Moonlight rose into a clear night sky, the pale round moon hanging high as the river mirrored the stars. A few white egrets startled and scattered, their wings beating across the darkness.
Yūhi Kurenai crouched in the bushes along the riverbank.
Asuma and the others stood on the branches above her.
Five shinobi and one ninja hound—meticulous and silent—watched the upstream stretch of water, which wasn't particularly wide.
The cold river wind stirred the slightly wavy strands of hair falling across Kurenai's forehead. Her graceful silhouette reflected on the water beneath her bare feet, swaying with the ripples in a scene that felt almost unreal.
In the few short minutes before this, Asuma had already led the team in laying explosive tag traps across the water route. Any ordinary shinobi—even a jōnin—would be reduced to nothing but bones if they stepped into the kill zone without noticing.
Kurenai's eyes carried open worry.
Yet at the same time… she was afraid Kazuki would come.
And afraid he wouldn't.
Her breathing was tight, her heart pounding hard enough to hurt.
If Kazuki came…
She had to be the one to save him first—immediately.
As for the other Uchiha…
They didn't matter.
Kurenai's pupils trembled faintly as she made her decision.
She had never been the type to drag her feet. Once she decided to do something, she would not hesitate.
That iron resolve—
It traced back to the night of the Nine-Tails disaster.
Her father, Yūhi Shinku, had been a Konoha chūnin and an academy instructor. When the Nine-Tails rampaged, he had been responsible for protecting and evacuating the newly graduated genin of Kurenai's class.
Back then, he still treated her like a child.
And yet, under his pressure, Kurenai had stepped forward anyway, insisting that as Konoha shinobi, even if they couldn't fight the Nine-Tails directly, they should still throw themselves into the rescue effort.
That night, Kurenai spoke her heart to her classmates—Might Guy, Kakashi, and the others.
She earned her father's praise.
And was entrusted with the Will of Fire.
But no one knew—
The one who had encouraged her to speak up, the one who had stayed at her side, encouraging her and comforting her the entire time…
Was Uchiha Kazuki.
When she hesitated, Kazuki had pushed her forward.
And it was that same night—
That Kurenai watched her father and the other jōnin die beneath the Nine-Tails' claws.
If Kazuki hadn't given her that push, her classmates might have been forcibly evacuated.
She would never have been able to remain at her father's side in his final moments—when he was gravely wounded, calling her name—so he could pass away in peace.
"Kurenai. What are you thinking about?"
Asuma noticed the blankness in her eyes. He jumped down from the tree and asked curiously.
Kurenai snapped back to herself. She took a half step back, deliberately putting a little distance between them, and shook her head.
"Nothing."
Asuma's brows remained knitted. He gave a bitter smile, then jumped back onto the branch above.
…
Halfway up Kikyo Mountain, the forest thickened.
Kazuki's rogue Uchiha squad moved onto the mountain route. To their east lay Kikyo Castle, glowing with countless lights, and the river below, shining like a ribbon of quicksilver.
"Achoo—!"
Kazuki sneezed, lifted a hand, and wiped his nose. His cold, composed expression returned to normal as he continued leaping through the trees with the squad.
His gaze was sharp. Even at night, with only thin moonlight, he could read direction and terrain without hesitation.
As they traveled, Kazuki kept thinking—picking apart the plan for this defection, patching its holes, and considering the current state of the shinobi world.
Around the nights before and after the Uchiha massacre, the shinobi world looked calm on the surface.
Even beneath it, there wasn't much movement.
Nothing truly major had happened.
"If there isn't…"
Kazuki's thoughts sharpened.
"Then I'll make there be."
Only chaos would make things safer for him.
Only chaos would let him muddy the waters.
Otherwise, all five great villages would fix their gaze on this single fleeing Uchiha squad.
Even with Yatsukamagi and Kotoamatsukami, surviving openly in the shinobi world would be far from simple.
But as for stirring things up—
He already had a plan.
This escape itself was only one part of it.
After the battle with Danzō, Kazuki had confirmed the limits of his Mangekyō.
At full capacity—when his Mangekyō Yin Release chakra was at one hundred percent—his "first strike" could control roughly one hundred and twenty elite mid-to-high-level shinobi like ROOT.
That was directly tied to one problem:
His ocular power was still not strong enough.
An Uchiha's ocular power was born from love turning into hatred. The deeper the hatred, the stronger the ocular power. It also scaled with mental strength and chakra strength.
Kazuki had no way to raise it rapidly.
He could only temper his mind over time—refining chakra more perfectly, controlling it more completely.
"Nearly three days since the massacre…"
Kazuki calculated silently.
"My Mangekyō chakra has only recovered to thirty percent."
"Kotoamatsukami is off cooldown, though."
"That's enough."
The original body had been a three-tomoe Uchiha, captain of the Police Force—skilled in Uchiha swordsmanship, Fire Release, and close-quarters taijutsu.
But even so—
If Kazuki only had a single specialized Mangekyō like Yatsukamagi, without the strongest genjutsu, Kotoamatsukami, the pressure of fleeing would spike dramatically.
As for Susanoo—
He was still exploring it.
That was exactly why he had taken the extreme risk of killing Danzō and seizing the Kotoamatsukami Mangekyō.
Then—
As the squad crossed over a ridge—
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—
Five dark figures rose from half-high brush, blocking the path ahead.
In the moonlight, it was clear: all five wore forehead protectors and held weapons.
Kazuki stopped first, crouching on a branch. His three-tomoe Sharingan spun to life as he studied them.
At the same time, he lifted a hand and flicked it backward.
In an instant—aside from Nanpū, who carried Tamayo on his back, and Izumi, who stayed with Mikoto—
The rest of the Uchiha vanished into the darkness, spreading out to hidden positions.
Fast.
Silent.
Perfectly coordinated.
Mikoto's dark eyes flickered with a trace of surprise.
The Uchiha truly did possess outstanding battlefield reflexes.
But Mikoto, as a three-tomoe wielder herself and a Konoha jōnin, understood something even more clearly:
No matter how strong individuals were—
A team without a core could never respond in perfect unison, with seamless coordination.
"What did you do…"
Mikoto's gaze sharpened, turning toward Izumi.
"…to make them fear you, and trust you this completely?"
Izumi shot Mikoto an irritated look, tightening her grip on her ninjatō, ready to move. She didn't answer.
Izumi was still stuck on the same thought.
Was this older woman even suitable for Captain Kazuki?
So what if she was Itachi's mother?
Since when did that mean she could "eat young grass"?
Izumi puffed her cheeks in frustration, gripping her blade harder. If she didn't have to babysit the woman beside her, she could have been at Kazuki's side right now—fighting shoulder to shoulder.
Mikoto mistook Izumi's hostility for simple exclusion. Confusion passed through her eyes.
She didn't know what had happened on the night of the massacre—
She didn't know that while her eldest son slaughtered civilians, Kazuki had led these Uchiha in a sudden strike, assassinating Konoha's core leadership and killing Shimura Danzō to avenge the clan.
Izumi sighed suddenly.
"Haa… maybe Captain Kazuki's choice wasn't right either."
"We chose the mountain route, and now we've run into pursuers."
"If we'd chosen the water route, it might've been different."
Mikoto didn't pay attention to Izumi's muttering. She simply held her calm, gentle composure, her beautiful eyes fixed on Kazuki's straight back.
Up ahead—
"Hm?"
Kazuki narrowed his eyes, reading the situation.
The next moment, he drew his ninjatō in one smooth motion and body-flickered straight toward the five figures.
In a blink—
Mikoto's eyes widened. Her vision blurred.
When she could see clearly again—
It wasn't only Kazuki.
The Uchiha who had dispersed had already reappeared as well.
They had surrounded the five figures completely, their blades crossed against the five throats.
The five were caught utterly off guard.
The forest fell into dead silence.
Kazuki's blade pressed to one man's throat. The edge bit into the skin, drawing a thin line of blood.
By moonlight, Kazuki angled his gaze and finally saw the face.
A young man—thin, sharp-featured—wearing a Mist rogue-shinobi forehead protector. Sweat beaded on his brow, but his eyes held a feral toughness as he gripped a bow tightly in his hands.
The thin young man stared back at Kazuki.
Then his pupils shrank.
Joy burst across his face as he shouted—
"Captain Kazuki!!!"
"It's me!"
"Jaeger!"
"You saved us before!"
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