Konoha looked the same as ever. The streets were quiet, and life seemed peaceful.
The loss of more than twenty Jonin from Root that night had barely caused a ripple in the village.
Ninjas like them had never existed in the official records anyway.
From the day they first entered Root, their names had been wiped clean, as though they had never existed in this world—wandering ghosts nobody would claim.
Even when they died, hardly anyone knew.
A place on the Memorial Stone? Not a chance.
Even a proper burial was too much to hope for. That very night, the Uchiha had used Earth Release to bury them, then Water Release to wash away the blood.
Only a handful of Konoha's leaders felt their hearts tighten.
The major ninja clans had quietly begun raising their guard as well.
Nobody was a fool.
What had happened outside the Konoha Military Police Force's gates that night had clearly been a showdown between the village leadership and the Uchiha.
One look at the chunks of flesh strewn across the ground told them how deadly it had been.
This time, the Uchiha had truly dared to kill.
That was a bad sign. Who knew what those lunatics would do next?
On the surface, the village remained perfectly harmonious, but inside every household, the tension was as taut as a bowstring.
Among the Uchiha, only some twenty people in positions of authority knew what was really going on.
The ordinary clan members went on eating, drinking, and living their lives, largely unaffected.
Uchiha Setsuna, however, had been itching to stir up trouble.
This time, Jin had not even needed to act. Fugaku, the Clan Head, had shut him down himself.
The name Fugaku the Fierce-Eyed had not come from nowhere.
In the past, he had