"I understand."
Mio nodded lightly, her voice carrying a trace of hoarseness she could not hide. "Since it is Clan Leader Katsu's final wish, I will naturally abide by it."
Mio turned around and looked at the five Senju elites behind her, who all had worried expressions on their faces. She said in a deep voice, "You wait outside the clan grounds for now. I'll go in alone."
Although the five elites felt uneasy, they did not dare to disobey the orders of the strongest combat force of the Senju clan. They could only bow and accept.
Before long, Uchiha clan members stepped forward and politely led the five Senju elites to a side hall to take their seats. In front of the clan gate, only Senju Mio remained.
Under the guidance of the Uchiha guards, Senju Mio stepped alone onto the deep corridor.
The corridor was silent. Only the faint smell of incense lingered in the air. White mourning cloth hung on both sides, and every step carried a heavy sense of oppression.
Passing through the corridor, she walked straight into the mourning hall.
At the center, a coffin that had not yet been sealed was quietly placed there. Inside the coffin, Uchiha Katsu lay with his eyes gently closed, his face calm, as if he had only fallen into a long sleep.
At that moment, Senju Mio felt her chest suddenly tighten. A suffocating wave of grief swept through her entire body, and her eyes instantly turned red.
'Katsu… is really dead like this?'
The man who had once stood evenly matched with her, the one they both worried about during the chaos of the ninja world.
The man who seized power through a coup with his own strength and led the Uchiha out of the abyss. Was he now lying here forever just like this?
Fragments of the past surged through her mind. Their encounters in their youth, their confrontations during the war, the feelings she could never hide in her heart, the obsession that kept them both unmarried for their entire lives.
All of it turned into a surging sorrow that completely drowned her.
She was entirely immersed in overwhelming pain.
She did not notice at all that the Uchiha clan members hidden around the mourning hall had pairs of eyes as cold as ice.
There was not the slightest grief for the clan leader's death in them. Only lurking stillness and chilling intent remained.
And inside the coffin, Uchiha Katsu, who should have been dead, had the fingertips hanging by his side tremble ever so slightly.
At the very moment when Senju Mio's mind was shattered and she was unable to pull herself out of her grief, Uchiha Katsu inside the coffin suddenly opened his eyes.
The scarlet three-tomoe Sharingan lit up instantly. The eerie red glow tore through the solemn silence of the mourning hall. In the next second, the Uchiha clan members lying in ambush around the hall sprang into action.
Several steel wires gleaming with cold light shot out from beams, pillars, screens, and hidden corners. Like bloodthirsty venomous snakes, they instantly wrapped around Senju Mio's limbs and torso!
"What?!"
Senju Mio was completely caught off guard. The grief filling her heart had not yet faded, and she had no time to make any defense.
The cold steel wires tightly bound her arms and legs, digging viciously into her flesh.
"Ah!"
She cried out in shock and suddenly raised her head, staring in disbelief at Uchiha Katsu who had leapt out of the coffin.
His posture was tall and straight like a pine tree, still fierce and imposing. The murderous aura of a veteran of countless battlefields surged around him. There was not the slightest sign of someone on the verge of death.
Where was the benevolent clan leader who had been assassinated?
He was clearly the hunter who had laid out this earth-shaking deception.
Uchiha Katsu landed steadily on the ground. The corner of his lips curled into a triumphant and cold mocking smile as he spoke lightly, "Mio, you're still too naive."
"Katsu?!"
Senju Mio's heart shook violently. The humiliation of being deceived and a towering rage instantly overwhelmed her reason.
"You're not dead?!"
She suddenly activated the immense chakra inherited from the Senju clan. Her monstrous strength exploded as she tried to break the steel wires binding her.
But at that moment, Uchiha Katsu's scarlet Sharingan spun rapidly.
"Genjutsu: Shackling Technique!"
It activated instantly.
Invisible chakra shackles slammed down, forming a double restraint with the steel wires and pinning Senju Mio firmly to the ground, leaving her unable to move even an inch.
"Uchiha Katsu!!"
Senju Mio's eyes nearly split with rage. She finally realized that from beginning to end, this had all been a carefully planned trap.
The fake death, the funeral, the invitation in the name of a final wish… all of it was a disguise.
His image as a benevolent ruler who helped civilians and befriended ninja clans, the changes that had earned her admiration, all of it had been a pretense to deceive her.
The heart-rending grief she had just felt, her lifelong decision to remain unmarried because of him, the unresolved feelings she had hidden for half her life, had all become nothing more than a joke in this grand deception.
Her sincerity had been trampled without mercy.
Seeing that the situation was already settled, Uchiha Katsu raised his eyes indifferently and coldly ordered the Uchiha clan members in the mourning hall, "All of you withdraw. Go deal with the five Senju elites outside."
"Yes!"
The Uchiha ninjas bowed and accepted the order. In the blink of an eye they left the mourning hall.
In the vast space that remained, only the completely restrained Senju Mio and the slowly approaching Uchiha Katsu were left.
Uchiha Katsu slowly bent down. His long, well-defined fingers gently touched Senju Mio's face, which still carried traces of tears.
Katsu's slightly cool fingertips brushed against her burning skin, and his voice carried an unexpectedly complicated tenderness. "Mio, do you regret not running away with me back then?"
"Get lost!"
Senju Mio fiercely turned her head to avoid him. Overwhelming hatred surged in her eyes as she angrily demanded, "You lied to me! You were never dead! You brought me here to kill me?!"
Uchiha Katsu let out a low laugh. His gaze suddenly became deep and fanatical. "Of course I wouldn't kill you so easily."
"I discovered a secret buried by the Uchiha clan for a thousand years. A secret that can awaken supreme power. That is also why I went through so much effort to lure you here alone."
Senju Mio clenched her teeth tightly and said nothing. Only the hatred filling her crimson eyes remained as she stared fixedly at him.
"Did you know that above the Sharingan, there exists an even more powerful eye?"
Uchiha Katsu's voice carried excitement he could barely suppress. "I call it the Mangekyo Sharingan."
"Back then Uchiha Izumi once awakened this eye. But the method of awakening it had long been lost in historical records."
"After reading countless ancient texts, I finally confirmed it, the only way to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan is to personally kill someone you are closest to!"
Senju Mio's pupils suddenly shrank. Her mouth parted slightly, her heart filled with shock.
She had never imagined that the method to awaken the legendary supreme ocular power of the Uchiha clan would be so bloody and brutal.
"But what does that have to do with you capturing me?!" she demanded angrily.
Uchiha Katsu's expression instantly became extreme and crazed. A twisted smile spread across his lips as he stared at her.
"Because you are the only person closest to me."
"You know it yourself. I've been an orphan since I was young. In this world, the person I care about most, the most important person to me, has always been you!"
Before his words even finished, he suddenly raised his hand and tightly grabbed Senju Mio's neck.
"As long as I kill you... I can awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan!!"
At the moment he seized Mio's throat, two lines of tears rolled uncontrollably down from the scarlet Sharingan in Uchiha Katsu's eyes.
Fanatical obsession and deep, piercing emotion intertwined wildly within his gaze.
Senju Mio felt suffocating pain crushing her throat. Shock and fury surged within her, while an indescribably complicated emotion rose from the depths of her heart.
The humiliation of being deceived.
The despair of having her life taken by the one she loved most.
And the feelings she had buried for half her life, now ruthlessly trampled.
All of it wrapped around her completely.
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
[email protected]/XenosX
🥳Joining P@treon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰