Chapter 207: The Ghost of the Uchiha Rescues Team Minato, Four Kage Take the Field!
The Crisis on the Iwagakure Front Lines
"Kakashi! Rin!"
Obito threw his head back, laughing boisterously with pure, uninhibited swagger:
"Is my three-tomoe Sharingan magnificent or what? Those Stone shinobi actually thought they could rely on transparent camouflage arts to breach our sector, but I decrypted their coordinates with a single glance!"
"Impressive, truly impressive..."
Kakashi shrugged, his posture casual yet vigilant. "The ocular supremacy of the Uchiha clan is undeniably formidable."
"You're not doing too poorly yourself! Channeling White Fang kenjutsu paired with all five elemental affinities—your lethality in close-quarters and cross-terrain skirmishes is top-tier..."
Receiving praise from Kakashi sent Obito's ego soaring straight into the clouds. "If you hadn't cleanly decapitated that Stone Jonin who ambushed my blind spot the other day, I would have faced a catastrophic breach."
Rin Nohara watched the two boys with a gentle, affectionate smile, listening as they oscillated between trading insults and showering each other with praise.
Her operational placement within Team Minato went far beyond acting as a dedicated combat medic; she served as the psychological buffer and emotional mediator keeping the squad's internal cohesion locked at peak performance.
"Don't minimize your contribution," Kakashi sighed, his visible eye clouding with somber reflection. "Without your ocular insight catching that initial trajectory, I would have ended up crippled or dead."
"Active theater warfare is exponentially more brutal than my simulations forecasted. We are fortunate to wear the Leaf's headband..."
Obito and Rin stiffened, their expressions sobering as they nodded in unison.
Compared to routine peacetime deployments—neutralizing rogue bounty hunters, escorting regional caravans, or subduing bandit cartels—facing regular forces in a general war was a completely different operational dimension. Enemy combatants commanded lethal tactical cohesion and multi-layered synergy.
They coordinated massed, multi-target elemental bombardments, enjoyed uninterrupted rear reinforcement pipelines, and operated completely decoupled from standardized mission rank parameters.
Even a newly minted Chunin could stumble directly into the crosshairs of an enemy Jinchuriki.
That was the terrifying, unforgiving fog of war.
"The Nawaki-Pattern Medical Sealing Scrolls engineered under the Hokage's personal direction have preserved countless lives along the line..." Rin murmured softly. "Coupled with the standardized emergency trauma training rolled out to the grassroots corps... yet even with those redundancies, the casualty metrics continue to rise."
"War inevitably demands blood," Kakashi shook his head slowly.
"Lord Nawaki was the biological grandson of the First Hokage, yet he marched onto the front lines without hesitation. In this campaign, Lord Hokage personally led the vanguard into the Kirigakure theater—facing an all-out, nation-scale mobilization backed by a Kage and two wild Tailed Beasts simultaneously..."
"I knew from the start that Lord Hokage was the undisputed apex titan of the continent!" Obito beamed with fanatical pride.
"By the way, I wonder if Grandma has been diligently wiping down my commemorative portrait? I explicitly filed that domestic request before our deployment..."
Kakashi's face instantly darkened with exasperated lines.
He had enjoyed precisely twenty-four hours of silence regarding Obito's cherished portrait—the one where the Hokage had deployed Ice Release to cast an eternal, photographic crystal frame capturing the two of them together.
The cooldown timer had evidently expired; the endless bragging sequence was rebooting.
Rin chuckled warmly.
When the centralized broadcast from Commissioner Kurama confirming the total pacification of the Mist theater swept across the front lines, the entire Konoha army had detonated in celebration, but Obito had been the most visible zealot on the field.
During every scheduled rest cycle, Obito dragged Kakashi and Rin into elaborate, theoretical roleplay sessions, visualizing the apocalyptic grandeur of how the Hokage must have physically shattered the Mist's vanguard into oblivion.
Furthermore, field couriers cycling back from the maritime front reported that the Hokage had taken the field encased in Madara Uchiha's legendary, midnight-black heavy plate armor from the Warring States era, demonstrating a kinetic combat doctrine described as "Unrivaled Beneath the Heavens"!
That specific intelligence leak had sent Obito, Fugaku, Elder Isshin, and the entire Uchiha corps into a state of sheer, euphoric ecstasy.
Every red-eyed operative on the field looked as though they had been injected with a concentrated dose of Hashirama cells, driving their offensive momentum to near-manic levels!
They had pushed so aggressively that their tactical footprint began violating the conservative "defensive counter-attack" parameters mandated by the high command.
Yet because the Uchiha were spearheading the assault with overwhelming kinetic success, racking up verified kill tallies at an astonishing rate...
Even Jiraiya found it politically awkward to issue a formal reprimand urging them to dial back their ferocity.
When a conservative veteran like Elder Isshin was actively riding a high of ancestral pride, interjecting with bureaucratic caution was an operational dead end.
"Grandma is a meticulous woman," Kakashi replied softly, indulging his teammate. "She will preserve your portrait with absolute care, while offering prayers for our safe return... alongside Minato Sensei and every operative deployed under the Leaf."
Following the outbreak of total war, Team Minato had been deployed to the Iwagakure front rather than shadowing Minato to the Kumogakure border.
Compared to the hyper-lethal lightning specialists of the Cloud, the Stone relied primarily on massed troop volume with a marginally lower baseline in individual taijutsu parameters—making it an optimal developmental crucible for freshly minted prodigies.
Though they were the direct disciples of the Yellow Flash, the operational realities of the Flying Thunder God were tethered strictly to strategic-tier interdictions; Minato possessed zero bandwidth to micromanage his students in the field.
Both Obito and Kakashi had endorsed the deployment without a single grievance.
"Haha! When I return as a decorated war hero of the Leaf, Grandma will be so proud!"
Obito's voice suddenly softened, rubbing his throbbing, bloodshot eyes with a trace of melancholic fatigue:
"Kakashi... when you mentioned Lord Nawaki earlier, my chest genuinely ached. He was so young, full of boundless promise..."
"At least his legacy is permanently woven into the village's infrastructure through those medical scrolls..."
Kakashi paused, his gaze sharpening with clinical concern: "Are your ocular pathways holding up?"
Maintaining the three-tomoe Sharingan extracted a continuous, non-negligible chakra tax. It was not merely the Mangekyou that suffered biological degradation from over-utilization.
Even low-power optical bloodlines like the Byakugan suffered severe retinal strain under sustained combat operations.
In extreme clinical scenarios, overtaxed optic nerves could induce severe perceptual disorientation, rendering an operative incapable of distinguishing friend from foe. Under high-intensity combat conditions, throttling ocular usage was a critical discipline.
Kakashi studied Obito with Mounting unease.
He had cataloged an unsettling behavioral shift: the suffocating tension of the active warzone appeared to be locking Obito's neural pathways into a state of perpetual, hyper-stimulated mania.
Compared to his baseline demeanor in the village, the boy was becoming exponentially more emotionally volatile and sentimental.
"I am entirely functional; do not waste medical concern on me..."
"A momentary rest cycle will recalibrate my baseline. Commissioner Fugaku briefed me personally: ocular hardware must be actively deployed! The more you stress the pathways, the sharper the dynamic resolution becomes!"
Obito blinked rapidly, forcing a casual grin as he pivoted: "Move out! We need to harvest additional reconnaissance data today!"
"The Stone's tactical probes have escalated in ferocity over recent cycles. As the officially branded 'Golden Generation' of the Academy, we are obligated to deliver output that outclasses standard units!"
Kakashi stared at him, a swarm of metaphorical question marks hovering over his head.
Even he had heard the running corporate joke regarding Elder Isshin barring Fugaku from participating in his own children's education...
And Obito was actively taking developmental advice from that specific executive?
The man had literally died twice on an operating table just to force an artificial bloodline graft!
Before Kakashi could voice a tactical objection, Obito kicked off the terrain like an arrow released from a bowstring.
And then...
A catastrophic wall of fire and concussive shockwaves detonated beneath the earth!
Kakashi and Rin's eyes widened in sheer, paralyzed horror as they screamed in unison:
"Obito!"
He had triggered a concealed minefield!
"My leg..." Obito clenched his teeth, yet an agonizing, guttural roar tore through his throat like a wounded animal.
Agony. Absolute, blinding agony!
His left leg had suffered catastrophic trauma, completely severed from motor control, while his left flank and torso were blackened, scorched by explosive kinetic fire!
A bizarre, surreal wave of detachment washed over Obito's consciousness.
We were just discussing Lord Nawaki's tragedy...
Am I about to mirror his exact operational fate?
"How is this possible?! We conducted a full sensory sweep of this perimeter!"
Kakashi crossed the distance in a blur, sweeping the treeline to confirm zero immediate ambushes before his hands blurred through a high-speed casting sequence:
"Earth Release: Earth Wave!"
"Earth Release: Mud Wall!"
Under a surge of chakra, the terrain before them churned like violent ocean waves, prematurely triggering secondary detonations along the path, while a reinforced stone barrier—slotted with narrow observational slits—erupted from the soil, shielding Rin as she initiated emergency trauma stabilization on Obito.
Under the violent vibrations of the amplified Earth Wave, a cascading sequence of subterranean explosions erupted across the clearing!
Shrapnel and jagged stone fragments sprayed outward like shurikens, embedding themselves deeply into the outer face of the stone wall!
Kakashi surveyed the detonations through the slits, cold sweat beading beneath his headband:
"I decompile their methodology... The Stone engineered a specialized deployment, burying the explosive tags beneath the deep subsoil strata, camouflaged with earth-natured sealing formulas and fragmented blast-casings! Our surface-level sensory sweeps completely missed the signatures..."
"We must extract immediately and debrief Elder Isshin and Master Jiraiya!"
Previously, Konoha's Byakugan units and sensory squads had swept the primary sectors, neutralizing the vast majority of Iwagakure's ambushes and depleting their tactical assets.
Yet Iwagakure was an entrenched Great Hidden Village. Faced with a sensory disadvantage, their command had rapidly optimized their explosive deployment to adapt to the meta.
Kakashi narrowed his eye. Peeking through the stone slit, he carefully cast a long-range probing jutsu toward the distant ruins:
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
Under the thermal wash of the flames, several subterranean caches detonated in rapid succession, kicking up clouds of sulfurous ash!
Through the smoke, Kakashi's sharp eye caught an anomalous, pale clay-like residue churning within the scorched earth.
"These aren't standard explosive tags... This carries the proprietary signatures of Iwagakure's specialized Explosion Release corps..."
Kakashi murmured, piecing together the intelligence: "The theater's operational intensity is scaling rapidly. Failing to achieve a conventional breakthrough, the Stone high command has grown desperate, authorizing the deployment of their classified, legacy arts..."
"Ha... at least we intercepted the data first!" Obito forced out a trembling, ragged chuckle through gritted teeth:
"So what if the Stone shifts their tactical meta? Once we deliver this telemetry to Clan Head Isshin and Master Jiraiya, our R&D division will compile a countermeasure within hours! They won't be able to catch our comrades off-guard!"
A profound, bitter ache gripped Kakashi's chest.
Obito's operational assessment was mathematically correct.
They had absorbed the kinetic blast, but backed by Konoha's institutional adaptability and deep jutsu reserves, the high command would rapidly deploy a defensive patch, neutralizing the enemy's tactical advantage.
Yet witnessing Obito dismiss his own catastrophic trauma with such total disregard for his life left Kakashi struggling to process his emotions.
He witnessed the brilliant, unadulterated flame of the Will of Fire blazing within his companion.
"Hold your vitals, Obito!"
Rin channeled every drop of her chakra bandwidth. She executed immediate biological debridement, applying a Nawaki-Pattern Medical Sealing Scroll directly to the scorched flesh to arrest internal hemorrhaging.
Concurrently, she engaged the advanced Palm Circulation Jutsu, soothing his internal organs to mitigate systemic shock and multi-organ failure.
"If I were deployed under any other cartel, absorbing a blast of this magnitude would have guaranteed my immediate termination..."
Obito endured the agonizing cellular regeneration, maintaining his strange, detached chatter:
"I grew complacent! I should have followed Commissioner Fugaku's directives and mastered the Transcription Seal: Izanagi ahead of schedule... but decompiling those two architectures was far too complex!"
Kakashi was genuinely at a loss for words.
Along the Kumogakure front, to project the Uchiha clan's absolute commitment to the collective defense of the village, Clan Head Isshin had violently broken ancestral compliance protocols, officially declassifying the forbidden jutsu Izanagi—the very art that had historically catalyzed intra-clan civil strife.
He had mandated that every three-tomoe Uchiha operative initiate structured cultivation of the technique, paired with automated Transcription Seal matrices.
Furthermore, he had appointed Fugaku—an executive who had successfully executed two automated Izanagi resets during clinical trials—to oversee implementation and compliance.
The initiative had received overwhelming, fanatical support from the clan's elites.
With Izanagi operational, every three-tomoe Uchiha effectively commanded multiple lifelines, transforming the entire frontline cohort into immortal, unkillable combat assets.
A few conservative voices had initially raised compliance concerns: What if this reignites the internal cannibalization of the Warring States era?
Fugaku had crushed the dissent with a single, brutal corporate reality check:
Are you lot entirely devoid of situational awareness? Back in the pre-village era, rogue elements betrayed their kin because they believed Izanagi granted them absolute impunity!
Forget two lives—even if I granted you ten lives, which of you possesses the kinetic metrics to survive a duel against Lord Hokage?! And if you cannot defeat the Hokage, you will simply spend your extra lives operating as S-rank fugitives hunted by the Anbu! Weigh the variables: the iron fist of the Will of Fire is infinitely more absolute than Izanami!
The phrasing was unrefined, but the strategic logic was absolute.
During the Warring States era, harvesting a clansman's Sharingan carried zero institutional consequences; the macro-environment was an ungoverned jungle.
In modern Konoha, such an act was a treasonous capital offense that guaranteed absolute liquidation under the Will of Fire.
Furthermore, with Curse Marks, synthetic bloodlines, Hashirama cells, and advanced ninja tools actively circulating through the village, burning your social standing to secure an extra life as a hunted rogue was a catastrophic negative ROI.
Why become a sewer rat when you could operate as an immortal, celebrated hero of the state?
Moreover, while the Hokage projected an approachable, benevolent persona, his cultivation sessions with the Evil Sealing Method had left an indelible impression on the clan.
The man was entirely immune to ocular genjutsu; three-tomoe and Mangekyou alike found zero traction against his biological firewall.
"Kakashi, secure Obito on your back! We must initiate immediate tactical withdrawal!"
Rin exhaled a trembling breath, tightening the specialized tourniquets around Obito's wounds.
"Extraction confirmed!"
Yet before Kakashi could take a single forward stride, his complexion paled.
Along their designated extraction vector, multiple high-density, unfamiliar chakra signatures were erupting into the sensory grid!
Two of those signatures radiated a feral, apocalyptic malice that his tactical processors instantly cataloged as Tailed Beast chakra!
"What is happening?!"
Kakashi forced his cognitive functions into hyper-drive, analyzing the tactical variables:
"I decompile their operational design! The Stone didn't deploy high-density minefields simply to contest the flanks... They are preparing a full-scale, division-strength breakthrough assault!"
"These minefields were laid specifically to deny our forces lateral mobility, preventing Konoha from executing an armored flanking maneuver against their primary vanguard!"
The puzzle pieces locked into place.
In conventional doctrine, Konoha held the defensive line while the Stone operated as the invader. Laying massive minefields in foreign territory was inefficient unless designed to channel the enemy's defensive reserves into a pre-sighted kill-zone.
Behind them, massive earth pillars erupted from the tree-line, hurtling toward their coordinates like ballistic artillery!
Kakashi's eye flared, his hands blurring into a defensive counter-seal:
"Follow my lead! Maintain formation!"
"The Stone has committed to a general offensive; their flanks are saturated with elite hunter-killer squads! We have drifted into their primary interdiction corridor..."
"Damn it... their command has completely abandoned tactical patience!"
Kakashi hoisted Obito onto his shoulders, signaled Rin, and accelerated into a dead sprint through the dense forest.
His father Sakumo's parting counsel echoed through his neural pathways:
Kakashi, never allow the village's strategic supremacy to breed tactical complacency.
Macroeconomic advantages do not guarantee localized survivability on the grid.
Even operating from a continental deficit, if an adversary concentrates overwhelming numerical superiority at a specific temporal and spatial coordinate, they manufacture localized absolute dominance.
The offensive faction sacrificed defensive terrain, but held the initiative.
War extracted blood from the strong and the weak alike; the only divergence was the volume of the hemorrhage.
"Do not allow those whelps to break contact!"
"Visual identification confirms the Uchiha clan crest! Lord Tsuchikage issued a standing bounty for a live Uchiha captive!" the Stone Jonin Kakkō roared, tearing through the branches.
"Understood! They hold zero extraction corridors," another Stone Jonin, Taiseki, narrowed his eyes:
"Han and Lord Roshi have completely locked down the primary valley. Fleeing into the mountain caverns is suicide; encumbered by a casualty and a non-combat medic, their displacement velocity is negligible."
"Exercise extreme operational caution! Prioritize capturing the Uchiha alive! It is rare enough to encounter an Uchiha who lacks the automated resurrection jutsu and wanders away from the primary formation..." the third Stone Jonin, Mahiru, warned, a shiver of residual trauma crossing his face.
Days earlier, his lifelong comrade—a veteran Stone Jonin—had successfully neutralized a three-tomoe Uchiha after an exhaustive, high-risk tactical combo.
Yet before his squad could log the confirmed kill, the deceased Uchiha had remanifested behind his back like a vengeful phantom, running a blade through his spine before vanishing into the smoke with an arrogant laugh.
Within the international Jonin community, an ancient operational rule had governed the market for decades:
Unless you command combat metrics approaching the Kage tier, avoid engaging a three-tomoe Uchiha in single combat.
Today, that rule was an immutable, iron law.
Facing an elite adversary who could casually reset reality and respawn at an optimal ambush coordinate shattered all conventional tactical science.
Much like Fourth Raikage A misinterpreting Konoha's internal dynamic, when Onoki logged that Madara's historical profile had been officially rehabilitated, his cognitive algorithms immediately concluded that Hiruzen Sarutobi had been mentally compromised.
A legitimate ideological heir to the First Hokage would never validate Madara Uchiha unless subjected to absolute psychological subjugation!
That conclusion had violently triggered Onoki's deeply suppressed "Madara Phobia," drowning his executive reasoning in catastrophic paranoia.
Compounded by the reality that the Uchiha corps were spearheading the front with terrifying ferocity, deploying the once-forbidden Izanagi without institutional restraint, Onoki's worst fears appeared empirically validated.
Consequently, he had authorized an unrestricted bounty to capture a high-ranking Uchiha to audit the Leaf's internal status.
Onoki calculated that the Uchiha clan's sudden ascendancy indicated the emergence of a generational prodigy possessing the raw potential of Madara, forcing the Hokage's administration into structural submission.
Today was the synchronized zero-hour agreed upon by Onoki and the Third Raikage to execute a high-density, multi-theater breakthrough against Konoha's defensive line.
Iwagakure's vanguard was spearheaded by their absolute apex assets: Han, Roshi, Kitsuchi, the specialized Explosion Release and Lava Release divisions, and a battalion of elite Jonin.
Onoki shared the Raikage's desire to pillage Konoha's medical scrolls and flight-wings.
Yet primarily, he sought to exorcise the lingering phantom of Madara Uchiha that haunted his soul.
Paralyzing anxiety had degraded Onoki's legendary patience into reckless aggression; he desperately required an elite captive to decrypt the truth.
Kakashi sprinted through the underbrush, carrying Obito while escorting Rin, pushed to the absolute edge of biological exhaustion.
Behind them, three elite Stone Jonin pursued them like bloodhounds, closing the distance with terrifying velocity.
In the Mountains' Graveyard.
Madara Uchiha's expression darkened into an icy scowl.
He was reaching the absolute limit of his patience with Obito's staggering lack of tactical discipline!
You have sustained severe, multi-organ trauma, yet your internal cognitive state remains completely saturated with the Will of Fire?! How can your emotional matrix generate high-yield negative volatility under these conditions?!
Applying Izuna's psychological profile in reverse, an operative possessing Obito's idealistic, emotionally intense personality needed to experience total, catastrophic despair precisely at the moment his heart was filled with absolute hope.
Getting caught in a standard, low-tier explosive minefield?
That was an embarrassingly common battlefield casualty! It lacked the narrative gravitas to trigger an existential awakening!
"I knew it! Awakening the Sharingan ahead of schedule merely produces an incompetent asset!"
"What utility is an early awakening? Lacking fundamental combat instincts, tactical discipline, and psychological resilience, the boy assumes a three-tomoe Sharingan renders him invincible! How can an operative scale their parameters with that mindset?!"
"It appears Clan Head Isshin requires a severe disciplinary audit as well!"
The Ghost of the Uchiha launched into a blistering critique of the clan's modern pedagogy.
Why must they constantly fixate on the age of awakening?
Though Madara's critique was heavily colored by personal history.
In his youth, though Madara commanded elite metrics across all disciplines, his Sharingan had awakened relatively late, drawing persistent administrative pressure from his father, Tajima Uchiha.
Madara had ultimately awakened his eyes during an armed standoff where Tajima and Butsuma had confronted each other over his secret meetings with Hashirama.
During that encounter, Butsuma Senju had voiced loud, patronizing surprise that Madara was only now awakening his Sharingan—a comment Madara held a grudge over to this very day.
What business was it of that old Senju relic when I unlocked my bloodline?!
"Tsk, Warring States parenting..." Madara muttered, massaging his temples.
Before he could even draft the operational parameters for his stress-test, the asset was on the verge of biological liquidation. The entire theater simulation was collapsing before the curtain could rise.
Standing nearby, A-Huo felt a genuine pang of empathy. He held immense personal affection for Obito.
Obito's simple-minded enthusiasm and earnest, helpful nature routinely reminded A-Huo of his own early days before he learned to read.
Moreover, A-Huo had once approached Obito in the village disguised as a civilian to ask for directions, and the boy had personally walked him across three districts to ensure he reached his destination.
Since you guided my path back then, I shall preserve your life today! Securing your cooperation will provide me with immense leverage to lobby Lord Hokage on my behalf down the line...
A-Huo analyzed the board instantly, identifying the root cause of Madara's hesitation.
Madara felt that direct intervention violated his self-imposed rules of non-interference, yet his deep-seated desire to preserve the boy's life was obvious.
"Congratulations, Lord Madara!"
A-Huo stepped forward, bowing low: "This represents a divine, unprecedented strategic window!"
"Oh? What bizarre administrative spin are you drafting now?" Madara frowned, snapping sharply: "Mind your tongue, A-Huo!"
"Lord Madara, consider the operational variables..."
"Are you not preparing to finalize the physical resurrection of Lord Izuna in the coming cycles?" A-Huo offered an ingratiating, humble smile:
"Historical records verify that Lord Izuna possessed a profoundly compassionate disposition toward our clan's youth. He consistently opposed ruthless psychological conditioning against promising kin..."
Madara paused, momentarily caught off-guard. He nodded thoughtfully: "Continue."
"Yet tempering our successors remains an absolute strategic mandate!"
A-Huo straightened his posture, speaking with absolute corporate conviction:
"Without absolute kinetic strength, how can an operative defend their comrades? Obito serves as the definitive case study: possessing transcendent latent talent, yet failing to convert it into combat output! How can he contribute to continental peace with those metrics?!"
Madara's expression softened, nodding in slow agreement.
"However, as you observed, the traditional Warring States pedagogy carries severe, inhumane drawbacks..."
"Iwagakure is executing a division-strength breakthrough; the primary battle-lines are engulfed in chaotic attrition. The Leaf command holds zero bandwidth to deploy search-and-rescue units. Obito's termination is statistically guaranteed."
"Therefore, my operational proposal is as follows: we deploy immediate kinetic intervention to extract Obito and his two teammates, transporting them directly to this facility for your personal mentorship..."
A-Huo carefully modulated his pitch:
"In this scenario, all three young operatives will owe you their absolute lives! Whatever instructional curriculum you mandate moving forward will carry total moral legitimacy. Even when Lord Izuna awakens, he will find zero grounds to critique your execution..."
"As for unlocking his Mangekyou... battlefield variables are dynamic; optimal stress-testing windows will present themselves organically. Furthermore, as you noted, raw ocular density without baseline combat discipline produces an ineffective asset!"
"Take him under your personal command. According to my intelligence, Obito's personal pantheon of idols contains only two names: the Third Hokage, and yourself! Treat the deployment as adopting an abandoned stray from the roadside—an expendable, high-upside side bet..."
While A-Huo had fabricated the claim regarding Obito idolizing Madara on the spot, it held surprising empirical truth.
Madara's dramatic, uncompromising aesthetic was custom-engineered to captivate a chronic chuunibyou adolescent like Obito.
Who could resist a legendary patriarch who supposedly turned against the world purely out of unyielding love for his village?
"If you execute this extraction, Lord Izuna will recognize that your governance achieved total perfection..."
"Balancing the ruthless standards of the Warring States with the authentic warmth of Konohagakure!"
Madara nodded slowly, thoroughly persuaded.
The moment the Uchiha clan had hoisted his banners and restored his historical monuments, the operational equation had changed.
Madara accepted that adult three-tomoe Jonin could perish in live combat against sovereign rivals.
Yet watching a squad of adult Stone Jonin relentlessly hunt down an injured adolescent struck him as thoroughly dishonorable.
Especially upon hearing Taiseki's transmission: Lord Tsuchikage issued a standing bounty for a live Uchiha...
"That brat Onoki... I clearly failed to discipline him thoroughly enough in his youth! He dares deploy hunter-killer squads against the Uchiha bloodline?! Back then, I merely spared his life because I refused to bully an infant!"
Madara's eye flared with cold, ancient pride: "Your strategic counsel carries merit, A-Huo..."
"Izuna was peerless in all metrics, but his heart was undeniably soft. Should he challenge my pedagogical methods, as his older brother, I would find it difficult to rebuke him; one must yield to family."
A-Huo nodded rapidly: "Naturally, Lord Madara!"
"Ahem..." Madara cleared his throat lightly, glancing toward the cavern entrance:
"Those reanimated assets have been exceptionally noisy of late; order them out into the field to grant me a moment of silence..."
"However, do not frame it as a targeted rescue. Casualties are an operational reality of war. Exercise your own executive discretion."
A-Huo bowed deeply: "Your absolute impartiality commands my deepest reverence!"
Departing from Madara's dais, A-Huo accelerated to a dead sprint, composing himself only as he approached the chamber housing the Six Paths puppets.
The Mountains' Graveyard occupied the coastal peninsula of the Land of Frost—straddling the strategic convergence zone between the Land of Fire, the Land of Earth, and the Land of Lightning—placing it in immediate geographical proximity to the Iwagakure front.
"Cease your idle chatter! An operational deployment has been cleared!"
"Direct executive mandate from Lord Tobirama! Deploy to the intersection between the Leaf and Stone lines to execute the extraction of an elite Uchiha adolescent..."
A-Huo declared with rigid, military authority:
"Hostile engagements with Stone forces are authorized. Execute with extreme kinetic velocity; maintain absolute operational anonymity. White Zetsu scouts will establish your telemetry corridors."
Kinkaku glared at A-Huo, opening his mouth to issue an insubordinate challenge.
Yet A-Huo's voice dropped into a chilling, venomous whisper:
"Executives, failing to reciprocate institutional favors is a catastrophic compliance violation. That you have been permitted to walk the mortal plane, conversing freely within this facility, is an exclusive dividend granted entirely by Lord Tobirama."
"You have feasted on the benefits; attempting to shirk your operational labor when deployment calls is unacceptable."
"Do not operate under the delusion that existing as reanimated puppet chassis immunizes you from Lord Tobirama's disciplinary measures—whether targeted at your spiritual cores, or the sovereign assets you left behind..."
"Lord Tobirama prefers to govern through mutual consensus and professional negotiation. The mission merely requires liquidating a handful of Stone Jonin; do any of the esteemed Kage present harbor an ethical objection to that?"
Kinkaku swallowed his words down whole.
While his reanimated puppet chassis possessed absolute pain immunity, his spiritual consciousness remained entirely vulnerable to fuinjutsu extraction!
As for the Second Raikage, Kirigakure's fate was a terrifying, empirical reality. With a wave of his hand, Tobirama had reduced an entire Great Hidden Village into smoking ruins...
While absolute compliance did not guarantee Kumogakure's security, it successfully delayed their village from entering the crosshairs.
Furthermore, for a Raikage, liquidating Stone ninja was hardwired muscle memory; he had performed that exact labor throughout his living career.
"If I finalize this deployment, will I be granted an audience with the Hokage?" Ashina Uzumaki queried with trembling hope.
"Venerable Patriarch..."
Toward Ashina, who remained hyper-focused on the Hokage, A-Huo's demeanor shifted to warm deference:
"Exercise patience. An audience will be coordinated in due time. Furthermore, this Uchiha youth named Obito holds the Hokage in absolute reverence; you may interface with him to gather preliminary telemetry..."
"Approaching the Hokage without an introduction risks having your advanced sealing formulas dismissed as fraudulent mythology."
A brilliant, fanatical light flared in Ashina's ancient eyes:
"Understood! Entrust the extraction to my command! Provide the spatial coordinates and troop concentrations! A handful of Stone whelps? Even if their Jinchuriki deploy, liquidating them requires zero effort!"
Speaking of the Hokage and his ancestral sealing arts, Ashina transformed from a cantankerous old man into the terrifying, legendary patriarch who had struck terror across the Warring States—an apex entity even the ancient Izuna had tread lightly around.
"Hold your advance; I volunteer for deployment as well," the Second Raikage raised a massive hand, his dark, weathered visage projecting solemn compliance:
"Since this mandate originates from my diplomatic partner, Tobirama, I am obligated to commit kinetic force! Director A-Huo, if the window presents itself, convey my personal regrets to Lord Tobirama..."
"Kumogakure and Konohagakure were destined to forge a permanent corporate union during the First Great War. The Third Raikage and the Gold and Silver Brothers corrupted our foreign policy; for that structural failure, I tender my deepest apologies!"
A-Huo blinked slowly.
The man's diplomatic logic was impeccably sound.
Tobirama Senju had indeed ratified a formal non-aggression alliance with the Second Raikage; their deaths had been triggered by an external coup, not state betrayal.
Observing Kirigakure's total collapse, the Second Raikage was thoroughly traumatized.
Even Kinkaku and Ginkaku ceased their insubordination, maintaining total silence.
The First Darkness of the Shinobi was an entity of unfathomable, absolute horror!
"Well spoken..."
A-Huo nodded smoothly: "We are all corporate partners committed to market peace..."
Kinkaku and Ginkaku offered strained, nervous chuckles:
"Our strike team will mobilize immediately. Our past victory over the Second Hokage was merely an unrepeatable statistical fluke; our past conduct lacked basic operational humility."
Having been officially expunged from Kumogakure's historical registry as traitors, the brothers held zero loyalty to their homeland.
They merely feared being subjected to Tobirama's soul-rending torture.
"Executives, deploy with maximum velocity! The target's vitals are depreciating rapidly..."
"Lord Tobirama places immense value on this Uchiha asset." A-Huo commanded severely.
Instantly, four Kage-tier assets mobilized!
Synchronized with the White Zetsu hivemind telemetry, they accelerated toward Obito's coordinates at maximum velocity.
As to why Tobirama harbored such intense interest in an unranked Uchiha youth, none of the Kage questioned the directive.
The man's lifelong obsession with reverse-engineering the Uchiha bloodline was a matter of public historical record...
They merely extended their deepest, silent condolences to the poor boy named Obito...
A-Huo rested his hands behind his back, watching the four silhouettes vanish into the forest, exhaling a long, weary sigh.
The foundational truth remained absolute:
Without his administrative diplomacy, this corporate enterprise would have collapsed into ash weeks ago!
"Kakashi... put me down..."
"If you continue to haul my dead weight, our entire squad will be liquidated!"
Obito lay draped across Kakashi's back, drenched in sweat and blood, his voice cracking with desperate urgency:
"Take Rin and execute an emergency retreat! Deposit me in a cavern along the ridge; I possess a viable countermeasure!"
Their explosive tag reserves were completely exhausted.
Obito's tactical design was transparent: lure the pursuit team into an enclosed cavern and cast an explosive Earth Release to trigger a total structural cave-in, burying himself alongside the hostiles.
"Take my Sharingan with you! The clan can redeploy the asset!"
Kakashi's heart violently contracted, his voice dropping into a harsh, furious growl:
"Shut your mouth! If I abandon an active teammate to die, my continued survival is worthless!"
"If I execute an autonomous retreat, do I even qualify as a medical ninja?!" Rin brushed back strands of hair matted with blood and sweat, her voice trembling yet unyielding: "Cease issuing suicidal directives, Obito!"
"Why are you both being so obstinate?!" Obito roared, tears spilling down his soot-stained cheeks: "Their operational target is me! It's me!"
"Kakashi, you are hailed as a generational prodigy! Can your analytical processing not see that their attack patterns are deliberately avoiding lethal vectors against my chassis?!"
Kakashi roared back, his eye burning with fury:
"Dead-last, hold your tongue and cease attempting to disrupt my tactical command!"
Throughout their retreat, Kakashi and Obito had exploited the Stone's objective of capturing an Uchiha alive, executing multiple defensive counters and liquidating several tracking Chunin.
Yet they had reached the absolute, biological limit of their chakra reserves.
"Earth Release: Earth Flow Wave!"
"Earth Release: Stone Pillar Torrent!"
At that exact microsecond, the terrain beneath their boots violently fractured!
A catastrophic seismic shockwave launched Kakashi, Obito, and Rin into the upper air, while a barrage of colossal stone pillars descended from the sky, slamming down upon their trajectory like dropping anvils!
"These brats possess astonishing evasion metrics... exceptional talent..."
Taiseki materialized from his transparent camouflage, his tone thick with frustration: "Was it truly necessary to demand a live capture? Liquidating them leaves their cerebral tissue intact; extracting intelligence merely demands a slightly longer forensic audit..."
"We sacrificed multiple elite trackers to secure this perimeter!"
Kakkō breached the soil, shaking his head with pragmatic detachment:
"That is the White Fang's biological progeny. Capturing him yields immense institutional value; observe his silver hair and facial geometry. Paired with a three-tomoe Uchiha, this transaction delivers massive positive ROI; Lord Tsuchikage will be exceptionally pleased..."
"In theater war, tactical casualties are an unavoidable operational cost. If tomorrow demands engaging the Hokage directly, you and I are certified cannon fodder as well."
"Hmph. War..." Taiseki sneered, turning his gaze toward the smoking crater where the genin lay, a cruel smirk playing upon his lips.
Rin, possessing the lowest baseline physical durability, was completely unconscious.
Kakashi, having hauled Obito across miles while absorbing the brunt of the falling stone pillars to shield his teammates, was concussed and paralyzed, his White Fang chakra blade knocked from his limp fingers.
Only the critically wounded Obito retained conscious awareness, though his body was completely stripped of motor function.
He could only glare with feral, unyielding hatred at the advancing Stone Jonin.
"Living or dead, they are being extracted to Iwagakure..." Kakkō chuckled coldly, stepping toward Kakashi and Rin with heavy strides.
"Get away from them!" Obito snarled like a cornered, bleeding cub.
"The Uchiha bloodline is truly extraordinary; sustaining that volume of trauma yet retaining conscious defiance. It is no wonder Lord Tsuchikage treats your clan with such acute paranoia."
Taiseki shook his head, relaxing his combat stance as the capture was confirmed:
"Sometimes the market feels fundamentally unfair. When the Sage of Six Paths engineered Ninshu, did he grant your ancestral lineage exclusive administrative perks? To possess forbidden arts capable of rewriting reality itself..."
Obito clenched his teeth, an overwhelming, suffocating sense of powerlessness drowning his consciousness.
He was barely maintaining baseline sensory awareness; his vision was blurring into fragmented static...
"It is, indeed, fundamentally unfair."
"A technique that reverses biological termination should never have been deployed on the mortal plane; its ethical implications are catastrophic..."
A deep, unfamiliar voice resonated directly behind Taiseki's back.
Taiseki spun on his heel with lightning velocity.
Standing inches behind his blind spot was a towering, dark-skinned giant...
The Second Raikage!
"What..." Taiseki froze, his cognitive functions suffering a total system crash.
How is this face on the field?!
As an elite Jonin of the Stone, he held extensive knowledge of the historical Kage of rival nations.
Yet the Second Raikage had been confirmed dead for nearly three decades!
That was an immutable historical fact!
"Yo. It appears you recognize his profile? Do you recognize our operational branding as well?"
Kinkaku lifted Kakkō by the throat with a single arm, while Ginkaku pinned Mahiru's neck to the earth, both grinning with manic, feral malice.
We may lack the leverage to defy Tobirama Senju...
But crushing a few Stone Jonin is trivial sport!
Taiseki's eyes bulged to their absolute physical limits:
"Kumogakure's most infamous historical criminals... The Gold and Silver Brothers! Why are you operating alongside the Second Raikage?! More critically... why are you drawing breath?!"
"The operational briefing is extraordinarily dense, but you lack the security clearance to hear it. We deploy today under a specialized contract."
"Do not complain regarding market unfairness; we have absorbed our own share of systemic exploitation. The shinobi world simply functions on these mechanics..."
Kinkaku and Ginkaku murmured with dark amusement, instantly engaging Version One Tailed Beast cloaks, effortlessly crushing the windpipes of the struggling Kakkō and Mahiru.
Internally, the brothers held immense, terrified reverence for Tobirama Senju.
Operating within this synthetic chassis fusing Edo Tensei and Six Paths puppetry, their comprehensive combat metrics exceeded their living historical peaks.
More terrifyingly, they commanded anomalous, divine ocular authorities.
The Six Paths puppets—Madara's six supreme masterworks—each commanded an individual path of the Rinnegan.
Kinkaku wielded the Asura Path; Ginkaku commanded the Preta Path.
Gengetsu held the Animal Path; Mu controlled the Naraka Path; the Second Raikage wielded the Human Path.
And Ashina Uzumaki held absolute command over the Deva Path.
Taiseki's face mirrored Obito's earlier despair; he was entirely convinced he had been trapped within an apocalyptic, high-tier Genjutsu!
Yet regardless of how violently he flared his chakra, the physical reality before his eyes remained immutable.
"Even... Ashina Uzumaki? That is a primordial warlord of the Warring States!" Taiseki stammered, his sanity unraveling.
He felt a sudden, profound retrospective terror for mocking the Sage of Six Paths moments earlier...
Had the Sage engineered an automated divine punishment array?!
How else could reality manifest an anomaly this absurd?!
"Would you care to calculate who else sits on our executive roster? We represent a highly classified corporate syndicate..." Ginkaku sneered maliciously.
"What do you mean? Are you insinuating the deceased Kage of Iwagakure are integrated as well?!" Taiseki's heart trembled violently.
"Cease issuing redundant dialogue; finalize the deliverables!" Kinkaku barked at his brother.
Taiseki's terror peaked; the unspoken confirmation was infinitely more horrifying than an explicit answer.
"Farewell, junior operative of the Stone."
Ashina Uzumaki exhaled a soft, sorrowful breath: "The annihilation of the Land of Whirlpools was subsidized by your village's military as well, was it not? Through that lens, your liability is absolute..."
The grand-master of Fuinjutsu extended his palm. An irresistible gravitational singularity seized the remaining Stone troops across the clearing, hauling them inward as dark-gold chakra chains pierced through their torsos like ballistic ballistas!
The Second Raikage, Kinkaku, and Ginkaku moved with practiced, terrifying efficiency, annihilating their historical adversaries.
Violent taijutsu and Lightning Release dismantled every earthen defensive barrier and Stone operative in the sector!
"Execute memory extraction on the corpses, Second Raikage; you command the Human Path's telemetry protocols..."
Ashina commanded smoothly: "I shall stabilize the biological vitals of these two Leaf children. We must initiate extraction immediately; we cannot keep the Director waiting."
The elderly patriarch clasped his hands behind his back, strolling casually toward the unconscious Kakashi and Rin like an old man on an evening walk.
Channeling a stream of pristine, dense chakra into their pathways, he affixed specialized life-support fuinjutsu seals to their frames.
The Second Raikage narrowed his eyes: "Refrain from introducing unauthorized variables!"
Ashina chuckled quietly: "How could you suspect my compliance?"
Had he attempted to expose the existence of 'Tobirama' or their covert facility, Madara's automated ocular failsafe would have paralyzed his motor functions instantly.
The restriction operated on subconscious intent.
Yet Ashina had merely laced his stabilization chakra with encrypted, high-level theoretical deductions regarding the advanced structural geometry of the Myriad Seals Body Integration Mark, containing zero operational intelligence regarding their location.
That was Ashina's unique leverage: compared to the other combat puppets, having dedicated his entire lifespan to decompiling the Myriad Seals architecture granted him a marginal sliver of autonomous cognitive flexibility.
Obito watched the sequence unfold in dazed, paralyzed awe, entirely convinced he was experiencing a pre-death hallucination...
What...
Where did this legion of historical ghosts spawn from?
This is completely surreal...
Obito cast a final, desperate glance toward Kakashi and Rin. Confirming that their respiratory patterns had stabilized, the crushing psychological weight lifted from his chest, and his consciousness plunged into absolute darkness...
Ashina observed the boy with analytical fascination, slapping a heavy containment seal onto Obito's scorched frame, waving his arm:
"Deliverables secured!"
They were returning to their endless, boring theoretical debates...
Though moving forward, their subterranean breakroom appeared to have onboarded a noisy, adolescent intern!
Along the primary front lines.
Fugaku, Shio Uzumaki, Tomie, Elder Isshin, and Jiraiya...
Spearheading Konoha's primary armored division, they were currently locked in a catastrophic, live-fire clash against Iwagakure's Jinchuriki and elite infantry formations!
☆☆☆
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