Once the strange sphere vanished into thin air, the last remaining elder of the Shimura clan was completely gone—nothing left, not even bones.
"Huff… huff… huff…"
A young member of the Shimura clan—who had miraculously survived despite losing an arm to the molten shrapnel—stood trembling, his terrified gaze fixed on the area consumed by the Reverse Four Symbols Sealing Technique.
That entire stretch of land had been carved away from reality—erased. Even the deadly, boiling magma that had coated it was gone without a trace.
"Elder Shō…" the youth choked out in a tearful whisper, "He sacrificed his life to kill that wicked Uchiha… Uchiha Keizumi… has finally been—"
And just as the words left his mouth, he froze—like a duck whose throat had been seized mid-quack. The sound stopped abruptly.
The sorrow in his eyes was rapidly replaced by dread and disbelief.
In his field of vision—
That hellish figure of Uchiha Keizumi was walking toward him, slowly, like a demon from the underworld. The intense heat from the surrounding lava warped the air around him, making his silhouette shimmer and distort.
Shō's desperate final attack… had done nothing!
Uchiha Keizumi hadn't been sealed at all!
How—how could this be?! Was this Uchiha demon invincible?!
The young shinobi clutched his shoulder, barely enduring the searing pain. Panic and horror stripped the strength from his legs, and he collapsed to the ground with a thud.
As Keizumi drew closer, the sheer heat from his presence caused the youth's body hair to curl and shrivel.
His skin felt as if it were being scalded with boiling water.
"Shimura Harushima. Three years ago, in order to test the destructive power of a self-developed C-rank jutsu, you killed three civilians within the Land of Fire."
Uchiha Keizumi's voice was cold and piercing, like a judge from the depths of hell reciting a sentence. His words sliced through the silence.
And in that instant, the young shinobi—Shimura Harushima—was overtaken by horror and despair.
Any lingering hope he had evaporated.
"Today, you took part in the assassination plot against Uchiha Keizumi."
"Crime level… Red Name."
Harushima's eyes widened in absolute panic. Before he could utter even a single word—
A tidal wave of crimson magma came crashing down on him from all sides.
The molten flood consumed him instantly—then surged forward, wiping out what few standing buildings remained in the Shimura compound.
In a single night, the entire Shimura clan compound was leveled—reduced to a sea of lava.
The light from the molten flood bathed the entire night sky in glowing red.
The Shimura clan…
Exterminated.
...
By the time Sarutobi Hiruzen, Uchiha Fugaku, and the others rushed to the scene, all that remained was the still-smoldering lava field. The acrid, sulfurous stench in the air stung every nerve.
Even Koharu, Homura, and the other officials who had been waiting at the Hokage Residence to pressure Hiruzen into confronting Uchiha Keizumi—were now gathered outside the ruins of the Shimura compound.
Even those with no direct connection to the events—like the Hyūga clan, the Nara clan, the Inuzuka clan—had arrived to witness the aftermath.
At this very moment, all the Konoha shinobi who had gathered here fell into silence—without a word, without agreement, they all simply stared in the same direction.
They were all quietly gazing at the space where the Shimura clan compound had once stood—now vanished.
The glow of molten lava illuminated each of their faces, reflecting a spectrum of expressions.
Hands in his pockets and a toothpick between his lips, Nara Shikaku was the first to break the deathly silence. He turned to Yamanaka Inoichi beside him and said, "Tonight really hammered home the meaning of Uchiha Keizumi's so-called [Absolute Justice]. Everything this man does leaves a lasting impression. But are you truly convinced… that he's never killed an innocent person?"
Yamanaka Inoichi responded slowly, "Keizumi would never kill someone without guilt. Every corpse I've examined—the ones he killed—belonged to criminals, through and through. The memories I've read from their minds… even recalling them now gives me chills."
"Besides…"
He paused for a moment, then asked in return, "Do you really think a shinobi clan like the Shimura could have anyone innocent left?"
Shikaku let out a quiet sigh. "Fair point…"
...
"Hiruzen, what the hell happened here…"
Suppressing the shock rising in her chest, Koharu forced a calm expression onto her aged face as she confronted Sarutobi Hiruzen. "From the way you're reacting, it looks like you knew this would happen beforehand—didn't you?!"
Hiruzen stood in silence, his eyes fixed on the corpse of a Shimura shinobi lying just ahead.
After a long, wordless pause, he finally spoke in a quiet voice: "They tried to assassinate Keizumi. Planted explosive tags all across the Uchiha district… they nearly killed dozens of innocent Uchiha civilians."
Koharu fell silent. And in that instant, she understood.
—The Shimura clan had dug their own grave.
And worse still—they had done so in a way no one could reasonably defend.
Still, she couldn't help but pick at the situation, trying to find fault, and spoke in a hard voice, "He could've just taken out the ringleader to make an example! To wipe out an entire clan like this… the fallout is too damaging. Hiruzen, what are the other clans supposed to think of this?"
Sarutobi Hiruzen said quietly, "Non-kekkei genkai clans may indeed feel sorrow for the fallen. But as for the kekkei genkai clans…"
He trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Koharu understood what he meant.
Danzo's long-standing activities—hunting and experimenting on those with kekkei genkai—had already been exposed to the public. As a result, the Shimura clan had long been distrusted and kept at arm's length by the clans that carried bloodline limits.
The Uchiha, Hyūga, and Gekko clans, for example—when they saw the annihilation of the Shimura clan…
They probably welcomed it, didn't they?
At the very least, none of them would raise any objection to what Uchiha Keizumi had done this time.
Koharu fell silent too. Still, the resentment in her heart toward Uchiha Keizumi hadn't dissipated. Because tonight, it hadn't just been the Shimura clan—two young shinobi from the Utatane clan had also been killed by Uchiha Keizumi… seemingly without cause!
Off to the side—
Homura spoke, his expression complex.
"Hiruzen… the people Keizumi killed before destroying the Shimura clan—including my cousin… did they do something that triggered his rampage?"
Hiruzen let out a long sigh.
"Kakashi, you know more about this than I do. Explain it to them."
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
Kakashi, his dead-fish eyes as listless as ever, spoke plainly: "The dozen or so people Uchiha Keizumi killed earlier this evening were all involved in large-scale smuggling and distribution of illegal drugs within Konoha. Their bodies have already been handed over to the Yamanaka clan. The evidence will be confirmed soon."
The moment Kakashi mentioned the Yamanaka clan, Koharu—who had been ready to argue—was struck silent.
Even though her instincts told her that her clansmen couldn't have done something like that…
What if they had?
What if the Yamanaka really did uncover something?
"…He should have arrested them for interrogation first," Koharu finally muttered bitterly. "Then let the Land of Fire's justice system decide their fate. Not rush to these extreme, inhuman executions of his."
"If we punish evildoers according to the laws of the Land of Fire, then the evils running rampant throughout the shinobi world will never be truly brought to justice."
A sudden voice interrupted the stubborn words of Koharu.
As she frowned and turned her head, she saw a girl from the Uchiha clan walking toward her with a clearly unfriendly expression.
Koharu's brow furrowed even deeper—she recognized her.
This was that little tag-along always seen at Uchiha Keizumi's side.
When Izumi stopped in front of Koharu, the high-ranking Konoha advisor had once seemed like a lofty, untouchable figure in her eyes. Even the Uchiha clan head would always show goodwill and deference when facing Koharu.
But after embracing [Absolute Justice] and gradually uncovering the true nature of Konoha's so-called upper echelon—
Izumi's illusions about Koharu had shattered in an instant.
To her now, the woman standing before her was just an ineffectual bureaucrat—one who did nothing but criticize Keizumi-senpai from the sidelines.
"Keizumi-senpai once said that gentle laws are nothing more than a shield for evil—they are a betrayal of the innocent victims. And the laws of the Land of Fire are exactly those kinds of gentle laws. They can't deliver the punishment perpetrators truly deserve!"
Izumi's young face was deadly serious as she said, "For example: smuggling and trafficking banned drugs. If judged by the Land of Fire's legal system… even if the amount exceeds a full tonne, the most they'd probably get is a little over ten years in prison, right?"
"And if they put on a good act behind bars, they might not even serve ten years—five or six could be enough for them to walk free."
"How many people have died because of those drugs? How many families have been destroyed? How many civilians have been corrupted and manipulated?"
"These so-called gentle laws are nurturing the very evil that festers in the shinobi world!"
Koharu's eyes widened slightly.
She found it hard to believe that a mere brat would openly challenge her—her—in front of everyone.
After all, Izumi was only twelve this year.
Even Fugaku, standing not far away, hadn't expected this to happen. Conflict between a member of the Uchiha and a senior Konoha advisor? If he didn't step in, the consequences could spiral quickly.
Fugaku immediately walked over and reprimanded her sternly: "Izumi, once the laws of the Land of Fire were properly established, it became the duty of every citizen to abide by them. They're not something to be questioned!"
"You and Keizumi are both far too fixated on this so-called [Absolute Justice]. The law exists to preserve order and peace within a nation—not to incite more bloodshed."
Fugaku's intervention eased the tense expression on Koharu's face.
It seemed that the only ones in the Uchiha clan acting out of turn were the youngsters.
Fugaku, the one in power, was clearly still level-headed.
But then—contrary to expectations—Izumi turned her sharp words on Fugaku himself: "If it weren't for Keizumi-senpai and I remaining steadfast in our belief in [Absolute Justice], Shimura Danzō would still be alive. And so would many other evildoers who committed unforgivable crimes. The countless victims of their actions would still be unable to rest peacefully beneath the earth."
"Clan Head Fugaku—you, who've done absolutely nothing for the innocent victims—are in no position to lecture us about [Absolute Justice]. Your priorities are not ours. We care about the countless innocents across the shinobi world who suffer under the weight of unchecked evil."
"And the only thing you care about is the Uchiha clan! No—correction—you don't even really care about the Uchiha. What you care about is your so-called 'balance'!"
"If you truly cared about the Uchiha, and you knew that Uchiha Itachi would one day trigger the tragedy of the Clan Massacre, then shouldn't you have done the right thing and sacrificed your kin for the greater good?"
"Instead, everything you did afterward was nothing but shielding Uchiha Itachi, wasn't it?! And you call that 'protecting the Uchiha'?"
Izumi's emotions surged with agitation and fury, all because she and her mentor had long found this group of people utterly intolerable.
Keizumi-senpai had done nothing wrong—he had sought justice for the innocent and worked tirelessly to purge the shinobi world of evil.
And yet there were always people who failed to understand him—fine, let them be blind…
But those same people insisted on spouting nonsense that made Izumi's blood boil.
The rebellious fire of the Uchiha girl's adolescence flared to life—
And she poured her heart out without reservation.
Even Fugaku was momentarily stunned.
The clan head of the Uchiha… getting rebuked by a twelve-year-old junior?!
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