The forest was silent, but Uchiha Shigure could feel the tension hanging in the air like a coiled thread of chakra waiting to snap. Every trunk, every branch, every leaf seemed alive with invisible traps he had laid in advance: taut chakra strings tied to shuriken, kunai laced with detonating tags, even specially marked kunai engraved with the Flying Thunder God seal. The web was intricate, merciless.
Hidden low in a thicket, Shigure narrowed his eyes, the faint shimmer of his dōjutsu allowing him to track subtle movements through the trees. Six members of the Uchiha clan were moving in concert, their formation tight, their eyes sharp as hawks trained in the art of the hunt.
Here they come.
His vision caught their approach clearly; the six clan members spread out to comb the forest floor. Their heavy sandals broke faint patterns into the soil—footprints that led exactly where Shigure wanted them.
"There are traces here!" one of them said sharply, crouching to study the ground.
Another scoffed, confidence rising now that they believed they were closing in. "This Uchiha Shigure is quick, but look—he's circling closer. He can't escape us. Not this time."
Their faces twisted with a mixture of rage and arrogance.
"He murdered Uchiha Mamoru, Uchiha Fēng, and Uchiha Kaku!" one spat. "The Hokage might turn a blind eye, but the clan cannot! We'll kill him here!"
The others muttered the same vow, their blood burning with the fury of vengeance.
Shigure listened, motionless in the shadows, his breath calm. So, they believe I killed them all outright... Well, if you've already decided to execute me, then I won't show mercy either.
His hand twitched. The chakra threads wound tightly around his fingers quivered, a subtle motion no less effective than a trigger pulled. Metal flashed in the canopy above. A storm of kunai and shuriken whistled through the leaves, tearing toward the group like a rain of steel.
"Defense!"
They moved fast, their training evident, rolling aside and counterattacking instantly. "Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
Four of them inhaled deeply, their cheeks swelling before torrents of blazing fire spewed forth. The flames roared together, consuming leaves and bark, igniting the brush until the forest itself seemed to burn.
But inside the fire, there was no sign of Shigure.
Instead, the faint glint of steel answered back. Another storm of shuriken came from their blind spot, forcing the six into a tighter knot. Branches sang as kunai sliced through them. Instinctively, the six leapt backward, feet skidding onto the same clear ground.
It was exactly where Shigure wanted them.
"You're finished," his low voice murmured in the dark.
He flexed his hand again. With precision, he pulled. More kunai flew forward, but these bristled with fluttering slips of paper—the pale yellow seals unmistakable to any shinobi.
"Detonating tags!" Panic flickered across their faces.
"Retreat immediately!"
But human speed was no match for the rising hiss of chakra-laced paper sealing its fate. Each weapon multiplied mid-air with a sudden flare of light.
"Ninjutsu: Explosive Tag Shadow Clone!"
Kunai split into dozens, then hundreds, each carrying a deadly talisman. They blanketed the clearing like locusts, embedding around the Uchiha formation until there was nowhere to run.
The Uchiha realized too late they had been corralled.
"No—!"
"Explode!"
The night shattered in fire.
The blast ripped trees apart and crushed earth under its shockwave. The clearing became a chasm of smoke, fire, and ringing silence. When the haze dissipated, the devastation spoke for itself. Scorched trunks leaned like shattered spears. The ground was a crater. Five bodies lay blackened and broken.
Only one figure staggered upright, clutching a bloody stump where his arm had been. His breath rattled. His Sharingan burned like twin spears of hatred in his trembling face.
From the smoke, Shigure stepped calmly into the open.
"You—You really are… Damn it—Uchiha Shigure!" the survivor gasped, his voice cracked with disbelief. "It was you behind everything! You killed Fēng, Kaku, and Mamoru! You planned this massacre from the start!"
Shigure tilted his head, expression calm as ice. "You're mistaken. I hadn't meant to kill you all with traps alone. But I suppose your defenses were too weak to survive. Still…" His voice grew colder, carrying an edge sharp enough to slice spirit as easily as flesh. "…I had never intended on letting you leave alive."
The lone Uchiha's teeth clenched so hard his jaw trembled. "You dirty-blooded bastard! I'll kill you!"
Scarlet eyes spun violently until each iris bloomed with three tomoe.
"You've awakened a fully mature Sharingan," Shigure observed lightly, almost admiringly. "A clan genius indeed."
The man ripped through hand seals, chakra igniting in his lungs. "Fire Style! Dragon Flame Song Jutsu!"
Dragon-shaped torrents of fire surged, spiraling toward Shigure with unmatched killing intent.
For a moment, flame engulfed the clearing. The survivor laughed, manic with relief, convinced he had reversed fate. "Hahaha! Burn in hell! I did it! I won!"
But his laughter faltered when a voice whispered behind him.
"What a pity… it seems you can't have what you want."
The survivor stiffened. His eyes went wide when he turned.
Behind him, untouched by flame, stood Shigure, his hand blazing with a concentrated orb of pulsing blue chakra.
"No! How—how are you behind me—?"
"This," Shigure said softly, "is the Ninjutsu: Lure the Enemy into a Trap."
The glowing Rasengan spiraled with a shrill hum and slammed directly into the man's back. Flesh tore, blood sprayed, and bones shattered under the force of rotation. His cry was clipped short as his body tore across the clearing, smashing against stone with a sickening crack.
When the dust settled, he didn't rise again.
For Shigure, it had been effortless. A simple shadow clone had absorbed the fire technique, while his body, cloaked by the Body Flicker, had slipped behind his prey. The Rasengan delivered the final verdict with damning perfection.
He stood quiet for a while, surveying the wreckage. The Flying Thunder God kunai he had planted never even left their place. He hadn't needed them.
Collecting the fallen Uchiha's ID tags, Shigure turned to leave. But something stirred within him—a strange heat in his eyes, a pull he hadn't felt before.
Frowning, he placed his palm on the closest corpse.
Immediately, a flood of sensation coursed into him. A dark yet ancient force bled into his chakra network.
"This power… Yin chakra… The inheritance of Indra himself?"
His Sharingan tingled with new intensity. When he looked again at the body, its scarlet eyes were drained and gray, their light gone as if devoured.
Shigure stared at his hands, realization striking hard. "I absorbed his pupil power… his bloodline strength. All of it."
He tested this on the others. Each dead body still flickered faintly with residual bloodline energy, as if their Uchiha heritage clung to them even in death. With grim determination, Shigure drew it in. His chakra stormed with newfound vigor. The Ōtsutsuki blood swirling in his veins grew purer, streaked deeper into him. His eyes ached, pulsing with power.
"Perhaps… I might awaken the Mangekyō soon," he whispered.
The forest smelled of smoke and loss. Six Uchiha gone, their bodies nothing more than witnesses to his evolution. But he knew no one would suspect.
The Rasengan hasn't even been invented yet. None will think to blame me.
Adjusting the seals etched into his marked kunai, Shigure summoned chakra.
"It's time to rejoin them."
With a flicker of light, he disappeared into space itself, hopping between seals at impossible speed. The world blurred across ten flickering steps until he stood at the side of Hatake Kusuo and Hyūga Akane, as if he had never left.
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