Naruto Paradise: An Evil Uchiha's Rise-Chapter 128: Interrupted!

Nine out of ten houses empty.

Compared to the previous village, the devastation of this larger village before Ino was even more shocking.

"Terrible" wasn't a strong enough word to describe the scene.

The entire village was devoid of any living thing.

Yes, not just people. Not even an animal could be found that was still moving.

The corpses of people and livestock were everywhere, all tinged with a purplish-black hue.

The source was a potent poison introduced into the nearby water source.

"It seems Konoha isn't the only ninja army attacking villages of ordinary people."

Some corpses weren't poisoned, but bore either blade wounds or shuriken embedded in vital areas.

The source was likely the shinobi corpses in the distance, also tainted with the purplish-black poison, bearing the Iwagakure headbands.

Uchiha Kage took a few glances and abandoned the idea of venturing deeper into the village.

This unique poison didn't even dissipate after death. Touching it would likely result in the same fate as these corpses.

"The Second Ninja World War. The Land of Rain became the main battlefield for the Five Great Shinobi Villages, with constant conflict... That's all the history books say. Seems a bit brief in retrospect."

The ninja armies of the Five Great Shinobi Villages treated the people of the Land of Rain's ordinary villages as supply depots, and the leader of Amegakure, Hanzō of the Salamander, didn't treat his own people any better.

He didn't hesitate to poison an entire village just to eliminate a small enemy unit...

No need for deduction. Just seeing the corpses, seeing the unique purple poison, Uchiha Kage understood what had happened here.

"Ugh..."

Whether it was the stench of decaying corpses or the shocking, inhumane scene before her, Ino, who had only just cheered up on the road, finally couldn't help but squat down and retch.

"Mama!"

The blue-haired girl whom Uchiha Kage had pulled from the mud earlier, upon waking, quickly found her parents among the corpses ahead.

"One more step and you'll die. Even I'm helpless against this poison."

Out of humanitarian concern, Uchiha Kage grabbed the blue-haired girl who was charging headlong towards the corpses.

Turns out, the girl he casually saved had escaped from this village.

Thump.

Due to her weakness and small stature, the blue-haired girl fell to the ground once again, propelled by her own momentum.

"I... I know."

The girl wiped the mud from her face, revealing a malnourished, sallow complexion.

"Mama told me not to look back and to run away from the village, but I'm too clumsy and keep falling..."

Scared, exhausted, and hungry.

She hadn't run far before she fell in the mud and passed out.

Looking at the corpses of her loved ones, so close yet untouchable, the girl probably wanted to cry, but it seemed her tears had long since dried up, leaving only a despairing, empty, and sorrowful expression.

"What's your name?"

Uchiha Kage stared at the girl's blue hair.

"My name is Konan... Thank you for saving me."

Forcing herself to muster some energy, Konan politely glanced at the tall young man who had saved her.

But soon, she turned back to the corpses, sinking back into her previous grief.

"..."

So it's Konan.

But at this point in time, she should have just become displaced.

After hearing the expected name, Uchiha Kage glanced once more at the instance mission prompt in his mind.

But to his surprise, the mission prompt was still garbled.

"How pitiful."

Ino, covering her mouth, walked back to Uchiha Kage's side, her face pale, and gazed at the blue-haired girl standing before the corpses, unable to calm down for a long time.

"What do we do now?"

The events of the past short while had left Ino feeling lost.

Whether it was a dream or reality, she just wanted it to end quickly.

"Let's find a cave in the mountains to spend the night. The Land of Rain is already a living hell. Going further will probably only lead to more..."

...unspeakable horrors.

Uchiha Kage was also finding it difficult to adjust.

Compared to the bloody scenes of the war front in previous instances, filled with shouts of battle, the silent corpses here felt even more cruel and terrifying.

"What about her?"

Everyone in her village, including her own family, had been poisoned and killed, leaving her to live alone. Ino didn't know how she could survive in this situation, in an environment surrounded by war.

But this isn't a dream, so we have to spend the night?

But how can we leave this place, leave this nightmarish place?

"Please... no, I beg you, help me."

As if hearing the conversation behind her, Konan lowered her head towards Uchiha Kage and Yamanaka Ino with a sincere expression, then looked at the corpses in the distance.

No matter what, she really didn't want to see her parents' corpses left exposed to the elements.

"I'll do anything you want, as long as you can find a way..."

"Burn them. There's poison everywhere. Burying them would be a bad idea."

Uchiha Kage suggested.

"Burn... okay... but the corpses can't be moved. How can we..."

And the ground is all wet. How can we burn them?

Konan was troubled.

"No need to make it so complicated."

Uchiha Kage signaled Ino to take the girl away first.

Then, he jumped onto a higher rooftop alone and began forming the hand seals for Fire Release.

Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!

As the hand seals were completed, the great fire spewed out by Uchiha Kage instantly engulfed the entire village.

The sky was full of flames.

The flood-like fire swept through every corner of the village.

Not only the corpses, but even the buildings and vegetation all became ashes in the sea of fire.

"Has Kage's ninjutsu reached this level...?"

A Fire Release technique that could destroy an entire village in one go was unheard of to Ino.

"Mama... everyone... and the village..."

On the other side, the blue-haired girl in her arms just stared blankly at the fire filling her eyes, watching everything be burned to ashes, and murmured softly.

Then, she couldn't hold her eyelids open any longer and passed out once again.

----

"She's so light it's scary. It's the first time I've seen such a skinny girl..."

Inside a cave somewhere in the mountains.

Ino, sitting by the warm campfire, muttered softly to Uchiha Kage beside her about the blue-haired girl who was still unconscious, while staring at the firelight with a slightly distracted expression.

It was a rare moment alone together, but there was no room for any ambiguity or deepening of their relationship.

Her mind was completely filled with scenes of burning, killing, looting, and corpses strewn across the land.

She was only thinking about complex issues of war or philosophy.

"It's probably due to food shortages caused by the war."

Uchiha Kage, while poking at the fire in front of him, was also thinking--

What exactly is the mission for this instance?

Why is there no mission completion prompt even after helping Konan?

And the reason why the mission prompt has been garbled since the beginning, which has been lingering in his mind.

What exactly went wrong?

"Will Konoha be like this in the future?"

"Maybe, but it shouldn't be this severe."

The foundations of the Five Great Nations were certainly not comparable to a small Land of Rain.

"That's terrible. No wonder Mama cried before..."

It turned out that war brought so many problems.

Death, hunger, displacement... people are worse off than dogs.

Ino had no real sense of war before, but now she was troubled by knowing too much.

"Will I also have a day when I die?"

Ino remembered her mother saying that if Konoha's foreign wars went poorly, she, as a genin, might have to go to the battlefield.

However, rather than dying in war, she hoped she could die in a more glorious mission.

Shinobi are shinobi, not soldiers.

Moreover, she didn't want to associate with the kind of robber-bandit army from before at all.

"No."

Uchiha Kage didn't answer "maybe" to this question.

This inexplicably affirmative answer made Ino, who was feeling sentimental, feel a lot more at ease.

"Does that mean Kage... will protect me?"

"Yeah."

Uchiha Kage felt like he was just stating a fact.

With his strength and abilities, it would be difficult for Ino to die even if she wanted to.

"Although my strength is weak, you don't have to specifically protect me... because I also want to protect you."

Rather than being a burden, Ino wanted to silently watch the boy she liked become a hero.

But...

How strange, there's clearly no such atmosphere.

But it feels like we've confessed to each other?

It was the first time Ino had heard Uchiha Kage say so definitively that he would protect her.

A wave of joy washed over her.

"Kage, we..."

Grabbing the boy's hand, Ino finally couldn't help but muster up the courage to go for it.

We've already expressed our feelings for each other, so now I just need to open my mouth and I can become his girlfriend, right?

Snap.

A dry branch was snapped.

Without anyone noticing, the blue-haired girl, who had suddenly woken up from the ground, began to twist her body strangely, then walked towards the outside of the cave.

"You..."

Uchiha Kage, of course, noticed Konan's abnormality.

And, at the same time, he also noticed more and more bizarre things.

Outside... there are strange things outside.

"Konan, where are you going?"

Seeing the blue-haired girl run out of the cave as soon as she woke up, Ino couldn't bother continuing her confession and quickly ran in front of her to stop her.

But what made her even stranger was that the blue-haired girl didn't look at her at all from beginning to end, only murmured something in a very soft voice, then continued to walk forward with a silly smile.

"Illusionary Technique? Or..."

Was she mentally deranged because of the trauma of the day?

Ino still wanted to hold the girl back, but the other party suddenly accelerated and ran out of her range, her figure quickly merging into the darkness outside.

In the moment when their bodies passed each other, Ino finally heard Konan's murmur.

'Mama is waiting for me'?

She really has mental problems...

"Kage, we..."

Just as Ino was about to go with Uchiha Kage to find Konan who had run out, Uchiha Kage also said something difficult to understand to her.

"There are many souls appearing outside."

"Souls?"

"You can understand them as the souls of dead people."

"Souls... are they real?"

Ino was confused.

I feel like Kage is also a bit strange...

Could this actually still be one of my dreams?

Ino followed behind Uchiha Kage somewhat confusedly and quickly ran out of the cave.

But outside, she only saw the dark mountains and forests, and the village that had been burned just as dark at the foot of the mountain.

Where are the souls?

"It seems this is the reason why the mission is garbled?"

Although Ino couldn't see anything, in Uchiha Kage's vision.

The village at the foot of the mountain and the nearby mountains and forests were full of the faint light of souls. They were like fireflies, weak but numerous.

And these spiritual bodies were now gathering in the center of the village below as if they had received some kind of command.

And Konan, who had woken up inexplicably and chased after them in a bizarre way, was also rushing towards that direction.

"She... wasn't just fainting, she was already dying?"

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Uchiha Kage, who possessed the Fragment of the God of Death and part of the God of Death's abilities, finally saw Konan's state at this moment.

Overwhelmed by shock and starvation, the girl was now being guided by this strange energy and was probably not long for this world.

"But, I didn't expect Him to appear in this kind of place, how strange."

However, compared to Konan, Uchiha Kage was more surprised by the tall phantom, appearing out of nowhere in the very center of the charred village, and slowly descending, ethereal but gradually revealing its form.

With purple skin, wearing a white coat, with long white hair on its head revealing two long, demon-like horns, and a strange dagger in its mouth...

The God of Death. The God of Death of this world actually appeared here voluntarily without anyone summoning it.

And it was attracting the surrounding souls to approach it.

It was like the opening of a grand Hyakki Yagyō, a night parade of one hundred demons.

"God of Death? If I can kill Him here, maybe I can get more Fragments of the God of Death?"

The Fragment of the God of Death obtained from the God of Death mask was not enough for Uchiha Kage to possess all of the God of Death's power.

The only ability he had, absorbing spiritual bodies, couldn't satisfy him.

If he could possess the God of Death's sealing ability without the cost of life and soul, that would be great.

"What appeared? I can't see anything?"

Ino was still at a loss.

"You just wait here for a while, I'll bring Konan back."

Placing a special Flying Thunder God Kunai in Ino's hand, Uchiha Kage disappeared into the night in the blink of an eye.

"Kage..."

There was no way. Still completely confused, Ino had no choice but to return to the cave with the special kunai in her hand.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Just as Uchiha Kage used the Flying Thunder God Technique to appear next to Konan, another white figure suddenly appeared in the scene of the God of Death and the Hyakki Yagyō.

"This is!?"

The White-Haired Old Man, also with two horns on his head, also wearing a white coat, but with six black comma patterns on his chest, was also slowly emerging near the God of Death.

And that black Tin Staff...

This scene quickly reminded Uchiha Kage of the scene he had seen in the first instance mission.

The Sage of Six Paths... This guy, no, how did this 'good son' also appear here?

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[T/N:

Chapter translated on Patreon - Access up to Ch 136

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-> Naruto Paradise: An Evil Uchiha's Rise

-> One Piece: I'm Destined to Be the Son-in-Law King!

-> Young Master, Please Become Hokage!

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