"Damn it, this Uchiha brat is way too strong!"
The Hidden Cloud shinobi discovered the truth almost immediately. This Uchiha boy, who had graduated from the academy less than two years ago, was stronger than any of them had expected. In fact, he was stronger than any of them could reasonably handle.
None of the truly famous heavy hitters of the delegation had come along on the abduction team. The man facing Gen now was, at best, a fairly capable chunin. Against an opponent backed by the card of young Madara, that was nowhere near enough. From the moment Kushina had been snatched back by Namikaze Minato, the battle had already turned hopeless for him.
His two comrades were dead. His target was gone. There was no way to win.
So he made the only decision left to him.
Run.
He kicked off the trunk and tried to break away in a burst of speed, abandoning any thought of turning the tide.
"Under the gaze of the Sharingan, you think you can still escape?"
Instead of chasing him immediately, Uchiha Gen stood where he was and let out a faint, almost mocking laugh. His tone was calm, even a little cold. Because he already knew something the Cloud shinobi did not.
The reinforcements he had been waiting for had arrived.
***
In the darkness of the forest, pairs of scarlet eyes opened one after another.
They spread through the trees like a moving wall, like a pack of wolves silently tightening a hunting circle around prey. Under the moonlight, those red irises and black tomoe seemed to float in the shadows, cold and merciless, turning the whole forest into a cage made of blood-colored stares.
"The shinobi of Kumogakure have some nerve," a deep voice said. "Using the pretext of peace talks to kidnap someone from Konoha? Are they looking down on the Uchiha clan?"
A broad-shouldered man in his forties stepped out first. His three-tomoe Sharingan turned slowly in his eyes, and the pressure radiating from him was so heavy it seemed to weigh on the air itself.
Uchiha Gen recognized him at once.
Uchiha Yuu, Second Elder of the clan. A man second only to the clan head and the First Elder in status. A veteran elite jonin still in his prime, and one of the most powerful jonin in the entire village.
Behind him, one Uchiha after another emerged from the trees. Some had one tomoe, some had two, some had all three. Their killing intent layered together until it felt like the forest itself had drawn a blade.
The Hidden Cloud shinobi's fingers trembled on the hilt of his sword. He swallowed hard and forced his arm up again, but the motion had already lost its conviction. Faced with so many Sharingan at once, even breathing became difficult.
"Take him alive," Uchiha Yuu said flatly.
That was all.
In the next instant, a wave of Sharingan genjutsu crashed down on the Cloud shinobi from every direction. Eye power overlapped eye power, hypnosis layered atop hypnosis, and the poor man became the first shinobi since the founding of the Five Great Villages to enjoy the special honor of being targeted by so many Uchiha illusions at once.
His body went rigid on the spot.
Not far away, the atmosphere between Minato and Kushina—an atmosphere that should have felt tense yet faintly tender—was completely drowned out by the overwhelming ferocity of the Uchiha encirclement.
***
"Yuan, are you hurt?"
A tall, lean Uchiha shut off his Sharingan, walked over, and clapped Gen lightly on the shoulder.
Gen turned his head and immediately recognized him. It was Uchiha Nobuyuki, Inahisa's father—vice captain of one of the Police Force divisions, a Konoha jonin, and someone who had always carried himself with a stern kind of pride.
"Uncle Nobuyuki, don't worry," Gen replied smoothly. "With these eyes, someone at his level can't hurt me."
He knew exactly what kind of answer his clansmen liked to hear.
For the Uchiha, confidence in the Sharingan was not just confidence in a bloodline. It was clan identity, clan dignity, clan instinct. To speak like this was to close the distance between himself and them, to make himself sound like one of their own in the most natural way possible.
Sure enough, Nobuyuki nodded at once, clearly agreeing with every word.
And yet, beneath that approval, he could not help feeling a trace of disappointment.
With his three-tomoe Sharingan, he had seen the battle from far away clearly enough. Years ago, when they were still in the academy, his son Inahisa had been able to keep pace with Gen. Now the gap between them had widened so much it was painful to look at.
A genius like this—given enough resources, a good teacher, and enough time—would soar like a dragon entering the sea. Nobuyuki understood that much perfectly well.
Still, the disappointment was only momentary.
This was not the kind that curdled into resentment. Inahisa and Gen were classmates. They already had a connection. If that bond could be maintained, then in the future, when Gen's talent truly bloomed into influence, that relationship alone might become something precious to rely on.
"That's right, Yuan," another voice said. "If you hadn't noticed this in time, then allowing the enemy to pull off something like this inside Konoha would have stained the Police Force as well. This time, thanks to your vigilance, the clan's reputation wasn't dragged through the mud."
The speaker was young, but his tone was already so steady that it felt older than his years.
Fugaku Uchiha walked toward them with his back straight and his expression carefully restrained. He had only just turned twenty this year, yet the lines around his nose already made him seem more mature than his age. As the son of the current clan head, he had long since begun helping manage Police Force matters and quietly gathering influence of his own.
"Brother Fugaku," Gen greeted, giving him a slight nod.
Although he was polite on the surface, his inner thoughts were a different story entirely.
The First Elder really did have accurate judgment, he thought. Fugaku will indeed become a key figure in deciding the rise and fall of the clan. Unfortunately, in the original timeline, that decision led straight toward ruin.
Of course, Fugaku knew none of that. He only saw a promising young talent before him, one worthy of being drawn closer.
"Recently, the Grand Elder has mentioned you often to my father and to me," Fugaku said, his tone calm and measured. "It seems his judgment remains as sharp as ever."
"The Elder has spoken of you to me as well," Gen replied without missing a beat. "He said you would be an important figure in deciding whether the clan rises or falls in the years to come."
It was flattery, but flattery chosen with care.
Fugaku clearly appreciated it. The restrained smile on his face deepened just a little.
"When you have time, come by the clan head's residence," he said. "Father will not mind if the clan's younger talents see more of one another. The two of us should also interact more often. If you ever need help, feel free to come to me."
Gen understood perfectly what this was. Fugaku was extending a hand—not simply out of kindness, but as part of the network-building expected of someone being groomed for power. A genius like Gen was exactly the kind of person worth binding early.
Unfortunately, Gen had no intention of tying himself that tightly to Fugaku's side.
Fugaku could lead the clan? Gen thought inwardly. No. He really, really couldn't.
Still, turning him down openly would be foolish. So Gen answered with the same politeness he had shown all along, neither too close nor too distant, leaving the door open without truly stepping through it.
***
After exchanging a few more words with Fugaku and greeting several other clan members, Gen eventually withdrew and walked toward the other side of the clearing.
There, Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki were piecing the whole situation together one sentence at a time. Kushina was still pale, though the fierceness in her eyes had already returned. Minato, meanwhile, was calm and attentive, speaking softly, guiding her through the parts she had not fully seen while also reporting what he himself had observed.
Listening nearby, Uchiha Yuu's face turned increasingly grim.
He understood the problem immediately.
The area around the Senju ancestral home had always been treated as Senju territory by the Uchiha. Patrols did not approach too closely out of long habit, and there had never seemed any reason to. After all, ANBU were always present to protect Mito Uzumaki. Under normal circumstances, nothing should ever have happened there.
But normal circumstances meant nothing if the enemy deliberately targeted precisely that blind spot.
And tonight, they had.
The realization left a sour taste in everyone's mouth. If Gen had not noticed the anomaly and acted so quickly, the consequences would have been ugly in a way no one wanted to imagine. Konoha would have been humiliated. The Uchiha would have been blamed for failing to react. The Senju faction would have been enraged. And Kushina—
Gen cut the thought off before it could go any further.
Moonlight spilled through the trees, cold and silver, touching the blood on the leaves and the bodies on the ground. Around him stood members of the strongest clan in the ninja world, eyes red as flame. Not far away stood the boy who would one day become the Yellow Flash, beside the girl who would one day become the vessel of Konoha's fiercest power.
Everything was still moving, still shifting, still balanced on the thinnest edge.
Tonight, at least, they had pulled Kushina back from disaster.
But Gen knew better than anyone that this was only the beginning. The Hidden Cloud had already shown its hand, and the ripples from this night would not end here.