Uchiha District
Smoke rose everywhere.
The air was thick with a sickly, metallic sweetness. In the distance, the pungent stench of detonated explosive tags drifted through the streets. Corpses lay everywhere—severed arms, broken legs, and scattered organs littered the ground.
Uchiha Police Force Dungeon
Inabi leaned against the wall, barely clinging to life.
The shrill screams echoing from the clan grounds felt like they were calling out to him—voices of parents, siblings, and fellow clansmen.
"They… seem to be calling me to join them…"
His pale, cracked lips trembled. The blood on his face had long since dried.
His consciousness was fading.
But he could not die yet.
He needed to hear that Uchiha Yingyue was dead before he could face hell in peace.
His remaining three-tomoe Sharingan trembled as it stared at a distortion forming in the space before him. Confusion and shock filled his eyes.
Space twisted clockwise.
A masked man slowly emerged, the Kamui Mangekyō Sharingan manifesting within the eyehole of his mask.
"Another… Mangekyō?!"
Inabi's eyelids twitched.
His mind was on the brink of collapse, yet shock forced him to focus once more.
The masked man swept his gaze across the rooftop. It was utter devastation. He stepped forward, crossed over Inabi's body, crouched down, and began inspecting the Uchiha corpses nearby.
Lift.
Set down.
Lift.
Set down.
He shook his head and sighed.
After circling the entire dungeon rooftop and returning to his original spot, his brow furrowed deeply.
Nearly fifty corpses—core members of the Uchiha Police Force.
Every single one of them had lost their Sharingan.
Tap—tap—
Sticky footsteps echoed.
Itachi emerged from the stairway onto the rooftop, stepping over countless bodies of his clansmen.
He was drenched in blood. Each step left behind a bloody footprint, as though he had just crawled out of a mountain of corpses. His killing intent had not yet faded.
Inabi turned his head with difficulty. When he saw Itachi, fury surfaced on his face. Clenching his fists, he rasped:
"The screams in the clan… were they caused by Yingyue slaughtering civilians? Uchiha Yingyue is a traitor! Itachi… did you kill him?"
Itachi ignored him completely.
The masked man broke the silence. His single Mangekyō gleamed red as he calmly asked:
"These police force members— were they all killed by Uchiha Yingyue? Were the Sharingan taken by him? Did he wipe out the entire police force by himself?"
Inabi's face turned deathly pale as memories surged forth. In despair, he nodded faintly.
"Yes. He killed my men first, left me alive to lure in more reinforcements, then slaughtered them all."
"You're lying."
Itachi spoke coldly, suspicion in his eyes.
"That Yingyue was just an ordinary jōnin—one of the police force captains. He doesn't have that kind of strength. He couldn't have done this alone."
This was precisely why Itachi and the masked man had divided their tasks:
Itachi handled civilians, while the masked man dealt with the police force.
Not because Itachi couldn't do it—
but because it required time.
From the scene alone, it was evident that Yingyue killed these people faster than the masked man could eradicate the police force himself.
Inabi said bitterly:
"But that's the truth. You can go find him yourself. I have no reason to lie."
Itachi's pupils contracted slightly. Judging from Inabi's tone—
He wasn't lying.
The masked man let out a low chuckle, clearly shaken.
"No wonder only a few useless old men remained—ones who couldn't even scrape together a full three-tomoe Sharingan.
How disappointing.
But… interesting.
Since this Yingyue has already collected all the Sharingan for me, I won't hold back.
Itachi—
Leave this one to you. Take his three-tomoe. I'll go chase the rats who escaped."
With that, the masked man activated Kamui impatiently. His body twisted with space itself and vanished.
"Take… my three-tomoe…"
Inabi muttered blankly.
He sensed killing intent.
His remaining Sharingan glared at Itachi.
Itachi sighed, expressionless, raised his blade, and walked toward him.
"Itachi… what are you going to do?!"
Inabi's eyes widened.
As his words left his mouth, everything suddenly clicked—Yingyue's actions, Itachi's silence.
"Inabi, keep your remaining three-tomoe wide open and watch carefully what happens next in the Uchiha district."
Yingyue's final words echoed in his mind.
Inabi understood everything.
But the next second—
Blood splattered.
"I'm sorry. I killed the clan."
Itachi's blade pierced straight through Inabi's heart, the blood-soaked tip emerging from his back.
Inabi's face twisted as his life force rapidly faded. His remaining three-tomoe Sharingan burned with unwillingness, rage, and regret as he stared at the traitor before him.
The one who truly wanted to destroy the Uchiha—
Was Uchiha Itachi!!
At last, Inabi understood.
Yingyue—who slaughtered the police force as a condemned traitor—had given his clansmen release.
If they had all died by the hands of the Itachi they trusted, they would have died just like him—
Unable to rest in peace.
The police force building was only a few hundred meters from the dungeon.
Before deliberately getting himself imprisoned, Yingyue had already arranged the patrol schedules.
He eliminated the dungeon guards, drew in police reinforcements, slaughtered them, and seized their Sharingan.
When patrol squads arrived, he deliberately lured them into pursuit—then escaped Konoha with them, fleeing the massacre.
No wonder…
He said that as long as he lived, the Uchiha would continue with dignity in the shinobi world.
He had already prepared the clan's surviving embers.
The plan was like a perfectly calibrated machine—timing, location, people—without a single error.
He was stronger than Inabi could ever be.
Stronger than that useless clan head.
Stronger than those useless elders.
One day…
he would surely return, leading a reborn Uchiha.
Thinking this, Inabi's expression softened.
Remembering how he once misunderstood Yingyue, he realized—
He truly deserved to die.
He sighed inwardly.
Yingyue…
Was gentle as ever.
He did not slaughter civilian clansmen.
And when he killed, his blade was fast and precise—granting swift deaths.
How could that white-eyed wolf compare?
His thoughts faded.
Inabi died.
His eyes remained open. The three-tomoe Yingyue had left him was swiftly and precisely plucked out by Itachi.
Itachi stood up and left.
The corpses didn't matter.
What mattered now was eliminating that rogue Uchiha squad.
Otherwise, Konoha's upper ranks might not keep their promise to protect Sasuke.
Uchiha District Periphery
Screams continued without end.
The small-scale war between Root and ANBU had concluded.
ANBU won—but lost half their forces.
Root lost eighty percent.
The remaining twenty percent lay writhing on the ground, clutching their wounds, screaming in agony—combat-ineffective.
The ANBU captains withdrew cautiously, shaken and horrified.
They hadn't expected such methods.
The second group to arrive wasn't the Third Hokage—
But several ambitious jōnin seeking glory.
Woof! Woof! Woof!
Ninja dogs barked anxiously, fear laced within their cries, reacting to lingering chakra.
Five figures appeared.
"Damn… what a massacre."
Asuma exhaled smoke, tossing aside a half-finished cigarette as he surveyed the corpse-strewn forest. A chill ran down his spine.
Yet excitement welled up inside him.
Root and ANBU had both suffered devastating losses.
Whoever caused this—
Capturing them would be a tremendous merit.
His reputation would skyrocket!
In Konoha, Asuma believed that to challenge some of Sarutobi Hiruzen's decisions, one needed sufficient prestige.
Political lessons he'd learned while guarding the daimyo.
Thinking this—
The young Asuma suddenly felt far less afraid.
The bigger the storm—
The greater the reward.
(End of Chapter)