Yamanaka Kuroto did not blink.
His eyes stared forward, empty, unfocused—no longer seeing the people before him.
Protect your family.
The words did not echo.
They nested.
They pressed themselves into his skull, sinking deeper each time he tried to breathe.
Every time,Every place.
His body stood upright, obedient, unmoving.Inside, something was collapsing.
"Kuroto…?"
A voice reached him from far away.
Yamanaka Inochi.
The name meant nothing.
Sound had lost its shape.
Faces replaced the people standing before him.
His wife turned at the sound of the door.
His son, laughing, unaware.His daughter,
asleep, trusting the world to remain gentle.
Protect them.
His fingers twitched.
He understood then—clarity cutting sharper than panic.
This was not a threat of uchiha.
It was asking for permission.
Permission to destroy himself.
Slowly, as if moving through water, Kuroto raised his head.
Toyoma stood there, calm.
Watching.
Waiting for the fracture to reach the surface.
He planned this, Kuroto thought.
Every word.
Every pause.
His mouth opened before he decided to speak.
"Why…?"
The word scraped its way out.
"Why can't you understand?"
You already do, a voice inside him answered.
"I'm only following orders," he said, hearing how hollow it sounded.
"I have no enmity with you, Uchiha."
His chest tightened.
"Why drag my family into your filthy power struggle…?"
The last word cracked.
He turned.
Inochi stood there—alive, breathing, untouched.
Something in Kuroto snapped.
"And you…"
His voice sharpened, bitterness spilling freely now.
"A coward."
"The moment this one-eyed old coot came knocking, you bowed."
"You wagged your tail and called it loyalty."
Images overlapped in his mind—meetings, smiles, silence.
"You ran to that hypocrite Hokage," Kuroto continued, his voice rising.
"The same man who could sacrifice his own wife… for this one-eyed bastard."
His hands trembled.
"Do you know why this village feels rotten?"
"Because men like you keep feeding it everything—your clans, your people, your spines."
His lips curled.
"What kind of patriarch are you?"
"Just change your name already.Call yourselves Sarutobi."
"At least then the lie would be honest."
Silence swallowed the street.
No one moved.
No one dared to breathe.
Kuroto stood there, exposed, emptied—knowing with terrifying certainty that he had crossed a line he could never step back over.
Toyoma observed him quietly.
The fear.
The hatred.
The irreversible fracture.
Good, Toyoma thought.
Now you understand.
The damage was complete.
Jiraiya, the Third Hokage, and both elders stared at Yamanaka Kuroto in stunned silence.
His outburst had not stopped with the clans.
It had reached them.
There was no confusion in his voice.
No hesitation.
Only direct, naked contempt.
Koharu and Homura felt it immediately.
For decades, they had walked these halls as figures of unquestioned authority—respected, obeyed, untouchable.
Yet in Kuroto's voice, there was nothing.
No reverence.
No fear.
Only disgust.
As if they were already relics—rotting ones.
Hiruzen Sarutobi understood something then.
This was no longer about power struggles.
Not about dignity.
Not even about control.
This was a loss.
He saw it clearly now—his position, his image, his moral ground—slipping away faster than words could repair.
I have become an enemy, he realised.
Not to one man.
But to clans.
To families.
The spark of betrayal had already ignited, spreading quietly through the gathered shinobi.
Revenge no longer felt unthinkable—it felt justified.
Hiruzen looked at Kuroto.
Strangely, the insults did not wound him.
What wounded him was the realisation that Toyoma had succeeded.
The Uchiha child had turned him into a symbol—a power-hungry leader,a conspirator,a man willing to sacrifice anyone for authority.
Hiruzen stepped forward, breath heavy.
"Kuroto—"
He intended to speak.
To say that his family would be protected.
To stop the collapse before it reaches the point of no return.
He was too late.
"You bastard."
The voice cut through the hall like a blade.
"Who are you calling a one-eyed bastard?"
Shimura Danzo stepped forward, fury naked on his face.
"Yamanaka Kuroto," he snarled,"Are you attempting to rebel against the village?"
The word rebel detonated.
Kuroto's eyes snapped toward Danzo.
Something broke completely.
He did not think.
He did not hesitate.
He moved.
Kuroto seized Inochi's kunai and launched himself forward, his mind reduced to a single burning truth.
"You bastard!" he screamed."You are the reason for all of this!"
Danzo reacted too late.
The kunai struck his shoulder—deep enough to draw blood.
Chaos erupted.
The Kurama clan head and nearby jōnin restrained Kuroto, forcing him to the ground as he thrashed wildly.
"Let me go!" Kuroto roared."I'll kill them!They play with our lives like a game!"
Then—
His body seized.
His scream was cut short.
Kuroto collapsed, muscles locking as consciousness tore away from him.
Danzo stood rigid.
His anger had triggered instinct.
The Tongue Curse Mark is activated.
The Third Hokage's eyes widened in horror.
"Danzo!" Hiruzen shouted.
Too late.
Kuroto lay motionless—his life flickering dangerously close to extinction.
"You rat…"
Yamanaka Inochi's voice shook with uncontrollable rage.
"You Shimura rat!"
He surged forward, only to be restrained by Nara Shikaku and Akimichi Chōza.
Danzo's anger finally subsided.
He knew he had not killed Kuroto.
But when he saw Inochi's expression—pure, unfiltered hatred—Fear crept into his chest.
For the first time in years, Shimura Danzo understood something terrible.
He was no longer standing above the conflict.
He was standing inside it.
Surrounded.
And the village would remember this moment.
The Yamanaka clan shinobi looked first at their patriarch…then at Yamanaka Kuroto, lying unconscious on the ground.
They knew.
They knew Kuroto was not just a clan member—he was family to the Nara clan patriarch.
They understood what that meant.
What does it cost?
Slowly, imperceptibly, their gazes shifted.
From Kuroto.
To the village higher-ups.
Respect drained away.
Anger replaced it.
Hiruzen felt it like a pressure against his chest.
He turned sharply toward Danzo and stepped close, lowering his voice—but not the fury behind it.
"Do you even understand what you've done, Danzo?"
His tone was controlled.
Too controlled.
"Do you intend to make us enemies of the entire village?"
His eyes flicked toward the Nara medical jōnin kneeling beside Kuroto, urgently working to keep him alive.
Hiruzen inhaled once, then spoke again—this time to Shikaku.
"This was an impulse," he said firmly.
"No one here is in their right mind."
"Any decision made now would be a mistake."
He then turned.
To Uchiha Toyoma.
And Grand Elder Setsuna.
"Do the Uchiha truly believe," Hiruzen said, voice steady but iron-hard.
"That you can threaten the families of shinobi in front of the entire village… and that we will do nothing?"
His presence expanded, authority pressing down on the hall.
"As Hokage of Konoha, I am responsible for the safety of every shinobi and every civilian."
"Remember this—if anyone seeks to harm a villager of this village…They will have to go through me."
Jiraiya stepped forward beside him, eyes narrowed.
"Boy," he said bluntly,"You crossed a line."
"Threatening the families of shinobi is not something we can overlook."
Toyoma met their gazes.
And said nothing.
His silence was heavier than defiance.
Slowly, he turned his eyes toward Yamanaka Inochi.
"Yamanaka clan head," Toyoma said calmly,"I did not threaten anyone."
"I issued a warning."
The distinction hung in the air—razor-thin, intentional.
"There is, however," Toyoma continued,"One matter for which I owe your clan an apology."
Inochi's eyes burned with rage.
He looked as though he might tear the boy apart with his bare hands.
"I apologise to the Yamanaka clan," Toyoma said evenly,"for believing that Yamanaka Kuroto acted of his own will."
The room stilled.
"I believed," Toyoma continued,"That he was a shinobi ordered by certain people to attack the family of an Uchiha jōnin."
"For that reason, I thought he should face the same."
He paused.
Shikaku's gaze locked onto him—sharp, calculating, unblinking.
"I was wrong."
Toyoma turned his head slightly, looking at the unconscious Kuroto…Then at Hiruzen.
"He was not an enemy acting by choice."
"He was a slave."
The word struck like a hammer.
"Marked by Root," Toyoma continued, voice cold,"his life is controlled by jutsu."
"What question can a slave ask…When an order is given?"
Grand Elder Setsuna's eyes narrowed.
He understood immediately.
Toyoma turned to him and bowed his head slightly.
"Grand Elder," he said,"We were wrong."
"We mistook a chained man for a willing one."
Then Toyoma straightened and faced the gathered Uchiha.
His voice carried—clear, deliberate.
"Uchiha," he said,"We have our answer."
"The responsible parties have revealed themselves."
"Yamanaka Kuroto was nothing more than a slave abandoned by the village."
He let his gaze pass briefly over the Yamanaka shinobi.
"A man whose life and death meant nothing to those who controlled him."
His tone sharpened—not with rage, but judgment.
"We are not so cruel as to take revenge upon the families of slaves."
Silence followed.
Not relief.
Not peace.
Only the slow, terrifying realisation that Toyoma had just redefined the enemy—and done so without drawing a blade.