Silence.
The entire plaza went dead quiet.
For a moment, it felt like time and space had been forced into stillness.
Obito—masked and hovering—Itachi, and Fugaku all stood frozen, their expressions locked in place as they stared at the aftermath.
Ren had already radiated "strong."
But no one expected this.
He didn't act—and then, the instant he did, it was catastrophic: he hadn't just shattered over three hundred Root jutsu—
He'd shattered the bodies of over three hundred Root operatives right along with them.
That kind of destructive power couldn't be described with words like "terrifying" anymore.
It belonged in the category of absurd.
"Root… how…?"
The Uchiha shinobi on the plaza looked as if their minds had blanked out. Mouths opened, but no sound came.
Watching three hundred elite Root operatives—Konoha's handpicked killers—get wiped out in an instant…
The visual impact was simply too violent to process.
Root wasn't a mob.
Anyone who made it into Root was personally selected by Danzō—hardened, trained, sharpened.
And yet—
In front of Ren…
They were nothing.
"…That doesn't look like a kekkei genkai," White Zetsu muttered from the shadows.
Black Zetsu didn't answer immediately. His mind was unsettled again.
Every time Ren moved, it was a power they hadn't catalogued, a method they hadn't seen—
As if they were the ones who'd lived underground their whole lives.
Meanwhile—
Danzō, repeatedly using Body Flicker to escape the compound, heard the thunderous booms behind him and couldn't help glancing back.
What he saw made his scalp go cold.
A pale-white wave of power surged—
And three hundred Root operatives were crushed and burst apart like brittle glass.
"…Thank god I ran."
His face twisted.
"Too terrifying. Keep running—!"
Chakra surged again.
Another Body Flicker.
Danzō fled like a stray dog.
When he finally reached the gate of the Uchiha district, relief flashed in his eyes.
Finally.
Finally he was getting out—
He instinctively looked back once more.
And in that instant, his pupils shrank.
His soul practically left his body.
Because somehow—
Ren was already behind him.
Standing there casually.
Watching him with a faint, amused look—
Like he was looking at a dead man.
"Running?" Ren shrugged, voice calm. "Since you came all this way… stay."
To be fair, Danzō was bottom-tier among Kage-level fighters.
That was exactly why he'd obsessed over stealing Sharingan—why he'd done everything he could to patch his weakness with stolen eyes.
But he'd run into Ren—
A monster who'd been "signing in" and accumulating strength for ten years, then stepped into the world at the worst possible moment for everyone else.
Danzō's expression flickered. He tried to form seals—
"AAAGH!"
He didn't even finish the hand sign.
A scream tore out of him.
Ren's blade—Murakumogiri—flashed.
Danzō's bandaged right arm was severed cleanly and dropped to the ground.
Blood sprayed wildly.
Ren glanced at the severed limb and shook his head.
"Hashirama's cells… huh. Too bad. You'll never get the chance to 'install' Sharingan into it."
He lifted his eyes to Danzō, voice flat.
"The moment you stepped into Uchiha territory… your fate was decided."
"N-No—Uchiha Ren… you can't kill me!"
Danzō clutched the stump, ignoring the blood pouring through his fingers. His face contorted as he tried to force authority into his voice.
"You're strong, but… do you even understand the Will of Fire?! Everything I did was for Konoha's peace!"
"I know," Ren said, nodding once.
Then he smiled—sharp and cold.
"From now on… Konoha will bear the name Uchiha."
"The duty of 'maintaining peace'… can be carried by our clan."
He leaned forward slightly.
"You understand what that means?"
Danzō went rigid.
"Konoha… will be Uchiha's…?"
Then—
That meant the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen…
A chill punched through Danzō's spine.
If the Uchiha took Konoha and ruled it outright—
If Hiruzen's political bloc was overturned—
Then everything he'd done, everything he'd sacrificed, everything he'd dirtied his hands for…
It would all become a joke.
"No… I have to get to the Hokage's office…"
Danzō's lips trembled as he muttered to himself, half-delirious.
"I can't die… I can't die… I still have to become Hokage… I still have to—"
"You want to live," Ren said quietly, "so you decide other people should die."
He sighed, no anger in it—only finality.
Then he raised Murakumogiri.
A single clean motion—
Blade down.
SHHK—!
Blood sprayed.
A thin, visible line appeared across Danzō's throat.
"I… I don't want to die…"
His body locked stiff.
His eyes stayed wide—furious, unwilling, desperate—as life bled out of him.
His expression froze on his face like a mask.
He couldn't understand it.
He came to execute the Uchiha massacre—
So how did he end up dying here?
The cruelest part?
He spent his whole life hunting the Uchiha…
And in the end, he died by a Uchiha blade.
A neat circle.
A clean repayment.
Hokage Office — Same Night
Even though it was deep into the night, the Hokage's office was strangely lively.
Homura Mitokado.
Koharu Utatane.
And Sarutobi Hiruzen.
None of them looked tired. If anything, there was a faint edge of anticipation in the air—like they were waiting for good news.
Hiruzen was smoking as usual.
Then—
COUGH—!
He suddenly choked mid-draw.
His eyes narrowed.
"What is it?" Koharu chuckled, old eyes creasing. "Hiruzen, don't tell me you're finally feeling your age."
Homura laughed too. "Too tired, old man?"
"It's nothing," Hiruzen said, frowning as he slowly lowered his pipe.
He picked up his tea, took a sip, and let the warmth settle his throat.
But the uneasy feeling didn't go away.
Just now…
He'd felt a flicker of something.
A bad omen.
"…Could something have gone wrong at the Uchiha district?"
He shook his head and let out a self-mocking smile.
No.
He was overthinking it.
This time, the Uchiha extermination plan was airtight.
How could anything possibly go wrong?
Still…
If not for the barrier—
He would've been tempted to use the Telescope Technique and watch the whole thing unfold.
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