The ground shook violently as a summoning array flared to life. A group of Sunagakure ninja completed their jutsu, and an enormous three-headed giant serpent appeared out of thin air.
Its massive body towered higher than the village walls. With a casual sweep, it smashed straight through them.
The Konoha ninja stationed on the walls could barely scratch a monster of that size. Their attacks were meaningless. In just moments, they were slaughtered.
One shinobi tried to run back and call for help, only to be cut down by incoming Sand ninja, shuriken piercing his body before he could get a word out.
"An inside job and an outside assault."
Holding the diary, everyone immediately understood how the Konoha Crush Plan had been carried out.
From the outside, powerful summoned beasts tore through Konoha's defenses, creating openings for the main forces to pour in.
From within, the Third Hokage was taken hostage, stripping the village of unified command. In an instant, Konoha was left leaderless.
The attack came without warning, more than enough to throw the entire village into chaos.
All the preparations Konoha had made in advance, plans meant to deal with Orochimaru acting alone, turned out exactly as Kaede Kitahara had said.
They had guarded against nothing at all.
On screen, even after being seized, the Third Hokage remained calm.
"I never imagined Sunagakure would betray Konoha."
"That so-called leap was nothing more than a smokescreen to make you lower your guard." The Kazekage held a shuriken in one hand while restraining the Third Hokage with the other. "This boring exam is over. From this moment on, history will change."
"You intend to start a war?" the Third Hokage asked coldly.
"That's right." The Kazekage answered without hesitation.
"We should avoid using force." The Third Hokage still tried to reason with him. "Negotiation is possible. It is not too late, Kazekage-dono."
The Kazekage let out a cold laugh. "Age really does make people drunk on peace, doesn't it, Teacher Sarutobi."
"You bastard!"
The Third Hokage's pupils shrank.
The moment those words left the Kazekage's mouth, his identity was practically exposed.
Especially since Kaede had already written in the diary that Orochimaru would kill the Third Hokage. Everyone immediately realized the truth.
The Fourth Kazekage was an impostor.
He was Orochimaru.
"Damn it. If he's impersonating the Kazekage, then where is the real one?" Jiraiya latched onto the key point right away. "Is he controlling the battlefield from somewhere else?"
If the Kazekage here was fake, then the real Kazekage allied with Otogakure had to be elsewhere.
The most likely scenario was that he was hiding somewhere, overseeing the entire operation.
"Damn it. With the Fourth Kazekage's ability to control gold dust, if he's allowed to act freely inside Konoha, the damage would be catastrophic," Jiraiya said grimly.
What was the biggest difference between a Kage Level shinobi and an elite jonin?
If a Kage Level ninja unleashed themselves without restraint and no one stopped them, they could wipe out ordinary shinobi with ease.
Many Kage Level fighters possessed large-scale jutsu. Once unleashed, they were a death sentence for civilians with no means to fight back.
In Konoha, the only openly known Kage Level shinobi was Sarutobi Hiruzen himself.
Even if he could hold off Orochimaru, a Kazekage lurking in the shadows would be unstoppable.
A question surfaced in Jiraiya's mind.
In a situation like this, would Shimura Danzo step in?
If Danzo acted, at least there would be someone capable of matching the Kazekage.
Against a Kage Level opponent, only another Kage Level shinobi stood a chance. Anyone else could only try to delay things by piling up corpses.
Hatake Kakashi and Uchiha Itachi realized this at the same time.
If the Kazekage was not here, then he had to be fighting somewhere else in Konoha.
That was the real nightmare.
"Sunagakure actually joined forces with Otogakure?" Kakashi muttered, still trying to make sense of the betrayal. "Why?"
Something about this felt hidden, buried beneath the surface. He had to find the thread tying it all together.
Maybe there was still a way to prevent Konoha and Sunagakure from going to war.
From what the later footage showed, even though the Third Hokage died, Konoha did not fall during this Konoha Crush.
But a clash between two great villages, especially one that reached the heart of the village itself, meant losses beyond calculation.
"So this is the Konoha Crush," Uchiha Sasuke thought, clenching his fists as he imagined facing a real war-level battle in just half a year.
Before that day came, he had to reach at least tokubetsu jonin level to survive.
In a battle of this scale, genin and even chunin were nothing more than cannon fodder. Only jonin had the ability to influence the battlefield, even if just within a limited area.
With his current strength already at elite chunin level, another breakthrough within six months was absolutely possible.
If he could awaken the Sharingan to two tomoe, his power would rise sharply, enough to face most crises head-on.
As his thoughts raced, Orochimaru's lazy voice sounded from the diary.
"I originally planned to take Sasuke while Gaara stirred up chaos. Looks like things don't always go the way you want."
Only then did everyone realize that his true target had always been Uchiha Sasuke.
The key problem lay with Gaara. He had failed to cause the turmoil Orochimaru had expected.
"So that's it. Your real goal was Konoha and Sasuke," the Third Hokage said, glancing at Orochimaru.
"Is Konoha really that important?" Orochimaru replied casually. "Compared to that, if Gaara fully awakened, you would have seen something far more interesting. Never mind. Your stupidity turned Konoha into this mess. I win."
"Gaara… is he the One-Tail Jinchuriki?"
Watching from outside the scene, Uchiha Itachi finally understood everything.
He knew more than Jiraiya and Kakashi.
Gaara was Sunagakure's One-Tail Jinchuriki.
The existence of Jinchuriki was a closely guarded secret in every village. Unless it was wartime and they were deployed frequently, ordinary people had no way of knowing.
Many did not even know what Tailed Beasts were.
That ignorance was the result of deliberate information suppression by the higher-ups of every village.
Of course, that meant nothing to the Akatsuki. They possessed precise intelligence on every Tailed Beast, their locations, and the identities and traits of their Jinchuriki.
Itachi could easily deduce Orochimaru's plan, or rather, Sunagakure's plan.
They intended to force Gaara into complete tailed-beast transformation and let the One-Tail rampage freely inside Konoha. Only then would the village truly descend into uncontrollable chaos.
Itachi had lived through the Nine-Tails disaster twelve years ago.
He had been young, but he remembered it.
The violent chakra that filled the air was something he would never forget.
Before that day, he had never imagined that any being could possess chakra on such an absurd scale.
Even the chakra leaking into the air was enough for ordinary people to feel it. Along with it came endless hatred and malice, pouring straight into his senses.
Later, he heard that the Third Hokage had driven the Nine-Tails out of the village, preventing total destruction.
If the Nine-Tails had been fully released inside Konoha, even if it was ultimately defeated, the village would have been crippled beyond recovery.
Even so, sealing the Nine-Tails cost the Fourth Hokage everything.
He and his wife both died, leaving behind only a child born after his father's death.
Itachi did not know the exact details, but he could imagine how brutal it had been.
Thinking of this, Itachi sighed.
The Nine-Tails disaster did more than kill the Fourth Hokage.
It completely changed the fate of the Uchiha Clan.
After that night, the clan's standing within the village collapsed. Itachi had only seen it from afar, but the Sharingan visible in the Nine-Tails' eyes had been unmistakable.
It meant an Uchiha had been controlling the Demon Fox.
Too many people had seen it.
Even though no one knew which Uchiha was responsible, seeds of distrust were planted deep within the village, from the leadership down to ordinary civilians.
The Uchiha Clan, once living near the village center, was forced to relocate to the outskirts.
Under constant suppression, resentment within the clan grew more extreme, until it culminated in the coup.
In the end, Itachi had been forced to kill his own clansmen.
He had been made to choose, and to bring everything to an end with his own hands.
All of it traced back to the Nine-Tails disaster twelve years ago.
And the one pulling the strings behind that disaster was a man named Uchiha Madara.
The same man who later invited Itachi, a traitor to his village, to join the Akatsuki.
From the depths of his heart, Itachi hated Uchiha Madara.
If not for Madara's plan, Konoha and the Uchiha Clan would never have been driven into such a hopeless confrontation where only one side could survive.
And if the Fourth Hokage were still alive, things would never have gone this way.
Unlike the council led by the Third Hokage, who harbored prejudice against the Uchiha, Namikaze Minato had no such bias.
One of his students had even been an Uchiha.
Minato had been close to Itachi's parents. Their mothers had been close as well.
If the Nine-Tails disaster had never happened, Itachi would probably be a jonin in Konoha by now.
The clan would still be intact.
His parents would still be alive.
Sasuke would still be here.
Izumi would still be here.
That kind of world…
…would be really nice.