The night over Hidden Leaf Village was like an enormous black curtain, shrouding the entire village in endless deathly silence.
At some point, a cold nighttime drizzle had begun to fall from the sky, masking every faint sound.
A lean figure clad in a black cloak patterned with red clouds slipped through Konoha's outer sensory barrier like a ghost, utterly soundless.
Beneath Itachi Uchiha's conical hat, his scarlet Sharingan gleamed coldly in the rainy night.
This time, his infiltration of Konoha weighed more heavily on him than any before.
Just moments ago, in the phantom body space, that madman Pain had not only issued the highest-priority secret order, but had also designated Chenshu Senju as the foremost threat to the Plan of God.
On top of that, Zetsu's clingy, relentless surveillance had reduced his margin for error to zero.
If he actually followed Pain's idiotic order and tried to assassinate Chenshu Senju, he would be asking for death.
He knew all too well what that last descendant of the Senju Clan was capable of.
A freak who had just soloed the entire Root base, stomped Danzo into a limbless heap of flesh, and could even resist Tsukuyomi—was that someone a human being could assassinate?
Having him face that monster head-on alone now would be no different from delivering his own ashes to the doorstep.
Besides, his foolish little brother was still in that man's grasp.
At the thought of Sasuke being hung at the village entrance like a wind chime for display, with a red banner stretched out for his public humiliation, Itachi's mouth twitched violently.
That was not physical damage. It was dimensionality-reducing mental contamination.
That proud little brother of his had probably been stripped of even his last shred of dignity. If he did not act soon, the