Chapter 267: Before The Final Clash

Once she saw Shiki’s state of being forcefully held together but unable to fully heal, Mito had immediately seen through the issue.

As previously said, she had seen it before . . . In her dear departed husband, Senju Hashirama.

The legendary First Hokage, the God of Shinobi, in the memories of most, he was an invincible and revered divine.

Most believed he had no such things as a weakness and in truth, they were more correct than not.

However, those closest to him, such as Mito herself being his wife and his younger brother Tobirama, knew there was something that a sufficiently powerful or smart foe could use against the seemingly invincible Hashirama.

But perhaps the one most familiar with that one thing was the God of Shinobi’s greatest friend and fiercest rival, Uchiha Madara.

Only in battles against enemies of such caliber would this weakness come into play.

You see, Hashirama had a powerful body, a Sage Body as some liked to call it, it granted him not only extremely high physical prowess, it also included a regenerative healing factor that could casually heal mortal wounds in seconds.

After all, it was stated by Madara himself that Tsunade’s Creation Rebirth which, while active, effectively made her immortal with a few exceptions, was still an inferior reproduction of her grandfather’s innate ability to self heal.

But even this powerful body was inadequate to handle the absurdly huge amount of chakra Hashirama possessed.

It was not that far-fetched an idea for those familiar with the post Shipuuden novels.

Even the Sage of Six Paths nearly died due to his body not being able to handle the full chakra of the Ten Tails and required something he called Polar Particles to fix his issue which Naruto also faced after him.

Naturally, Hashirama did not have nearly as much chakra as that but he was also not as physically gifted as a Half-Otsutsuki like the Sage.

Hashirama’s total chakra was equivalent to or even surpassed the full Nine Tails who himself had more chakra than the other eight Tailed Beasts combined.

A human body, even an exceptional human’s was simply not built to handle that kind of power at full blast.

Sage Mode did not increase the amount of chakra but it heavily boosted its potency so its use exacerbated the problem further.

Simply put, Hashirama had so much chakra that, if he did not restrain his output, his physical body simply could not handle it.

Once overloaded, physical functions started to degrade and even his self healing would be greatly hampered.

Against a mighty foe like Madara with the Nine Tails for support, Hashirama had to maintain his output at a high enough level to be severely harmful.

Maybe it was years of repeated instances of this that eventually wore the man down to the point of sickness and death.

The vitality and self healing ability were still there but that was simply not the kind of damage it could fix.

The situation Shiki was dealing with currently, was in fact very similar.

He had a functionally limitless chakra pool in the form of his Nirvana Seal but the output limit of chakra that his physical body, far weaker than the First Hokage’s, could tolerate had been utterly exceeded in the previous battle and not just for a short burst either.

That was why, even with an unlimited supply of life energy to draw from, the boy could not fully heal, only hold his body together.

Much like Hashirama could tough out this period of weakness with his healing factor to keep him alive, so could Shiki do the same.

If other shinobi ever had access to enough chakra to overload their physical bodies to such an extent, a quick but extremely painful death or permanent crippling would be an inevitable fate.

For the two anomalies though, it was just a matter of sleeping it off for a couple of days.

Whatever the case may be, Shiki was out of the Battle for Uzu.

He had already contributed far more than enough though, and no Uzumaki would deny that.

The initial ambush that culled the Three Village Coalition's cannon fodder, thus preventing a scenario where Uzushio’s forces were overwhelmed with sheer numbers.

Keeping the Mizukage busy during the second engagement and rescuing the captured Second Elder towards its tail end.

Helping plan the third and final planned engagement, gathering detailed intelligence on the Three Village Coalition, and now temporarily putting one of their greatest fighters out of commission while draining a significant amount of chakra from two others.

Not to mention the capture of the Two Tails being completely owed to his adopted sister and the girl’s critical role in the preparations for the final showdown.

Shiki had given his all for them, nearly even his life.

Now . . . It was time for the Uzumaki to finish it in a manner worthy of the boy’s sacrifice.

A manner that allowed the village of Uzushio to stand tall in the shinobi world, unbroken even by the aggression of three of the Five Great Hidden Villages.

*

In spite of injuries, being the tough bastard that he was, the Third Raikage managed to regain consciousness.

He was in no condition to fight, all that despite the man’s own assurances otherwise, but he was well enough to grill his subordinates at having paused the offensive over something so “minor” as him being “mildly” wounded.

And so, the attack was back on.

The slight interlude had given Uzushio time to shore up their defenses but it also gave Kiri and Iwa time to regroup and recuperate.

The fresh Kumo forces would be the vanguard, supported by the Kiri forces’ cover, with the wounded Third Raikage being replaced with Onoki in the role to create the critical breakthrough which the Tsuchikage would do through his Dust Release.

As for Han, he was actually going to be the main muscle and the tip of the spear due to his powerful taijutsu as well as high stamina and durability as a jinchuriki.

This way, Onoki and the Five Tailed Jinchuriki were both filling up two different parts of the Raikage’s previously assigned role.

*

On Uzushio’s side, everything was ready to go as well.

Originally, Shiki was supposed to utilize his Howling Wolf Possession to act as one of the cores of a three pronged counterattack but the plan was adapted into a two pronged counter instead.

Considering the Raikage would likely not be able to join in on the battle, things might actually be better for the Uzushio forces.

The only issue was the lack of intelligence.

Mind’s Eye of The Kagura, depending on its user, certainly had the range to match Shiki’s Ryugan: Zenchi but its ability to catch detail was woefully inferior.

It was just a sensory jutsu after all, it could not capture images or sounds, nor was it as stealthy.

So the Elders only had much vaguer intelligence to base their plans around. Unfortunately, they had to make do.

Only one thing was for certain.

The battle would come during the night and they would fight likely until the break of dawn.

Once the light of the sun shone upon the battlefield, a ceasefire followed by negotiations based on battle performance would come . . .

+++++

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