As he looked at the body burned to ashes by the Great Fireball Technique, Uchiha Itachi furrowed his brow.
His cousin had been a Chunin.
But the way he'd acted just now—the twisted expression, the frenzied laughter, the words that had cut straight to the heart—
To end the fight quickly, or perhaps to stop him from speaking again, Itachi had lost control. Even after using Amaterasu, he'd used Tsukuyomi as well.
And even that hadn't killed him outright. In the end, Itachi had still had to fight him before erasing him from this world completely.
Uchiha Itachi let out a long breath.
He rubbed his sore eyes. As expected, the Uchiha Clan was evil. Even his mild-mannered, smiling cousin had been unable to escape the fate of becoming what he was now.
Or perhaps this was the Uchiha's destiny, and Itachi had come to sever it.
"Ugh... Ah..."
"Leopard, what's wrong?"
On a rooftop not far from the Uchiha Clan Compound, one of the Anbu, wearing a tiger mask, glanced at his teammate, who had suddenly raised a hand to his mask, and asked in a low voice.
"Ah, Captain, could you bandage up next time? Heh, my nose is bleeding."
The Anbu in the leopard mask lifted it slightly, wiped the blood and tears trickling from his left eye, pretended to rub his nose, then waved his hand, gritting his teeth against the pain.
The damage inflicted on the original when a clone created with the Mangekyō Sharingan's ocular power died was far worse than what happened when an ordinary Shadow Clone was destroyed.
His left eye was already useless. It had been reduced to the power of a Single Tomoe, and his vision had deteriorated so badly that he was on the verge of blindness. The nerves across his cerebral cortex felt as if they'd been pierced by ten thousand steel needles. He'd only managed to stay conscious because he'd taken a powerful painkiller beforehand.
Fortunately, the damage wasn't beyond recovery.
Everyone thought being reincarnated as an Uchiha was the ultimate cheat. In this world of bloodline supremacy, if you started out with red eyes, there was only one word for it: victory.
But actually being a red-eyed Uchiha came with several enormous hurdles. From awakening the eyes to the clan's extermination, there was no escaping any of them.
Uchiha Jie had been fortunate to have the system's help. His awakening of both the Three Tomoe and the Mangekyō Sharingan had been relatively safe.
The system was simple, as if it had been slapped together without any intention of actually being used.
It had no quests or punishments, couldn't turn into a cute girl, and Jie hadn't even noticed it existed until after he awakened his eyes. Only then had he spotted a tiny line of softly glowing text at the edge of his vision.
It looked like a cheap retinal display from a cyberpunk world.
But Jie soon discovered what it could do: as long as he laughed sincerely, it would add time to his lifespan.
He'd tried it many times. Whether he laughed in front of the civilian owner of a barbecue shop, beside his teammates, or in the Third Hokage's office, each laugh added a day. It never failed.
As long as he didn't die on the spot, he could use the lifespan granted by the system to recover.
However, when he'd used his Sharingan's ocular technique to split himself in two, he'd nearly exhausted all the lifespan he'd gained. The flashing number had dwindled to a single digit. Now that he'd been injured again, he'd probably have to laugh a lot more to recover.
"You! Take this seriously!" The tiger-masked Anbu tugged at his tightly stretched uniform and glared at his subordinate before turning her gaze back toward the Uchiha Clan Compound.
"We may not need to step in ourselves, but we still have to stop anyone from escaping. If anything goes wrong..." She continued to lecture them.
"Don't worry, Captain. My flames are always burning for you..." The leopard-masked Anbu grinned.
"Leopard! Keep your mouth shut!" The tiger-masked Anbu's temper flared even more.
"All right, Leopard, say no more. The captain's not in a good mood today." Seeing that the leopard-masked Anbu was about to say something else, the other Anbu, wearing a cat mask, clamped a hand over his mouth, shook his head, and pulled him onto the neighboring eaves.
"Today's the day the Uchiha Clan is wiped out. Why are you so excited?" He let go of the leopard-masked Anbu's mouth and asked quietly.
"Ah, my bad. I forgot the captain used to team up with Uchiha before joining the Anbu. I think she even led a squad of Jonin." The leopard-masked Anbu peered at their captain on the neighboring rooftop and quietly explained.
He wasn't excited. His head and eyes still hurt, and he needed to keep distracting himself.
Then he added, "Still, I really would like to meet the person the captain's been thinking about so much."
"Maybe you'll see him tonight. Though all you'll see is his corpse," the cat-masked Anbu replied softly.
No sooner had he finished speaking than a bloodcurdling scream pierced the night sky, only to be swallowed by a barrier that had quietly risen. Cold moonlight fell over the Uchiha Clan Compound, tinged with red.
"What corpse are you talking about? Stop chatting. The star of tonight's show is back." The tiger-masked Anbu appeared beside her two teammates in an instant, grabbing them by the neck. Her voice was slightly hoarse.
The Night of the Uchiha Clan Extermination had begun—and, at the same time, it was already ending.
Uchiha Itachi was fast. The tough Three Tomoe among the clan were easily subdued by his Mangekyō Sharingan, while the Root's elites could quickly take care of the many elderly, children, and lower-ranking ninja.
With Uchiha Obito appearing and disappearing like a ghost, the place became a slaughterhouse where no one could fight back. The Hokage's Anbu on the outer perimeter were barely affected. Only the Root, positioned at the front, had to deal with a few stragglers.
"Hey, Captain, should we move forward a little? If we don't get in a fight, then when it's time to divide up the spoils..." The cat-masked Anbu glanced toward the place where the stench of blood was rising and quietly asked his captain.
During peacetime, Anbu Ninja couldn't take missions as freely as ordinary ninja. They received a salary generous enough to live comfortably, and the village covered the cost of their weapons and other combat supplies.
But not every Anbu had the Will of Fire so deeply ingrained that they became fools who knew only to devote their lives to Lord Hokage.
Among the Anbu were plenty of Konoha Ninja who'd joined to learn stronger Ninjutsu or better techniques, or to build an impressive record and quickly earn promotion to Special Jonin.
The spoils they seized during missions counted as their own income. Though the Uchiha Clan officially served only in the Security Force, anyone could tell from the sprawling compound and its furnishings that the clan was rich.
"If it were just money, I definitely wouldn't have asked you, Captain. But the Uchiha must have countless secret Fire Release techniques and Lightning Release scrolls." The cat-masked Anbu spoke in a coy voice. "And the Uchiha Clan has one other treasure that matters most, Hatake Jonin..."
He hadn't said it outright, but he might as well have. The Uchiha Clan didn't protect the Sharingan nearly as fanatically as the Hyuga Clan protected its own eyes. But they were stronger than the Hyuga Clan. If someone tried to take their eyes, they killed the one who'd tried.
But after tonight, the great clan would be wiped out, and they'd no longer have the power to do that.
"Forget about the Sharingan. Without Uchiha blood, it's just a burden." The leopard-masked Anbu draped an arm over his teammate's shoulder, looking relaxed.
"As for Hatake Jonin..." he continued. "His father was far stronger than he is. You're young; you probably haven't heard of Konoha's White Fang's fearsome reputation. If it weren't for—"
"Quiet!"
The moment the tiger-masked Anbu hissed the warning, the entire district fell silent. In a very short time, the operation to wipe out the great clan had ended, thanks to those working both inside and out.
A few seconds later, the Anbu's signal flare burst overhead, and the barrier gradually disappeared.
"Come on. It's our turn to clean up the battlefield."