An Ugly Life

"Damn it..."

"My lord, the enemy is catching up."

"Run! Head for the village. The ninja there will deal with him."

Only in times of peril could one see a person's true nature.

Danzo was all high-minded words, singing the praises of self-sacrifice. But when he was the one who might have to make the sacrifice, he ran faster than anyone.

He had never considered how much damage his flight toward the village might cause Konoha if Naruto was deranged enough.

Of course, it was possible Danzo had considered it.

But in his eyes, only he could lead Konoha to its peak. His death would be the village's greatest loss. As for everyone else's sacrifices... they were merely insignificant costs on the road to success.

The chase continued.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

After one attack after another, Naruto's ocular power and Chakra quickly ran dry.

"Damn it, I'll have to try again next time. Who knows how many years I'll have to wait?"

Realizing there was no hope of catching them, Naruto couldn't help but lament, "I haven't accomplished a thing. I didn't kill Obito, and I didn't kill Danzo."

He was learning the consequences of wanting to have it both ways.

If he'd focused on killing Danzo from the start, Danzo would've been dead by now.

Amid the devastation of the Uchiha Clan Compound, Obito gazed into the distance, deep in thought. "Emperor... who is he, exactly?"

A person had appeared out of nowhere, without the slightest warning.

He'd been hiding too well.

If White Zetsu hadn't happened to find that strange puppet, Obito might never have known there was another Rinnegan in the world.

The thought that, in the future, while Akatsuki gathered the Tailed Beasts, another organization might be carrying out an even greater plan in secret—

Obito couldn't accept it.

"The Eye of the Moon Plan must not fail. I have to uncover the Emperor's identity and eliminate every interference..."

His only lead was the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.

"Looks like... I'll need to find a chance to probe the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki..."

Obito made up his mind.

A shout rang down from the sky.

"Daiban! Get down here and die!"

Naruto, who had been chasing Danzo, had flown back.

Obito quickly assessed his condition. His body was frail, his stamina poor, and his ocular power would need time to recover.

There would probably be no victor. Neither of them could do anything to the other.

He immediately said, "Old man, keep the Rinnegan safe for me. I'll come back for it."

After delivering his threat, Obito vanished into a swirling distortion of space.

After scaring Obito off, Naruto changed direction and flew above a nearby run-down street, where he found White Zetsu's corpse.

He'd gone through all that trouble and nearly lost his life. He had to get something out of it.

"Wait, take her with us too." Shadow emerged from his body and pointed at a woman's corpse on the ground.

"She looks familiar. What was her name again... Oh, right. Izumi Uchiha, the world's biggest sucker. She was blind enough to fall for that unfilial bastard... What do you want her body for?"

"I'll tell you later. Just help me take it."

"All right."

The commotion at the Uchiha Clan Compound drew the attention of all Konoha.

Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu, who had been prepared for this, headed for the Uchiha Clan Compound with a squad of elite ninja, their killing intent palpable.

On the way, they came across Danzo fleeing alone, in a sorry state. Their hearts sank, and they had a bad feeling.

"Where's the enemy?"

"Over there..." Danzo turned to look back at the sky and found the enemy had already disappeared. He'd been so intent on escaping that he hadn't noticed.

"The enemy was extremely powerful." Danzo smoothly changed the subject. "The elite ninja of Root were almost completely wiped out."

Utatane Koharu's expression darkened. "I can't believe the Uchiha were that powerful..."

"It wasn't the Uchiha. The Uchiha have been wiped out. It was an unfamiliar ninja. He had..."

The Rinnegan. Could he say that out loud?

After a moment's thought, Danzo decided he couldn't. The Rinnegan was a key bargaining chip in his bid to become Hokage. He couldn't just hand it over.

Just as he had concealed the Rinnegan he'd encountered in the Land of Rain all those years ago, Danzo decided to hide it this time too. Instead, he said, "He had an extremely powerful ability to fly. He dropped heavy objects from high in the sky and killed many of my subordinates."

"Is that all? Danzo, are you deliberately hiding something?"

Mitokado Homura thought something was wrong. Root's ninja were all elites. They couldn't have been so easy to kill.

Danzo's expression darkened, as though he'd suffered a great insult.

"Homura, what do you mean? Do you think I, Danzo, am the sort of petty man who would deliberately conceal information and disregard Konoha's interests?"

Utatane Koharu hurriedly tried to smooth things over. "Danzo, Homura didn't mean it that way. You've misunderstood."

Alarmed by Danzo's expression, Mitokado Homura quickly apologized and admitted he'd misspoken.

Danzo didn't press the matter. Instead, he asked resentfully, "Where's Hiruzen? Why haven't I seen him?"

I was being hunted, and you didn't even come to save me...

Danzo felt that his bond with the Third Hokage might not be all that strong after all.

"The Nine-Tails Jinchuriki has gone missing. Hiruzen went to look for him."

It was obvious that the Third Hokage wanted nothing to do with the Uchiha massacre. He was keeping as far away from it as possible.

In the forest, at Naruto's usual training spot, the Third Hokage arrived with a ninja specially trained in sensory techniques to search for Naruto's whereabouts.

The Third Hokage asked, "Any leads?"

The Jonin of the Inuzuka Clan, Tsume Inuzuka, replied apologetically, "I'm sorry, Lord Hokage. The Jinchuriki... seems to have vanished into thin air."

A Jonin of the Aburame Clan said, "More accurately, it seems he flew away."

The Jonin of the Hyuga Clan agreed. "That's what I think too."

"Could it be related to the one flying through the sky tonight..."

The Third Hokage fell into thought.

The battle between Naruto and Obito had left the Uchiha Clan Compound in ruins.

That created a small problem for Itachi.

He wanted to traumatize his younger brother.

But the scene of the clan's destruction, every clan member dead and their parents slain, had been wrecked.

It could still work, but somehow it didn't feel traumatic enough.

What to do?

No problem. He had a little video, guaranteed to be just as it happened and plenty traumatizing.

The considerate big brother, Itachi, made a special trip away from the compound and intercepted Sasuke on his way home from school.

He beat the bewildered Sasuke mercilessly.

—Tsukuyomi!

Then, in his deranged cruelty, he played the scene of their parents' deaths over and over for Sasuke.

Thud!

He kicked Sasuke, whose mind had already broken, and sent him crashing hard into a wall.

Itachi said coldly, "You're not worth killing yet... my foolish little brother... If you want to kill me... hate me! Despise me! Then live on in ugliness! Run! Run... and cling to life in misery!"

As he watched Uchiha Itachi's figure slowly disappear into the distance, Sasuke, who had been nestled in his brother's arms just yesterday, let out a hoarse, anguished cry.

"Uchiha Itachi! I'll kill you! Aaaaah!"

The night was as dark as ink, shadows blotting out the light.

In the Land of Fire, on a barren mountain far from Konoha, Naruto leaned against a tree and rested with his eyes closed.

Shadow climbed out of Naruto's pocket and looked up at his exhausted face, her eyes full of guilt and remorse.

I'm sorry. This was all because of me...