After swinging his sword a few more times, Uchiha Mu stopped.
The enemy had completely lost the will to fight, and the covert teams sent by the great villages had already withdrawn.
That meant the next task was simple.
Subjugate whoever was still alive and useful.
Mu dismissed Susanoo and swept the surroundings with his Sharingan.
It didn’t take long for him to catch up with Kakuzu’s group, who had been trying to escape.
He wanted the strongest people first.
If some weaklings managed to run away, so be it.
Kakuzu and the others swallowed hard as Mu approached.
One man’s legs were visibly trembling.
The pressure rolling off Mu was enough to crush any desire to resist.
At this moment, most of them wanted only one thing.
To live.
Kakuzu clenched his fists and hardened his body with Earth Release, preparing to fight to the end.
Someone else spoke before he could move.
“Lord Uchiha Mu!
It was him!
He incited us!
We were deceived by him!”
One ninja immediately pointed at Kakuzu.
They only wanted to survive.
Abandoning Kakuzu was something these people had already considered long ago.
They had simply never found a convenient excuse.
“Yes!
It was all his idea!
Otherwise, we never would have lost our minds and come here!
Lord Uchiha Mu, we only ask that you spare our lives today.
We’ll do anything you want!”
Another man hurried to join in.
Their hostility toward Kakuzu had a very simple cause.
He was stronger than them.
Someone that strong threatened the existing leadership of Takigakure and therefore threatened their positions.
That was unacceptable.
Kakuzu stared at the people he had worked so hard to protect.
At first, he looked confused.
Then the anger came.
He had been abandoned?
Betrayed?
He couldn’t understand it.
He had fought desperately to protect these people and had thrown himself into the mission for the sake of the village.
Then he turned around and discovered that every teammate he thought he could rely on had stabbed him in the back.
Something inside Kakuzu broke.
If Mu weren’t standing here, he would already have slaughtered every one of them.
The accusations continued.
The blame-shifting got so shameless that even Mu struggled to watch.
People in the original story liked joking about Kakuzu surviving a battle with the First Hokage.
But the man’s actual experience after that mission was ugly enough to leave anyone speechless.
Betrayal.
The collapse of everything he believed in.
When someone’s convictions shattered like this, there were usually only two paths left.
Rise up and kill.
Or collapse completely and destroy yourself.
Kakuzu was standing at that crossroads now.
He no longer knew what he believed in.
“This is ugly,” Mu said.
“Was attacking me your decision?”
He looked directly at Kakuzu, the future money-obsessed ninja.
“No.”
Kakuzu shook his head.
He hadn’t made the decision, so he refused to take responsibility for it—especially in front of people trying to shove all the blame onto him.
“What nonsense!
You still dare deny it?
If it weren’t for you, none of us would have come here!”
The former Takigakure leader began cursing wildly, face twisted with desperation.
Kakuzu slowly turned to stare at his superior.
What was this man even saying?
Was he still human?
In the man’s eyes, Kakuzu saw only one thing.
Absolute terror of Uchiha Mu.
“Kakuzu, I think highly of you,” Mu said, ignoring the people chattering around them.
“How about joining the Nation of a Hundred Clans?”
“What?
Why?”
Now Kakuzu was the one left stunned.
A moment ago, he had been lost.
But looking at Uchiha Mu, he suddenly understood one thing.
The future did not have to resemble the past.
“You’re confused right now.
Think it over.
When you’ve made up your mind, come find me here.”
Mu waved casually.
“It’s more appropriate to call this place the Nation of a Hundred Clans now.”
He walked away without killing them.
Knowing Kakuzu’s personality, Mu was confident the man would eventually make the correct choice.
The moment Mu disappeared, everyone exhaled in relief.
Then their expressions toward Kakuzu became vicious again.
“I knew it!
You betrayed us a long time ago!
You’re the one who leaked our intelligence!” the village leader shouted.
“Let’s kill him together!”
The others immediately prepared to attack.
Kakuzu’s gaze turned cold.
These people were unforgivable.
He still had chakra.
His fists hardened.
In an era when many ninjutsu required long strings of hand seals, taijutsu was mandatory training for every ninja.
And Kakuzu’s taijutsu was far better than theirs.
Elsewhere, Mu moved quickly through the battlefield and subjugated the surviving ninja, prioritizing the stronger ones.
None of them dared play tricks after seeing what he was capable of.
Once the next generation grew up under the new system, their loyalty would naturally shift toward the country itself.
Mu then brought the newly subdued ninja toward the other side of his territory and waited for the Frost forces.
If he subdued them as well, the two former small countries would finally be completely under his control.
Merged together, their territory would no longer be insignificant.
Ryono looked over the captured ninja who had been gathered before her.
“From today onward, you are ninja of the Nation of a Hundred Clans.
In addition to mission pay, the country will provide you with a base salary sufficient to live on.”
Several people exchanged surprised looks.
“There is one condition,” Ryono continued.
“Receiving that salary means participating in national construction.”
“But we don’t know anything about construction,” one ninja said awkwardly.
“We’re ninja.
We know how to kill people and complete missions.
How are we supposed to build things?”
As for resisting Uchiha Mu?
Forget it.
They had already been beaten into submission.
As long as Mu remained alive, none of them intended to rebel.
“Don’t worry.
The work is simple.
And anyone who knows Earth Release gets paid more.”
Ryono smiled.
She had become very practiced at explaining this.
“I know Earth Release.”
“Me too!”
Hands immediately began going up.
They were joining the Nation of a Hundred Clans anyway.
They might as well make their future lives more comfortable.
Perhaps under Mu’s leadership, they could finally settle down.
After all, who was born wanting to live through endless war?
Now that a monster like Uchiha Mu stood above them, they could finally see hope.
At least while Mu was alive, this country would probably remain peaceful.
Meanwhile, the commander of the former Frost force received the latest intelligence and went pale.
He had never imagined that the huge army gathered on the other side would be crushed by Uchiha Mu alone.
“Big Brother…
let’s run,” the man beside him said immediately.
“We’ll go to another country.”
That sounded extremely reasonable.
Neither man believed they were stronger than the force Mu had just defeated.
Especially because the great nations had secretly supported that army with assassination squads of their own.
Nearly a thousand people had gathered.
Mu still wiped them out.
And that gigantic cyan warrior…
What kind of ninjutsu was that?
Everything they were hearing had gone beyond their understanding.
“Agreed.
We’ll run.
Anyone who wants to follow can come with us.
Anyone who doesn’t can go throw their life away.
We’re heading for the Land of Grass.”
The commander immediately spread the order.
Within moments, people began turning away.
Nobody wanted to die for nothing, especially when attacking Mu offered very little actual benefit.
The group that chose to follow him headed toward the Land of Fire, taking a route through the Land of Grass and putting as much distance as possible between themselves and Mu’s developing territory.
Mu waited for a while.
Once he confirmed the remaining Frost ninja weren’t coming, he prepared to return to the village.
He still had far too much to do.
Construction was one problem.
Diplomacy would soon become another.
With threats like Black Zetsu and the Ōtsutsuki waiting in the future, Mu intended to develop the country as quickly as possible and collect as many system rewards as he could.
His goal was to raise the third person beneath Hashirama and Madara into the number-one position in the entire ninja world.
Nation-building here was much faster than in an ordinary world.
Ninja efficiency was ridiculous.
In a single day, he could clear a forest and raise a city.
Mu was genuinely looking forward to what came next.