The Root Ninja's attack had terrified the children.
Although Yamanaka Chujiu had gained quite a bit, he had no choice but to call off today's plan to clear the land.
He gently reassured the children, promised he would resolve the problem and make sure there wouldn't be another attack, then sent them home.
Afterward, he returned to the scene and turned every Root Ninja who might have overheard his conversation with the children into one of his living puppets.
Those four Root Ninja had attacked without hesitation just from hearing the words "Execution Line." That showed just how shocking those words were.
He absolutely couldn't let Shimura Danzō connect those words to him.
Even after taking control of the four Root Ninja, Yamanaka Chujiu was still furious.
He had never deliberately provoked Root. He had only run into a few Root Ninja on the battlefield and stolen them to take the hit for him. That had been an emergency measure!
What did Root's attack on him amount to?
Malicious assault!
Yamanaka Chujiu muttered coldly, "Shimura Danzō, you brought this on yourself!"
He then used his emotional sensing to locate Uchiha Shisui and sent him a sudden flash of inspiration: take a different perspective on what he was doing now.
A large group of villagers, men and women, young and old, were being escorted by Uchiha Ninja across half of Konoha. They were crying and wailing as they went.
Any villager who witnessed this would instinctively put themselves in those villagers' shoes and see the Uchiha as their enemies.
Uchiha Shisui froze. Panicked, he shouted, "Stop! Everyone, stop!"
Uchiha Tekka stared at him in confusion. "Shisui, what's wrong?"
Shisui didn't know how to explain. All he could do was pull Tekka aside and let him see the horrifying scene for himself.
All the Uchiha Ninja stepped away to look, and every one of them realized how serious the problem was.
Changing how people saw who was friend and foe was nothing like a rumor such as "the Uchiha controlled the Nine-Tails."
If they didn't handle this properly, the villagers would see the Uchiha Clan as their enemies.
Uchiha Inabi shouted, "Damn it! We can't leave things like this. We have to notify the clan leader immediately!"
Shisui asked, "What do we do with these villagers?"
Tekka said, "Take them to the clan compound. Let the clan leader decide!"
"Stop right there!"
A group of Root Ninja suddenly appeared, surrounding the Uchiha Ninja and the villagers.
The Root Ninja at their head said, "Hand them over. They're no longer under the Military Police Force's jurisdiction."
Shisui's nature would certainly have led him to hand them over, but Yamanaka Chujiu wouldn't let him think that way. Relying on the close connection between them, he sent inspiration flooding into Shisui's mind, wave after wave.
Shisui's heart pounded wildly. He hopped up and down as he shouted, "No! These villagers are evidence that the Uchiha have been framed. We can't let them be taken away!"
He then shouted to the villagers, "Please trust the Uchiha! If they take you away, something terrible will happen to you!"
Shisui's warning worked. The Uchiha immediately grew wary.
"I knew something was wrong. We'd only just stopped, and these Root Ninja showed up. They must have been watching us!"
"Exactly. We can't hand them over. They'll kill them and frame us!"
The Root Ninja watched the situation impassively. After sending a signal as ordered, they should have waited for the higher-ups to arrive and steered things in a direction that would disadvantage the Uchiha.
But this was exactly when Yamanaka Chujiu made his move. He sent out a thread of thought and wrapped it around one of the Root Ninja, turning him into a living puppet in an instant.
In everyone's eyes, one of the Root Ninja suddenly went silent and threw a kunai at the villagers surrounded by the Uchiha.
An ignited Explosive Tag was tied to the kunai. He was clearly trying to kill them.
The only reason to kill them was to silence them!
Everyone reached the same conclusion.
Uchiha Tekka roared, "Under the Uchiha's watch, you won't get away with killing anyone!"
The young Uchiha activated his Sharingan and threw himself into the kunai's path, knocking it away. In doing so, he cut his arm.
The Explosive Tag's blast caused a commotion, and Anbu Ninja rushed over from every direction.
Yamanaka Chujiu slipped away amid the chaos, leaving the Root and Uchiha to battle behind him.
Konoha was in turmoil all night, but he slept soundly.
The next day, Yamanaka Chujiu took his tea set and headed straight for the Forest of Death.
He climbed over the wall and entered the forest. After stopping in a blind spot where no one could spy on him, he turned to look behind.
"Uchiha Shisui, come out."
Uchiha Shisui emerged from behind a tree, but, unexpectedly, a short Uchiha boy was with him.
He had short black hair, black eyes, delicate features, and long eyelashes. But the most striking thing about him was the tear trough beneath his youthful face.
Uchiha Itachi, the clan leader's eldest son.
In the history of the Uchiha Clan, he was a lunatic second only to Obito Uchiha. The kind of psychopath who could wipe out his entire family, from the youngest to the oldest!
Yamanaka Chujiu wasn't afraid of psychopaths, but he could sense Uchiha Shisui from two thousand meters away and had somehow missed Uchiha Itachi, even though the boy was only ten meters away.
That was a fatal mistake!
More ironically, Uchiha Shisui even asked, "Senior Chujiu, I thought I'd hidden myself flawlessly when I gave it my all. How did you find me?"
Yamanaka Chujiu was deeply annoyed, but could only shake his head expressionlessly. "I can't tell you. It's a secret."
Heart Severing Realm was his trump card, the very thing he relied on to survive. Of course he wouldn't tell Uchiha Shisui.
The boy was so naive it was absurd. He'd even told his archenemy, Shimura Danzō, about his Mangekyō Sharingan's Kotoamatsukami, bringing a death sentence down on himself.
Uchiha Shisui had a good temper and didn't get angry when Chujiu refused.
He pressed his lips together and asked, "All right. Then can you tell me what the 'Execution Line' is?"
Yamanaka Chujiu: "..."
After a long silence, he asked, "Where did you hear that term?"
Uchiha Shisui pointed to the Uchiha boy beside him. "Little Brother Itachi happened to overhear your conversation with the children yesterday."
"Neither of us understands what it means, but for some reason, it left us deeply shaken."
"My intuition tells me that this term seems to hold the power to save the Uchiha Clan. That's why I came to visit you today, hoping you could explain it to us."
Yamanaka Chujiu breathed a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness Uchiha Shisui wasn't a fellow transmigrator.
That was such a relief!
If Uchiha Shisui had been a transmigrator, all the weaknesses in his original personality would have disappeared, and he'd most likely have known what was going to happen in the future.
Taking him out would have become exponentially more difficult.
You couldn't blame Yamanaka Chujiu for being ruthless.
Even a mountain couldn't hold two tigers, and a world couldn't hold two transmigrators!
Then his gaze shifted to Uchiha Itachi.
Before you continue