The Nail (Part 1)

Before the two Kirigakure guards could say anything, the boy caught by the silver-haired, masked ninja began struggling desperately.

"Let go of me, Kakashi!"

The newcomer was the captain of their squad, as well as their supervising instructor: Kakashi Hatake.

"This isn't a place you should be coming to, Sasuke!" Kakashi's smile faded as he coldly tightened his grip around the boy's wrist.

"I only wanted to meet the Mizukage and verify a few things. Why are you all stopping me!" Unable to break free, Sasuke began screaming hysterically.

"Is it because you, too, think the same as those villagers—that our Uchiha clan killed the Fourth Hokage, that our Uchiha clan created the Nine-Tails' Rampage!" the boy shouted furiously.

He had kept those words bottled up inside for a long time.

Ever since rumors had spread from Kirigakure that someone named Obito Uchiha had deliberately released the Nine-Tails and caused the deaths of the Fourth Hokage and his wife, everyone in Konoha had looked at him differently.

Their pity for his clan's destruction had turned into disgust and hatred from everyone around him.

Without a doubt, those people had laid the blame for the Fourth Hokage's death and the misfortune caused by the Nine-Tails' Rampage entirely at the feet of the Uchiha clan.

He did not need anyone's pity, nor did he care about it, but he cared about the Uchiha's honor.

Even if he was the only Uchiha left, he could not tolerate people slandering the Uchiha clan like this.

The honorable Uchiha should not bear such a stigma, nor would he allow them to bear one!

That was why he had taken advantage of the Mizukage's visit to Konoha and prepared to verify everything himself.

He wanted to see whether Obito Uchiha truly existed, and exactly what connection