When Uchiha Akainu pulled his arm back, Nanwu's eyes had already lost their light. He collapsed weakly to the ground, a gaping hole in his chest that nearly "cut" him in half.
Uchiha Akainu's expression remained unchanged. This Guardian Shinobi Twelve Blades member, he felt, wasn't even as strong as an elite Anbu from the Foundation.
His gaze then fell upon the group of people, now just receding backs.
Yes.
The moment Nanwu attacked Uchiha Akainu, an intense survival instinct sent the retainers scrambling, dragging Miyoinin Kyusuke with them as they fled.
In just that short time, they'd already put a hundred meters between themselves and Akainu, yelling for help as they ran.
"He's killing people! He's killing people! An assassin is trying to kill the Emissary sent by the Daimyo to the Leaf! Someone, quickly!"
"That Uchiha ninja has gone mad! He's trying to assassinate the Daimyo's son!"
"Where are the Leaf ninja?! Hurry and save us!"
"Where's the Hokage? Where's the Leaf's Hokage?!"
"..."
The screaming retainers looked utterly terrified and frantic.
They clustered around Miyoinin Kyusuke, surrounding him in the center of their group.
They hoped to protect the Daimyo's son this way.
"Madman... He's absolutely insane..."
Miyoinin Kyusuke was drenched in cold sweat, his young face pale as death.
As his retainers frantically pushed him to escape, he stammered, "How... how could he dare... I'm the Daimyo's son! Even the Hokage of the Leaf treats me as an honored guest. How could a mere Uchiha ninja... how could he dare..."
Miyoinin Kyusuke racked his brain and could only come to one conclusion.
—He'd run into a madman!!!
Suddenly.
Miyoinin Kyusuke was horrified to see a head, arcing high into the air, appear in his left field of vision.
Then, another head appeared in his right.
He immediately recognized the owners of these two heads.
They were two of his retainers!
When he glanced back frantically in the midst of his escape, he was instantly scared out of his wits—two headless bodies gushed blood more than two meters high from their necks. Uchiha Akainu, holding his ninja blade, stood between those two headless corpses, his blade stained crimson!
Especially those scarlet Three-Tomoe Sharingan eyes, which seemed to awaken the deepest fears within the human heart.
It was in that very instant, as Miyoinin Kyusuke's terrified gaze met Uchiha Akainu's Sharingan.
The genjutsu...
It began.
"WAAAAAHHHH!!!" Miyoinin Kyusuke's shriek, sharper than a woman's, tore from his throat. His legs tangled, and he tripped over himself, falling hard to the ground.
The remaining retainers around him stopped, startled.
They were shocked to find Miyoinin Kyusuke sprawled on the ground.
And screaming in terror and breakdown at the empty air in front of him.
"Don't come closer! Don't you dare come closer!" "I didn't start the fire! I just sent people to start the fire! I... I didn't know the fire would get out of control, I didn't know it would burn you all to death!"
"You... you're all dead already, aren't you?"
"Don't come closer, AAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
His frantic, despairing demeanor made him seem as if he'd lost his mind, or perhaps he was seeing things they couldn't.
This sent shivers down the spines of the remaining retainers.
It was the first time they had seen Miyoinin Kyusuke, the Daimyo's son, scared to the point of tears and snot flowing simultaneously.
And...
When a foul, pungent odor filled the air.
"Lord Kyusuke... he, he seems to have..." a retainer stammered blankly, "...wet himself from fear!!!"
For some reason.
Hiruzen Sarutobi suddenly had a bad feeling. Especially when he realized he was about to meet the Daimyo's Emissary, that strange feeling intensified, until a sense of unease began to gnaw at his heart.
Several possibilities immediately popped into his mind.
—The Land of Fire's budget allocation for the Leaf next year would be drastically cut.
—The Daimyo was planning to hire Leaf ninja for a very difficult mission.
—Miyoinin Kyusuke, the second son of the Land of Fire's Daimyo, might not be a polite young man, and their meeting might not go particularly smoothly.
—The Daimyo's Emissary encountered an accident!
Hiruzen Sarutobi was jolted, a name flashing through his mind.
"Akainu!"
He finally realized what he had overlooked.
Could the Daimyo's Emissary have run into Akainu? That young man, he shouldn't have committed any evil, right? After all, as the second son of the Land of Fire's Daimyo, he basically had everything he wanted. Why would he need to commit evil?
But Hiruzen Sarutobi's expression grew stiffer.
Because he knew those thoughts were just him trying to comfort himself.
He knew very well that those pampered nobles, from beginning to end, never bothered to put the law into consideration.
The laws of the Land of Fire...
They were only meant to restrict ordinary people.
"Stay close to me!" Hiruzen Sarutobi sternly told the two Anbu guards beside him. The next second, he vanished from his spot, reappearing dozens of meters away in a Body Flicker.
The Anbu guards immediately followed suit.
Before long, Hiruzen Sarutobi saw a group of people gathered in the distance. Judging by the location reported by that Leaf ninja earlier, that group should be the Emissary sent by the Daimyo.
It was at this moment that a string in Hiruzen Sarutobi's mind snapped, and the heavy stone suspended in his heart immediately sank to the bottom.
Because he saw Uchiha Akainu!
His old face suddenly turned dark.
"...This is bad!" When he saw Uchiha Akainu holding his ninja blade, Hiruzen Sarutobi's only remaining sliver of hope, "maybe Akainu just happened to be passing by," completely vanished.
Hiruzen Sarutobi immediately panicked.
"Akainu! Stop!!!"
He tried to shout to stop him.
SPLAT—Even though they were hundreds of meters away, Hiruzen Sarutobi felt like he heard the phantom sound of a blade severing a head. He even saw, from afar, a young man being decapitated by Uchiha Akainu! Judging by that young man's distinctively lavish attire compared to the others, he was most likely the Daimyo's son!
Hiruzen Sarutobi was stunned.
He was utterly dumbfounded, even his rapidly advancing steps halted. He stood there, petrified as if struck by lightning.
"...Hokage-sama?" an Anbu guard gulped, unable to resist asking.
Hiruzen Sarutobi didn't respond.
His expression was blank.
"That was..." A inexplicable pang of anger twisted in Hiruzen Sarutobi's heart, making him sway. A hoarse, dry voice emerged from his throat: "That was the second son of the Land of Fire's Daimyo!"
"What... what is he doing?!"
"Meow, rookie, this is what I was talking about. In Lord Akainu's eyes, so-called nobles have no special privileges. The Absolute Justice that Lord Akainu believes in doesn't grant pardons to the powerful."
Jirou Tachibana said to Izumi, "Whether it's an ordinary person, a ninja, a noble, or even the Daimyo's son. In Lord Akainu's eyes, they are all human. And if a human commits a crime, they must pay the price."
"As for this 'Miyoinin Kyusuke' fellow, the crimes he committed were not something that could be atoned for by being imprisoned for a few decades. Death, that is Justice's judgment for his sins."
Although Izumi had somewhat prepared herself mentally.
She was still utterly dumbfounded at this moment.
After all... the villain's identity was just too special. In all her life, Izumi had never seen anyone from the Land of Fire's nobility outside of the Leaf. The most distinguished person she had ever seen was Hokage-sama.
But then she thought about it: Akainu-senpai had even killed Hokage-sama's eldest son, so what was so special about the Daimyo's son?
"Um..."
Izumi looked back with some confusion. "Jirou-senpai, did you hear someone shout 'stop' from behind us just now?"
Jirou Tachibana replied without turning his head, "I did. It was the Third Hokage's voice. He witnessed Lord Akainu kill the Daimyo's son with his own eyes."
Izumi suddenly understood. "Oh, so it was Hokage-sa—"
"...Huh?!"
She gasped in shock, "Hokage-sama? He saw everything with his own eyes?!"
Drip...
Drip...
Drops of crimson blood slid down the blade to the tip, then dripped onto the ground, splashing like blood-red plum blossoms.
Miyoinin Kyusuke's head had fallen to the ground and rolled a few times, his face frozen in an expression of lingering terror, a trace of shock still remaining in his lifeless eyes.
His headless body swayed left and right for a moment before losing all support and collapsing.
Blood spurted from his neck, drenching the ground.
[Ding! You have successfully killed a "Red Name" villain! Your chakra has received a small boost! Congratulations, you have successfully dropped: "Gambling Skill" Experience Book x10!]
"L-Lord Kyusuke!!!"
Accompanied by incredulous screams, a retainer quickly rushed forward, frantically scooping up Miyoinin Kyusuke's head, attempting to reattach it to his headless body.
Another retainer, his eyes wide with fury, pointed a trembling finger at Uchiha Akainu. He yelled, "You, you, you... do you know what you've done?!"
"Lord Kyusuke, he's the second son of the Land of Fire's Daimyo! He's one of the highest-ranking individuals in the Land of Fire! He's a son the Daimyo truly dotes on! One of the Daimyo's sons with the most hope of becoming the next Daimyo of the Land of Fire!!"
"You... why did you lay a hand on Lord Kyusuke?! Does your Leaf Village want to rebel?!"
Uchiha Akainu gently flicked his wrist.
The blood on his ninja blade was flung off.
He spoke without expression, "It is I who executed justice upon this villain, not the Leaf. What illusion makes you think I executed this villain on the spot for the sake of the Leaf?"
Uchiha Akainu's eyes were calm, as if he hadn't killed the Daimyo's son, but merely an insignificant pest of the ninja world.
His indifferent voice continued, "Arson, direct murder, indirect murder, disposing of bodies... crime after crime piled upon him. If he does not die, justice cannot be served."
"Madman... You're a madman!"
A retainer, completely broken, screamed furiously, "Even if the crimes you speak of are true, you are not worthy to execute Lord Kyusuke! The Daimyo's offspring possesses the highest authority in the Land of Fire! What if he killed people? What if he committed arson?"
"The Land of Fire's law clearly states! Nobles of the Land of Fire who break the law have the right to exemption and pardon! The minor mistakes Lord Kyusuke made in his youth merely warrant a period of confinement!"
"You... how could you kill him? What right do you have to kill him? All you Leaf ninja have gone mad!!!"
"Whether other Leaf ninja are mad, I don't know, but Akainu-senpai is someone with absolute rationality!" Izumi bit her lip and stepped forward, addressing the distraught retainer. "Besides, the so-called laws of the Land of Fire are inherently soft and disgusting laws!"
A hint of indignation appeared on Izumi's fair face; she wasn't sure why she was so angry.
Especially when she heard the phrase, "Nobles of the Land of Fire who break the law have the right to exemption and pardon."
Izumi simply couldn't suppress the surge of anger in her heart.
Her voice gradually grew louder: "You ask what right Akainu-senpai has to kill this villain, then I ask what right do the laws of the Land of Fire have to pardon nobles who commit crimes and evil?"
"So that's how it is, then I understand... it's because of such unfair existence that so many evildoers roam free in the ninja world, and it has even become a terrible, ingrained consensus."
"I'll tell you for Senpai! Absolute Justice will never be restricted by the laws of the Land of Fire, and Absolute Justice will never bow down to any privileged noble!"
"Before Absolute Justice, there is no distinction of status! When a person commits evil, they must pay the price! If justice is absent, someone must step forward to seek justice for the victims!"
"You, the proponents of evil in the ninja world, are the most unworthy parasites to question Absolute Justice!"
The Uchiha girl, having said so much loudly in one breath, found her voice hoarse.
At this point, she also came to a sudden realization—she seemed to have once again spoken some words on behalf of her senior that he might not have wanted to say himself.
She cautiously looked up at the side profile of her senior.
She found that his expression hadn't changed at all.
Izumi suddenly understood—her senior was simply too lazy to speak such useless words to these parasites, words they wouldn't listen to anyway.
But Izumi felt it was her duty to speak these words for her senior.
Because...
She wasn't saying these words to the proponents of evil in the ninja world, but to the surrounding Leaf villagers!
This way, more people could understand her senior's Absolute Justice.
The young girl immediately convinced herself in her heart.
"Meow, you're quite eloquent, rookie," Jirou Tachibana remarked, glancing at the stunned group ahead. "You're getting closer to Lord Akainu's passing grade."
"Huh? Really?" Izumi's anger immediately dissipated, and her tone suddenly carried a hint of girlish glee.
She rubbed her head sheepishly. "I feel pretty good, actually. I just said what I wanted to say..."
Jirou Tachibana gave her a half-moon eye expression and quipped, "Control the corners of your mouth, meow."
Just then, figures instantly appeared before everyone.
It was none other than Hiruzen Sarutobi and a group of Anbu ninja who had arrived.
In truth, Hiruzen Sarutobi had come to his senses five minutes earlier.
But realizing Uchiha Akainu was ahead, he forcibly suppressed the urge to immediately rush over and confront him—because he had only brought two Anbu guards.
With such a small number, Hiruzen Sarutobi lacked the confidence to face Uchiha Akainu directly.
The previous warning was Danzo Shimura!
Even though Hiruzen Sarutobi believed he harbored no 'evil.'
Still, he had sent out a signal to gather nearby Anbu ninja. Only when a dozen Anbu had arrived did Hiruzen Sarutobi lead the group to the scene.
The headless body on the ground, and the two headless bodies in the distance, now came into view.
Making Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyelids twitch wildly.
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