Root

"Neji, these are the elites you were talking about? Why are they so pathetic?" Sasuke walked toward the wounded Hound at the entrance.

"Damn it!" Hound gritted his teeth beneath his mask. He was no match for Sasuke even uninjured, let alone now that he had suffered serious wounds.

"Elite is a relative term. Even without awakening the Sharingan, members of the Uchiha Clan are elites compared to ordinary ninja. And you've already awakened yours." Neji was speechless.

These three Root Ninja were not Jonin. At best, they were above-average Chunin. If he had to assign them a rank, elite Chunin was all he could give them.

As they spoke, Sasuke had already dealt with Hound and tied him up.

Seeing this, Neji stepped forward and tapped several points on Hound's body using a special Gentle Fist technique, locking down both his chakra and his ability to move. Then he knocked him unconscious with a palm strike.

Sasuke took the opportunity to drag Fox and Tanuki out of the Shrine as well.

Neji understood and did the same to them, immobilizing the other two Root ninja before knocking them unconscious.

"So this is the level of the Anbu Itachi joined..." Sasuke sounded disappointed.

Neji laughed. "Getting a little full of yourself, aren't you, kid?"

Neji pointed at the three unconscious figures by the entrance. "The Anbu aren't all at their level. These three don't count as true elites among them. There are genuine Elite Jonin in the Anbu, and their strength is still beyond your reach."

"Really? I'd like to see what an Elite Jonin can do." Sasuke was riding high on his confidence. He felt that even against a so-called Elite Jonin, he could put up a fight.

Neji almost failed to keep a straight face. "I'm sure you'll get to see an Elite Jonin's strength before long."

"Really? I'm looking forward to it." As he spoke, Sasuke removed one Root Ninja's mask, revealing a pale face beneath it. Then he pried open his mouth. "There's a Cursed Seal, just as expected. They're not ordinary Anbu."

Neji had already seen the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal through his Byakugan.

Sasuke wiped his hands on the Root Ninja's clothing, then searched them. All he found was a small booklet filled with the contents of the Uchiha Clan's Stone Tablet. He looked at Neji. "Looks like that Elite Jonin you mentioned won't be coming."

Since there was something wrong with these three men's identities, Sasuke did not believe stronger Anbu would come knocking.

Ultimately, they were in the wrong. They had searched the Uchiha Clan's forbidden Shrine without giving advance notice.

There was no way they could bypass him, the Uchiha Clan's current Clan Head, when doing something like this. Without his approval or a written order from the Hokage, these three were simply trespassing in the Uchiha Clan's Shrine.

"You'll find out when the time comes." Neji merely patted his shoulder, then turned and left.

"Heh, I can guess even if you won't tell me. It's just the Jonin instructor who'll lead my team after graduation." Sasuke sneered.

Having gathered some information about the village, Sasuke knew there was another person in it who possessed a Sharingan. He was a renowned figure in the village, known as the Copy Ninja, Kakashi Hatake—a powerful Elite Jonin.

If Naruto Uzumaki and I are assigned to the same team after graduation, our Jonin instructor will most likely be Kakashi Hatake. After all, the Sharingan and the Nine-Tails make a perfect pairing... Sasuke thought.

The village undoubtedly placed great importance on Naruto Uzumaki, the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki. He was, after all, the village's strongest weapon. His importance went without saying.

If Sasuke, the last remaining member of the Uchiha Clan, still carried any weight at all in the minds of the village's higher-ups, then he would definitely be assigned to Kakashi Hatake's team.

"An Elite Jonin? I'm looking forward to it." Sasuke began to look forward to graduation.

Casting a disdainful glance at the three Root Ninja outside the Shrine's entrance, Sasuke went into its basement. Then he dug out the entire Stone Tablet and carried it home.

Judging by what had just happened, the village was clearly keeping him under some degree of surveillance. To keep the Stone Tablet from falling into someone else's hands, Sasuke had no choice but to take it home and put it inside a Sealing Scroll.

As for the three unconscious ninja, Sasuke simply left them outside the Shrine.

Meanwhile, as Neji headed back, he wondered how Danzo's Root had come to take an interest in Sasuke.

To avoid any potential crisis, Neji felt he needed to find out where in Konoha Root's base was located.

His Byakugan's straight-line viewing range exceeded fifty kilometers, enough to span almost all of Konoha. To find Root's location, he only needed to walk to the center of Konoha, activate his Byakugan, and turn around once.

The Hokage Building stood at the center of Konoha. After arriving nearby, Neji found a secluded corner and activated his Byakugan.

"Found it!" Halfway through his turn, Neji discovered Root's location on Konoha's northwestern edge.

He knew at a glance that it was Root because he saw Danzo himself.

It was an enormous underground structure. Danzo sat in a chair with a cane, saying something to another person.

Within his Byakugan's field of vision, Danzo's right eye appeared green. That was the color of the ocular power and chakra contained in Shisui Uchiha's Mangekyō Sharingan.

"Is that Aburame Ryoma? His body is covered in insects. At that height, it shouldn't be anyone else." Neji also noticed another person, who was probably Danzo's right-hand man, Aburame Ryoma.

"Huh? Why is this room full of corpses?" Neji frowned almost imperceptibly. He saw an enormous room lined with huge containers, each holding a pale corpse submerged in liquid.

Through his Byakugan, he saw cylindrical containers filled with an unidentified liquid inside that enormous room. Pale corpses floated within them—men and women, old and young.

"This is..." Suddenly, unmistakable shock appeared on Neji's face.

These are all corpses of Uchiha Clan members! Neji was shaken.

He even saw the corpse of someone who bore a resemblance to Sasuke.

He did not dare imagine what Sasuke would become if he saw this.

Sasuke was an Uchiha who valued his clan's honor above all else. Whenever he won a fight, he declared that it was the power of the Uchiha Clan. Whenever he lost, he took the blame himself.

"Tsk, tsk. You've really outdone yourselves, Danzo, Hiruzen Sarutobi." Neji's expression darkened at the sight.

Sasuke was his friend, after all. It was impossible for Neji not to feel angry when he saw his friend's family treated this way.

Neji shifted his gaze to another laboratory within Root's base.

This laboratory was small, containing only a single round Cultivation Container, with a fist-sized lump of flesh floating inside.

A piece of flesh preserved in a dedicated Cultivation Container... is that Hashirama Senju's flesh? Neji thought.