"We didn't take part in the fighting, so we get to be the first to search for spoils. This is great!" Cat-faced Anbu exclaimed under her breath as she ran at the front of the squad.
But when she entered the Uchiha Clan Compound and reached the site where the fighting had actually taken place, she came to an abrupt halt.
The blood-soaked scene was littered with bodies so mangled by various jutsu that they were barely recognizable. Though shinobi had long grown accustomed to sights like this, she still drew in a sharp breath.
The scene before her was far more horrifying than an ordinary battlefield.
"Their... eyes?" she murmured.
She'd once harbored a little hope of getting a Sharingan. Maybe she couldn't use the Three Tomoe like Senior Hatake, but even a Two Tomoe or Single Tomoe would have been wonderful.
But the bodies sprawled across the ground, men and women, young and old, were all left with empty eye sockets. Any Sharingan that might once have been there had long since vanished.
"The best spoils never go to ordinary Anbu like us." Tiger Mask Anbu patted one of his teammates on the shoulder, then walked silently past the eyeless bodies toward the deeper reaches of hell.
"Forget about the Sharingan. Even if we fought on the front lines, we wouldn't get our hands on one." Leopard-faced Anbu had been at the back of the squad, but now he came forward and sighed softly. "You should look for Fire Release secret techniques or notes on ninjutsu instead."
Once Cat-faced Anbu had moved on, Leopard-faced Anbu was left alone. He crouched down and covered his mask. The concentration of painkillers in his blood kept rising, but his head hurt even more.
He'd known this day would come. He'd been prepared for it and had braced himself for the worst...
The hardest bodies to look at were those of Aunt Xin from next door and Uncle Lie. Their child lay beside them: Uchiha Tangwu, the gifted Genin who had awakened a One-Tomoe Sharingan just after leaving the Ninja Academy. Though he was considered arrogant by outsiders, his family had been especially kind and humble within the clan.
Their bodies were no longer recognizable as human.
Uchiha Jie's family had died on the battlefield when he was young, and he'd practically grown up eating meals provided by the clan. Aunt Xin and Uncle Lie had helped him a great deal.
And there were many more families like theirs.
But there would be no more tomorrows for them.
Uchiha Jie hadn't failed to try. From the very first day he'd arrived in this world, he'd been preparing: first to keep himself alive, then to protect his friends and his clan.
But by the time he awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, news of Uchiha Shisui's death had already arrived, and the clan had gone too far down a road of no return. Even if someone wanted to turn back, the Hawk Faction within the clan and Konoha's higher-ups would never heed the advice of a mere Chunin. They wouldn't stop their advance, either.
And with Uchiha Obito involved, the Uchiha Clan's destruction had become inevitable.
He silently laid the bodies of his clansmen side by side, sighed, and headed farther into the compound along a narrow path. As he walked, he watched the Anbu count the bodies and tallied in his mind how many of his clansmen had been slaughtered.
He'd hinted to some people about the tragedies that might lie ahead. But for any registered shinobi, leaving Konoha for no reason was extremely difficult. The barrier was full of holes when it came to enemies of all kinds, but to ordinary shinobi, it remained an insurmountable wall.
As for the civilians in the Uchiha Clan who hadn't become shinobi, even if they left the village, they'd face long-term surveillance by Root shinobi. They might even be arrested outright or assassinated.
"Hey! Where have you been?" Uchiha Jie had been wandering aimlessly around the compound. When he came back, he ran into his teammate. Cat-faced Anbu had a fiery red scroll slung over her back, and her cheerful voice made it clear she'd found plenty.
"I've never been here before, so I was looking around. You know I can't use Fire Release or Lightning Release." Uchiha Jie frowned at the scroll on Cat-faced Anbu's back. "What's that scroll?" he asked deliberately.
"Ha! Don't even think about taking this scroll." Cat-faced Anbu patted the scroll behind her. "It's the captain's spoils!"
"No, I mean, we were told to register anything we find. It'll be inspected first, then distributed afterward." Uchiha Jie pointed at the night sky, now completely dark, and shook his head. "At least the operation manual we were given says to cooperate with Root as much as possible."
"To stop the wicked Uchiha Clan from hiding wicked weapons that could overthrow the village, and to uncover the wicked plans the wicked Uchiha Clan came up with, right?" Cat-faced Anbu's voice took on a mocking edge.
"Come on, they're all dead. Every last one of them, from top to bottom, men and women, young and old. What's there left to inspect? They just want to steal the good stuff we found."
"Explaining it to me won't do any good. You should explain it to them." Uchiha Jie tilted his head and looked past Cat-faced Anbu. Root patrols had already confiscated quite a few spoils belonging to the Anbu. They'd noticed the two of them and were heading their way.
"Hey! We're directly under Lord Hokage!"
Before the Root members could speak, Cat-faced Anbu hurried to announce her status and backing. But the Root shinobi, with their strange masks, didn't back down at all.
The Root captain at the head of the group wore a snarling fox mask. His voice was low and hoarse.
"This operation is under Root's command. We expect your cooperation," he said.
"The operation is already over. If you have any complaints about our conduct, you can take them to Lord Hokage." Cat-faced Anbu was unmoved. She folded her arms across her chest and watched the Root members gathering around them with an amused smile. "Besides, these are our captain's spoils. I'm only carrying them for her."
Though she appeared unfazed, she was actually quite nervous. When the captain had handed her the scroll, she'd assured her it would be fine, and Cat-faced Anbu had believed her.
But looking at the Root shinobi before her, all smeared with the Uchiha Clan's blood, and remembering the bodies she'd seen when she first entered the compound—and Root's usual methods—she suddenly regretted it.
The Root shinobi in the fox mask frowned. His right hand had already edged toward the weapons pouch at his waist. Having just slaughtered the Uchiha Clan, they were brimming with confidence, but one of their comrades quickly grabbed hold of him.
"Captain, it's her!" someone called in a low voice.
"Hmph. You're lucky!" someone else threatened.
The Root shinobi scattered as if nothing had happened. It was only because the Anbu captain in the tiger mask had appeared on the roof. Another enormous scroll was strapped to her back, yet she landed on the ground as lightly as a feather.
"Captain, you're amazing! The moment you showed up, those Root shinobi ran off!" Cat-faced Anbu sounded relieved, and even a little proud. Anyone with such an impressive leader would feel proud of her. She'd appeared, and the Root shinobi had run off at once.
"A bunch of sewer rats." Tiger Mask Anbu's voice sounded strange, as though something were blocking it. Her normally clear voice had grown low, as if she'd suddenly gone from a girl to a woman.