"Three days… huh?"
Not long after Uchiha Itachi left, the air in Danzō's office rippled faintly.
A spiral distortion formed.
The masked man—Uchiha Obito—stepped out, voice cold and flat.
"Yes." Danzō didn't even look up. "This time, the Third Hokage will turn a blind eye. ANBU will also assist. A large barrier will be deployed to cover the entire Uchiha District, so we must act fast—wipe them out in the shortest time possible."
"Understood."
Obito nodded, then added casually, as if discussing the weather:
"If you're worried, I can bring in a few outsiders. Let them join this once-in-history extermination banquet."
"No need."
Danzō rejected it instantly.
More participants meant fewer Sharingan for him.
Obito shrugged. He hadn't expected the greedy old bastard to agree anyway.
Danzō's eye narrowed.
"About Uchiha Ren—you're handling him. Confident?"
"Seven years ago, Ren was already an Elite Jōnin. He may be Kage-level now."
"And a Kage-level taijutsu specialist isn't easy to deal with."
There was suspicion in Danzō's tone.
This masked man always appeared and vanished like smoke.
No one truly knew what he could do.
If he turned out to be all bluff, the extermination plan's success rate would drop.
Obito's voice sharpened—different. Personal.
"Relax."
"He'll die."
"This time, I'll show Ren what a real genius looks like."
Before Danzō could respond—
space warped again.
Obito vanished.
Danzō stared at the empty air for a moment, frowning.
"What was that reaction…?"
Ren being a prodigy on par with Kakashi Hatake was common knowledge.
So why did the usually emotionless Obito sound like he'd been stabbed in an old scar?
Danzō shook it off.
"Whatever. I'll focus on the extermination preparations."
His gaze returned to the map on his desk—
a detailed layout of the Uchiha district, patrol distribution, guard rotations…
and the fastest routes to cut them down.
Obito's Old Wounds
After leaving Danzō's office, Obito appeared at a training ground in Konoha's central area.
He stood there—still, rigid—
as if the air itself had dragged him back to a time he hated.
His fist clenched.
His expression darkened.
"Obito… you're too weak."
"Too weak."
"Did you forget to eat today?"
"You're really too weak."
Those voices.
Those humiliations.
They replayed in his head like a curse.
Back then, Ren was the Uchiha genius—spoken of in the same breath as Kakashi.
And Obito?
He'd been the clan's embarrassment.
The dead last.
Same age. Same clan. Of course Obito had tried to compete.
So he challenged Ren.
Again and again.
And again.
Every single time, it ended the same way:
One punch.
No resistance.
He'd be sent flying like trash.
Once.
Ten times.
Twenty times.
The number didn't matter.
What mattered was what it carved into him.
Ren became an obsession stamped into Obito's bones—
a wound that never healed,
right beside the other one:
Rin's death.
Now the Uchiha were about to be wiped out anyway.
So this time—
Obito would personally kill Ren.
And finally rip that obsession out by the root.
Black Zetsu and White Zetsu
A moment later, the fused mass of Black Zetsu and White Zetsu seeped up from the ground.
White Zetsu squinted at Obito.
"Your emotions are… off."
"It's nothing." Obito exhaled. "Just remembered some unpleasant things."
"Unpleasant?" White Zetsu grinned, like he already knew the answer.
"Don't tell me it's that time you kept getting punched through the air by Ren."
"Shut up."
Obito's voice dropped, lethal.
White Zetsu laughed awkwardly and backed off.
Black Zetsu spoke in a rasping tone, more thoughtful.
"Ren is strange."
"Every time we monitored him, he trained taijutsu like a machine. No fatigue. No breaks."
Even Black Zetsu sounded faintly unsettled.
Back when they were choosing a successor for Madara Uchiha, there had been two candidates worth watching:
Obito—
and Ren.
But after observing Ren for a long time, Madara had dismissed him.
In Madara's words:
No matter how strong taijutsu is… it's limited.
Obito's mouth curled.
"Doesn't matter."
"This time, we settle old and new debts together."
"And the Uchiha… will be erased."
"Fine." Black Zetsu and White Zetsu nodded in unison.
After all—
a darkened Obito was no longer the old dead-last fool.
If the saying held true—
darkness boosts power tenfold; redemption cuts it by three—
then killing Ren should be easy.
And as for why the Uchiha had to be exterminated…
It was the same reason Obito embraced the Eye of the Moon Plan in the first place:
Madara's despair, his hatred, his exhaustion with the clan—
had been poured into him.
And once Obito accepted that path,
he stopped seeing the Uchiha as "his people."
They were just another obstacle.
Another piece to remove.
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