Kazuki doesn't pretend he's righteous—he only promises one thing: anyone who survives tonight will never kneel again.
"Konoha's suppression and isolation of the Uchiha over the past few years pushed the clan's leadership toward thoughts of rebellion."
Kazuki's voice remained patient, almost gentle—like a teacher explaining something obvious to slow students.
"You're not qualified to attend the secret gatherings at Naka Shrine yet, so you don't know the details."
"But the truth is simple."
"The relationship between the Uchiha and Konoha…"
"…has frozen to the breaking point."
He looked down at the district below, where the screams still rose and fell like waves.
"To preserve the illusion of peace inside the village, Itachi willingly became the executioner on behalf of Konoha's higher-ups."
"He drew his blade… and swung it at his own clan."
The words left the nine Uchiha hollowed out.
Despair settled into their bones.
A mist clouded Izumi's eyes. Burning tears slipped down her cheeks as she choked on her question.
"Then… what about you?"
In her memory, Captain Kazuki had always been gentle and kind.
He smiled often.
He was steady, responsible—someone who took care of his subordinates.
When she had just graduated from the Academy, she'd been injured on a mission with him.
Kazuki hadn't abandoned her.
He'd carried her all the way back to Konoha on his own back.
Kazuki answered softly, as though he'd expected the question from the beginning.
"I'm not as noble as the Uchiha Itachi you all pinned your hopes on."
"When he raises a blade against his clan, he can still dress it up with lofty reasons—family, righteousness, the village."
He paused.
Then his tone sharpened—not louder, not angrier—just colder.
"I don't care about Konoha's peace."
"Anyone who dies by my blade tonight…"
"…was going to die tonight."
"It's only a matter of whether it happens earlier…"
"…or later."
His eyes narrowed.
"And I only want one thing."
"To live."
A beat of silence.
Then he added, calm as ever:
"But since I borrowed their lives to buy my own…"
"…I'll pay something back to the Uchiha."
"I don't like owing debts."
"That's why you're standing here right now."
Below them, the slaughter continued.
Itachi's blade harvested Uchiha civilians one after another.
The screams grew sharper, more frantic, more unbearable—until it felt like the entire village was drowning beneath a black, choking shroud.
"Hahahaha!"
Tamayū suddenly burst into loud, almost cheerful laughter.
"I knew it! Big Brother Kazuki isn't slaughtering our clan at all—he's freeing them from this hell!"
In public he called Kazuki "Captain."
In private… he called him "Big Brother."
The others stared at Tamayū like he'd lost his mind—which, to be fair, he had.
His outburst shattered the flow of their grief, leaving everyone stuck between rage and disbelief.
But Tamayū's emotions were unstable by nature.
He'd always been a problem.
The only reason he was allowed to serve at all—aside from awakening the three-tomoe Sharingan—was because Kazuki personally guaranteed him.
Kazuki glanced at Tamayū.
His Mangekyō rotated once.
The Eight Thousand Spears imprint in Tamayū's eyes loosened and disengaged.
Tamayū's parents had died during the Third Great Ninja War.
The trauma had cracked his mind when he was still a child.
The clan discarded him.
He'd been forcibly sent to the psychiatric ward in Konoha Hospital.
Later, the original Kazuki—soft-hearted enough to be a fool—had pulled him out.
Had raised him.
Tamayū obeyed the original Kazuki almost without question, trusting him with blind, absolute devotion.
Now freed, Tamayū looked like a dog slipping its leash—excited, eager, thrilled to be useful.
He hurried to Kazuki's back and took his place like he always had: subordinate and guard.
"Captain Kazuki!" Nanpū suddenly shouted, voice raw.
"Let us go! I'll stop him!"
His eyes were bloodshot—rage and panic boiling over—because his elderly parents lived in the district.
The shinobi beside him pleaded too.
Most of their families were in the core residential area.
And Itachi's slaughter was closing in on it.
"You can't stop him," Kazuki said.
"And neither can I."
His gaze returned to the district again, as though waiting for something specific.
One of the police shinobi spoke up, clinging to a fragile hope he didn't even believe himself.
"The Uchiha only… only had ideas about taking power. Nothing has actually happened yet."
"The higher-ups… they should at least consider everything we've sacrificed for the village…"
"And we still have Clan Head Fugaku."
"Clan Head Fugaku wouldn't just let Itachi do something like this… right?"
Even as the words left his mouth, they sounded like lies.
Kazuki stood.
He raised his hand and pointed toward the forest bordering the Uchiha district.
"Root is gathering over there."
"Ask yourself why they're standing by instead of intervening."
"This killing has been going on for five minutes."
"Why hasn't the Hokage's direct ANBU made a single move?"
"Where are the other clans?"
"Where is Fugaku?"
He let those questions hang for a heartbeat—each one a nail driven deeper.
"These screams…"
"Do you think they can't hear them?"
"Until Itachi's blade stops…"
"Until the Uchiha's screams stop…"
"The Hokage—and Konoha's higher-ups—won't appear."
His voice flattened into something merciless.
"And your Clan Head Fugaku has done nothing."
"He's an accomplice too."
No one had an answer.
They stood on that cliff like outsiders looking down at their own extinction, forced to watch as their lives were erased in real time.
Kazuki was right.
This was not a tragedy Konoha had failed to prevent.
This was a massacre Konoha had permitted.
A one-sided extermination.
And tonight, no one was coming to save the Uchiha.
The worst part—
the part that truly crushed what little hope remained—
was the clan head's silence.
"Big Brother, let's run," Tamayū urged.
"If we can't win, we leave. We become rogue-nin. We come back later and slaughter them all."
The others looked at him again.
And this time… none of them laughed.
He was right.
They were the surviving Uchiha.
It didn't matter whether Itachi spared them.
Konoha wouldn't.
If the clan wasn't completely wiped out tonight…
Danzō would make sure the leftovers disappeared.
"Captain Kazuki…" Nanpū said bitterly, voice breaking. "You should go."
"My family is still down there."
"I can't abandon them and live alone."
He sounded like an honest man.
His parents had died early in missions. His grandparents raised him.
He couldn't leave them behind.
Kazuki was about to reply—
when new text surfaced inside his mind.
[Side Mission]: Rescue
[Condition]:
Rescue someone within the Uchiha district.
[Reward]:
100 cubic meters of storage space.
Kazuki's brow twitched.
Rescue…
He didn't have the ability.
And he didn't have the desire.
But the mission didn't specify how many.
It only said: rescue someone in the Uchiha district.
The nine behind him—people he'd tricked into following him—didn't count.
As for the reward…
A hundred cubic meters.
More convenient than any storage scroll.
Kazuki made a decision.
There was one person in the Uchiha district worth trying for.
Before, he couldn't.
Now—
his objective was achieved.
And just moments ago, the Shadow Clone he'd deliberately sent back had… accidentally set the rescue mission in motion.
It wasn't complete yet.
But Kazuki intended to save that surprise for Itachi.
And use it as insurance for his own survival.
Then—
from the forest outside the district—
a disturbance rippled through the darkness, faint enough that ordinary shinobi would miss it entirely.
Kazuki's eyes lit.
Finally.
He rose from the cliffside and swept his gaze across the eight Uchiha lined up behind him.
Their faces were carved with collapse.
"I can't save your families from Itachi."
"But I can take you to revenge right now."
He spoke with quiet force, each sentence landing like a brand.
"After tonight…"
"Your grandparents."
"Your parents."
"Your brothers and sisters."
"They'll sleep forever in that land that betrayed them."
"But you…"
"You'll be reborn."
"So that one day…"
"…you can trample Konoha into the ground."
With that, Kazuki seized control of their chakra and forced them to cast the Transformation Technique.
Their bodies shifted, their features reshaped—
until they resembled members of three Root squads.
Tamayū didn't need to be forced.
He transformed immediately, matching their disguise with a grin that looked too eager for the night they were living through.
He might be unstable, but he wasn't stupid.
He knew exactly what Kazuki was about to do.
Kazuki led the nine around the Uchiha district, using the night as cover.
They slipped into the flow of Root forces converging along the edge of the massacre like carrion birds drawn to a battlefield.
"This is the end," Kazuki said.
"And it's the beginning."
His Mangekyō faded.
Yet he still held their minds and chakra in his grasp.
Under Eight Thousand Spears, controlling them felt like dividing his focus across eight extra limbs—unnatural, exhausting, but possible.
Now came the final move.
The last piece he needed to place before defecting from Konoha—
the move that would decide whether "escape" was even possible.
He was going to assassinate—
"Shimura Danzō."
But he had only about fifteen minutes.
Once Itachi finished cleansing the Uchiha district…
Hiruzen Sarutobi and the Hokage's direct ANBU would arrive.
And when they did, all ten of them would die in Konoha.
Kazuki was willing to gamble that risk.
If he could kill Danzō—good.
If he couldn't…
Then he would at least take something from him.
Something that mattered.
This was the last thing Kazuki would do…
Before he left the village for good.
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