(Azula's POV)
I tilted my head, a smile playing on my lips that didn't quite reach my eyes.
"Well, Elder Genji? The floor is yours. Do you still abide by those noble proclamations?" I tapped a finger against my chin, feigning deep thought. "Or has the imminent prospect of meeting your ancestors inspired a sudden, pragmatic fondness for cowardice? I'm deciding between finishing this the classic shinobi way, or trying out what I've dubbed the 'American Democracy Style'—it involves a lot of explosive, widespread liberation. Very… persuasive."
The old 'thing' was less a man and more a pincushion for his own poor decisions, lying in a crater of his own making. He responded with a wet, gurgling cough that painted his chin crimson.
It took him a full five thirty seconds—I counted—to muster the breath for his final act of delusion.
"Uchiha… girl," he rasped, each word a struggle. "You may have… defeated me. You may choose to kill me. But Kiri… Kiri's spirit will never break."
He managed to focus his bleary eyes on me, summoning a pathetic ghost of defiance. "And what you've done today… Konoha will be buried under the combined wrath of every great village. You haven't won a battle; you've lit the fuse for a world war. You will drown the shinobi world in blood."
My amused smile vanished. Not out of fear, but out of profound, soul-deep boredom. Ugh. The 'greater good' lecture.
From a man who probably taxes the oxygen his subordinates breathe. I offered him a shrug. "If that's the best epitaph your propaganda department could pre-write for you, so be it. How tragically unoriginal."
"Wait, Azula."
I stiffened, my gaze cutting sideways to Mito-sensei. Her expression was as calm as a Nara's afternoon nap.
Oh, for the love of—she isn't about to gift-wrap a sermon about mercy and the circle of life, is she? I will actually Kirin this entire island.
"Don't give me that look," she said dryly, apparently reading my face like a particularly familiar scroll. "I'm not here to plead for his life. I'm here to plead for his brain. He is a walking Kiri archive of outdated policies and war crimes, holding every dirty secret Kiri has buried under the mist. It would be a waste of perfectly good intel to let him die before we've… extracted it all."
I blinked. Okay, that was… practical. Ruthlessly pragmatic from her, but I could respect that. Still, one couldn't simply be reasonable about these things.
"Alright," I conceded, turning back to Genji. His one good eye widened a fraction in hope. How cute. "But…"
In a flash of movement too fast for his battered senses to follow, my chakra-coated hand swept down twice with two wet thuds following.
Genji's shocked, silent scream was more satisfying than any verbal rant. He now belonged to the exclusive club of the disarmingly disarmed.
"And after the interrogation," I continued sweetly, wiping a stray droplet of blood on his own robe, "I get to kill him."
Some might call it overkill, but I called it efficient pest control.
There is nothing in this world—across any world, frankly—more insufferable than a fossil clinging to power, sacrificing generations for his own comfort, all while wrapped in a cloak of self-righteous 'for the greater good' nonsense.
Spare me the hypocrisy. At least my tyranny comes with an honest smirk.
Mito simply nodded, unsurprised. "Noted."
My attention then drifted to the main event, which was, of course, my glorious and dramatic, borderline-theatrical clansmen.
The past months on Uzushio hadn't just been about sulking and seawater; they'd been a masterclass in Uchiha-style overkill.
And the results were… beautiful.
The battlefield was a symphony of crackling blue light. Dozens of my clansmen, their Sharingan spinning wildly with three tomoe, weaved through the panicked Kiri ninja. Chidori wasn't just a technique here; it was an art form.
One Uchiha used it to carve his name into a rock mid-fight (show-off).
Another used its speed to style a Kiri ninja's hair into a ridiculous mohawk before knocking him out (artiste).
True, there were injuries—a slashed arm here, a burn there—but not a single Uchiha corpse littered the ground.
Mostly thanks to Mito-sensei, who moved through the chaos like a benevolent, sealing-tag-wielding ghost, flicking in to deflect a killing blow or slap a protective barrier on a distracted clansman. I'd noticed her during my own fight.
It wasn't just sentimentality; it was also asset management. Why let a perfectly usable, highly-trained warrior die when a minor intervention could preserve them? Especially in this dog-eat-dog world where loyal fools with Sharingan were so hard to come by.
Besides, the old methods of awakening the Sharingan through trauma were so… last season.
Why go through all that messy grief when a significant number of our clan now awakened theirs through the profound emotional journeys found in weekly manga serializations, or from receiving a particularly scathing comment on their fan-art? The future was here, and it was nerdy.
I'd find a stable, side-effect-free upgrade path for the Sharingan if it was the last thing I did. Maybe a nutritional supplement, Uchiha-Vision™, now with 100% more tomoe!
My clansmen had their fun. Their flexing time was up.
My eyes finally landed on the "traitors"—the handful of Kiri ninjas who'd had the profound sense to stay the hell out of the way.
Forty-seven out of thousands. A statistically insignificant blip of self-preservation in a sea of foolish pride.
A slow grin spread across my face. Lightning erupted around me once more, the Chakra Mode up again.
...
...
...
Mito couldn't help but wear a wry, grandmotherly smile as she watched Azula dismantle Kirigakure's finest like they were training posts, with most already regretting their choices of following Genji's choice.
One jonin after another met a swift, sparking end—the strongest among them lasting a grand total of seven seconds.
Mito almost felt like applauding. Or maybe offering the man a consolation prize.
She's getting impatient, Mito mused, sensing Azula's chakra—not a flaw but a flicker of restless energy. Probably eager to get back to Konoha, missing little Ayane, no doubt.
The thought was unexpectedly strange, a big contrast to the lightning-charged carnage unfolding below.
With Azula single-mindedly clearing the board, Mito's own role became even more simple: oversight.
She expanded her sensory awareness until it gently blanketed all of Kiri and its outskirts, a silent, invisible net.
It was to the point that not a single sneeze could escape her notice.
Their strategy had been efficient. By scattering their strikes across Kiri's major clans, they'd turned every defensive barrier into kindling.
This meant that even as Tsunade led the Senju strike force—including a fiercely determined Nawaki and a cunningly efficient Fugaku—into the heart of the Yuki clan's territory, Mito could follow the action as if she had the best seat in the house.
Her chakra sensing painted a vivid picture: the crash of ice mirrors, the eruption of earth, Tsunade's distinctive chakra flaring like a golden beacon as she punched a glacier into diamond dust.
They're holding their own splendidly, Mito noted with pride. The Yuki clan's infamous Ice Release was meeting its match in Senju brute force.
It helped, of course, that the Yuki's real heavy-hitters were conspicuously absent.
A fortunate mystery, she thought. Or a very unlucky one for them, depending on where they are.
Apart from the whirlwind of blue lightning currently rebranding Kiri's architecture, Mito was the only person on the planet who could use the Flying Raijin.
It was the ultimate safety net.
Not that I'd need it, she thought, idly imagining flashing into Kurama Chakra Mode and crossing the entire village in three seconds flat.
In what felt like a record time for wholesale regime change—about an hour—their forces had effectively pinned Kirigakure to the mat. It was a feat so absurdly fast it would give the other Four Great Villages collective heartburn.
It was in the subdued aftermath, when everyone gathered again, that the mood shifted.
Tsunade stood before Murasake, her usual bravado replaced by stark disbelief.
"Elder Murasake," she breathed, her medical-ninja eyes cataloging the terrifying decline. The vibrant, cautious old man she remembered was now a ghost of himself, his vitality gone. Her professional assessment was grim: a year, maybe, if he lived like a fragile vase on a high shelf.
Azula flickered to a stop beside Tsunade, her earlier impatience gone, replaced by a cool, analytical gaze.
Another familiar face, another life burning low. She said nothing, but the observation solidified a truth she'd long accepted: the ninja world was a far crueler edit than the stories suggested.
Her own obsessive precautions—the hundreds of contingencies to shield her loved ones—felt less like paranoia and more like the only sane response.
"It's nothing too serious," Murasake waved a frail hand, his voice a dry leaf rustle. "This old man has simply run his course. Lived long enough to see Kiri get a much-needed makeover, at least."
Among the gathered shinobi, only Mito truly understood the quiet relief in his words. Her own situation was basically similar.
She had options now. With Kurama's cooperation, she could probably stretch her lifespan. But the profound, soul-deep fatigue made the idea unappealing.
She was… tired.
She knew it was selfish. To want to step off the stage, to leave the future squarely on Azula's capable but young shoulders, to leave Tsunade and Nawaki as the last Senju of their line.
But she'd made a deal with herself: a few more years of semi-retirement. A vacation from destiny.
Her reason was a blend of hope and wry humor. She knew her brilliant, stubborn student, Azula, would never accept her passing as final.
The girl would likely scour the ends of the earth, reinvent forbidden jutsu, and probably yell at the Sage of Six Paths himself until she found a way to pull Mito back from the pure land.
And by then, maybe, she'd have figured out how to resurrect Hashirama, too.
The thought sparked a faint, mischievous smile on Mito's lips.
She'd better not expect me to go back to paperwork after all that, she mused, watching Azula confer tersely with a Konoha squad leader. Surely even she wouldn't be so unreasonable as to resurrect her teacher just to put her back on filing duty. Right?
…Then again, this was Azula. Mito made a mental note to include a strict 'no post-resurrection administrative work' clause in her eventual will.
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
What do you think someone finds a way to expand humans lifespan just so that you can do your 9-9 work longer, haha.