Veins bulged on his forehead; his face flushed dark red as he doubled over, howling.
"What is this jutsu?!"
Sogetsu didn't answer.
He slowed to a measured walk, boots tapping lightly on the water as he closed the distance.
"I'm a pig!"
"No, no, I'm Danzō's dog!"
"Being Mizukage is so exhausting… maybe I should just die and be done with it…"
Snatches of idiotic thought jammed themselves into his mind, like someone upended a bucket of stray sentences into his consciousness. Each one stuck for a second, tugging his emotions in random directions before being shoved aside by the next.
Worse, when he fought them down — when he grabbed for clarity with sheer will — something else slipped in.
A whisper. Quiet, but wrong.
He couldn't understand the words, but the sound of them made his skin crawl, like hearing metal file bone. Thin and papery, yet somehow echoing from a depth no sound should reach.
Twisted. Hysterical. Laughing and screaming and weeping and hungry all at once.
It brushed his mind and everything inside him lurched.
"AAAAAAH!"
Teeth clenched, he bit hard on his tongue. Blood flooded his mouth and the shock of pain bought him a single clear breath.
He slapped his hands together, dragging chakra up by the handful. "Water Release: Exploding Dragon—"
He stopped.
What was the next seal?
His hands hovered mid-form, suddenly foreign. The sequence he had drilled for decades, refined into a personal secret art… was gone.
He could feel the chakra. He could feel the technique sitting one step away — and he could not remember how to reach it.
Opposite him, Sogetsu's fingers danced through a pattern.
The pattern was identical.
"Water Release…" Sogetsu said calmly, "…Exploding Dragon Surge."
No.
No.
The Mizukage's pupils shrank. "That's my… that's my secret technique!"
He almost choked on the words.
If Sogetsu could have heard his thoughts, he would probably have just sighed.
He hadn't "copied" anything with his Sharingan; secrets didn't yield that easily. He'd stolen it outright, moments earlier, when the Mizukage first gathered chakra for the jutsu — using an extraordinary relic the system had called Kindling.
Not imitation. Appropriation.
BOOOOM.
Water answered Sogetsu's hands with terrifying enthusiasm. A mass of chakra surged up, coalescing into dozens of snarling dragon heads that tore free of the lake.
They crashed down in a pack.
"AAAAAH—!"
The Third Mizukage vanished under a forest of jaws. Each impact hit like a runaway freight wagon. His body slammed into the cliff again and again, battered back and forth by surging torrents until even his notoriously stubborn frame started to give. Bones snapped like wet branches; organs pulped.
When the last dragon spent itself and fell away, he somehow remained standing. Barely.
He looked like he was being held up by habit alone.
"Hatred… rage… joy… grief… pain…"
Sogetsu's eyes shimmered with faint ripples as he studied him, Mangekyō patterns turning slow behind his lashes.
"And all the rest in between. You've sampled the extremes of the seven emotions and six desires, one after another." He tilted his head. "How does it feel?"
"Uchiha… Sogetsu…"
The Third Mizukage lifted his head.
Half his face was twisted in a laugh; the other half was locked in a rictus of grief. His eyes burned with caged madness.
"What… are you?" he rasped.
"I'm human, of course."
Sogetsu's hand twitched toward his absent glasses, then he remembered he'd thrown them away. He pushed damp bangs back instead and smiled faintly.
"At least, for now."
His arm blurred.
A hand like a spear punched clean through the Mizukage's chest.
Drip. Drip.
Warm blood slid down Sogetsu's forearm, pattering onto the lake.
The Third Mizukage's gaze clouded, color draining as something hard and relentless finally went out behind his eyes.
He swallowed once, with difficulty. No words followed.
Then he sagged around the arm impaling him, exhaled, and went completely still.
[Side Quest: "Make a Big Scene" — Completed]
[A proper Spectator guides the tides of an era. It's your turn now. According to your script, let the world burn a little; let the war unfold as you desire.]
[Reward: Brain of an adult Mind-Dragon ×1; Blood of an adult Mind-Dragon ×500 ml]
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