Hong Dou's wariness eased a little at those words, and she nodded to Xuanye.
"I'll pass that along, but whether he sees you isn't up to me."
Ever since losing the race to become the Fourth Hokage, Orochimaru seemed to have seen through a great many things. He shut himself in his laboratory every day, and no one knew what he was working on.
Even Hong Dou, his direct disciple, rarely saw him, let alone anyone else.
"Thanks." Before leaving, Xuanye paid for Hong Dou's food.
Seeing how polite Xuanye was, Hong Dou lowered her guard a little more.
Not everyone in the Uchiha Family was arrogant enough to look down their nose at people.
After parting ways with Hong Dou, Xuanye decided to make a few more rounds and fulfill his duties as a member of the Security Division while he was at it.
But as he walked, he noticed the people around him gradually thinning out. Before long, the entire street was deserted.
Xuanye stopped at once and activated his Three-Tomoe Sharingan.
"Anbu, or Root's dogs?"
The street around him was empty. Nothing stirred.
Xuanye spun around, his hands flashing through hand seals.
"Chidori!"
The instant Xuanye finished the seals, a masked figure appeared, driving a Kunai straight toward his heart.
But the moment the attacker emerged from his Body Flicker Technique, he discovered that Xuanye was even faster.
A sound like a thousand birds chattering filled the air, and dazzling Lightning flared in Xuanye's hand.
Xuanye seized the attacker's wrist before the strike could land. As he stopped the attack, the Chidori in his other hand pierced straight through the man's heart.
In that split second, several more Shinobi appeared around Xuanye. Some held Kunai, while others formed hand seals to unleash ninjutsu.
Not one of them tried to save their comrade from Xuanye. Instead, they moved to kill him while both his hands were occupied.
That told Xuanye all he needed to know. They were Root's dogs.
To anyone else, he would have appeared trapped. Yet a faint smile tugged at Xuanye's lips.
Several ninjutsu struck his position, blasting the street beneath him to pieces.
When the smoke cleared, the Root Shinobi discovered they had hit nothing but a log left by the Substitution Technique.
The real Xuanye had used the Body Flicker Technique to reach a rooftop. The three Tomoe in his Sharingan turned slowly as he read the flow of Chakra through his attackers' bodies.
From that, he could roughly gauge the strength of the Root Shinobi sent after him.
"Three Jonin and five Chunin... Danzo really spared no expense to kill me." Xuanye chuckled and flicked his right hand, shaking off every trace of blood.
Xuanye still had not mastered Chidori, but there was no denying how well the technique suited an Uchiha whose Sharingan had awakened.
It was fast, almost impossible to dodge.
Combined with the Sharingan's ability to track movement, its power in a straight-line attack was terrifying.
Its one weakness was that he could not turn once he launched it. That did not mean he could not develop it further later.
There were eight Shinobi left. Including the Chunin Xuanye had just killed, Root had sent nine in total.
All were among the coldest Shinobi under Danzo's command. Standard-issue masks covered their faces, and they struck with ruthless resolve, showing no hesitation even when it meant using a comrade as bait or a shield.
Only someone like Danzo would turn Shinobi into tools devoted entirely to their missions.
A saying had long circulated through the Ninja World: against an Uchiha Shinobi with an awakened Sharingan, flee if you were alone, fight with two if you wanted to survive, and bring three if you wanted to be sure of victory.
That alone showed how formidable the Uchiha Family was.
Danzo had sent so many people, including three Jonin. Clearly, he intended to make certain Xuanye died here.
But if Danzo thought this handful of ninja could finish him, he had sorely underestimated him.
Fugaku had not listened so carefully to Xuanye merely because his words made sense.
The Uchiha were all alike in one respect: they respected only those stronger than themselves.
At a thought, the three calmly rotating Tomoe in his left eye suddenly accelerated!
They raced together within his crimson iris, twisting and merging until they formed a Mangekyō Sharingan with an eerie pattern and an overwhelming presence!
"!"
The Root Shinobi had never seen the Uchiha Family's Sharingan change like that. Even so, they could feel that something about Xuanye had changed completely.
It was as though a terrifying pressure from deep within their souls had pinned them in place. It felt like being watched by a great predator—no, by their natural enemy. The eight remaining Root Shinobi grew wary the moment those crimson eyes settled on them.
Their caution did them no good. The instant Xuanye awakened the Mangekyō in his left eye, an invisible Illusion Technique enveloped everyone there.
To the Root Shinobi, the world seemed to shatter like glass. Their target, Xuanye, and everything around them became unrecognizable!
They knew they were caught in an Illusion Technique, but no matter how they disrupted the Chakra within their bodies, they could not break free.
"What... is going on?"
Yamanaka Fu watched his subordinates die one after another before his eyes. The enemy changed form endlessly, and their attacks passed straight through him like a phantom.
Uchiha Genya's voice came from every direction, accompanied by mocking laughter.
"Didn't Danzo tell you? When fighting an Uchiha Shinobi, the most important thing is not to look into his eyes."
Within the illusion, only a few minutes passed before all eight Root Shinobi besides Yamanaka Fu lay dead.
Even the Jonin had no chance of breaking free from an Illusion Technique like this!
Yamanaka Fu was the only one left. Anger and fear gripped him as the world slowly returned to normal. Uchiha Genya appeared before him, one eye still bearing the Mangekyō pattern, and Fu's hands trembled around his Kunai.
Was this even an Illusion Technique? He had felt no sign that his Chakra had been manipulated.
If he could not detect it, he had no way to break it.
Xuanye smiled at the wary Yamanaka Fu. "How was my Illusion Technique?"
Xuanye had always been one of the Uchiha Family's specialists in Illusion Techniques. Unsurprisingly, one of the Mangekyō abilities he had awakened was an Illusion Technique.
But just then, Yamanaka Fu's hands flashed through a series of seals.
"Mind Transfer Jutsu!"