"Trying to run? No chance. I've already sealed this entire area."
"As for you…"
"There's no path left for you."
Kazuyama's ghostlike voice brushed past Muren Uchiha's ears again.
The next moment, a sharp pain stabbed through his abdomen.
"—tch!"
The sound of a blade entering flesh was unmistakably clear.
"Damn it! The Flying Thunder God seal?"
Even though Muren had used his dōjutsu to escape his original position, the blade still pierced him.
It was obvious—Kazuyama's earlier "touch" had left a Flying Thunder God formula on him. Otherwise, he couldn't have appeared beside him like a phantom.
"Oh? So you finally figured it out?"
"Correct. Black Zetsu is dead, and the White Zetsu army is wiped out. There's no one left to fix your body."
"This time, the wound is with you for life."
Kazuyama finally stepped into view, face playful, a crystal longsword still gripped in his right hand.
It was this very blade that had skewered Muren.
Blood dripped from Muren Uchiha's mouth as he glared at Kazuyama with murderous intensity.
"Don't stare at me like that."
"From the moment Madara Uchiha took you away, you and I could only be enemies. Killing you is perfectly reasonable."
"But I didn't expect you'd hold a grudge for hundreds of episodes just because I threw you into a bathhouse."
"That's such an Uchiha thing. But man, your capacity for forgiveness is tiny. Look at your clan head, Uchiha Fugaku. He and I have gone at each other for years, but we're still on good terms."
"Why couldn't you learn from Madara? No matter how he acted, his love for Hashirama Senju was real."
Kazuyama kept the blade lodged in Muren's gut as he spoke mercilessly, his words battering Muren's heart as much as the wound battered his body.
Killing the body and crushing the spirit—he was doing both.
"Bastard…"
"That's it? After all that rage, that's all you can say? Might as well stop talking."
Muren's unfinished words were cut short by Kazuyama's jab, making fury explode inside him as pitch-black chakra surged around him again—
—and vanished the next second.
"How… how is this happening?"
Shock flickered across Muren's face. He had only taken one stab—so why couldn't he gather chakra?
He immediately looked down at the blade impaled in him.
"Surprised? Didn't expect this?"
"You really thought my Crystal Release blade was only good for stabbing?"
"The assimilation rate of Crystal Release is extremely fast. Your body is already beginning to crystallize."
"Pretty good way to die, right? No corpse left behind—you'll just crumble into glitter and scatter on the wind."
Kazuyama's tone was light, almost casual, showing no burden at all.
Muren's pupils shook violently. His chakra was gone. His limbs were heavy.
A creeping sense of panic slipped into his chest.
He couldn't die here—not before killing the man in front of him.
His Eternal Mangekyō began to spin. Those eyes represented power—terrifying power.
His body slowly vanished from the spot.
Kazuyama let out a disdainful laugh.
"You're actually using Izanagi now?"
"You really aren't afraid of death."
As his voice fell, Kazuyama disappeared again—Transparent Escape activated.
Izanagi erased unfavorable events within a set timeframe, turning only favorable outcomes into reality.
In this situation, of course Muren Uchiha would use it to cling to life.
But no matter how he rewrote his death, he couldn't escape this sealed zone.
A few minutes later, Muren Uchiha reappeared on the battlefield—this time on the ground, and with one perfectly pale, deactivated eye.
"Without Susanoo, he's not our opponent anymore."
"Don't be afraid!"
Minato Namikaze was the first to react, and the others immediately surrounded him.
With his one remaining eye, Muren swept a contemptuous gaze around the encirclement.
"Hmph. You people aren't even worth considering my opponents."
"Without Kazuyama Gekkō, the Ninja World would have only one future—total destruction."
The proud Uchiha never bowed to anyone, yet even here, Muren seemed resigned. He wasn't Kazuyama's match. Otherwise he wouldn't have been forced to use Izanagi, the forbidden dōjutsu.
Losing one eye had stripped away a huge portion of his power.
He no longer had the strength to turn anything around.
"Hey, hey, hey—don't say such brutally honest things out loud, okay?"
"Look at the Hokage and his wife. Their faces are getting darker by the second."
Kazuyama reappeared before everyone—because Muren had decided to expose too much truth.
Minato and Kushina indeed looked uncomfortable, but given how even all of them together hadn't been able to take Muren down, neither had room to complain.
"Hmph. Kazuyama Gekkō—you're still as hypocritical as ever."
"Why don't you tell them everything you've done? See if they don't die from shock."
Muren no longer planned to resist, but his hatred toward Kazuyama hadn't faded at all.
As long as he still breathed, he would make sure Kazuyama suffered.
Kazuyama's eyes widened slightly. Of all times, this bastard chose now to threaten him?
The others looked curious. They wanted to know—what exactly had Kazuyama done?
Of course, some were unsurprised: Yahiko, Konan, and Terumi, who already knew everything.
"Heh… Five Kage, Five Great Shinobi Villages… and not one of you can see through a single man."
"This shinobi world is truly doomed."
"You probably don't know this, but the leaders of Takigakure and Amegakure both have close ties with Kazuyama. He personally recruited them back when he was in Amegakure."
"And the Mizukage from Kirigakure—she's his person too. Terumi, right? Shouldn't you be calling Kazuyama 'sensei'?"
"And Orochimaru? Heh. Left Konoha and went straight to Takigakure—never left."
"And the Jinchūriki… which one of them isn't connected to this Kazuyama?"
Muren listed them off one after another, while Kazuyama only shrugged, not bothered in the slightest.
In his view, even if this information came out, it didn't matter at all.
There was nothing among those words that could actually harm him.