In the dead of night, all was silent. Yet the Hokage Building remained brightly lit, and multiple Anbu squads stood guard around it, ensuring its security.
Inside the meeting hall, Hiruzen sat across from Danzo and Koharu in heavy silence. No one spoke; the atmosphere was thick with tension.
Hiruzen, puffing slowly on his long-stemmed pipe, sat in deep contemplation.
After a long pause, he finally broke the silence.
"Arima's whereabouts are still unknown. The hostile forces within the other great nations are already stirring... A war could erupt at any moment."
Danzo snorted coldly. His tone was sharp. "Foreign enemies are the least of our concerns. We can take on two against three if we have to! But the rot festering within us must be cut out now!"
Koharu adjusted his glasses and said with a sigh, "Kagami once gave his life to save us... and now, we raise our blades against his own clan. Fate plays cruel games."
Danzo retorted, "If Kagami were still alive, he'd have cleaned out those traitorous Uchiha himself!"
Hiruzen tapped the ashes from his pipe at a measured pace, saying nothing.
Danzo, growing impatient, couldn't help but press, "Hiruzen, sensei appointed you to lead this mission. What's your plan? When do we strike?"
Hiruzen didn't respond immediately. He simply reloaded his pipe with tobacco, lit it again, and took a few steady drags.
Danzo watched his old comrade's demeanor and quickly realized what was going on. They'd been inseparable since youth, he knew Hiruzen far too well.
Danzo softened his tone slightly. "Hiruzen, hesitation will only get us killed. If the Uchiha clan elders and their followers move first, we'll lose the upper hand."
At last, Hiruzen set his pipe down, raised his head, and looked at the two men opposite him.
"What if we imprison them in Hozuki Castle?"
Koharu shook his head. "Hiruzen, you're being too soft. You think the proud Uchiha will let their elders be dragged off like criminals?
According to Anbu intel, the hardliners recently held a long private meeting at Uchiha elder's residence. We don't yet know what was discussed."
That piece of information finally pushed Hiruzen to a decision. If the Uchiha rebellion was about to break out, he had to act decisively.
He took a long drag from his pipe, burning the last of the tobacco, then exhaled a swirling cloud of smoke.
"Has Koharu notified all trustworthy Jonin in the village? This is Konoha's internal affair. We won't involve the Hidden Cloud forces."
Danzo nodded. "I've already been informed. She's made all preparations. Our people are ready to move on command."
Hiruzen opened the roster beside him and began crossing off names, those marked for elimination in this operation.
Each name he struck through only added to the burden weighing on his heart.
Seeing this, Koharu asked, "What about the families of the Hawk faction leaders? How do you plan to handle them?"
Without looking up, Hiruzen responded firmly, "Women and children aren't part of the rebellion. They're still our comrades. Arima would never approve of a complete purge."
He added, "Anbu once reported that a boy who was staying at Uchiha Hiro's residence, came to us about a core Hawk member, acting suspiciously.
Without him, we might've missed key intel. Besides, sensei said it himself, that child must be kept alive."
Danzo frowned. "What's so special about that kid?"
Koharu replied, "He's gifted, and his temperament is unusually gentle for an Uchiha. More than that, his looks and demeanor are eerily similar to Kagami."
Danzo suddenly mused, "Could he be Kagami's son?"
Koharu shook his head. "I checked long ago. Their blood types don't match. At most, he might be a distant relative."
Satisfied with Koharu's thoroughness, Danzo let the matter drop.
By the time the trio finished reviewing the kill list, dawn had broken. The night had passed in silence.
As the people of Konoha awoke to a new day, some among them unknowingly saw the sun for the last time.
The three elders, exhausted from the long night, lay down fully clothed in the meeting room to rest. They would need every ounce of energy for the hard battle ahead.
Earlier, the joint Konoha–Cloud Alliance forces had split into three divisions, each facing off against the Land of Wind, Earth, and Water.
But with the situation escalating, those three nations had temporarily allied against Fire and Lightning.
Two major fronts had formed: one in the Land of Rain, where the Fire, Wind, and Earth nations converged; the other in the Land of Hot Water, where Fire, Lightning, and Water met.
With the Uchiha stirring rebellion from within, tensions at the frontlines spiked, ready to ignite with the smallest spark.
While Konoha wrestled with its internal crisis, the Three Kage remained unusually calm.
Ever since they experienced the overwhelming pressure from Arima, they'd lost all appetite for war. As long as no news confirmed his death, they dared not antagonize Konoha.
But the feudal lords, the daimyos, continued to press for war. Representing the aristocratic elites, they saw the Konoha–Cloud alliance as a threat that must be destroyed.
Under their pressure, the Three Kage met once more.
They exchanged glances, half-amused by how chaotic the shinobi world had become.
The Third Kazekage, Suna's leader, sighed. "Arima's fate is unknown, but he once said he would return to Konoha soon. So why did you agree to attack on the Uchiha's behalf?"
The Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, looked slightly embarrassed. "It wasn't my decision. The village elders pushed the plan through."
The Third Mizukage, squinted slyly. "Same on my end. The clan heads were prodded by the daimyos into launching a campaign."
Then he cast a mocking look at Kazekage. "Don't act innocent. Didn't your Sunagakure agree to attack too?"
Kazekage spread his hands. "What else could we do? Let the daimyo freeze our military funding?
Those aristocrats are now heavily guarded by elite ninja. We can't repeat what Arima and A once did, topple them overnight. They're united now, stronger than ever."
Onoki frowned. "I just can't understand, how did the Uchiha bypass all the ninja villages and make direct contact with the daimyos?"
Kazekage mused, "Could this be the work of a hidden power within the shinobi world? All signs point to deeper currents at play."
Mizukage nodded. "I know a little about that. I planted spies near the daimyo. They reported a mysterious figure wearing the Uchiha crest who claimed to be a descendant of Madara Uchiha.
He promised that once Konoha's coup was over, control would be handed back to the Fire Daimyo."
Onoki raised an eyebrow, then quickly relaxed. "How did he prove his lineage?"
Mizukage noticed the feigned indifference and smirked. "Let the Uchiha worry about their own bloodline. Why are you so interested?"
Onoki clicked his tongue in annoyance. "The daimyos have lost their minds. Their impatience will ruin everything."
Mizukage snapped, "Wouldn't mind if they all dropped dead. Bunch of leeches fattened on power and wine."
Kazekage saw the conversation veering off and brought it back. "So, when are you deploying?"
Mizukage leaned back lazily. "Our forces are already pressing toward the Land of Fire border, coordinating with the Uchiha. Word should reach Konoha by this evening."
Onoki nodded, his side was on a similar timeline.
Kazekage sighed, "Konoha never runs out of talent. Even without Arima, Tobirama's disciples are no pushovers."
To that, both Onoki and Mizukage reluctantly agreed.
Meanwhile, as the storm gathered across the shinobi world, Arima finally awoke from his long slumber.
The moment he opened his eyes, he sensed that his memories had been tampered with, and more than that, his left eye had been replaced with a Byakugan.
While he struggled to make sense of it, space cracked open nearby, and Jigen stepped through the rift, approaching calmly.
Jigen had been monitoring Arima closely and immediately sensed his awakening.
Standing by the bedside, he looked at Arima's left eye and said, "Focus the chakra from your 'Seal' into your left eye. Let's see what happens."
Arima instinctively obeyed, channeling the chakra stored in the palm-engraved seal into the transplanted Byakugan.
Immediately, the eye began to change, its iris shifted from white to a soft blue gradient, the pupil deepened to a dark violet. It was no longer a mere Byakugan.
Jigen's eyes gleamed. "As I thought, you're the perfect vessel. Just using the Otsutsuki chakra stored in your Seal, you've awakened the Tenseigan."
But almost as soon as the eye evolved, it reverted back to a normal Byakugan. The transformation couldn't be maintained for long.
Jigen frowned. "Strange... The Tenseigan should've awakened permanently. What went wrong?"
What he didn't know was that, the moment Arima activated the chakra in the Seal, a voice echoed in his mind.
"Virus detected infiltrating soul. Executing extermination protocol."
At that instant, the link between Arima and the Seal was severed. Even the residual Otsutsuki chakra in his eye was purged.
Without the chakra to sustain it, the Tenseigan transformation failed.
To Jigen, Arima's compliance was reassuring.
He believed his soul-rewriting jutsu had taken hold, subduing Arima at a fundamental level.
Even someone like Arima couldn't resist it, or so he thought.
Still, Jigen chose to remain cautious and left for the lab to run further tests.
Only after he was gone did Arima dare turn inward and read through the system messages in his mind.
As it turned out, while he was unconscious, the system had repeatedly detected intrusions. But each time, Arima's dormant will had rejected the extermination.
This time, when the chakra from the Seal entered his eye, it attempted to infect his soul again. Fortunately, the system detected it in time and wiped out the invasive data.
Had it failed, he would've been silently rewritten, his soul devoured by the Otsutsuki influence, becoming someone else entirely.
The system's purge also destroyed Jigen's soul-altering jutsu, and with it, Arima's suppressed memories came flooding back.
A cold sweat broke across his back. The soul-control technique had nearly turned him into a puppet. He couldn't imagine what horrors he might have committed...
Even Tsunade wouldn't have been safe from him.
Head-on, he still couldn't match Jigen. For now, he had no choice but to play along.
Opening the system's exchange menu, he noticed something: now that he had the Byakugan, the Tenseigan could be redeemed for just 500,000 virtue points.
Then he looked at his current balance, and blinked in surprise.
Nearly one million points.
All awarded from the system for purging the invasive Otsutsuki chakra.
Who knew the data attempting to hijack his soul would be so valuable?
His palm-engraved Seal had now become a pure converter of chakra, slowly transforming his own into that of the Otsutsuki clan. His bloodline was gradually evolving in that direction.
Arima narrowed his eyes.
'Next, I'll have to put on a little show for Jigen... and find a way to check out that beast he's hiding, the one that might be the Ten Tails.'
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