If You Won't Save Me, Someone Else Will!

Inside the Root Base.

Danzo watched the Nine-Tails wreak havoc on the village, fear creeping onto his face.

"So this is... the power of a tailed beast?"

Behind him, Aburame Torune knelt on one knee and reported gravely:

"Lord Danzo, the Nine-Tails is rampaging through the village. Shall we deploy Root ninja to stop it?"

Danzo did not answer.

His eye remained fixed on the rampaging Nine-Tails.

A group of chunin rushed in front of the Nine-Tails.

There were more than a dozen of them, clutching kunai and shouting something.

Then the Nine-Tails brought its claw down.

Just one swipe.

Those dozen or so people instantly became a smear of flesh and blood across the ground.

Danzo narrowed his eye.

Then, his expression darkening, he said:

"Relay my orders. All Root ninja are to stay put!"

Aburame Torune froze for a moment, then raised his head.

"But, Lord Danzo... the people of Konoha are under attack..."

Danzo whipped his head around.

"Hmm?"

It was only a single sound.

Yet Aburame Torune felt as though something had seized him by the throat, cold sweat pouring down his body.

"You... wish to defy my orders?"

"I wouldn't dare!"

Aburame Torune immediately lowered his head, his voice visibly trembling:

"I wouldn't dare, sir!"

"Then why haven't you gone to relay my orders?"

"Yes... yes, sir!"

Aburame Torune stood and swiftly left the room.

After a moment of silence, Danzo muttered to himself:

"Root... must preserve its strength."

"For Konoha's future... necessary sacrifices are unavoidable."

Inside Konoha.

Flames reached into the sky.

The Nine-Tails swept its tail across the village, and entire rows of houses collapsed as though they were made of paper.

Rubble flew everywhere, crashing toward the crowds fleeing for their lives.

"Aah!!!"

Screams rose one after another.

Someone lay pinned beneath a fallen roof beam, half their body immobilized, able only to reach out in despair:

"Help... someone, please help me..."

More people were running.

Running for their lives.

But the Nine-Tails' tail came sweeping through again.

Boom!

Another swath of houses collapsed, followed by another wave of screams.

"Lord Danzo!!!"

Someone screamed in desperation.

"Lord Danzo said he would protect us!"

"Lord Danzo! Where are you?!"

Yet all that answered them were the Nine-Tails' roars and the crackling of flames.

No one came.

Those Root ninja they trusted, admired, and believed would lead the charge...

Not a single one came.

Fortunately, as time passed, rescuers finally appeared-but they were not Root ninja.

Several dark figures darted across the rooftops. They were Anbu serving directly under the Third Hokage.

They moved through the inferno and the ruins, pulling injured civilians out from beneath collapsed houses and carrying them to safety on their backs.

"Hurry! There's someone alive over here!"

"Medical Corps! Where's the Medical Corps?!"

"Take this child away. His parents are already..."

At the same time, figures dressed in Konoha Military Police Force uniforms rushed into the flames.

Uchiha Fugaku led the way, his hands rapidly forming hand seals.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"

A massive fireball slammed into a boulder hurtling toward the crowd, blasting it into fragments.

"Inabi! Take some men east!"

Fugaku shouted his orders.

"Tekka! The west is yours!"

"Yes, sir!"

The major ninja clans, including Ino-Shika-Cho, also sprang into action.

Members of the Yamanaka Clan moved through the ruins, using their sensory abilities to search for buried survivors.

Members of the Akimichi Clan transformed into giants, shielding civilians from falling rubble with their enormous bodies.

Members of the Nara Clan cast broad shadows across the ground, binding civilians who could not escape in time and forcibly dragging them out of the Nine-Tails' attack range.

"Go! Hurry!"

"Run that way! It's safe over there!"

"Don't look back! Move!"

Bang!

Another tail swept through.

A flying rock struck a middle-aged man in the thigh. He screamed and fell to the ground.

He desperately tried to get up, only to discover that his leg was broken. Jagged bone pierced his flesh, and blood pooled across the ground.

"Aah!!! It hurts!!!"

Lying on the ground, he looked around in despair.

"Anyone... someone, please save me... I'm begging you..."

Suddenly, he remembered something, and his face twisted with fury.

"Damn it! Where are the Uchiha?!"

He shouted himself hoarse:

"Are the Konoha Military Police Force good for nothing?! Weren't they trying to hold some evacuation drill yesterday?!"

"Where the hell have the Uchiha gone?!"

"Come save me!!!"

Just as he finished shouting, a figure landed in front of him.

He wore a green vest, with the Uchiha Clan's fan emblem embroidered on the back.

It was Uchiha Inabi.

He glanced down at the man's broken leg, then bent over without a word to move the rock pinning him down.

Little by little, the heavy stone shifted.

"Don't move."

Inabi spoke in a low voice.

"Almost done."

At last, the stone was moved aside.

Inabi reached out a hand.

"Come on. Climb onto my back. I'll take you somewhere safe."

The man froze for a moment. Then the first words out of his mouth were:

"You damned Uchiha! Why didn't you come save me sooner?!"

Inabi's hand stopped.

He raised his head and looked at that face, twisted by pain and fear.

The man kept cursing:

"If you'd come sooner, my leg wouldn't be broken! This is all your fault!"

Inabi's gaze slowly turned cold.

He stood and looked down at the man.

"Yesterday, Chief Fugaku asked you to take part in an evacuation drill. You refused to cooperate."

"You said you didn't need the Uchiha, that Danzo would protect you."

He paused, then asked:

"Tell me, where is Danzo now?"

The man opened his mouth, momentarily at a loss for words.

But his expression soon turned vicious again.

"I don't care! Protecting civilians is your duty as Uchiha! If you don't do it, I'll report you to Lord Hokage!"

Inabi stared at him for two seconds.

Then he smiled.

"Fine."

He nodded.

"In that case, go report me right now."

With that, his figure flickered, and he vanished on the spot.

The man froze.

He stared blankly in the direction Inabi had disappeared, taking a long while to register what had happened.

"You... get back here!"

No one answered.

He began to panic.

"Damned Uchiha... if you won't save me, someone else will!"

He shouted at the top of his lungs:

"Help! Someone, save me! I'm a Konoha villager! Someone..."

Yet all that answered him were the distant roars of the Nine-Tails and the crackling of flames.

No one came.

The Anbu moving through the ruins and the clan ninja desperately rescuing people were all too far away.

He tried to move, but the agonizing pain in his leg made him give up at once.

Just then, the ground began to shake.

He raised his head, his pupils abruptly contracting.

The Nine-Tails was moving toward him.

With every step its massive red body took, the ground trembled.

Wherever its nine wildly thrashing tails passed, everything was crushed to pieces.

At last, desperation seized him.

"No... no..."

His voice began to tremble.

"Don't... don't come this way..."

The Nine-Tails drew closer and closer.

He finally broke down.

"I was wrong! I was wrong!!!"

With all the strength he had left, he screamed in every direction:

"Come back and save me! Please! I was wrong! I shouldn't have cursed at you!"