The sharp blade of sudden stop
The extravagantly luxurious carriage, resembling a mobile prison, became an eerie, still focal point amidst the chaotic battlefield. Its costly silk curtains, embroidered with the intricate Uchiha family crest, swayed and billowed wildly from the turbulent shockwaves of the explosion and the surging airwaves of the ninjutsu, hissing under the weight. It seemed to come alive, like a frightened, fragile creature struggling in vain, thrashing against the ornate cage that bound it.
Senju Tobirama, like a silver-white Shura driven by murderous intent, stood before the swaying cage. His aura was icy, like a millennium-old ice, stripped of all warmth. His piercing crimson eyes held no trace of wavering, pity, or hesitation, only absolute rationality and the relentless command to accomplish the mission. His objective was crystal clear: eliminate or abduct the occupants of the vehicle, physically annihilate the core of this marriage, and fundamentally dismantle the potential alliance that posed a formidable threat to the Senju clan's future. In his wartime logic, this was the optimal solution, a necessary evil, a price to be paid for the survival of the greater clan. The cold light in his eyes was as solid as substance. In his hand, the ninja sword, still warm and bloody from having just cleaved several Uchiha guards, remained unwavering, as steady as his frozen will. The blade transformed into a swift cold light that was beyond the limits of visual perception, condensing his superb swordsmanship and determination to kill. Without hesitation and with incredible precision, he stabbed at the back of the violently shaking curtain - the vague figure that represented the mission target but was abstracted into a symbol at this moment!
This blade, swift enough to rip through the air, emitted a faint shriek! It was fierce enough to instantly sever all life! It was perfectly accurate, aiming straight for the heart! This was the ultimate strike of a top-tier ninja!
However, just before the tip of the knife, gleaming with cold chakra and razor-sharp, was about to touch, or even before its sharp edge had slightly penetrated the luxurious silk and was about to tear it apart—
Perhaps it was fate playing a cruel joke amidst the raging flames of war, or perhaps the occupants of the carriage had completely lost their balance due to the hellish horror outside (the sight of blood and flesh flying through the cracks), the deafening roar of the explosion, and the violent jolt and shake of the carriage itself after the impact, and the instinct for survival overwhelmed everything else.
A hand, wrapped in the voluminous sleeves of the cascading white wedding gown, a symbol of purity and sacrifice—a hand so white, slender, and fragile that it seemed to snap at the slightest break—suddenly stretched out from behind the curtain! It grasped frantically and desperately, clutching the heavy, swaying curtain tightly, instinctively seeking a point of support to steady its crumbling body!
This instinctive action, born out of extreme fear, generated an outward force that suddenly tore open the curtain that separated the inside and the outside, life and death, leaving a narrow gap that was enough to change everything!
Through that fateful gap that opened in an instant, Tobirama's scarlet eyes, like the most sophisticated tracking equipment, locked onto a target, inevitably, without any psychological preparation, captured the scene inside the car with incredible clarity—
The utterly gorgeous, intricately embroidered white wedding gown, yet it felt like a heavy yoke, its wide neckline and cascading sleeves accentuated the paleness of the face at its center, making it resemble a fragile jade figurine. Yet, its delicate features still revealed a fragile beauty tinged with fear. And what most directly and violently assaulted his senses and his frozen heart were those eyes, suddenly wide open by the sheer terror that had suddenly descended upon him. Those dark, supposedly clear eyes he had only glimpsed briefly in the moonlight were now filled with indescribable terror, helplessness, and the deepest despair that threatened to consume her!
Time seemed to be suddenly strangled by some supreme power at this moment! All sounds, all movements, all thoughts were infinitely stretched, twisted, and then fiercely smashed into an absolutely frozen silence!
Those eyes...!
That fleeting moment, framed by the cold moonlight...that fleeting glimpse behind the high wall, wary and distant yet concealing a subtle hint of curiosity...that fragment of memory he had long since buried deep within the frost of absolute rationality, thought long forgotten, even deliberately denied...
At that moment, it was as if he had been struck by a violent, unpredictable thunderbolt from the heavens! The entire layer of ice covering it instantly shattered and flew away! That clear, moonlit image, mixed with a shock he had never experienced before, so intense it nearly shook his soul. Like a raging wave, it completely shattered all the mental defenses he had carefully constructed to maintain the mask of a cold warrior, and his resolute killing intent!
Is it her?!
It's really her?!
Uchiha Madara's sister... the girl behind the wall whom he had visited and thought deeply about every time he went on a mission to the Fire Nation's capital for many years... actually... actually was the core of this political marriage - Uchiha Aoi?!
This immense truth, long-documented in the intelligence but only now being perceived by his flesh and blood, was like the most violent and destructive tsunami, instantly sweeping over his brain, which had been whirring like a precision instrument, calculating the trajectory of the slaughter! The impact was so intense that his mind blanked out, completely shutting down for an unprecedented moment! The ninja sword, condensed with immense power and imbued with unwavering determination, abruptly stopped in its tracks amidst the terrifying storm of extreme emotion and absolute rationality, defying his decades of painstaking training, his fighting instincts, his muscle memory, and all his cold calculations.
The incredibly sharp blade tip, strangely and in a manner that defied the laws of physics, hovered in absolute stillness in the air, less than an inch from the pale, paper-white face that could even feel the chill of the blade's energy! He could even clearly see the dark red blood of the other Uchiha guards, not yet fully solidified, staining the bright blade, slowly sliding down the blood trough. He could also see the faint blue chakra light that had gathered on the blade tip, slightly disturbed, trembling, and dissipating due to this sudden and unnatural pause!
Inside the car, at the moment when Uchiha Aoi's hand subconsciously grabbed the curtain and tore open the fatal gap, her eyes also passed through the gap and unexpectedly met the appearance of the attacker outside the car - the short silver hair that was still conspicuous in the dim sky, like the cold moonlight, the young face full of coldness and murderous aura, and the pair... the pair of iconic scarlet eyes, which were now filled with complex and violent turbulence!
Was it him?! The ninja who had made her feel vague emotions and secret love?!
The overwhelming fear, born of the naked carnage and the direct threat of death, combined with an indescribable, utterly absurd feeling, as if the entire world were playing a trick on her, gripped her heart simultaneously! Her breath abruptly stopped, her mind went blank, and all her ability to think was instantly drained away. She could only freeze in place, staring blankly at the sharp blade tip so close, emitting the cold aura of death and the smell of blood, yet inexplicably frozen. She watched the deepest part of those red eyes churning, shattering, and reforming like a raging sea of waves, like the earth cracking and the sky collapsing!
Their eyes met.
At this moment, the long river of time seemed to have opened up a separate tributary for the two of them, completely stopping and solidifying.
The deafening roar of detonating tags, the explosions caused by the violent collision of ninjutsu, the shrieking sound of kunai and shuriken breaking through the air, the sharp sound of metal blades clashing fiercely, the angry roars, the painful groans and the screams of the dying... all these noisy noises that constitute the background music of the bloody battlefield seemed to be suddenly pushed away, stretched, blurred, and faded by an invisible big hand, and finally turned into an insignificant, dull and vague background noise from the distant other side.
In the absolute core of this battlefield where bloody chaos and killing were taking place every minute, in front of this violently shaking gorgeous carriage, a strange and absolute, stripped-away vacuum-like silence zone seemed to suddenly form.
Tobirama's arm, held in a forward thrusting position, frozen in mid-air. He could clearly see his own image reflected in the depths of Aoi's clear, pierced eyes, dilated with utter terror—a blood-stained figure, a cold, taut face, and a pair of pupils, unfamiliar to him, filled with shock and a certain... unexpected, almost panicked tremor. The unfathomable horror, despair, and the pain of a betrayal at the hands of a tenuous trust quietly built and then instantly shattered, pierced his heart like a dagger, red-hot in the fires of the abyss and laced with the most potent venom. With a force that no defensive skill or rational armor could withstand, it pierced the very depths of his heart, a heart he had always believed frozen solid, a heart that held only the interests of his family!
It brought a sharp, unfamiliar, yet extremely real, intense pain that almost made him tremble!
His actions...
His fatal blow, which condensed all his will...
Under the gaze of these desperate eyes...
Thoroughly,
Stopped suddenly.
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