Elsewhere in the sector, Shirou Uchiha was already pressed deep into the clash, leading his own squad.
Two jōnin of Kirigakure had temporarily occupied his focus, driving him back with relentless water release waves.
Every fireball he cast hissed into steam the moment it struck, the air filling with mist so thick that even his three tomoe Sharingan blurred at the edges.
Shirou exhaled slowly, his eyes sharpening.
"Tch… if I keep trading, I'll just drown in their element."
His hands blurred into seals.
"Fire Release: Ember Clone Technique!"
A flame clone burst beside him, its body flickering red-hot.
It darted forward recklessly, drawing water jutsu onto itself before erupting in an explosion, scattering the mist apart.
Shirou used the gap instantly. "Fire Release: Fire Shield!"
Fire shaped into a blazing shield across his arm, catching a sudden water-enhanced kunai barrage.
The weapons hissed through, but his shield held just long enough for him to dash aside.
The enemy surged again, weaving wide-water arcs.
Shirou countered, chakra flooding his lungs. "Fire Release: Rain of Fire Technique!"
Twin fireballs soared upward, colliding mid-air before splitting into dozens of blazing fragments.
A rain of fire cascaded down, forcing the two Kiri jōnin to split apart and guard.
The moment their formation cracked, Shirou advanced.
His blade swept through one's guard while his Sharingan caught the other's twitch before release.
He chained the last seals swiftly—
"Katon: Blazing Lotus!"
A spiraling lotus of fire bloomed, engulfing both in its vortex.
The jutsu roared, devouring the damp ground, collapsing trees into ash.
When it cleared, both enemies lay ruined, their chakra snuffed out.
Shirou's chest heaved, but his crimson eyes still burned.
"That's what it means to face a Uchiha," he muttered.
Then—
The air shifted.
A cold, suffocating pressure washed over him.
Paralyzing 'Killing Intent', sharpened and direct, from a place he hadn't even considered.
His Sharingan whipped around, but the ground beneath him bulged first.
Too late.
The soil split, and from the shadows emerged a blur, faster, quieter, more deliberate than anything on this battlefield.
Ryusei's slit-eyed grin flickered into view for only an instant.
Palms slammed into Shirou's joints, breaking his guard, collapsing his body before he could weave a single seal.
"Wha—?!" His voice choked, disbelief mixing with the blood in his throat.
Sealing tags flared across the dirt as Ryusei's suppressed clone forced him down, dragging him beneath the earth.
In one smooth sequence, the soil closed, the scroll markings snapped shut, and Shirou Uchiha was gone, swallowed into a prison dimension of ink and logic.
No one saw. No one would know.
And Ryusei's hidden clone slipped back into the silence, carrying its prize.
Everywhere across the sector, the tide turned swiftly.
With their two strongest weapons retreating across the sea, Kirigakure's formations fractured.
Konoha's forces pushed harder.
Uchiha firestorms cut through the mist, red glow painting the night as kunai and wire-traps skewered the disoriented Kiri shinobi.
Hyūga scouts moved with precision, Byakugan piercing through smoke and illusions, their strikes severing chakra flows one by one.
The Aburame released swarms into the damp air, their kikaichū feasting hungrily on scattered survivors who tried to rally.
And at the front, Renjiro charged with reckless joy, lightning-wreathed blade cleaving through resistance like paper, shouting for more prey even as none came to meet him.
The morale collapse spread like fire through dry reeds.
What had once been a disciplined, if brutal, advance turned into staggered retreats, desperate counterattacks crumbling under Konoha's momentum.
By the time dawn crept faintly over the treeline, the last Kirigakure pockets had been forced back toward the coast, their numbers thinning with every clash until finally, those still alive followed their jinchūriki back over the sea.
Konoha's upper sector stood firm. Another victory. Another set of corpses to Ryusei's ledger.
***
About a week later, Ryusei sat within his now main hidden base in the southern reaches of the Land of Hot Water.
The previous failed Kiri offensive had left ripples across the entire theater and beyond.
Their subsequent retreat, the cleansing of their long-term pockets, and above all, the repulsion of two jinchūriki, all with Ryusei at the center, had amplified his reputation.
On every front and even across borders, whispers spread.
Ryusei Nishida.
Thirteen years old, previously officially listed only as a chūnin of Konoha.
In truth, he and his teammates, Renjiro and Kanae, had already been elevated to Jōnin by the Hokage not too long ago.
After everything they had accomplished, leaving them at chūnin rank any longer would have been laughable after all.
A young genius shinobi famous for his uncanny, world-leading sensory skills, the youth who summoned the legendary slugs, the master of stealth and clones, the taijutsu fighter who clashed with beasts head-on, and the wielder of every elemental release, bending them into frightening combinations.
No one could quite pin down what he really was. Some whispered Senju, others swore he must be tied to one of Konoha's great clans, while more simply called him the biggest puzzle in the shinobi world.
Comparisons of his talents to Konoha's founders surfaced more and more, and his rumored connection with Tsunade became a favorite subject of speculation.
Some even whispered he might be a hidden weapon Konoha had cultivated in secret, unleashed only for this war.
In truth, his reputation was already beginning to eclipse Minato's, who, despite his higher strength, for all his promise, was still confined only to the Iwa front and had yet to fully master the Flying Raijin.
Even Kushina's vaunted sensory feats were now being quietly measured against Ryusei's and found lacking.
Since then, Ryusei had remained in this southern rear. Kanae and Renjiro stayed at his side, but his command had swelled.
Orochimaru had left him fifty men to anchor the section. And then, unexpectedly, another fifty arrived, given by Fugaku himself, along with a carefully worded letter of 'gratitude'.
A hundred shinobi now moved at Ryusei's word.
The letter was polite, even deferential, but Ryusei could read the subtext clearly. Fugaku hadn't written a single word about Reiji or Shirou.
Whether he hadn't connected their disappearance to him, or had and chose silence, was unknown. Either way, he let the matter die there.
Ryusei understood why.
The first thing Fugaku had done afterward was to pull Kiyomi southward, along with some of her forces, back toward his main front. A convenient reshuffling, no doubt sparked by reports about her… and Ryusei.
It seemed that still, as the clan patriarch, Fugaku wasn't going to let the two of them linger together any longer than necessary.
It made sense. The threat in this sector was neutralized, and the Kiri squads routed.
Fugaku could afford to draw more strength toward the larger battles.
Leaving Ryusei here served him on multiple levels.
The southern coastline was always vulnerable; Kiri had the best ships, and a sensor of Ryusei's caliber was the perfect guardian against sudden incursions.
At the same time, it conveniently kept Ryusei away from the main theater, where the greatest merits still lay in the future.
Fugaku's calculation was simple: let Ryusei hold the rear, safe and useful, while he himself reaped the glory against Kiri's elites.
Optimal, in Fugaku's eyes.
Ryusei only smirked when he pieced it all together.
"Careful, Fugaku… the more you think you're using me, the more you're fattening me instead."
For Ryusei, the arrangement was obviously perfect.
He had been given autonomy, space to grow, and freedom from interference.
As for why no one in the Uchiha dared confront him over the disappearance of those two brothers, the answer was simple.
They might privately suspect him, after all, only someone like Ryusei had the skill to make two bloodline elites vanish without a trace, but suspicion wasn't proof.
And without proof, they risked too much by pressing him.
Even Fugaku had to know that, in the current climate, for some reason, not even the village leadership could touch Ryusei.
What hope did the Uchiha have, then?
Fugaku's true strategy was obvious.
He would wait, watch, and strike only when Ryusei was weakened, when the boy hit his lowest point, then demand answers for the clan's losses. Until then, silence was safer.
As for Kiyomi being pulled back to the main force, Ryusei felt no anger.
They were both still young, and in his eyes, their bond hadn't yet reached that point.
It wasn't as if his "bedmate" had been taken from him. Then he might've felt some "pain".
Soon enough, he would make time to visit Fugaku personally.
On that day, he promised himself, the Uchiha would finally be forced to set aside their arrogance regarding him completely.
***
Ryusei leaned back against the cave wall, his narrow eyes half-lidded, the corner of his lips twitching upward into that sharp grin of his.
He hadn't forgotten about the brothers. Especially not the younger one.
The memory flickered in his mind, vivid and satisfying.
A few days earlier.
After the battle, after the dust had settled and the reshuffling of forces began, he had quietly unsealed Reiji from that scroll.
Not to release him, no, only to set the stage.
The boy's body was bound, his chakra sealed, his presence masked to perfection.
A living corpse that no sensor could detect, yet still conscious, still able to see everything Ryusei wanted him to see.
And so, he positioned him.
A silent spectator, mummified and hidden, forced to watch.
That day, Kiyomi had come to him in secret, moments before she was pulled back south to Fugaku's main section.
She had been tense at first, black almond eyes flickering, but when Ryusei reached for her, everything cracked.
His arms closed around her, tighter than ever before.
And this time, he didn't stop at a hug.
His lips claimed hers fully, hungrily, tongues tangling in a kiss far deeper, far more intimate than anything before.
Kiyomi stiffened for a heartbeat, then melted against him, her face blazing scarlet, her breath catching as she clutched at his flak jacket with trembling hands.
It was a scene charged with heat and unspoken longing, the culmination of all their stolen moments.
For her, it was a dangerous, reckless surrender. For him, it was calculated as much as it was passionate.
And in the shadows, Reiji saw it all.
His wide eyes, sealed and gagged, burned with disbelief. Horror. Rage.
His "fiancée," the girl his clan promised him, the girl he had pursued with arrogance and simmering obsession, was flushed, trembling, and kissing another—Ryusei—like a lover.
Ryusei, who leaned closer mid-kiss, his voice low enough only for Kiyomi to hear, but angled just enough so that the sealed Reiji could catch every word:
"Tell me, Kiyomi… how do I compare to that fly, Reiji Uchiha?"
Kiyomi blinked, caught off guard through the heat of her blush. "Reiji?" she repeated, then let out a short, dismissive scoff.
Her crimson eyes hardened, voice low but firm. "Why even bring up trash like him? Whatever happens to him, I couldn't care less. He's nothing. You… you're in a world far above his."
Her words slipped out, heated, honest, almost desperate as she pressed herself closer. "There's no comparison."
Ryusei grinned into her lips, deepening the kiss, while in the background, Reiji's sealed body trembled violently.
His teeth ground so hard that blood seeped at the corners of his mouth.
And then it happened.
Through the cracks of his torment, his pupils twisted, tomoe spinning faster, splitting, until the third tomoe bloomed into existence in both eyes.
A perfect three-tomoe Sharingan, birthed in agony and humiliation, as he was forced to watch the girl he believed was his future reject him with flushed cheeks and a trembling voice, declaring another man superior while surrendering to that man's arms.
Ryusei broke the kiss at last, leaving Kiyomi breathless and pink-faced, her lips slightly swollen.
She muttered something about being recalled soon, about not wasting these moments, but Ryusei only smirked, brushing his thumb along her cheek.
Inwardly, he thought of the bound figure watching from the shadows, sealed tighter than a corpse.
"Perfect. Hate me more. Suffer. Awaken. Show me your worth before you die."
The flashback ended, and in the present, Ryusei chuckled softly to himself, his grin sharper.
Maybe he really did have a hidden fetish for "cucking" others, he mused.
Whatever it was, watching Reiji's Sharingan bloom that way, while simultaneously stealing his supposed fiancée's heart, was one of the most satisfying victories he'd ever arranged.
He had been the one Kiyomi turned toward first, the one she had chosen on her own.
Reiji was only chasing after something that already belonged to him. If anything, the fool should blame himself for trying to lay claim to what was never his in the first place.
'What a pathetic way to push your Sharingan forward… Still, it worked. Shame it stopped at three tomoe. Mangekyō? No, too much to hope for. But we'll see what happens when I make these brothers watch each other's suffering next.'
Ryusei's grin sharpened at the thought. 'Orochimaru, this is as far as I'll set the stage. Whatever blossoms out of either of them, those eyes are yours.'