"Uchiha Soren!"
"Danzō was our comrade—our brother! How could you kill him?!"
Kagami Uchiha stepped in front of Hiruzen Sarutobi, his fury brighter than the grief of losing his own parents. His three-tomoe Sharingan spun wildly—as if the tomoe were moments from linking into something higher.
"You conservative lot… Uchiha who grovel under the Senju—your minds are rotten. There's no cure for the sickness in you."
Soren kicked Danzō's maimed corpse off the branch into the underbrush, sheathed his blade with casual elegance, and tapped a finger to the side of his own head. He looked down at Kagami with undisguised contempt—especially after sensing the sudden spike in Kagami's ocular power.
The Uchiha clan was born from pride and obsession. Their mighty Sharingan had carried them across eras of war, earning them the reputation of a premier clan. The Sharingan made them love deeply—so deeply that love devoured them, twisting into extremes. Every awakening of the Mangekyō was the curtain call of an Uchiha's tortured heart.
Words meant nothing.
Only power shaped the world they loved.
Some Uchiha loved the clan, the village, the land.
But a turncoat like Kagami—who ate from Senju hands, then called it righteousness—was rare. They were all Uchiha. They all bore the same eyes. So why did a traitor like Danzō's death spark Kagami's growth? If Hiruzen died, would Kagami jump straight into the Mangekyō?
"Enough! I won't allow you to insult Kagami!"
Young Hiruzen, still hot-blooded and proud, did not want Kagami shielding him. He was destined to be the Third Hokage—how could he be protected? He flashed through hand signs and snarled:
"Sarumao—Saru no Ma!"
A massive white ape streaked with tiger-like lines burst from the void, a Konoha forehead protector tied across its brow. In the next breath, it transformed into a two-toned vajra staff—black at the core, gilded at the ends—gripped firmly in Hiruzen's hands and aimed at Soren.
"Kagami transcended clan pettiness for the good of the village—Tobirama himself praised him! But you—Butcher—you cannot compare to his sacrifice!"
Soren only buried his face briefly against Juno's fur, smiling as his black pupils shifted.
Three tomoe knitted together—
the intricate pattern of his Mangekyō Sharingan blooming.
Homura Mitokado, Koharu Utatane, and Torifu Akimichi moved silently, forming a killing formation around him.
Three elite jōnin.
Hiruzen wielding a Kage-level summons.
Kagami on the brink of awakening higher ocular power.
And Soren—who had butchered Danzō effortlessly—still found the moment leisurely enough to reminisce.
Back then, when he first heard arguments about "splitting the Uchiha," he knew:
It was a ploy.
A strategy to divide the clan, to raise a puppet to guard the Senju.
Kagami had been offered a ladder into the inner circle. Some Uchiha saw that as betrayal; others saw it as a ticket to power. The clan had roared for years:
"If an Uchiha can be Hokage—good. If not—at least grant one of us true authority."
Pride was a splinter too deep to remove.
(Good opportunity.)
Unlike the others, Kagami stayed composed. As a fellow three-tomoe wielder, he caught the momentary softening in Soren's expression. A silent signal, a flicker of shunshin—
his short blade was out and he lunged.
He believed Danzō had been reckless, had fallen to genjutsu.
Kagami—resistant to illusion—would expose Soren.
"If I die… let it atone for Danzō."
Kagami was dangerously fast.
Shunshin paired with Sharingan insight—lethal.
Hiruzen followed, the vajra staff poised like a divine spear.
Soren twisted aside from the incoming strike—his memory flickering with the Sarutobi clan's ancient summoning arts. The iron-studded staff sliced the air with enough force to split a boulder.
Wind stirred his fringe.
Beneath that shadow—
his tomoe connected.
"Uchiha Style: Sword Leap — Flame."
Kagami flashed behind him.
His short blade blazed with a veil of fire threaded with slicing wind—
Fire strengthened by Wind, hot enough to melt iron in a blink.
The forest flashed red.
Homura, Koharu, and Torifu closed in, forming a tight execution cage. Hiruzen narrowed his eyes—his left hand beginning a one-handed seal. On the staff's shaft behind Soren, two furry monkey-hands mimicked the seals at lightning speed.
Soren moved first.
"Tenchō Risshon."
Both of his eyes bloomed into Mangekyō patterns—circular and square, intricate and radiant.
Each eye called forth Tenchō Risshon, yet each manifested a different art.
Tenchō Risshon—"Heavenly Everlasting Sovereign"—reflected the deepest cravings in Soren's heart, birthing two separate techniques.
His left eye granted a colossal mapping sense—passive omniscient awareness. By converting Yin Release into cognitive perception, Soren could build a mental map of his surroundings like a cultivator's divine consciousness. Though his current range was limited by inexperience, it was more than enough.
"Petty tricks… laughable before these eyes."
His voice cracked with Mangekyō authority.
Kagami staggered—panic seizing his mind as the ocular force crushed his consciousness.
That hesitation was fatal.
"Uchiha Style: Wind-Thunder Slash!"
His practiced, thousand-times-tempered draw slash erupted with the speed of wind and the violence of thunder.
It sheared Kagami's flaming blade in half—
then carved through Kagami himself.
"Kagami—!"
Hiruzen's cry tore through the trees.
The forest drank the sound.
And the dark roots that would one day corrupt the shinobi world found their first nourishment there—
fed by the slaughter of Kagami Uchiha.