Morning in the Hidden Leaf Village carried the sharp stink of gunpowder. The ruins left by Pain's attack were still being cleared, but an even more shocking piece of news grew wings and spread through the entire upper echelon of the Hidden Leaf within an hour, even beginning to spill into the major provinces.
Itachi Uchiha was dead.
He had not died of illness, nor in a siege. Uchiha Yuan had snapped his neck with his own hands, and his corpse had been thrown onto the ruins of the old clan grounds.
The former Hokage Building was now the empire's administrative center.
Shikaku looked at the urgent intelligence report in his hand and rubbed his temples so hard he nearly scraped the skin raw. The desk in front of him was piled high with letters from every region asking for confirmation.
"He killed Itachi Uchiha?!" Mitokado Homura, serving as acting Hokage adviser, planted both hands on the desk, his eyes bulging. "That was a man even the Third and Danzo feared! Yuan killed him just like that?"
"The intelligence is accurate. The Anbu have already collected the body and are waiting for Lord Yuan's orders." Shikaku sighed and slapped the report down on the desk. "With this, whatever opposition forces remain in the shinobi world have had their last shred of hope snuffed out. If even Itachi died by his hand, how many more days can Akatsuki jump around?"
Amid the shock and panic, the instigator, Yuan, was sitting in a quiet room inside the governor's estate of the new clan grounds.
He did not care how chaotic things were outside. Right now, his eyes were closed as he devoted himself fully to digesting the spoils the system had just poured into his body.
Itachi's Mangekyō abilities had been engraved