The smoke over Uzushio smelled like burning wood and wet blood.
Ashina Uzumaki stood on the citadel roof, leaning heavily on his wooden staff. His knees were shaking, and every breath felt like inhaling glass. Down below, the village was on fire. Banners from the Mist and the Cloud fluttered through the black smoke.
Ashina's chest burned. Dropping the massive barrier around the center of town had taken almost every bit of chakra he had left. His hair, once the bright red every Uzumaki was known for, hung dull and gray around his face. He was just too old for this.
He had survived the Warring States period. He'd fought alongside Hashirama Senju. But now, at the end of his life, he was trapped watching his people get slaughtered by armies that were simply terrified of what the Uzumaki could do.
A heavy vibration ran through the floorboards under his feet. The barrier was cracking. Blue lines spiderwebbed across the sky as Kumo and Kiri ninjas kept hammering away at it from the outside.
They weren't just trying to win a fight. They came to erase the whole clan. They wanted the sealing scrolls, the secret methods for locking away tailed beasts, and the bloodline itself.
They get nothing, Ashina thought, his heart pounding in his ribs. Not one scroll. Not one body for their labs.
Survival was off the table. Kiri ships blocked the coast, and Kumo had locked down the mountain passes. Nobody was escaping. But if the village was going down, Ashina was going to make sure the enemy died with them.
He turned and dragged his feet down the spiral staircase, heading into the dark temple beneath the village. The air down here was cold and smelled like wet ink. Hanging on the back wall was the plain porcelain mask he needed: the stylized face of the Shinigami.
His plan was reckless, but he didn't care.
Normally, the Reaper Death Seal was simple. You offered your soul to the Death God, and in return, it ripped out your target's soul and sealed both of you inside its stomach. One life for one life.
But Ashina knew sealing formulas better than anyone alive.
What if he didn't let the Death God just take a soul and leave? What if he forced a dimensional rift open, and used natural chakra to expand it?
Uzushio sat right on top of a massive natural chakra vein, it was the whole reason the ocean water off the coast swirled so violently. Ashina reached out and grabbed the cold porcelain. Instead of just offering his soul, he would tie his own remaining life force into the village's main seal, turning the entire perimeter into one giant circuit.
He wouldn't use the Shinigami's blade to cut an enemy. He'd use it to cut a tear in space right over the middle of the village.
Once that hole was open, he'd trigger the natural chakra reserve to blow. The tear would collapse, sucking the entire island, hopefully killing all of the enemy.
He knew what it meant for him. His soul wouldn't even make it to the Death God's stomach. It would be torn apart when space collapsed. No afterlife, no peace, no seeing his family again.
A hard smile broke across his face, his teeth stained red with blood.
"Let them see," he muttered, pulling the mask over his face, "what happens when you push us into a corner."