"AAAAAAH!"
The scream shattered the night.
Izumi had just gotten home and was happily telling her mother about the amusing parts of today's mission when the sound broke into their conversation.
A scream followed, then another. Then dozens more. Beneath the rising panic were other sounds. Metal rang against metal. Jutsu crackled through the air. Somewhere nearby, a building gave way with a loud crash.
The massacre had begun.
"Izumi, protect your mother!"
Homura's voice snapped her out of her frozen shock.
"Yes!" She forced herself to move. Her hands stopped shaking as training kicked in. She ran to the living room and grabbed her ninja pouch from where she'd left it. Kunai, shuriken, wire, explosive tags, all there. She pulled out a kunai and gripped it tight.
Her eyes burned as chakra flooded through her optical nerves. The world sharpened into clarity as her Sharingan activated.
"I'll go check what's happening," Homura said, watching Izumi position herself defensively in front of Hazuki. "You and your mother stay in this room. No matter what you hear outside, don't come out. Understand?"
"Be careful," Hazuki said. Her voice trembled slightly despite her attempt to stay calm. She reached out and squeezed Izumi's free hand.
"Don't worry. Just stay put."
Between one blink and the next, Homura disappeared from the room without a sound.
Izumi stared at the closed door. She held her mother's hand in one grip, while the other clenched a kunai. Her Sharingan rotated slowly as she pushed her senses outward, trying to grasp what was happening beyond the door.
The screams were drawing closer.
---
In the Hokage's office, Kenji stood facing Minato and Shisui. Both were already dressed for combat.
"They've made their move," Kenji said. "The masked man hit the Police Force headquarters. He's targeting the Uchiha on duty there. At the compound, Itachi is killing civilians. My puppet's engaged him. Root ninjas have sealed off both locations. They're trying to cut off escape routes."
His sensory technique reached out across the entire area.
"Itachi? That's impossible!" Shisui's eyes went wide. Disbelief was written across his face. "He wouldn't... He can't..."
Since faking his death and transferring to the Hokage's direct ANBU, he had heard that Itachi had been reassigned to Root as a squad captain under Danzō. They'd crossed paths a few times through their respective positions.
The idea that Itachi could do something like this made no sense to him. Itachi had always felt like a younger brother, someone who genuinely cared about the clan and its future. To imagine him turning around and slaughtering his own people was impossible to reconcile with the person he thought he knew.
"Hokage-sama, let me go stop him!" He clenched his fists, looking urgently at Minato.
"They're going through with it," Minato said quietly. His expression was dark. "Danzō and the masked man are trying to annihilate the entire Uchiha clan."
Even though he'd been monitoring Root and the masked man's activities for days, the sheer brutality of following through with genocide still hit hard.
He took a deep breath and steadied himself. This wasn't the time for shock or anger. He needed to be the Hokage right now.
"No, Shisui. You're going to the Police Force to stop the masked man. I need you to confirm his identity. At minimum, find out whether he's an Uchiha. Kenji's puppet is handling the compound, so that situation should be stable. I'll monitor Danzō personally to make sure he doesn't try to escape. This time, we're eliminating Root completely."
"But I..." Shisui started to protest, then caught himself. "Yes, Hokage-sama."
He wanted desperately to confront Itachi and understand why this was happening. But he understood the strategic priorities. The masked man was the bigger threat.
"Good. Move out immediately!" Minato turned toward the ANBU squad that had been on standby. Among them, Kakashi and Rin stood in formation wearing their gear. "Kakashi, Rin. Sorry to send you on an emergency mission right after your wedding."
"Protecting the village comes first," Rin said gently but firmly. Beside her, Kakashi nodded.
"Deploy!"
No more words were needed. Minato led the ANBU squad out at speed, heading toward the Root blockade points Kenji had identified. The moment they left the office, Kenji's voice suddenly echoed in both Minato and Shisui's minds.
Can you hear me?
Yes. Minato's mental voice responded immediately. The Mind Body Transmission Technique?
Correct. I'll maintain the connection continuously. Report any developments directly. If you need support, I'll arrive immediately. Kenji paused, then added with emphasis, Especially you, Shisui. The masked man's space-time ninjutsu is extremely troublesome. If you're outmatched, call for backup immediately. Don't try to handle it alone.
This was exactly why Kenji had stayed at the Hokage Building instead of deploying himself. He needed to be available to respond to unexpected situations across multiple battlefields.
Understood! Shisui's response was solemn. He'd learned about the masked man's abilities from both Kenji and Minato. He wasn't going to underestimate someone who could phase through attacks and control tailed beasts.
---
Back at the Uchiha compound, the streets ran red with blood.
Itachi moved through the district like death given form. He drew his blade from another fallen body, and fresh blood ran down the steel. Corpses were scattered around him. Some still twitched on the ground, while others had already gone cold. The metallic scent of blood lingered heavily in the air.
He'd stopped counting after the first dozen.
Nearby, a child clutched his mother's blood-soaked arm and wailed. The woman lay on the ground, bleeding from multiple wounds, barely conscious.
His expression didn't change. He reached for a kunai with his free hand, pulled it from his pouch, and channeled chakra into the blade until it hummed. His arm whipped forward in a throwing motion.
The kunai flew straight toward the child's head.
The mother saw it coming. With the last reserves of her strength, she lunged forward and threw herself over her son, using her body as a shield. She knew it wouldn't be enough. The chakra-enhanced blade would tear right through her and kill the child anyway.
But she tried. In her final moments, she tried.
Itachi watched with cold eyes. The kunai would pierce through her back, through her ribs and organs, and continue into the child's skull. Both would die.
CLANG!
Another kunai shot out of the darkness and struck Itachi's weapon, knocking it off course. The blade went spinning away and clattered against a wall.
Itachi's hand tightened on his blade. His Sharingan tracked the direction the kunai had come from, scanning the shadows for the source. Footsteps echoed across the bloody street. A figure emerged from the darkness, blood-red eyes glowing in the night.
"Homura..." he said quietly.
Itachi knew this man. He was Izumi's uncle, someone who spent most of his time with Izumi and her mother. He never served in the Police Force and never attended clan meetings. Itachi had always assumed he was an ordinary civilian, or at most a retired genin. The man carried no noticeable chakra signature and gave off no sense of combat readiness. There was nothing about him that suggested he was dangerous.
But the aura radiating from Homura now told a very different story. This wasn't a civilian. This was a highly skilled ninja who'd been hiding his true capabilities.
He adjusted his grip on the blade and pulled several shuriken from his pouch. His wrist flicked, sending the projectiles flying in curved trajectories that converged on Homura from multiple angles simultaneously.
Homura's three-tomoe Sharingan rotated slowly, tracking every weapon. His body swayed with minimal movement, letting most of the shuriken pass by without touching him. The few that came too close were deflected with kunai blocks.
Before Itachi could prepare his next attack, Homura moved. He crossed the distance in a blur that even the Sharingan struggled to track. A kunai flashed in his hand, striking fast and low, aimed straight for the chest.
Itachi's blade came up just in time.
CLANG!
The weapons collided with enough force to send sparks flying. For a brief instant, the flash of light illuminated Itachi's blood-splattered face.
Then they were moving.
They crashed together at close range. Steel rang as Itachi's blade met Homura's kunai, sparks flashing as the weapons scraped and slid. Their Sharingan spun, each strike answered almost before it landed, hands moving on instinct rather than thought.
Itachi drove forward, using the length of his blade to force space between them. Homura didn't give it to him. He stepped inside the swing, shoulder brushing past steel, his kunai flashing up toward Itachi's ribs.
Itachi twisted away, retreated two steps, and cut again. Homura was already there. Again and again, he slipped past the edge of the blade, crowding Itachi, forcing him back until he had no choice but to break away and reset his stance.
Neither of them found an opening. Every strike was met. And every feint was read. The moment one moved, the other was already responding.
Then Homura spoke, "Let's finish this quickly. I'm done playing around."
Itachi saw it happen in real-time through his Sharingan, but couldn't process it fast enough to react.
The three tomoe in Homura's eyes spun faster, blurring together until they merged into a complex pattern unlike anything he had seen before. It was the Mangekyō Sharingan, the legendary evolution of the Sharingan, and a power that most Uchiha never awakened.
Golden chakra erupted from Homura's body in a violent surge. It flared outward like an explosion, warping the air around him. Translucent skeletal structures began to form, locking into place piece by piece. A massive ribcage emerged first, followed by the hollow shape of a skull, then an arm stretching into existence.
It was the first stage of Susanoo, the ultimate technique of the Mangekyō Sharingan.
The golden skeletal arm swung out, moving faster than Itachi could dodge.
CRACK!
The sound of bones breaking was sickeningly clear. Itachi felt ribs snap as the fist slammed into his torso. The impact ripped him off his feet and hurled him backward through the air. He smashed through the wall of a nearby building, and the weakened structure collapsed around him. Dust and debris burst outward as his body vanished beneath the falling rubble.
Homura stood in the middle of the street. The crimson light of his Mangekyō Sharingan gradually dimmed, and the towering Susanoo dissolved into nothingness.
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