Chapter 156: What You See Is Me—For Better or Worse, I Don't Deny Either
Under the moonlight, the earth was deathly pale.
In that colorless world, even the Nine-Tailed Fox, whose fur was normally a vivid orange, seemed almost black and white, making its original color difficult to distinguish.
Then, a soft blue light appeared upon the earth.
The blue radiance illuminated the faces of every Uchiha elder lying among the ruins.
Ryoichi, who had been lying there waiting for death, slowly opened his tightly shut eyes. He looked around and found that the ruins had been dyed blue.
Then he looked toward the First Elder, who was leaning against a wall with a dazed expression.
Seeing the First Elder's eyes widened and his mouth hanging open in an expression that suggested he'd never seen the world before, Ryoichi couldn't help chuckling.
"Old man, have you ever seen the Grim Reaper?"
"Ah~~ Ah~~ Ah~~"
The First Elder stretched out his remaining finger and pointed toward the street ahead.
He stammered, unable to form a complete sentence.
"Look at how scared you are."
Ryoichi felt that some of his strength had returned. He struggled to stand and leaned against the wall, panting heavily.
"Let this old man take a good look at what the Grim Reaper actually looks like."
Before he could finish, he noticed the blue light reflected in the First Elder's pitch-black pupils.
Ryoichi frowned slightly.
When he clearly saw that the blue light seemed to be coming from an enormous skeleton, he sniffed and pretended to remain calm.
"Isn't that just a skeleton?"
"Let this old man see the Grim Reaper's true form."
After saying this, he followed the First Elder's finger and turned his head toward the direction of the supposed Grim Reaper.
"The Grim Reaper has feet, thighs, and even a waist. Those arms are quite distinctive too."
"And that head... I... I... I..."
Hearing Ryoichi stammering helplessly, Mado stuffed his exposed intestines back into his abdomen.
Then he planted both hands on the ground and forced himself into a sitting position.
Looking at the pathetic state of Ryoichi and Saburo, he sucked in several breaths, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and spoke disdainfully.
"Let this old man describe the Grim Reaper for you two."
"Heh. Look at how terrified you are."
With that, he followed their gazes.
Then he twisted his stiff neck and looked toward the interior of the clan compound.
This Grim Reaper actually emits blue light?
What an eye-opener.
This Grim Reaper actually has four limbs?
What an eye-opener.
This Grim Reaper...
When Mado raised his head and looked at the Grim Reaper's head, he saw a blue skull reflected in its eyes.
What kind of sight was this?
A body with a physique comparable to a Tailed Beast.
Powerful limbs.
A majestic body resembling that of a god of war.
Pupils shining as brightly as hundred-watt light bulbs.
A smooth, blade-carved nose.
And two sharp protrusions beneath its chin.
"Damn it!"
With those two words, Mado managed to convey the Grim Reaper's appearance to the other two.
"I... I... I... Damn it..."
At last, Ryoichi managed to force out a complete sentence.
He stared at the giant and swallowed with difficulty.
His voice became shrill.
"What the hell is that thing?"
Hearing Ryoichi finally swear in excitement, Mado suddenly wore an expression of realization.
The image of the giant began to overlap with a particular scene in his memories.
Blue.
Deep blue.
A tall, deep-blue giant.
He pointed at the blue giant and solemnly shouted,
"This is the giant from my grandson's manga! The Giant of Light! He can fight a Tailed Beast all by himself!"
The First Elder's mind went completely blank.
He had originally assumed this wasn't something recorded in the clan's history.
So he followed Mado's explanation and continued thinking.
A manga? The Giant of Light?
He thought of the manga that had been selling exceptionally well recently.
He blinked in confusion, his face filled with disbelief.
"So... the Uchiha clan really does have a Giant of Light who emerges to stand against disaster?"
How does this old man know nothing about it?
Have all these decades of serving as First Elder been for nothing?
"???"
Giant of Light?
What the hell is a Giant of Light?
At this moment, Ryoichi finally recovered from his daze.
He glanced at the blue giant that had appeared in this world.
Then he turned toward the two astonished men and proudly explained,
"This is our Uchiha clan's Susanoo."
"The Giant of Light was designed based on Susanoo."
Susanoo?
The First Elder blinked.
He stared at the Susanoo towering between heaven and earth.
Then he angrily glared at Mado.
"You know absolutely nothing. That's clearly Susanoo."
"Heh~"
Mado's expression stiffened.
He looked at the two backseat commentators pointing fingers and spoke disdainfully.
"Shameless."
"Who was the one shouting 'Giant of Light' just now while holding this thing?"
Ptui!
Ryoichi spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground.
He raised his head toward the blue Susanoo, confusion filling his eyes.
As far as he knew, only Asuka and his cousin among the Uchiha could activate Susanoo.
But Asuka had been at Root at the time.
And his cousin's two eyes had been replaced with the Three-Tomoe Sharingan on the day Asuka was resurrected.
This blue Susanoo...
He saw the Susanoo suddenly lower its head and look toward him.
The person standing inside also glanced at him, an expression of disgust covering his face.
Sniff, sniff.
A sharp pain shot through Ryoichi's nose.
Tears immediately streamed uncontrollably from his eyes.
"Cousin..."
ROAR!
As the Nine-Tails continued gathering its Tailed Beast Ball, it also sensed the presence of the Susanoo before it.
A powerful sense of danger surged through its body.
It opened its enormous jaws and unleashed a deafening roar at its opponent.
The roar was like a raging storm.
The surrounding air was pushed and shaken by the sound, forming waves of turbulent airflow that rapidly swept toward Susanoo.
Ryoichi was thrown into the air by the violent wind.
Floating high above the battlefield, his eyes were red as he stared at the blue Susanoo.
A look of relief appeared on his face.
The clan is saved!
Bang!
The next moment, he felt a sharp pain in his back, as though he had slammed into something hard.
He touched the smooth, solid bone beneath him.
Before Ryoichi could say anything, the disgust on Madara's face became even more pronounced.
Madara then controlled Susanoo's arm and placed Ryoichi farther away from the battlefield.
"Idiot."
"You've trained for decades, only to end up fighting the Nine-Tails in this state."
"You're not even worth a grain of sand."
Hearing Uchiha Madara's disgusted voice, Ryoichi sniffed and said somewhat aggrievedly,
"Cousin... actually, I have the Three-Tomoe."
The moment he finished speaking, Ryoichi saw the Uchiha's black eyes instantly turn crimson.
Two tomoe rotated within the scarlet irises.
Eventually, they stopped.
"One."
"Two."
"One."
"Two."
After counting them several times, Ryoichi fiercely pinched his own cheek.
He stared blankly at the towering Susanoo.
His entire understanding of life had begun to collapse.
"So two tomoe are enough to activate the clan's ultimate power?"
"Then... is the entire clan full of idiots?"
Bang!
The moment he finished speaking, he saw the First Elder, who had been floating in the air, get caught by Uchiha Madara and thrown beside him.
Cough.
The First Elder painfully coughed up a mouthful of blood.
He looked at Ryoichi lying beside him and weakly said,
"This old man seems to have seen your cousin before."
"Mm!"
Ryoichi nodded firmly.
"It was him."
Hearing this, the First Elder recalled what he had just seen in Susanoo's palm.
He asked in confusion,
"Why can he use the clan's ultimate power with only two tomoe?"
"Heh."
Ryoichi chuckled.
Although he himself couldn't explain why, there was no way he could tell anyone else.
He struggled to sit up, pride appearing on his face.
"Because he's my cousin."
Whoosh!
The next moment, the two leaned against the wall.
A sharp whistle came from the sky.
Following the sound, they saw the black sphere in the Nine-Tails' mouth transform into a beam of light and shoot toward the blue giant.
Sensing the immense power contained within the Tailed Beast Ball, the First Elder instinctively clenched his fists.
He muttered,
"Can he stop it?"
"He has to."
"After all, that's Madara."
ROAR!
The giant's roar instantly shook the entire Uchiha compound.
The blue giant suddenly spread its arms and tightly embraced the Tailed Beast Ball containing terrifying energy.
The tremendous force continuously pushed the giant backward, carving two deep trenches into the ground.
Then the giant raised its right foot and stomped heavily on the earth.
A huge depression appeared beneath its foot, and its entire body finally came to a stop.
"???"
"???"
The Uchiha clan members rushing over from the compound stared blankly at the giant standing there while holding the Tailed Beast Ball.
Their expressions changed from excitement to confusion.
Then from confusion to fear.
"If that thing explodes here, the clan is finished!"
"Throw it away!"
"Even if you throw it toward the Hyuga clan, that's fine!"
Amid the panicked shouting, the Uchiha who had come to reinforce the battlefield watched as the giant transformed once again.
Its body became fuller.
Taller.
More imposing.
"Hu~"
Uchiha Madara closed his eyes and inhaled several deep breaths.
With the few teeth he had left, he bit down hard on his tongue.
Feeling the Tailed Beast Ball almost within reach, blood and tears welled from Madara's eyes.
Then he suddenly opened them.
"AAAH!"
As the blue Susanoo roared and charged into the sky, blue flames suddenly erupted from its arms and waist.
The flames slowly spread along its arms, wrapping around the fiery sphere.
The next moment...
Susanoo grabbed the flaming sphere with both hands.
The flames around its waist expanded several times.
Then, with a violent swing of both arms, it hurled the black sphere wrapped in blue flames high into the sky.
When the sphere reached its highest point, the blue flames surrounding it suddenly vanished.
BOOM!
A brief yet deafening explosion erupted.
The Uchiha elders lying among the ruins instantly lost their hearing.
They couldn't hear a thing.
At this moment—
Day had come.
The Konoha villagers who could still open their eyes seemed to see a sun hanging above the Uchiha compound.
Its dazzling white light illuminated the entire village, turning night into day.
The First Elder stared at the sight in utter disbelief.
From the corner of his eye, he even saw Ryoichi smiling and apparently saying something to him.
He dug a finger into his ear and shouted,
"What did you say?"
Ryoichi watched the First Elder's lips move silently toward him.
He also dug at his ear and shouted,
"What did you say?"
They were only a meter apart.
Yet both of them were asking what the other had just said.
The next moment, the exploding Tailed Beast Ball disrupted the airflow high above.
A massive gale carrying the shockwave of the explosion swept across the entire village.
Half of Konoha's rooftops were blown away.
In a matter of moments, half the houses in Konoha had acquired brand-new "rooms with a view of the stars."
And at the center of the storm—
The ruins where the old men had been lying suffered the greatest impact from the aftershock.
Unable to move, they were swept away by the violent wind along with the rubble, carried farther and farther away.
Uchiha Ryoichi was struck by several chunks of stone and slammed heavily onto the ground.
He shook his head, feeling dizzy.
Then he realized that the First Elder had also been blown over beside him.
He immediately pointed at the blue Susanoo on the ground and shouted,
"Old man, my cousin is already over eighty!"
The First Elder finally recovered his hearing.
Following Ryoichi's pointing finger, he looked into the distance.
At that moment, the enormous Susanoo suddenly began running.
The Nine-Tailed Fox also dropped onto all fours and began chasing it.
The two colossal creatures quickly came face-to-face.
Whoosh~
The Nine-Tails rose onto its hind legs.
With the sound of rushing wind, one of its claws slammed viciously into Susanoo's head.
Uchiha Madara controlled Susanoo.
He seemed to have no intention of dodging.
The next moment—
Susanoo's left hand, burning with blue flames, seized the Nine-Tails' paw with lightning speed.
Its right arm immediately drew back.
Then it smashed directly into the Nine-Tails' face.
BOOM!
The entire air seemed to tremble.
The enormous shockwave churned the atmosphere, once again creating a gale that blasted outward in every direction.
Seeing the Nine-Tails' right cheek cave inward as it was sent rolling out of the Uchiha compound, the First Elder finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Then he raised his remaining thumb toward Ryoichi in approval.
"Absolutely savage!"
"Hey!"
Ryoichi wore a triumphant expression, as though he had personally been the one to send the Nine-Tailed Fox flying.
"Ryoichi!"
After witnessing the blue Susanoo leave the clan compound in pursuit of the Nine-Tails, the First Elder remembered Uchiha Madara—the man who had once been abandoned by his own clansmen.
He also remembered how Susanoo had gently caught him and his companions just moments ago.
His emotions became complicated.
Uchiha Madara...
Recalling the impression Madara had once left on him, the First Elder spat some fragments of his internal organs onto the ground.
His face suddenly became pale.
Then he turned toward Ryoichi.
"This old man saw what he looked like when he was young."
"He wasn't like this before."
"Whew..."
At this moment, Ryoichi felt completely drained.
He let out a long sigh and looked up at the stars scattered across the night sky.
His voice gradually weakened.
"The person you saw is the real him."
"He doesn't deny either the good or the bad."
As he spoke, Ryoichi suddenly felt his eyelids growing heavy.
He watched the stars above gradually blur.
Then he murmured,
"Actually, all he wanted back then was to protect you."
"It was your ancestors... who harbored malice toward him."