On the other side of the village, Sarutobi Hiruzen and Shimura Danzo had personally led their ANBU and Root elites at breakneck speed to the small house where Uzumaki Naruto lived.
What greeted them was the exact opposite of the life-or-death crisis "Kakashi" had described.
The street was silent. Undisturbed. Not a single trace of combat anywhere. A cold night breeze swept through the alley, and nothing stirred.
"What is this?" Danzo's brow knotted tight.
Before anyone could answer, several figures flickered into view before Hiruzen via Body Flicker.
The one at the front wore an ANBU vest, his presence controlled and steady. Sarutobi Shinnosuke, the current ANBU Commander and the Third Hokage's eldest son.
His standing assignment was the surveillance and protection of the jinchuriki, Uzumaki Naruto.
Seeing his son alive and unharmed, the knot in Hiruzen's chest loosened. But relief curdled almost instantly into something worse: confusion.
On the way here, the sight of "Kakashi" drenched in blood and barely standing had prepared him for the worst. He'd braced himself for the possibility that Shinnosuke was already dead.
Hiruzen crushed down the storm inside him and barked, "Where are the Uchiha?"
Shinnosuke and his entire squad went blank. Bewilderment was written across every face.
"Lord Hokage, what do you mean? The Uchiha should all be inside their compound. Why would any of them be here?"
Shinnosuke at least knew to use official titles while on duty.
But his answer froze Hiruzen's entire contingent in place.
"Where is Naruto?" The Third's voice dropped low, heavy with dread.
Shinnosuke blinked, more confused than before. "In his house. Sleeping."
"Impossible!" Danzo snarled, fury lacing every syllable. "Then where did Kakashi's wounds come from?!"
"Kakashi?" Shinnosuke and the ANBU around him exchanged baffled looks. "What does any of this have to do with Kakashi?"
The scene dissolved into bewildered chaos.
Then another figure cut through the darkness, arriving at speed.
Uchiha Itachi materialized in his ANBU gear. He took in the dense crowd of operatives, scanned for any sign of Madara, found none, and his expression hardened.
Every pair of eyes locked onto him.
Danzo spoke first, his tone dripping with authority. "Itachi. What are you doing here? Is the operation finished?"
Itachi spared him one cold glance, a thread of agitation buried beneath his composure. "Kakashi told me someone was targeting the Nine-Tails. What's the situation?"
Kakashi again.
Everyone's expression changed at once
The entire elaborate deception unraveled in that single moment.
"No. We've been played!"
Itachi's pupils contracted. It hit him like a physical blow.
The blood-soaked "Kakashi" at the compound gates had been a fake.
The air itself seemed to crack.
They split into two teams without hesitation. One raced toward the real Kakashi's residence to confirm his whereabouts. The other, led by Hiruzen himself, tore back toward the Uchiha compound at a dead sprint.
By the time they arrived, the compound had become a slaughterhouse.
The few Uchiha who had miraculously survived the slaughter were dragging themselves out of unconsciousness, waking to streets paved with the bodies of their kin.
Screams and wailing shredded the night air.
Hiruzen's face twisted. His order was immediate and merciless. "Finish them. All of them."
Itachi, meanwhile, had already bolted toward his family's estate like a man possessed.
When he found Sasuke collapsed outside the entrance, breathing faint but steady, the wire-tight tension in his chest eased by a fraction.
Then he stepped inside.
His body locked up. Every drop of blood in his veins turned to ice.
His father, Uchiha Fugaku, lay motionless in a lake of crimson. His eye sockets were empty. Both eyes had been gouged out, leaving nothing behind but two ragged, gaping holes crusted with drying blood.
"Who did this?!"
Rage obliterated reason. Itachi's voice tore from his throat in a raw, inhuman scream, his face contorted beyond recognition.
"Clan Head! Something terrible has happened!"
Panicked shouts from surviving clansmen echoed outside.
Itachi's gaze sharpened. Killing intent rolled off him in waves.
More survivors. Loose ends.
There was no turning back. There never had been.
He raised the blade again, its edge cold and final, and turned it on his own people.
No matter what, the Uchiha clan had to vanish from history tonight.
The only one allowed to live was his little brother.
Yep... all for the sake of peace in the shinobi world
At the Konoha Orphanage, the hour had grown late, but none of the players could sleep.
Makoto Nishikado still hadn't returned. Anxiety coiled tighter with every passing minute.
"That's it. I'm going to find him." Akizuki Airi shot to her feet, unable to bear the waiting any longer.
And then, after more than two years of silence, the Reincarnation Game's voice erupted inside their heads.
[Congratulations. All players have cleared the instance: Night of the Massacre. Initiating transfer to the real world. Countdown: 9... 8... 7...]
Airi, already halfway to her feet, froze mid-step. Beside her, Yukinoshita Yukino, Hikigaya Hachiman, and the others went rigid, shock wiping every other expression clean.
"What just happened?" Hachiman murmured, disbelief thick in his voice. "We didn't... do anything."
Ichinose Chizuru spoke quietly. "Could it be that Nishikado completed the mission by himself?"
Stunned silence rippled through the group.
She was right. Makoto was the only player unaccounted for. Everyone else had been sitting in the orphanage all night.
The only explanation was that he'd cleared the entire instance alone.
"Finally! We're going home!" Eriri was trembling, eyes brimming with tears.
As an otaku, she'd felt a flash of excitement when she'd first been dropped into a world of superpowers and bloodshed. That thrill had lasted about five minutes before drowning under an ocean of terror.
And back in the real world, her parents were waiting.
A thought struck her. "Wait... has Nishikado come back yet?" she whispered. "When we get home, I need to thank him properly."
Proud as she was, she understood debts. If Makoto had single-handedly brought them all home, she wouldn't forget it.
Yukino's expression was harder to read. In her mind, Makoto had always been reckless, impulsive. She'd never imagined he would throw himself alone into something this dangerous.
Maybe he's not what I thought. Cold on the outside, but...
Something in her assessment of him quietly shifted.
While the others murmured among themselves, the countdown reached its final stretch.
[5... 4... 3... 2...]
The moment it hit zero, the world lurched. The same violent vertigo they'd felt two years ago when they'd been ripped into the other world seized them again.
One blink, and the orphanage dormitory was gone. In its place stood the Shuchiin Academy gymnasium, exactly as they'd left it.
Around them, homeroom teachers were organizing students to file back to their classrooms.
Just as the Reincarnation Game had promised: years spent in the other world, and not a single second had passed here.
"We're back! We're really back!" Eriri's composure shattered. Tears streamed down her face, her eyes red and swollen.
Her classmates in Class 1-B stared at her, utterly lost.
"What's wrong with Eriri?" Ran Mouri, sporting her trademark unicorn hairstyle, tilted her head.
Beside her, Sonoko Suzuki and Shinichi Kudo looked equally clueless.
A few steps away, Yukino studied her own hands. Hands that had shrunk to a child's for two long years and were now a teenager's once more. "Was all of that... actually real?" she whispered.
For someone who'd always prided herself on rationalism, the experience defied every law she believed in.
On instinct, she formed a hand seal. When the familiar current of chakra stirred inside her, the last shred of doubt evaporated. All of it had been real.
"Makoto!"
Class 1-F.
The instant Airi saw him standing calmly beside her, she couldn't hold back. She threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest.
Every student in the vicinity did a collective double-take.
What? Sudden PDA? In the middle of the gym?
The boys nearby stared with undisguised envy.
"Heh... heheh..."
And then, still wrapped in Airi's embrace, Makoto began to laugh.
Low at first. Then louder. Wilder. Building like a man channeling every unhinged Uchiha who'd ever cackled at the sky.
"Ha... hahaha... AHAHAHAHAHA!"
His head snapped back, and the laugh exploded through the gymnasium, bouncing off every wall.
Let the real games begin! Start!