The Enlightened One Ch.65 (Patreon)

— Lei Senju —

“W-Well then…let’s chat.” 

My words only served to enrage Kuzan further, and my once-best friend's face twisted with a hate I had never before witnessed. 

“Make no mistake, Senju, you’ll die slowly!” Kuzan roared as he charged me with a speed I didn’t know he was capable of. I narrowly managed to make a wood tanto and block his downward slash. He continued to force his strength on me, teeth gnashing in anger and exertion. This guy who I had grown up with…he really wanted me dead. 

Realizing just how strong Kuzan had grown, and knowing I can’t overpower him with my injury, I dashed backward, his tanto slammed into the ground, kicking up dirt from the sheer force. 

“Why the hell are you doing this, Kuzan?!” I shouted, absolutely gobsmacked, that the guy was seriously angry with me! Never once had he shown any signs of anger toward me, always acting like his normal cool self…so why?!

Kuzan paused, looking at me in disbelief before pure anger consumed his features once more. “Even after this…you still have no fucking idea-” 

Suddenly, Kuzan’s body froze, his face displaying a weird kind of shock, and his eyes grew unfocused before dulling. He let out a sigh, looking down at the ground, then looked back up at me with no emotion. 

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know. In a few hours, both of us will be dead, and my mission will be complete.”

My eyes widened in shock at the weight of his words.

“K-Kuzan…what do you mean by that?”

Kuzan’s face remained expressionless as he pulled aside his shirt collar to reveal a grotesque-looking lump with blue veins running through it. 

“I am fueled by the rotting leaves of the Great Tree, and with this power, I will strengthen its roots.” 

…Oh-

Oh god no…

“How…” I said quietly, almost a whisper as I looked at the ground with clenched fists. Anger and sadness filled my eyes as I looked up at him. “How the hell did this happen?!”

How did I not know?!

“Your sudden interest would have warmed my heart years ago, Senju.” Kuzan drew his tanto back, ready to attack. The way that his voice was monotonous, but still held a great deal of hate when he said my Clan name caught me off guard. “However, I do not require your pity…not anymore.” 

I looked at him, unable to think of words to say. I was absolutely speechless. The boy I considered my best friend in all of Konoha…had been inducted into the ROOT years ago—and I had no idea. 

His body disappeared suddenly and reappeared just behind me. His blade slashed, down, narrowly grazing my back and drawing blood as I jumped away just a millisecond too late. 

“Kuzan!” I shouted as I turned around to face him, only to see he was gone again. I jumped up, avoiding a wind bullet, and landed on a tree branch. Kuzan hopped up to a parallel branch and pointed his tanto at me.

“No talk, no emotions, only the mission.” 

“Kuzan, please, we don’t have to do this-” I pleaded before freezing at the sight before me. “...No, that shouldn’t be possible.” I breathed out, quickly averting my eyes from his. 

Two three tomoe sharingan danced brightly in his eyes. 

“You’re not an Uchiha, Kuzan!” I shouted more so to myself, even though I addressed him. There was no way he was, if he had been, he would have long since awakened his sharingan when we were in the academy, especially with how intensively he tended to train, and there was no way he’d be able to hide such eyes from me. 

My heart rate sped up as realization struck in my green orbs. 

“Kuzan…what did Danzo do to you?!” 

There was no answer.

Danzo…he went too far! Now, more so than ever, I wanted to kill that fucking thorn in my side! Implanting sharigan in Kuzan’s eyes, and doing whatever the fuck he did to his neck…such a thing was unforgivable!

Moments later, Kuzan rushed me again, his tanto clashing against mine in a fight for dominance, one I quickly realized I couldn’t lose. Not if I wanted to make it out of here alive—not if I wanted to save my friend. 

I jumped backward, landing back on the forest floor, and was quickly pursued by the Sharingan-wielding ROOT agent.

“I fucked up!” I shouted suddenly, putting up a hand seal to infuse chakra. Kuzan reached me and began engaging me in kenjutsu. I was forced to dodge the attacks, and my attempts weren’t very successful. He nicked my body with cuts on my arms, torso, and legs, but I made sure he didn’t get anything vital. “I’ll make this right!” 

‘Wood Release: Wood Clone Jutsu’

Clones sprouted out of the trees around us and quickly closed in on Kuzan. My friend looked at the approaching doubles with a focused gaze and began engaging them. His speed and perception showed true as he dodged their slashes and cut at them when he saw openings. 

I weaved through hand seals and placed my hand on the earth, then I sent a mental message, one I demanded be answered as soon as possible.

Wood Release: Wood Wyrm Jutsu’

I felt my wingless dragon with worm-like features be built underground and begin its journey toward my opponent. 

“It’s over!” I called out as Kuzan dealt with the last of my clones and looked toward me, ready to charge me again. My Wood Wyrm erupted from the ground beneath Kuzan and bit down on his legs, not hard enough to seriously injure him, but just hard enough to keep him in place. 

I saw my chance and jumped into the air, wood tanto in hand as I dropped toward Kuzan’s exposed head. One swift blow to his head using the handle was all I needed to end this fight, here and now. 

I avoided Kuzan’s gaze as I dropped and drew switched my grip on the blade, pulling it back and ready to deliver the finishing blow.

“I will complete the mission.”

A red glow began to appear around his body, and suddenly I was knocked back hard. 

My body slammed against the massive trunk of a tree, and I knew just from the dizziness of everything around me that I likely had a concussion, a bad one. 

I looked up at my friend turned enemy with blurry vision, and though I couldn’t see clearly what I was looking at, I knew what it was.

“No-” 

Kuzan walked me down with a skeletal ribcage of chakra surrounding him. Two boney arms stuck out of the ribs, and as he grew closer, the head of the chakra creation formed as well.

Susanoo. 

This…This is so much worse than I imagined it would be.

— Satsuki (A Few Minutes Ago) —

She quickly regained her balance after being blasted back by a quick, precise, and powerful punch delivered by Taro. 

A million questions burned in her mind, most centered around how this boy, who was considered above average in the academy, ended up growing so much. 

By now, Satsuki already had her two-three-tomoe-sharingan out for all to see, but even with such developed eyes, she wasn’t strong enough to beat this guy, and the question kept burning in her mind—how?

Naruko, Hinata, InoShikaCho, and Sakura were all fighting alongside her, while the Cloud and Stone engaged in their own battle against one another. 

Yet still, the overwhelming power of Taro’s chakra posed a massive threat to them. Even when Hinata managed to close some of his tenketsu points with her juken strikes, Taro flowed chakra through the closed points and forcefully opened them. Doing something like that would both be extremely painful and tiring, so the fact that he’s done it more than once but is still fighting them with the same speed and strength as the start of the fight has long since started ringing alarm bells in the Uchiha Head’s mind. 

“Satsuki, you got any ideas on how we can beat this guy?!” Naruko shouted from a few meters away. They had Taro cornered against a tree, but she honestly doubted the boy felt cornered at all. 

Satsuki looked at Taro, his expressionless black eyes peering back into hers, and for the second time in her life—she didn’t know what to do.

Satsuki’s body froze as Taro reached for his hip and unsheathed the katana that was sitting there, waiting for a chance to draw blood. This entire time he had been using nothing but his fists and kunai to cut at and weaken them, but for him to draw his blade with how much he’s been able to hit them…

Someone was going to die if they didn’t figure out how to stop him, now!

Satsuki’s eyes snapped over to Shikamaru who looked just as puzzled as she did, but there was a glint in his eyes, the same glint she would see in the rare times when he was actually interested in something being taught in class. 

“Shikamaru!” Satsuki called, dropping into a fighting stance and getting ready for Taro to strike at any moment. “You’re the smartest right? Get us out of this!” 

Shikamaru blinked at her in surprise with bruises and small cuts covering his body, before a sly smirk appeared on his face as he pulled some shuriken out of his pouch. “The almighty Uchiha Princess, accepting her own inferiority? Maybe his last strike killed me because there’s no way this is real.”  

Satsuki decided not to retort, instead she returned her focus on Taro to see his eyes had changed. Her heart dropped, her blood ran cold, and her grip around her kunai loosened-

Before, it tightened harder than it had ever had before! 

“You grave-robbing piece of shit!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, the sight of seeing two fully matured sharingan in the eyes of a non-Uchiha was just too much for her.

“Back her up!” Shikamaru ordered quickly, and she heard the others follow behind her as her kunai clashed with Taro’s blade. She looked into his eyes, and even though they held the power of the sharingan, his expressionless air never changed. He wasn’t sorry, he wasn’t ashamed, no, he was nothing. An empty husk of a grave-robbing boy!

“You’re too weak, little sister.”

She shook her head clean of the intruding thoughts of that monster and brought her knee up, hitting Taro hard in the nuts, making him drop to his knees, before following up with another kick to his head.

She wasn’t that same scared little girl. Not anymore! She may not have been able to save her clan, but what she could do was ensure they were resting peacefully! 

This eye-stealer was going to die, and she’d be the one to send him to hell! 

— Chapter End —

Author’s Note: I’m still dropping Spider, hopefully tonight. I just really wanted to drop another chapter for this. 

Beta Reader: @Dragonboy1