"Since that's the case…" Ren swept his gaze across the plaza, the corner of his mouth lifting into a faint curve. "I'll show you a little more—enough to scare you senseless."
His mind stirred.
In an instant, he drew on the chakra of his Sage Body—and a second wave of terrifying power surged outward.
His presence had already been oppressive.
Now, with that enormous chakra pressure layered on top of it, the sheer force of him swelled again—rising to an absurd level.
And it didn't stop there.
Under countless horrified stares, Ren's eyes turned a deeper, violent red.
One tomoe.
Two.
Three.
The pattern sharpened, twisting—until a Mangekyō-shaped design fully formed.
A three-pronged, pinwheel-like Mangekyō pattern—cold, clean, and unnervingly beautiful.
"So much chakra…"
"He has the Mangekyō Sharingan too…"
"Chakra on the level of a tailed beast, Mangekyō Sharingan… and taijutsu that can blow apart a Susanoo—this… this…"
The plaza had already gone numb with shock, as if hearts had stiffened and souls had frozen.
But even so, mouths still fell open. Eyes nearly popped out of skulls.
Was this a joke?
How much had Ren been hiding?
Insane taijutsu was one thing.
But chakra like this?
And the Mangekyō on top of it?
What was he—human?
"…Impossible."
Danzō looked half-stunned. The Uchiha massacre plan had completely slipped out of his control.
Wasn't the clan supposed to be wiped out cleanly and quietly?
Where did this monster come from?
He had assumed Ren was just a taijutsu-focused Elite Jōnin.
Instead—
The man's taijutsu was inhuman, his chakra was monstrous… and he had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan.
For a brief, bitter moment, Danzō almost felt like the Uchiha were mocking him.
He'd spent years planning the massacre—
So why was he the one getting crushed?
"How… why is he this strong?" Itachi pushed himself up from the ground. Staring at Ren—who now felt less like a person and more like a god—his expression twisted into a messy mix of disbelief, frustration, and something he refused to name.
"…This level of restraint." The masked man hovering above—Obito—looked equally conflicted. He had thought his own strength was already frightening.
But Ren…
Ren had been hiding deeper.
Deep in the shadows, Black Zetsu finally felt a genuine thread of fear crawl up his spine.
"…That's the Sage Body… and the Mangekyō Sharingan."
If Ren had truly kept this buried for years…
Just thinking about it made the hair rise on his neck.
This was an extremely dangerous man.
Worse—Black Zetsu couldn't understand it.
How could a Uchiha awaken a body like this?
That level of chakra… he'd only ever sensed it from the Uzumaki and from Senju Hashirama.
"Black Zetsu," White Zetsu said gravely, merged into him, "our intel was wrong."
"The real boss of the Uchiha… was this Ren."
"If I'm right, he kept enduring and hiding until he was strong enough—then chose the night of the massacre to reveal himself."
"We're in trouble."
"If the situation turns bad… we retreat. Immediately."
Black Zetsu's gaze narrowed. He understood the danger too.
Ren had been playing the fool—baiting everyone into the net.
"…Fine."
White Zetsu, for once, didn't babble. He only muttered, "Konoha's about to change."
At the same time—
While Root operatives stood frozen in terror, the Uchiha shinobi began to snap out of it.
"W-We… had someone like this in our clan?"
"Ren is insane…"
"At a critical moment… it's our own people we can rely on."
Then it hit them—late, but hard.
Ren was one of them.
The stronger he was, the better it was for the Uchiha.
This wasn't something to fear. This was something to celebrate.
At the very least—
The Uchiha wouldn't be exterminated tonight.
They might even turn the blade back on Root.
Fugaku exhaled heavily, as if a boulder had finally rolled off his chest.
All night he'd been thinking: If I fall, what happens to our civilians? Our old, our children, our wounded?
Now…
He didn't have to fear that outcome anymore.
And without realizing it, Fugaku's thinking straightened—subtly, quietly—like a crooked beam being nudged back into place.
Ren's hand had already moved.
Kotoamatsukami—a soft correction, not a full rewrite.
Enough to ensure Fugaku wouldn't repeat the original tragedy: standing still while Itachi butchered the clan, even offering his own life without resistance.
Then Ren's Mangekyō shifted.
His gaze locked onto Danzō.
"Danzō," Ren said flatly, "how do you want to die?"
"I didn't plan to move."
"But if the Uchiha are about to be wiped out… I have no choice but to step forward."
As he spoke, Ren closed his right hand into a fist.
A pale, luminous energy surged around his knuckles, condensing violently.
Danger.
Not ordinary danger—death.
Danzō wasn't that old yet. His instincts were still sharp.
And the moment he sensed that fist, every cell in his body screamed at him.
His soul screamed too.
Cold sweat ran down his face.
"N-No… not like this."
He bared his teeth, face twisting, and roared a command.
"All of you—go! Stop Uchiha Ren!"
Then he did something shameless.
He turned—
And ran.
What was there to fight?
Seven years ago, Ren had suppressed the Nine-Tails.
Now he had monstrous chakra, the Mangekyō—
And Danzō didn't even know how deep that abyss went.
What Danzō didn't know was that Ren's eyes weren't just Mangekyō.
They were the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
"Hmph… once I get back, I'll bring reinforcements…"
As he fled, Danzō's mind raced with malice.
He would report everything to Sarutobi Hiruzen and the elders, gather Konoha's full strength, and suppress the Uchiha—suppress Ren—
"Move!!"
"We all go together!"
"Kill him—!"
Because of the Root tongue-seal, the operatives had no choice.
They charged—hardening their hearts.
In an instant, more than three hundred chakra signatures flared.
A dense flood of jutsu—fire, wind, blades, needles, shadows, everything—erupted at once, swarming Ren like a storm.
Ren's eyes flashed.
He didn't waste a single word.
He stepped forward.
"remor-Tremor…"
A white halo detonated outward.
The space ahead of him seemed to twist and roar as the world itself shuddered—an annihilating shock force surging forward like a wall.
The air burst.
Then—
The tremor wave hit the incoming jutsu head-on and smashed them apart—violently, brutally—blowing them into fragmented light and smoke with one deafening chain of explosions.
"Not good—!"
Root operatives' faces changed at once.
Some tried to dodge the lingering shockwaves. Some tried to throw up defensive jutsu—
Too late.
At his peak, Whitebeard was a monster of the sea.
Ren wasn't even fully unleashed—
And it was still far beyond what they could endure.
BOOM! BOOM!
In the blink of an eye, the Tremor force slammed into the three hundred-plus Root operatives.
Bodies locked up mid-step.
Faces froze in terror.
They could only watch, helpless, as the shock tore through them.
One second later—
Crack.
Crack-crack-crack.
Their bodies split from the inside, bursting in a chain of ruptures—
And then they exploded into blood and fragments, wiped out by raw vibration.
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