Nine Tails Runaway
For this coup, the Uchiha had held countless secret meetings beneath the Nakano Shrine, discussing strategy and plotting various contingency plans.
Most of their supporters were formidable shinobi who had awakened the Sharingan, many with three tomoe. In their eyes, if the clan pooled its strength, even the Third Hokage and Shimura Danzō could be overthrown.
After all, it was their blood and sacrifice that helped build Konoha. Why shouldn't the Uchiha have a Hokage of their own?
They had once chosen to betray their own patriarch, Uchiha Madara, in pursuit of peace.
And on the night of the Nine Tails' attack years ago, the Uchiha wanted to fight alongside the rest of the village to defend it. But they were deliberately ordered to stand down—kept far from the battlefield, blamed without proof, and eventually exiled to the outskirts of Konoha.
Years of suspicion and alienation had brought things to this boiling point.
Now, they couldn't even think about confronting the village or Hokage.
Just facing Xu Fan—alone—they felt completely powerless.
The difference in strength was overwhelming. It involuntarily reminded some of them of a long-forgotten name:
Senju Hashirama.
The legendary Wood Style that had once been thought extinct had now reappeared before their very eyes.
Why…?
Why does the Uchiha always lose to the Senju?
This time, Uchiha Itachi didn't even ask Xu Fan how they should handle the situation. He activated his Mangekyō Sharingan without hesitation and focused on one of the men.
Against the Mangekyō's Tsukuyomi, ordinary three-tomoe Sharingan users stood no chance.
Before he could initiate Tsukuyomi, however, he trapped the man in a basic genjutsu, extracting urgent intel: the location of Uzumaki Naruto.
At that moment, a tremendous, malevolent chakra surged through the village like a tidal wave.
"This chakra…" Itachi's eyes widened. His gaze snapped toward the origin of the eruption.
What shocked him most was the location—it was coming from within the village.
And the chakra wasn't just vast—it was sinister, oppressive. A fiery red beast with nine thrashing tails flickered in his mind.
The Nine Tails.
"You… You didn't…" Itachi clenched his teeth. The thought that someone from his clan had done this again—unleashing the beast—was almost too much to bear.
"That's the Nine Tails' chakra," Xu Fan muttered. Even without his Sharingan or any sensory jutsu, he could still sense it.
He wasn't a chakra sensor type.
And yet, he could feel it.
That alone proved just how terrifying this presence was.
Worse still, the source of the chakra was right at the heart of the village.
The Uchiha… released the Nine Tails in the middle of Konoha.
"Xu Fan!"
Even Itachi, who was usually calm and collected, finally lost his composure.
If the Nine Tails rampaged unchecked, the destruction would be unimaginable.
They had to stop it—now.
This wasn't the first time the Nine Tails had gone wild in the village.
In fact, that night was still a lingering scar on Konoha's soul.
"I know." Xu Fan nodded, then turned to look at the Uchiha he had restrained with his Wood Style.
There was no way they'd be breaking free anytime soon.
But this situation wasn't like last time.
That time, Obito infiltrated the village while Kushina was giving birth and forcibly extracted the Nine Tails.
This time, Naruto himself had lost control—his consciousness overridden, and his transformation into the Nine-Tails Cloak fully realized.
Even if he only had half of Kurama's chakra, Naruto, in this berserk state, was more dangerous than ever.
As Deidara once said, "a Tailed Beast without a jinchūriki is nothing more than a mindless beast."
"Minato Namikaze…"
Suddenly, Xu Fan recalled a key memory.
The first time Naruto lost control, Minato's chakra imprint had appeared within him, reapplying the seal.
"I can't waste time on these people right now," Itachi said, interpreting the look on Xu Fan's face as hesitation about the Uchiha captives.
Right now, the coup didn't matter.
Stopping the Nine Tails came first.
"Agreed," Xu Fan said, his expression sharpening. "Let's go."
Before departing, Xu Fan created a Wood Clone and left it behind to keep the restrained Uchiha under watch.
"If the Nine Tails is rampaging in the village," he said offhandedly, "it means someone from the Uchiha is definitely involved on that end."
"…Yeah." Itachi nodded as they rushed out of Nakano Shrine. "Actually… there's something I haven't told you."
"Hm? What is it?" Xu Fan asked, caught off guard by the sudden change in tone.
But after a long pause, Itachi changed his mind. "Never mind. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Let's stop the Nine Tails first."
Xu Fan narrowed his eyes but nodded. "Alright."
But in truth, he thought, there's only one possibility.
On the night of the massacre, Itachi hadn't acted alone.
Even though his father, Fugaku, chose to die by Itachi's hand rather than fight his own son, the Uchiha still had many three-tomoe Sharingan users.
To ensure the mission's success, Itachi had teamed up with Tobi.
So now… Itachi likely suspected that Tobi—whom he mistook for Uchiha Madara—was behind this incident as well.
Itachi didn't yet know the masked man's real identity.
And back then, during the Nine Tails attack, most assumed it was "Madara" who had summoned the beast.
In truth, it was Obito, and his goal wasn't Konoha's destruction—it was to collect the Tailed Beasts.
But the truth remained buried. Most of Konoha had no idea.
From Itachi's perspective, this new Nine Tails incident was likely the work of the same man behind the last one.
Even Xu Fan noticed that some of the Uchiha around him looked surprised.
This wasn't part of their plan.
But just as quickly, they brushed it off.
They assumed another member of the clan had taken action.
And if the Nine Tails could kill the Third Hokage—just like how the Fourth died defending the village—it would serve their purposes.
If Xu Fan and Itachi died in the chaos, even better.
But neither Itachi nor Xu Fan spoke of Obito.
Xu Fan simply narrowed his eyes and bolted toward the epicenter of the chakra storm.
At the same time, Sarutobi Hiruzen—the retired Third Hokage—also sensed the monstrous chakra rising from the center of the village.
"…The Nine Tails."
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