Theft

Theft

With the deafening boom of the Summoning Technique, Konoha's central district was instantly reduced to ruins.

"ROAR!!!"

The ferocious roar became tangible sound waves, violently blasting away the Konoha ninja attempting to approach.

"It's the Nine-Tails! Why is the Nine-Tails in the village?!"

"Quick! Protect the civilians and evacuate them! Earth Style squad, establish a defensive line immediately!"

The entire village of Konoha fell into unprecedented panic and despair.

Facing this legendary natural disaster, the kunai and explosive tags of ordinary ninja striking its body were like raindrops hitting red-hot iron, instantly evaporating without a trace.

"Adamantine Staff!"

At the critical moment, the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, clad in battle armor and wielding an extended giant staff, forcibly swept the Nine-Tails back half a step, buying precious breathing room for the civilians' evacuation.

Meanwhile, in front of Konoha Police Force headquarters.

Firelight stained half the night sky red, while the Nine-Tails' terrifying roars made everyone's eardrums ache.

"Quick! First Division, come with me to support the Third Hokage at the front lines! Second Division is responsible for the barrier..."

Fugaku Uchiha had already changed into combat gear, the Three-Tomoe Sharingan in his eyes spinning wildly as he anxiously issued battle orders.

However, before he could finish, a line of "Anbu" ninja wearing animal masks and radiating icy killing intent silently appeared like ghosts before the Police Force gates, completely sealing off their path toward the village center.

"The Third Hokage has issued an order."

The leading ninja coldly raised an official order stamped with the Hokage's seal, his voice utterly flat.

"By order of the Third Hokage, the Nine-Tails incident is of grave importance. As the Police Force, the Uchiha Clan's mission tonight is to immediately head to the village outskirts, evacuate civilians, and maintain order in the shelters. No Uchiha clansman is permitted to step onto the Nine-Tails battlefield!"

"What did you say?!"

A hot-tempered Uchiha squad captain instantly flew into a rage. "We are Konoha's Police Force! At a time like this, instead of going to the front lines to protect the village, we're supposed to evacuate civilians in the rear?"

"And our Sharingan clearly restrains Tailed Beasts. We could be of greatest use on the front lines!"

"This is the highest order, and it is also to prevent 'unnecessary' trouble."

At that moment, Shimura Danzō, his right eye wrapped in bandages, slowly emerged from the shadows with these "Anbu," leaning on a cane.

He stared fixedly at Fugaku Uchiha before him. "What, Fugaku Uchiha? Are you planning to defy the Hokage's orders?"

"Unnecessary trouble..."

Hearing those words, Fugaku felt as though he had been struck by lightning, his face turning deathly pale.

His mind exploded in an instant, and the cold sneer of that masked S-rank rogue ninja in the Japanese-style room a month ago seemed to ring in his ears again:

"They will immediately order the Uchiha Police Force to evacuate civilians and never allow you anywhere near the Nine-Tails."

"Because they're afraid. Afraid that you'll control the Nine-Tails, and even more afraid that this was the coup you planned..."

Every word had hit home!

Everything had unfolded exactly as Yue Uchiha had predicted, without the slightest discrepancy!

At this moment of life and death for the village, Konoha's higher-ups had not first thought of relying on the Uchiha's strength.

They had thought of guarding against them. Suspecting them!

"Clan Head! We can't just watch the village be destroyed! Let us charge through!"

The young Uchiha clansmen, their eyes bloodshot, gripped their swords and kunai in outrage. At a single word from Fugaku, they would absolutely cut down the Root agents before them and rush to the battlefield.

They did not like the way that old man looked at them.

Looking at Danzō and Root before him, watching them with flawless vigilance, then at the Nine-Tails wreaking havoc in the village in the distance, Fugaku took a deep breath and clenched the cold metal plate engraved with the mark of Rōran inside his robes.

That rogue ninja had been right. These waters ran too deep, and the Uchiha had already been forced to the edge of a cliff.

If they defied the order and forcibly joined the battle, Danzō and the higher-ups would inevitably launch severe accusations afterward under the charges of "disobeying orders" and "dereliction of duty."

At that point, not only would the accusation of controlling the Nine-Tails be permanently pinned on them, but the Uchiha, already excluded from the center of power, would face even harsher suppression or even a purge.

But what if they obediently followed orders and withdrew to the rear?

When the village was devastated and the blood of other ninja clans stained the battlefield, the Uchiha—the strongest noble clan of Konoha, possessing the power to restrain Tailed Beasts—would remain unscathed in the shelters.

Afterward, the Uchiha's prestige among Konoha's civilians and the other ninja clans would inevitably plummet, and they would completely become cowards and suspects distrusted by all.

Trapped between advancing and retreating, with an abyss on either side.

Rōran... the Uchiha's honor... the village... the rogue ninja... enough.

When weighing two evils, choose the lesser.

"All Uchiha, heed my command..."

Fugaku closed his blood-red eyes, swallowing all his unwillingness and pride. Using every ounce of his strength, he forced out a humiliating order through clenched teeth: "Follow the Hokage's orders... go to the rear, evacuate civilians, and maintain order. No one... is to approach the Nine-Tails by even half a step."

"Clan Head!!!"

Amid cries of despair and indignation, the Uchiha Clan, Konoha's strongest force capable of contending with the Nine-Tails, was completely isolated by Konoha's core of power from the center of that blood-red night.

Meanwhile, atop a towering water tower several kilometers from the main battlefield, Yue and Hikari hurriedly arrived.

They stood side by side, watching the scene of living hell unfold before them.

"Yue, that Obito isn't with the Nine-Tails."

Hikari's eyes, gleaming in the darkness, swept over the battlefield and sharply detected the anomaly.

"The Nine-Tails' eyes bear the reflection of the Sharingan, but the caster himself isn't nearby."

"Of course he isn't."

Yue sensed two extremely concealed yet violently clashing spatial-temporal chakra fluctuations coming from the distant forest, and the corners of his mouth curled beneath his mask.

"He's busy having a fated showdown with his 'teacher' right now. For the moment, he can't spare the attention to precisely control the Nine-Tails. This is our chance to act."

Yue slowly took three black sealing scrolls specially made from Dragon Vein energy and chakra-conducting metal from his robes, laying them out in a row.

"Hikari, do you remember what I told you in Rōran?"

"This world has an invisible rule known as the 'World Correction Force.' It is like a predetermined script, forcibly pushing the gears of history forward."

"In the predetermined 'Fate,' tonight, the Fourth Hokage will use the Dead Demon Consuming Seal to seal the Nine-Tails and die here alongside Kushina, sealing half of the Nine-Tails' chakra inside Naruto and beginning the legend of Naruto Uzumaki in the next era."

Yue handed one scroll to Hikari, while his left eye, Yagokoro Omoikane, began to throb faintly.

"If we charge down there now and use the Mangekyo to forcibly erase the Nine-Tails, or kill Obito, then the script will completely collapse. At that point, the Corrective Force may descend in some utterly unreasonable manner."

"For example, a meteor could fall from the sky and suddenly kill us."

"So, we need to slice the sausage—probe this world's limits step by step until our power is enough to defy the world."

Hikari accepted the scroll. "I don't understand. Just tell me what you want me to do!"

Yue covered his forehead. He had overestimated this girl's intelligence, but he continued anyway:

"The Nine-Tails' chakra is the 'core prop' in tonight's script. If I tear away twenty percent or thirty percent of its chakra, will that change the script's overall direction of 'Minato sealing the Nine-Tails and dying'?"

"If Minato still believes he must sacrifice himself to seal the remaining Nine-Tails, then it means that as long as the 'result' remains unchanged, the Corrective Force will not care how much we skim off during the 'process'!"

"And what if Minato doesn't sacrifice himself?" Hikari barely understood and then asked.

"Then we'll get to see how the Corrective Force acts against us. It will also verify one of my hypotheses."

As they spoke, a high-density purple-black sphere of energy was frantically compressing within the Nine-Tails' abyssal maw.

"Hikari, I need you to use Yachihoko to forcibly sever the Masked Man's ocular control one second before the Nine-Tails fires the Tailed Beast Bomb!"

"You don't need to take complete control of the Nine-Tails. Just make its mind fall into a moment of confusion and shutdown!"

"During that one-second opening, I'll personally tear several chunks of flesh off it!"

"Got it!"

Without the slightest hesitation.

Uchiha Hikari took a deep breath, and the Yin Seal on her forehead instantly released!

A massive, pure, and exceptionally icy ocular power surged into her eyes like floodwaters pouring through a broken dam. Her black eyes instantly turned crimson, while the strange and intricate pattern of Yachihoko bloomed in the night sky like blossoming flowers from the other shore, radiating a light that made souls tremble.

"Move!"

At Yue's low shout, both of them instantly vanished from the water tower.

At the center of the battlefield.

Hiruzen Sarutobi stared at the ever-growing Tailed Beast Bomb in the Nine-Tails' mouth, his eyes filled with despair.

"This is bad! If that attack lands in the village, all of Konoha will be reduced to ashes in an instant! Every barrier squad, block it even at the cost of your lives!"

At that critical moment!

An extremely hidden yet incomparably sharp spiritual fluctuation, like an invisible venomous thorn, viciously stabbed into the Nine-Tails' massive head from midair!

"Yachihoko!"

High above, Uchiha Hikari's red figure descended like an Asura.

Her eyes locked tightly onto the Nine-Tails as she concentrated all her ocular power at a single point, directly bombarding the Mangekyo ocular power Obito had left behind!

"Roaaar?!"

The Nine-Tails, which had been frantically compressing the Tailed Beast Bomb, suddenly had the pupils reflecting the Sharingan contract violently.

Obito's control was forcibly pierced by a more domineering and ancient spiritual force.

Two completely different Mangekyo ocular powers violently collided within the Nine-Tails' mind!

The Nine-Tails let out an agonized wail, its enormous body suddenly stiffening. The nearly formed Tailed Beast Bomb in its mouth destabilized from the instant disorder in its chakra and burst apart with a pop, dispersing into a chakra storm that filled the sky!

"What's happening?! The Nine-Tails' attack... was interrupted?!"

The Konoha ninja below, standing ready for battle, froze in shock. Even Hiruzen Sarutobi was filled with astonishment.

But before they could react.

Another black figure, like the Death God himself, had already appeared above the Nine-Tails' massive body like a phantom beneath the cover of night!

"Now! Amenominakanushi! Yagokoro Omoikane! Increase my chances of success!"

The Three-Tomoe Sharingan in Yue Uchiha's eyes instantly connected, forming the Mangekyo pattern of the Star Dice.

Holding nothing back, he transformed all of his chakra, along with the ocular power stored in the Yin Seal, into a terrifying force of "absolute gravity"!

But this gravitational force was not used to attack. Instead, under extraordinarily precise control, it formed an invisible "funnel" that firmly latched onto three of the Nine-Tails' tails!

"Get... stripped away!!"

Yue roared, and the three black sealing scrolls in his hands unfurled simultaneously.

"RIP—!!!"

Before the horrified eyes of every Konoha ninja present, the Nine-Tails' physical body, formed of pure chakra, was forcibly torn open from its back by an invisible force!

That was the most violent Tailed Beast chakra in the world!

A massive clump of dark-red chakra flesh, so dense it seemed ready to drip, let out a shrill scream as Yue's gravity forcibly dragged it into the air.

Then, like a whale drawing in water, it was wildly sucked into the three specially made Rōran scrolls!

"ROAR!!!"

The Nine-Tails let out its most shrill and frenzied scream of the night!

The pain of having its soul and chakra violently torn apart drove it completely mad.

"It worked!"

Yue felt the three scrolls in his hands become scorching hot and unbearably heavy, and a flash of wild joy crossed his eyes.

Those three massive clumps of chakra accounted for at least one-fifth of the Nine-Tails' total chakra!

However, just as he was about to put away the scrolls.

"Buzz!"

It was as though the world itself had begun to riot.