How Did Konoha End Up Like This?

Shuofang Si hurled a stone, but there was no force behind the attack. Orochimaru extended his neck and dodged it with a slight shift.

This ordinary man, clinging to life by a thread, had answered his question-"Do you regret it?"-with action.

He could read Shuofang Si's lips. Swollen and bleeding, they moved with difficulty. Though no sound came out, the words were unmistakable.

Just three words.

Fuck. Your. Mother.

Orochimaru did not recognize the language the man was mouthing, but he had a vague sense that he was being insulted.

Shuofang Si seemed to want to say something else, but he could not draw another breath. His lips trembled twice more without making a sound.

Orochimaru rose with a cold snort and looked down at the young villager sprawled on the ground.

Then a cold smirk curled his lips. Paying the fragile insect no further attention, he vanished into the smoke-filled ruins.

The Sound Four followed close behind, their figures streaking through the air and disappearing in an instant.

Tobirama Senju stood where he was, watching the direction Orochimaru had gone, then glanced down at the half-dead troublemaker on the ground.

His expression twitched despite himself. Had his wretched student really let Konoha's culture deteriorate this far over the past few decades?

Once the villagers and ninja saw that Orochimaru had left, they exchanged glances. A moment later, an accusation from someone in the crowd set them arguing again.

Shuofang Si lay face down, his consciousness drifting in the darkness.

His body had reached its limit. The power of the gene lock was fading, and pain gradually crept in.

An aching numbness spread from his organs to his marrow, then from his blood to his skin, making his entire body spasm.

With Shuofang Si down and gravely injured, the Four Violet Flames Formation dissipated completely, and the distant explosions gradually subsided.

The Konoha Crush could now be declared a failure. Everything had entered the cleanup stage.

The medical ninja finally arrived.

"Finally" was the right word: only now, after all the fighting, did these ninja in Konoha Hospital's white coats make their belated appearance.

They could not be blamed entirely. Fighting had broken out all over the village, casualties were everywhere, and the medical teams had long since scattered across the various neighborhoods.

Anyone who managed to reach the rooftop at this point had already run themselves ragged.

"Where are the wounded? Anyone still conscious, please answer!" a medical team captain shouted at the top of her lungs.

Seven or eight ninja carrying stretchers followed her, all covered in dust and blood.

At her words, the crowd parted on its own.

Everyone stepped back to either side in unison.

On the packed rooftop platform, several hundred people suddenly opened a narrow passage. At its end lay a lone figure.

It was Shuofang Si.

No one else lay beside him. Those injured in the earlier fighting, along with the villagers knocked out by genjutsu, had all been helped aside by their friends and relatives.

Only Shuofang Si lay alone, face down on the shattered roof tiles as though everyone had abandoned him, a pool of blood slowly spreading beneath his body.

The medical team captain paused.

She was probably wondering why there was only one casualty with so many villagers gathered here.

And judging by the scene, no one seemed willing to approach the injured young man.

She had no time to dwell on it. Hurrying over, she crouched beside Shuofang Si, green chakra glowing around her palms as she began examining his injuries.

"So many broken ribs, fractures in both arms, both legs broken, internal bleeding... and multiple soft-tissue contusions."

The captain's frown deepened. These injuries looked less like the result of a ninja battle and more like a beating by a mob of ordinary people.

Recalling the crowd's strange reaction, she did not ask what had happened. Instead, she immediately called her team over to begin emergency treatment.

Green chakra moved over Shuofang Si's body as several medical ninja worked at once, some stopping the bleeding and others setting his bones.

Shuofang Si's consciousness drifted in the darkness. Dimly, he sensed a warm energy repairing his shattered body.

That energy passed gently and slowly through his muscles and bones, bringing waves of aching, prickling pain.

After an unknown stretch of time, his head finally felt a little clearer.

But clarity came at the price of pain.

The aftereffects of the gene lock swept through his entire body like a tide. Every muscle spasmed, every bone screamed, as though several red-hot iron spikes had been driven into his nerve endings.

The pain made him tense, shifting his broken ribs. He sucked in a sharp breath, only for the agony to make his vision darken.

Still, he laboriously turned his neck and forced open the one eye that had not swollen shut, trying to see what was happening around him.

Seeing that he was awake, the medical team captain said, "Your condition is stable for now. Don't move."

Then she hurried off with her team to the next casualty.

Medical resources were scarce. Now that they had pulled him back from death's door, they could not waste much more chakra on a single civilian. After all, even if his condition improved temporarily, his injuries would still kill him later.

The crowd gradually gathered nearby again, murmured discussions and arguments rising one after another.

Shuofang Si worked to steady his breathing. Though he lay motionless, his mind raced.

It should be over soon. They've kept me alive for now. All I have to do is wait until I return.

As he thought this, he suddenly felt someone watching him.

The lingering danger sense from the gene lock made him instinctively want to draw his neck in.

Shuofang Si held his breath and cautiously scanned the crowd with the one eye he could still move.

Then he spotted someone mingling with a few villagers, looking utterly unremarkable.

But there was something distinctly wrong with that person's gaze. It held a cruel, mocking amusement.

It was the look of someone watching prey caught in a trap, calculating the best moment to strike.

This was killing intent.

Shuofang Si's heart clenched. His body reacted instantly, adrenaline surging.

The remaining power of the gene lock stirred in his veins, only to be immediately crushed by its aftereffects, leaving nothing but even fiercer pain in retaliation.

Forget fighting back-he did not even have the strength to raise his hand and throw a stone.

What do I do?

Even without thinking, he knew whose side this person was on. Probably the Third's; either way, they were tied to the Sarutobi interest group.

The Third had fallen, but his people had yet to be purged. Killing a gravely wounded troublemaker amid the chaos, then blaming his death on injuries beyond treatment, would be perfectly routine.

Shuofang Si frantically racked his brain for a way to survive. Call for help?

The villagers around him had just beaten him up. Who would save him?

Count on the ninja?

Kakashi stood not far away, but a group of Anbu surrounded him. They seemed to be discussing something important, and he was not looking this way at all.

And while Shuofang Si desperately searched for a solution, the arguing in the open space never let up.