Vision returned—dim, hazy, but enough. Obito Uchiha opened his lone eye and saw the stone walls of his prison cell. His breathing was shallow, hoarse from disuse. Yet the presence before him was unmistakable.
Danzo Shimura.
Obito narrowed his eye, his voice gravelly as he said, "Danzo… what do you want from me?"
Danzo smiled faintly, the shadows of his bandaged face twitching. He knows his place now, he thought. Even so, he was wary. While the sealing techniques inscribed across Obito's body ensured obedience, they couldn't fully guarantee loyalty.
"I'll be direct," Danzo said coldly. "You will lead the prisoners here and assault the Hidden Leaf Village. Cause as much destruction as you want—let your hatred speak. I've already disabled the spatial barrier around the village."
Obito stared at him silently. Danzo's tone was dismissive, as if speaking to a weapon rather than a man.
"And your Mangekyō Sharingan…" Danzo continued, "it can control the Tailed Beasts, can it not?"
Obito's voice remained flat, but there was a glint of mockery behind it. "It can. Are you after the Nine-Tails?"
Danzo's eye narrowed. "You have access to it?"
"I was given the summoning technique by Madara Uchiha," Obito replied emotionlessly. "But summoning the Nine-Tails requires weakening the Jinchūriki's seal first."
Danzo frowned, his earlier enthusiasm cooling. That made things more complicated. "Then why didn't you use it during your previous attack on the Leaf?"
"That attack had a different purpose," Obito replied simply. "And back then… I wasn't acting on my own will."
Danzo scoffed inwardly. The boy had changed. Prison had either sharpened him or made him more dangerous.
"Very well. You'll do as I said—unleash chaos," Danzo ordered. "But if I activate the seal embedded in you, you will come to me immediately. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Obito said with no visible emotion. "May I act now?"
Danzo nodded. "The prisoners outside will obey your commands. Begin five minutes after I've left with my men."
Without another word, Danzo turned and left, his subordinates following closely behind.
As their footsteps faded, Obito lifted his gaze. The narrow view of the sky above was clear—blue and scattered with clouds.
Rin, look at that cloud. Doesn't it look like a big chicken leg?
Obito, you're so childish.
He closed his eye for a moment. When he opened it again, it was cold and resolved.
Five minutes later, he released the prisoners.
"Kill, brothers!"
"Make the Leaf pay for what they did!"
"Slaughter the civilians! Leave no one alive!"
The mob surged forward, rage and bloodlust driving them. Some wanted revenge for genuine grievances, but most just sought destruction. To avoid swift retribution, the prisoners scattered, hoping to slip through the Leaf's defenses in smaller groups and cause maximum damage.
But things had changed.
The Hidden Leaf was no longer complacent—it was the core of the Allied Shinobi Forces. Surveillance was tight. Preparations were already in place.
Leaf shinobi in disguise monitored the enemy's movements.
"Don't let them get too far," one commander said. "We need chaos, but not real casualties."
"Understood. Let a few through to maintain the illusion. Alert squads Beta and Gamma to tighten the perimeter."
As the first signs of disorder reached the outskirts of Konoha, Danzo—already hidden within the village—gave his true order.
"Notify our operatives. Begin."
Explosions erupted across Konoha.
These weren't random acts of sabotage. They were meticulously planned. Explosive tags had been embedded beneath roads, walls, and buildings for weeks—placed there by Danzo's Root operatives.
The prisoners were only bait. The real attack was just beginning.
Danzo's trump card activated.
Summoning Jutsu: Impure World Reincarnation.
Coffins rose from the earth in multiple sectors of the village. From them emerged reanimated shinobi—long dead, but resurrected to serve.
Each had a purpose: to spread chaos, divide the village's forces, and weaken the defenses from within.
The Hidden Leaf was under attack, and this time, the enemy came from both the past and the present.
The chaos erupted in an instant. One moment, the Hidden Leaf Village stood in its usual tranquility; the next, it was plunged into sudden turmoil, as if a grand conspiracy had been set into motion.
Civilians screamed and scattered, seeking shelter or fleeing in desperation. The village, usually orderly and disciplined, descended into chaos.
At the heart of this orchestrated storm stood Shimura Danzō, his expression dark with grim satisfaction at the anarchy he had unleashed.
"Let's move. The others won't remain idle for long," Danzō commanded. "Next, we secure the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki."
Flanked by a squad of Root ANBU and mercenary ninjas he had gathered in secret, Danzō marched directly toward the hidden location where Uzumaki Kushina was being guarded.
The disturbance outside had already alerted the ANBU stationed to protect her. Although elite, their numbers were limited, and they had not anticipated a full-scale internal assault.
Kushina sensed the brewing danger. Emerging from her safe house, she froze when she saw the face of the man leading the charge.
"Danzō? You—weren't you declared dead?" she gasped, eyes narrowing in disbelief.
Danzō gave no reply save a cold sneer. "I've returned to finish what I should have done long ago. Minato, you, this village—everything will be corrected."
"Enough talking. Attack!" someone barked. Without waiting for Danzō's permission, the rogue ninjas surged forward, targeting Kushina directly. Many of them were not even under Danzō's command—they were mercenaries from various minor villages, drawn in by promises of power and reward.
They dismissed Danzō as just another war relic. None of them suspected they were being used.
But they underestimated the jinchūriki.
From Kushina's back, golden chakra chains burst forth—the Adamantine Sealing Chains, a signature of the Uzumaki clan. The first wave of attackers was instantly bound and thrown aside like broken dolls.
Though she was rarely seen on the battlefield, Kushina had been trained directly by Mito Uzumaki, wife of the First Hokage. Her control over sealing techniques rivaled that of any living ninja. In pure fūinjutsu, she was arguably the greatest of her era.
The attackers found themselves unable to approach. Her chains not only restrained but also neutralized chakra. While Kushina's chains immobilized many of her attackers, she didn't aim to kill—most were incapacitated, not slain.
But then came the true reckoning.
A golden flash lit up the battlefield.
In an instant, one ninja fell, throat cleanly slit by an unseen kunai. Another collapsed before he could even react. The carnage continued—swift, surgical, and unrelenting.
"It's the Yellow Flash—Minato Namikaze!" someone shouted in horror.
But awareness didn't save them. Against the speed of the Flying Thunder God Technique, vigilance was meaningless.
One after another, enemy ninjas dropped, slain before they could even lift a hand in defense. Unlike Kushina's restraint, Minato aimed to eliminate. The battlefield turned into a massacre.
Minato didn't even need to use the Rasengan. His sheer speed and precision were enough to devastate the enemy ranks. Most of the fallen were elite jōnin. Against Minato, their ranks meant nothing.
Danzō watched in silence, his expression unreadable. He wasn't troubled by the deaths. If anything, he seemed amused.
Let them die, he thought. These fools dared to ignore me—now they see the price.
Still, Minato's dominance only confirmed Danzō's fear: direct confrontation with the Fourth Hokage was a fool's errand. That's why Danzō had already planned a backup.
He quietly slipped away from the battlefield.
A few minutes prior, he had sensed a specific fluctuation in one of his laid-out seals—Obito had arrived.
Yes, Uchiha Obito—masked and using the name "Madara"—was Danzō's insurance policy. Originally, Danzō had planned to trap Minato using explosive tags and sacrificial decoys. But with Obito's participation, the plan shifted.
Obito's Kamui was invaluable. His ability to phase through matter and teleport through space offered the perfect opportunity to extract Kushina without needing to face Minato head-on.
Danzō relayed instructions and left a meeting point for Obito beyond the village's perimeter. If Obito failed, Danzō had a contingency: a second strike force armed with explosive tags, ready to sacrifice themselves if necessary.
While the battle raged, Obito phased underground and approached Kushina from below, completely undetected thanks to his intangibility.
In an instant, he emerged behind her and seized her by the neck just as his body re-solidified.
Caught off guard, Kushina let out a cry.
Despite her immense chakra and power, Kushina lacked the battlefield awareness of someone like Minato. She never sensed Obito's approach.
Minato heard her scream.
Without hesitation, he activated the Flying Thunder God Technique, teleporting to the seal he had left near her location.
But the moment he arrived, Minato's hand passed straight through Kushina's body—an illusion.
He immediately understood.
His eyes met a single Mangekyō Sharingan staring back at him from the face of the masked man—Uchiha Obito.
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