Flames raged on both sides of the street, dyeing the night sky bloodred.
"Run! Take the children to the shrine!"
The kunai in Izumi Uchiha's hand was already chipped. Her face was covered in soot, and the eyes in which a one-tomoe Sharingan had awakened were filled with anxiety and despair.
In front of her were three small demon foxes split off from the Nine-Tails' chakra.
Though they were only the size of wild wolves, that savage chakra was enough to tear any chunin apart.
"Roar!"
One split body suddenly lunged at her.
Izumi dodged sideways while swinging her kunai.
Clang!
The kunai stabbed into the split body as if it had struck a steel plate, scattering sparks everywhere. The recoil made Izumi's wrist go numb, and the kunai flew from her hand.
"Oh no!"
Izumi's heart went cold.
Another split body seized the opening, opened its bloody maw, and lunged straight for her throat.
A foul, bloody stench hit her in the face.
Izumi instinctively closed her eyes.
In that instant between life and death, what surfaced in her mind was not her parents, nor her clansmen, but the boy who was always practicing shuriken in the woods with his back to her.
The boy who always smiled gently, yet always hid his worries deep in his heart.
"Itachi-kun..."
In the distance.
Itachi Uchiha, who was racing forward, felt his heart suddenly clench.
It felt as if an invisible hand had seized it hard.
His gaze pierced through layer after layer of smoke and fire, and he saw the figure that was about to be devoured.
In that instant, space and time seemed to fall into disorder.
What he saw was no longer the battlefield before him, but a blood-colored moonlit night.
That night, he had stood on