Root Anbu!

"Puchi!" A chest was pierced.

"Aaah!" A roar of anger, unwillingness, and despair.

"Rip!" A throat was slashed.

Overwhelming numbers, combined with Ninjutsu specifically suited to countering them, saw the Uchiha ninjas slaughtered one by one. But the Uchiha's valiant resistance also inflicted enormous casualties on the enemy.

Corpses lay everywhere in great numbers.

The Sharingan was the Uchiha Clan's powerful Kekkei Genkai, but few among the vast clan were able to awaken it. Only three people in the squad possessed the Sharingan.

One was the squad's leader, Uchiha Fushan, and the other two were his deputies.

"Captain, we brothers have used up all our Chakra. We'll go on ahead!" The two men, each possessing the Two-Tomoe Sharingan, threw themselves at the enemy's blades.

"Sss!"

Explosive Tags were stuck to their bodies.

"Boom!" They embraced their enemies and perished together with them, their bodies blown to pieces!

By now, only two Uchiha ninjas remained: Fushan and Hezi.

Fushan was not only the squad's leader, but also its strongest member and the only one with the Three-Tomoe Sharingan. Whenever he fought the enemy, he took on ten men alone.

Hezi had survived until now because she was a medical-nin. Protecting the medical-nin in a squad was basic common sense.

Yet for a medical-nin, how painful it was to watch her comrades die before her eyes.

Amid blood and tears, Hezi's eyes turned scarlet.

"Have your eyes awakened?" Fushan looked indifferently at Hezi beside him. "That's a real shame."

"Pfft!"

"Aaah!" Hezi's vision went dark, and then a piercing agony shot through both her eyes, making her scream.

Fushan's fingers stabbed viciously through Hezi's eyes and dug out her eyeballs. His face expressionless, he clenched his hand.

"He destroyed the Sharingan himself to keep us from getting it...?" Fushan's actions shocked everyone present. "What a ruthless Uchiha. An impressive ninja, Uchiha Fushan!"

Without a word, Fushan drew the sword at his waist and charged at them. His Chakra was completely exhausted by now, leaving him able to launch only a suicidal attack.

Even so, Fushan managed to kill three more enemies before finally dying of exhaustion.

They turned Fushan's body over and found that his eyes had been burned black, wisps of white vapor rising from them.

"Damn it! This guy destroyed his own eyes before he died too!"

After a fierce battle against an enemy twice their number, the Uchiha were wiped out, but they had also made the enemy pay a heavy price. Of more than sixty people, only five remained, a testament to the battle's ferocity. On the other hand, the fact that the enemy had persisted in fighting the Uchiha to the bitter end despite a casualty rate as high as 90 percent also proved that they were extraordinary ninjas.

"I can give you a chance to live." The battle was over, and the view returned to Shunren's side.

They had witnessed the brutal ninja battle firsthand. Six enemies remained now, all with injuries of varying severity, but even in their near-death state, they were still far beyond anything Shunren and the others could resist.

"Use your Kunai and kill her." The man pointed at Hezi, who lay on the ground, barely clinging to life.

Kurenai and Shizune immediately flew into a rage. "You want us to kill our own comrade?"

Shunren interrupted the two women, staring fixedly at the man before suddenly speaking. "You're Konoha Ninjas, aren't you?"

"!!!"

Shunren's sudden, seemingly random remark startled everyone.

Shizune said in disbelief, "How could they be our comrades? They clearly..."

Shunren shook his head,

Looking at the six men, whose expressions had changed dramatically the instant he spoke. "You were able to infiltrate this place without anyone noticing, and you're skilled in disguise and assassination. So you must be from the Konoha Special Tactics and Assassination Squad. Add to that your disregard for casualties and your nature as killing machines sworn to complete your mission, and you must be Shimura Danzō's Root Anbu, right?" Shunren's casual words made the gazes the six men directed at him grow colder still.

"Anbu? Aren't they Lord Hokage's directly subordinate force? What's Root?" Kurenai asked, puzzled.

Konoha's Anbu were divided into two branches. The first was an elite force under the Hokage's direct management. In their daily lives, they lived under the sun like ordinary ninjas. The latter, however, was an organization subordinate to Danzo that answered to him alone. Members of Root could not live like normal people, nor could they even keep their names, and could only operate in the darkness forever.

As a result, the vast majority of people in Konoha did not know Root existed.

Shizune gritted her teeth. "I don't care who they are, but since we're all Konoha Ninjas, why would they kill their comrades?!"

Root had attacked the students and Konoha teachers, and Root had also slaughtered the Uchiha squad. The Sand Ninja outfits they wore were nothing more than a disguise and a means of framing someone else.

At this point, Shunren could roughly guess what had happened.

This was an extraordinary period in the ninja arms race. Resources for training ninjas were limited, and Konoha had to concentrate them on outstanding ninjas with potential. Those without talent were to be eliminated so they would not consume resources. That was why they had attacked the students.

That was also why "Feimu" had not relentlessly pursued Asuma and the others before. How could they, who were not even Genin, have escaped Root members whose strength was at least Chunin level?

The same applied to Shunren and his companions. The potential the three had displayed had already reached the "passing mark" set by Root.

And finally, Root had ordered them to kill the dying Uchiha Hezi to stain them "black" while they were still young, thereby coercing them into joining Root.

The truth was laid bare.

"Kid, you're smart. I don't know how you learned of Lord Danzo, but since you know about him, you should understand that once he sets his sights on you, your fate is already destined to be stained black!" The speaker was the Root ninja who had previously disguised himself as "Feimu." He looked at Shunren with cold indifference and sneered. "Last time, I was careless for a moment and let you fool me. Do you think a miracle will happen a second time?"

Shunren said nothing. With a flick of both hands, his pair of black and white swords appeared once more!