The forest clearing broke open in an instant. Opposite, the enemy appeared, around fifteen in total.
Two at the center stood taller, their presence heavy, with nearly a dozen and a half more shinobi forming around them in sharp formation.
Arata, Three-Tails host, younger, pale-skinned with narrow eyes that gleamed coldly even in the dim light, stepped forward first.
Beside him, Kaien, Six Tails host, towered, darker complexion, broad shoulders, his grip tightening around a heavy-bladed sword.
His eyes scanned the field once, flat and controlled.
Kanae's expression stayed level, Byakugan veins surfacing as she settled into guard.
Kiyomi moved a step forward, crimson eyes spinning, her squad shifting automatically with her.
There was no hesitation. Both sides lunged.
Steel clashed with steel, and shuriken hissed through the air.
The first wave broke in a spray of sparks as Renjiro intercepted two blades at once, lightning flashing along his sword.
Kanae slipped between kunai, palm snapping forward to strike a weak point chest, sending one Kiri shinobi reeling into the dirt.
Kiyomi's Sharingan tracked three at once, her katana flashing, cutting low then high in a blur.
Her squad moved with ruthless coordination, fire techniques colliding with Kiri's counter-jutsu.
Ryusei stayed low in the chaos, sliding through openings.
His slit-eyed grin never faltered.
But Arata and Kaien hadn't moved yet.
They watched, still, measured. Waiting.
Ryusei's eyes flicked toward them briefly.
He blurred forward again, driving the clash deeper into enemy lines.
"Clone, support Kanae," Ryusei snapped, one hand flashing through seals.
A second him burst into existence, darting toward the skirmish.
The original glanced toward Kiyomi. "Five. With us."
Her crimson eyes glinted.
She nodded once and immediately signaled.
Five Uchiha peeled from her squad, blades and seals ready.
Kanae started forward, but Ryusei's hand cut across her path.
His slit-eyed grin didn't waver.
"Not you. Hold here. Pick them apart. Don't get reckless."
She froze, lips tightening, but she obeyed, turning back into the swirl of fodder.
So it was Ryusei, Renjiro, Kiyomi, and five Uchiha against the two.
The moment they closed, the difference was obvious.
Arata moved first, pale eyes flashing sharp as his hands blurred into seals.
Frost burst outward, ice spears forming midair before slamming down in a tight pattern, aimed to herd and trap.
His tone was calm, flat, and almost detached as he spoke to Kaien. "Don't let them spread."
Kaien only gave a grunt in reply, stepping forward with his massive blade.
His movements weren't fast, but deliberate, heavy.
Each swing carried enough force to shear through stone, forcing Renjiro and two Uchiha back immediately.
Acid hissed from the edges of his strikes, mist clinging faintly to the steel.
Ryusei's grin widened. "So, the younger's cold, the elder's brute."
His muscles tensed, chakra flaring.
The third gate snapped open inside him. Power surged.
In the back, his clone wove seals, fire roared out, and a massive great fireball collided with a sweeping gale of wind.
The two elements merged, twisting into a flaming vortex that carved through three Kiri shinobi at once, scorching the earth black.
The clone didn't linger. Another clone popped beside it, helping chain the next jutsu: water dragons slamming into walls of earth, crushing the enemy between surging torrents and collapsing barriers.
The fodder screamed, cut down in waves.
The moment the jutsu landed, the helper clone vanished, chakra instantly recycled back into the first.
Kanae cut through the gaps left behind.
Her palms glowed, but instead of healing, parasitic growths sprouted with every strike, roots threading into her victims, detonating as they tried to push chakra back.
Limbs stiffened, bodies collapsed as her style spread like a living infection.
Meanwhile, the frontline tightened.
Kiyomi's Sharingan caught Arata's ice, her blade parrying, redirecting, deflecting one spear toward the ground.
"He's shaping it in real time," she hissed.
"Then break his rhythm," Ryusei answered, vanishing in a blur.
His palm slammed into Arata's chest, but ice armor snapped into place, coral-like ridges blocking the worst of it.
Still, Arata skidded back, lips tightening.
Kaien roared then, the first crack in his calm.
His blade slammed down in a broad arc.
Ryusei dodged, Renjiro surged forward, lightning sparking along his sword as he met the swing head-on.
Sparks exploded, the ground tearing beneath their feet.
The two sides clashed, red chakra beginning to bubble faintly across Arata's arm as his breathing grew heavier.
Kaien's skin hissed louder, acidic mist spilling thicker into the air.
Ryusei only grinned sharper, veins bulging at his temple from the Gate's rush.
Ryusei's eyes narrowed as he studied them in motion.
"That one… Yuki blood, no doubt. So the rumors weren't wrong. Kiri scooped up an orphan and molded him into a weapon."
From Kiyomi's intelligence, he already knew the truth; they weren't free shinobi at all, but shackled tools of the Mizukage.
The black markings etched across their faces weren't decoration; they were seals that gnawed at their bodies, eating them alive unless the village reapplied the binding formula.
That was the real leash. No matter how strong they grew, they couldn't turn against their master.
Even now, the old Mizukage, a quasi-Kage at best in his current age, was weaker than either of them individually.
And yet neither dared rebel. The seal had made sure of that.
Behind the frontline, Ryusei's clone didn't waste a heartbeat.
His hands blurred, slamming into the ground.
Pillars of earth tore free, massive chunks rising into the air.
Another clone spawned beside him, sucking in a sharp breath before exhaling a gale.
The slabs became projectiles, hurled forward like meteors.
The Kiri shinobi barely had time to shout before the first rock crushed a shield wall flat, the next pulverized two more into the dirt.
Fragments shredded the line, scattering them into chaos.
The clone dismissed itself instantly, chakra flowing back.
"Next," Ryusei's double muttered, slapping his palms into the soil again.
Thin, branching lines of earth chakra laced outward like veins, unnoticed by the scrambling enemy.
Lightning crackled down the spread channels, bursting upward in jagged arcs.
Screams followed as shinobi convulsed, weapons falling from their hands, bodies locking in spasms.
Kanae swept in at that exact moment, palms glowing.
Her strikes landed on stiffened targets, parasitic roots of Yang chakra threading into their systems, detonating on the rebound.
But the clone wasn't done.
Another shadow burst into existence beside him, water chakra surging.
A twisting torrent slammed into the churned earth, turning the field into a swamp.
Enemies staggered, slowed, and were dragged down as the mud pulled at their legs.
The second clone followed up without pause, Fire Release roared into the mire, and the entire pit erupted into a boiling inferno.
The swamp became a coffin, drowning, burning, crushing all at once.
The fifteen Uchiha still holding formation pressed hard, their Sharingan whirling as one.
Fire jutsu burst in layered waves, walls of flame driving Kiri back while kunai, wires, and perfectly timed counters cut down anyone who tried to slip through.
Every strike was sharpened by precognition, their coordination seamless, overwhelming the enemy line inch by inch.
Meanwhile, the five who had split with Ryusei, Kiyomi, and Renjiro joined the melee in full force.
Their movements were ruthless and precise, genjutsu feints locking targets in place, blades and fire looking to finish the job in the same heartbeat against those two jinchuriki.
It wasn't just numbers; it was the sheer rhythm of the clan's style, crushing and relentless.
For the first time, the Kiri squad staggered, their cohesion cracking under the pressure.
The shift on the battlefield didn't escape the two at the center.
Both Arata and Kaien stopped holding back; the air rippled as bubbling red chakra spilled out of them, searing against their skin.
A tail lashed behind Arata, frost hissing off his body as ice cracked and spread with each step.
Kaien's frame swelled with that corrosive mist, four bubbling tails already lashing the ground, gouging earth where they struck.
"Finally," Ryusei thought, grin sharpening. "Show me what you really bleed."
Kiyomi moved first, her Sharingan spinning, hand signs snapping like firecrackers.
"Fire Release: Dragon Flame Release Song!"
Streams of flame surged out, twining into ribbons of dragon fire that snaked toward both hosts, driving them into motion.
Renjiro cut low, always circling, lightning blade twitching for the moment one guard slipped.
Behind them, the five Uchiha unleashed a volley of fire and shuriken, forcing the pressure tighter.
Ryusei advanced straight on. His chakra roared, three gates tearing open in unison.
His body blurred forward with Lightning Body Flicker, medical enhancement making each motion sharp as a blade.
Another clone flared into life beside him, gates bursting open in parallel, their movements synchronized.
"Combination."
The clone weaved fast, mud and water gushed, a swamp surging under Kaien's feet.
Another fire stream detonated it into a boiling coffin, scalding steam exploding outward.
A wall of earth split the ground, then shattered under a wind-fueled boulder, fragments hammering into Arata's ice shell.
The clones chained seamlessly, burning chakra with each cast, their existence snuffed instantly after to return power to Ryusei.
The chaos forced the two jinchūriki back a step, and Ryusei closed the gap.
His grin widened, fist slamming toward Arata's ribs.
Ice armor thickened instinctively, coral-like ridges forming, but Ryusei's gate-fueled strike cracked it, shoving him off balance.
Kaien swung his blade down with brute force, acidic mist trailing, but the clone intercepted, palm strike redirecting the swing into the ground, fissures tearing open beneath.
Red chakra hissed louder, tails lashing wilder.
Ryusei's narrow eyes caught it all. "Good… bubble more. I want every drop."
Front and center, Ryusei didn't hesitate.
Three gates blazing, Lightning Body Flicker sparking, Creation Rebirth humming beneath his skin to knit damage instantly, he wasn't afraid of close combat anymore.
One man and one clone against two imperfect monsters. And he welcomed it.
He relied on only a single clone to hold the line with him, two against two.
Every other clone he created was nothing but a disposable helper, summoned, unleashed for a combination jutsu, then instantly dispelled and resummoned again in rapid succession.
All that time, Ryusei also wasn't wasting effort brawling with Kiri fodder back there with that other clone he first made.
Every large-scale jutsu he unleashed, every flood of fire and earth, had been deliberate, reshaping the battlefield itself.
It wasn't just destruction. It was a trap.
Piece by piece, he had terraformed the field to cut lines of sight, break formations… to separate Reiji from the rest of the Uchiha.
None of this had ever just been about those shrimps, or else he wouldn't have wasted so many A-rank or even S-rank combination jutsu there when those Uchiha could've won on their own there gradually.
Ryusei wasn't the type to waste chakra without purpose.
Slowly, carefully, he had reshaped the battlefield into a maze of scorched craters, flooded gullies, and broken ridges.
Lines of sight cut, paths diverted, pockets isolated.
And in one of those pockets, just as he had planned, Reiji Uchiha had been funneled away from the others.
The boy probably thought he was clever, hanging back with the bulk, pretending to "observe" while watching Kiyomi out of the corner of his eye.
But the terrain Ryusei had built didn't lie. Reiji had been penned into a narrow strip of ground, his "escape routes" nothing but kill zones.
Ryusei's grin stretched as his senses confirmed.
'Finally.'
A suppressed shadow clone had been waiting there the whole time, sitting still and quiet, its presence smothered.
Now, with Reiji alone, it moved.
Steel flashed in the smoke, quiet and merciless.
Ryusei's true body didn't even look back.
He was too busy grinning in Arata and Kaien's faces, his fists colliding with their bubbling chakra cloaks. But inside, he already knew.
The trap was sprung. Reiji's fate was sealed. His Sharingan would be his for a while.