Chapter 198n

Chapter 198n

2-in-1-chapter

-----------------

Uchiha Fugaku’s reason still held, not yet drowned by the tangle of emotion surging within him. His Susanoo remained at its first stage—ribs of violet-red flame encircled him, the massive half-torso of chakra nearly enclosing him completely. Only a gap remained beneath his feet.

Even so, this form was enough.

It provided sufficient defense without exhausting his ocular power too quickly. Unlike Shisui, who had Samehada in hand, Fugaku had to ration his limited visual energy carefully. Unfortunately, his Mangekyō Sharingan technique was not one of direct offense but a genjutsu that required eye contact to activate.

The Fourth Raikage, however, was clearly on guard against the Uchiha’s illusions. He kept his eyes lowered, reading movements through the hands, feet, and body, avoiding any direct exchange of gaze. This made it impossible for Fugaku to use his dōjutsu freely, forcing him to rely solely on Susanoo for combat.

“I’ll handle the Fourth Raikage. You deal with the other Cloud shinobi—cut them down, every last one of those thieves!”

The order of the former clan head, now an elder, reached the nearby Uchiha jōnin through their communicators. Without hesitation or wasted words, the Uchiha shinobi split off from Fugaku’s battlefield, engaging the elite Cloud-nin who had broken through the wall of fire to attack from the flanks.

In that instant, the battle erupted into full brutality and bloodshed. More than two hundred Cloud jōnin clashed with just over sixty jōnin from Konoha.

Although the numbers seemed overwhelmingly against them—four to one—the Konoha shinobi were used to this. They had long been accustomed to fighting on multiple fronts, turning small forces into victories. Even though Konoha’s total strength surpassed any other village, it had almost never fought a war against just one opponent.

At times, they appeared to be at war with a single village, but large numbers of troops were always stationed at the borders to prevent surprise attacks from others. The smaller villages did not bear this burden, usually guarding against only one or two neighbors.

At the very least, before Iwagakure ambushed Kumogakure, each of the Five Great Villages fought Konoha with full strength. If that hadn’t been the case, the Cloud would not have suffered such a devastating defeat in that ambush, losing their Third Raikage in the process.

Now, with the Uchiha leading Konoha’s forces, the sixty Konoha jōnin withstood the assault of more than two hundred from the Cloud. Most of the Uchiha jōnin fought two-on-one. The Sharingan’s genjutsu was so feared that few dared to engage them directly, unless they were certain of their own skill.

However, among those few non-Uchiha jōnin who stood beside them, one figure shone brighter than the rest—the Green Beast of Konoha. Might Guy opened the Sixth Gate, the Gate of View, of the Eight Gates Released Formation.

His speed surpassed even that of the Cloud-nin using Lightning Release Chakra Mode. At the start of the battle, he had already taken down two Cloud jōnin in succession with True Leaf Lotus, and only on his third attack did three Cloud jōnin manage to intercept him briefly.

While Konoha and the Cloud forces clashed in total chaos, the duel between Uchiha Fugaku and Ai entered its most intense phase. One had unleashed his trump card, Susanoo; the other had driven the Lightning Release Chakra Mode to its peak. Both men had fixed their sights on each other, determined to bring the other down.

Their reasons were simple. Fugaku sought vengeance for Uchiha Suo and the others who, in his mind, had died because of his mistake. At the same time, he had to stop the Fourth Raikage from taking advantage of his unmatched speed to massacre Konoha’s troops.

Ai, on the other hand, could not ignore Fugaku. He had not expected that another Uchiha besides Shisui possessed the power of Susanoo. If Fugaku were left unchecked and later joined forces with Shisui, his younger brother Killer B might not be able to withstand two Susanoo users alone.

If that happened, his army of six thousand Cloud shinobi would become nothing more than a field of wheat waiting to be harvested.

Each of them, driven by his own conviction, regarded the other as an enemy who must be slain. With that resolve, they unleashed their full power and exchanged blows in rapid succession—over a hundred strikes within mere minutes.

Susanoo was shattered many times, its ribcage splintering under the Raikage’s strikes.

But Fugaku, unlike his younger son, was a veteran of countless battles. Though his speed could not match Ai’s, his combat experience allowed him to evade through subtle shifts of footing and movement. Each time Susanoo was broken apart, he narrowly avoided another deadly blow, immediately channeling his ocular power to reform it, all while searching for the right moment to unleash his Mangekyō Sharingan’s dōjutsu.

...............................

...........

.

Hiding among the jagged rocks at the edge of the frozen ravine, Orochimaru crouched low beneath the twisting shadows of the trees. The air was sharp with the scent of snow and ozone, and each breath rose in a pale wisp before vanishing into the storm.

He had masked his chakra so completely that even the keenest sensor-nin would have struggled to find him. From this vantage point, he could watch the battle unfold across the valley—the glow of chakra flares lighting the dark sky, the roar of distant explosions shaking the mountains.

Orochimaru felt as though an unprecedented and magnificent performance was unfolding inside his own mind. Countless cheers exploded through his consciousness, and every one of his brain cells seemed to cry out in excitement, raising a single, frenzied voice of desire.

The Sharingan.

What a wondrous and overwhelming power.

“Ha ha ha ha! The Uchiha clan… truly the perfect vessels!”

Flames of madness burned within his golden slit-pupiled eyes. His desire for the Sharingan was consuming. The battle against Uchiha Shisui had made him realize that he had been searching aimlessly all along. The perfect vessels had been in Konoha the entire time, yet he had roamed across the world—from the Land of Water to the Land of Lightning, the Land of Earth, the Land of Wind—nearly every corner of the continent, seeking those rare bodies that could bring him closer to true immortality.

The Living Corpse Reincarnation Technique was far from perfect.

His crushing defeat before Shisui had exposed its flaws, reminding him that the road to immortality was long and fraught with hardship. The achievements he had made thus far were nothing more than a glimpse through the gate; the path toward the eternal life he envisioned stretched endlessly before him, waiting to be conquered.

For that reason, he needed better, more exceptional vessels.

If the path to immortality was a vast ocean, then the vessels were the ships that sailed it. Some were no more than rafts or small boats that could only drift near the shore, capsizing the moment a wave struck. But superior vessels were like massive ships built for the open sea. Anyone with a functioning mind would know which to choose.

After examining countless potential vessels, Orochimaru finally discovered that the most ideal ones were in Konoha all along. Every member of the Uchiha clan who had awakened the Sharingan was a potential vessel of high quality, and those like Uchiha Rēn and Uchiha Shisui—nearly perfect specimens—stirred a fervent excitement in him that he could barely restrain.

He had left the Land of Water for the Land of Hot Springs, carefully infiltrating the battlefield between Konoha and the Cloud-nin in search of an opportunity to reap the spoils. Unfortunately, he had yet to find anything worthwhile. Orochimaru understood very clearly that neither Konoha nor Kumogakure would welcome him.

If he were discovered, both villages would hunt him down without hesitation.

Thus, he concealed his presence, never daring to appear openly before anyone.

Lifting his head, he drew in a deep breath of icy air, forcing his overheated mind to cool. He suppressed those dangerously impulsive thoughts. Uchiha Shisui was indeed a nearly perfect vessel, but there was one problem—such perfection was also far too powerful.

He looked toward the emerald-green Susanoo locked in combat with the Eight-Tails. The two colossal entities clashed again and again, reshaping the surrounding terrain with every blow. The Tailed Beast Bomb and the Yasaka Magatama flew through the air in blinding arcs. Even Orochimaru dared not face such attacks head-on.

The vessel was perfect, but he could not defeat it.

That was the dilemma Orochimaru faced.

As for settling for a lesser alternative, there was still plenty of time before he needed to change bodies. His greed made him unwilling to give up the best option. He lingered, unwilling to abandon the chance to claim the finest vessel, and given the current situation, it was not impossible.

Fight!

Fight harder!

The more intense the battle, the better. Ideally, both sides would be left half-dead.