And the name of the man who had caused it all-Chiya Uchiha-would become the darkest shadow hanging over their childhoods, and even their entire lives.
The dust had yet to settle, and fear was still spreading.
As the four heads of Hokage Rock crashed down and crushed the bustling streets below, all of Konoha fell into a deathly silence. It was not the silence of peace, but the speechlessness of utter terror.
Above the ruins, the figure dressed in black did not linger.
Whoosh!
Only an afterimage, distorted by intense heat, remained in the air.
The next second, Chiya Uchiha appeared atop the semicircular red building-the rooftop of the Hokage Building.
This was where generations of Hokage had received the villagers' cheers, the center where S-rank missions were issued, and the brain of the Land of Fire's entire military force. The building beneath his feet held every classified scroll accumulated over the sixty years since Konoha's founding, the Anbu roster, and top-secret intelligence on the other ninja villages.
One could say this building was Konoha's "soul."
But now, its master was an invader holding a long, flaming blade.
Chiya ignored the remaining Anbu trembling below, too afraid to approach. He casually pushed open the door leading from the rooftop to the Hokage Office and walked in as though entering his own home.
The office was a mess.
The tremors from Hokage Rock's collapse had toppled the bookshelves and scattered documents across the floor.
On the broad desk lay documents Hiruzen Sarutobi had never lived to review, along with his ever-smoking pipe.
Chiya approached the desk and picked up the red-and-white hat that every Konoha ninja regarded as a lifelong dream-the Hokage Hat.
The character for "fire" was embroidered on it in gold thread, gleaming with authority beneath the lights.
"All for this lousy hat..."
Chiya turned the hat in his hand, a mocking smile curling his lips.
"Danzo turned himself into a monster covered in Sharingan and spent his whole life scheming in the gutters."
"Hiruzen Sarutobi sacrificed his disciples' lives and condoned the slaughter of his own people just to keep his seat."
"Orochimaru was even willing to find pleasure in destroying it just to prove himself."
Chiya tossed the hat at his feet, then grabbed an armful of scrolls marked "top secret" from a nearby bookshelf. They might have contained the forbidden technique Impure World Reincarnation, instructions for mastering Flying Thunder God, or the dark histories of the great ninja clans.
Outside this room, these things could have driven the Five Great Nations into a bloody war.
But to Chiya, they were nothing more than trash from a bygone era.
"A new era has no room for rotten things like these."
Holding the pile of objects that symbolized Konoha's highest authority and wisdom, Chiya returned to the edge of the rooftop.
By then, countless people had gathered below.
Hyuga Hiashi, who had survived, the gravely wounded Shikaku Nara, who had been revived by his clansmen, and Konoha's hollow-eyed ninjas all looked up at Chiya on the rooftop, unsure what this demon god intended to do next.
Clatter!
Chiya opened his hands.
The Hokage Hat, the Scroll of Seals, classified records... they tumbled from the rooftop like a heap of wastepaper, scattering across the Hokage Building's red roof.
"Is that... Lord Hokage's hat?!"
"Is that a copy of the Scroll of Seals?!"
The ninjas below cried out. Some instinctively moved to rush forward and save those treasures.
"Who dares move?"
Chiya uttered the words mildly.
Those few words became an invisible barrier, pinning everyone's feet in place. The reiatsu that seemed ready to ignite the very air nearly robbed them of the courage to even look up.
"Ninjas of Konoha, watch closely."
Standing at the rooftop's edge, Chiya slowly drew Ryūjin Jakka.
The scrape of blade against sheath sounded especially harsh in the silent night.
"The power, glory, secret techniques, and history you cherish..."
"Are worthless to me."
Hummm!
As the blade cleared its sheath, a dark-red wave of scorching air swept across the entire rooftop. Chiya's black hair whipped wildly, making him look like a king amid the flames.
He used no earth-shattering move.
He merely pointed the blade downward and lightly touched its tip to the pile of "symbols of power" beneath his feet.
"All things in the universe, turn to ash."
"Ryūjin Jakka: Flame Incineration."
BOOM!!!
The tiny spark at the blade's tip seemed to detonate a miniature sun the instant it touched the Hokage Hat.
The golden flames did not burn-they erupted!
Whoooosh!
Fire spread wildly across the roof, instantly devouring the scrolls, then the documents, then the entire Hokage Office, and finally...
It engulfed the whole circular Hokage Building!
"NO!!!"
Shikaku Nara let out a desperate howl.
That was not merely a building. It was Konoha's brain! It held sixty years of Konoha's accumulated knowledge!
But before Chiya's flames, everything seemed helpless and insignificant.
Ryūjin Jakka's heat was simply too intense.
Those golden flames carried destructive power that reached the soul itself. Ordinary brick and stone could do nothing to stop them. The red paint vaporized instantly, and the solid walls cracked and melted in the heat.
The flames soaring into the sky shone even brighter than Hokage Rock's collapse.
They illuminated all of Konoha, turning night into day.
Rolling waves of heat forced the ninjas below to retreat again and again, scorching the skin on their faces. Yet nothing could dispel the chill in their hearts.
Chiya stood amid the raging flames.
He did not protect himself with chakra, for these flames were his subjects and would never harm him.
Firelight fell across his cold, handsome face, outlining a cruelty that bordered on divine.
As he watched "Konoha's heritage" turn to ash in the sea of flames and listened to the building's structure groan, a pleasant system notification chimed in his mind.
[Ding! The host's actions have been detected as highly destructive and symbolic!] [You have destroyed Konoha's administrative center-the Hokage Building!] [You have burned a vast quantity of the shinobi world's classified information and forbidden technique legacies!] [Achievement unlocked: Civilization Shatterer!] [System evaluation: You have not only killed their bodies, but also destroyed the foundations of their civilization. This is a more thorough conquest than slaughter!] [Kill points awarded: +100000!] [Ryūjin Jakka fusion rate increased slightly!]
"One hundred thousand kill points? Not bad."
Satisfied, Chiya sheathed his blade.
By now, the Hokage Building beneath him was close to giving way. Its interior structure had burned away completely, and it was beginning to collapse.
But he did not care.
He slowly floated upward, hovering above the sea of fire as he looked down at the ashen-faced people of Konoha.
"What are you crying for?"
Chiya's voice was cold and imperious.
"Out with the old, in with the new."
"From this day forward, there will be no Hokage Building in this world, and no more... Hokage."
He extended a finger toward the blazing ruins and announced his "new rules" to the entire village:
"From now on, these ruins will remain here."
"No one may clear them away. No one may rebuild."
"I want these ashes to remind you at every moment..."
Chiya's gaze swept over Hyuga Hiashi, Shikaku Nara, and the face of every survivor.
"Who the master of this place truly is."
"And who is the god who holds your lives in his hands!"
With that, Chiya paid no further attention to these "slaves" whose will had been utterly broken.
He turned away. Behind him, the Hokage Building finally collapsed with a tremendous crash, throwing sparks across the sky like a magnificent fireworks display to see him off.
It was the curtain falling on the old era.
And Chiya Uchiha's ambition rising to new heights.
"Next..."
Chiya turned his gaze toward another corner of the village-the Uchiha Clan Compound.
With Konoha's institutions destroyed and the Will of Fire extinguished, little remained here worth lingering over.
Rather than stay as a caretaker and handle the tedious work of rebuilding, he might as well venture into the wider shinobi world and seek more interesting prey.
Such as... the members of the Akatsuki who called themselves "gods."
Or... the Kage-level fighters the other great ninja villages would deliver to his doorstep.
"But before leaving, I still need to pick up a few pieces of 'luggage.'"
The corners of Chiya's mouth lifted slightly. His figure flickered, and he vanished into the night sky with Flash Step.
[Uchiha Clan Compound · Abandoned Street]
The place still lay in the deathly silence left by the night of the massacre.
In the courtyard of a relatively intact residence, a girl knelt on the ground, staring blankly at the sky.
Uchiha Izumi.
Uchiha Itachi's lover.
She should have died that night at the hands of Obito or Itachi. But because Chiya had appeared out of nowhere and intercepted Itachi to kill him, she had miraculously survived.
Or rather, Chiya had deliberately spared her.
Her eyes were hollow. Although she had survived, her psychological wounds were no less severe than Sasuke's. She had seen her clansmen's bodies with her own eyes and had some inkling of the heartbreaking truth-Itachi had been one of the perpetrators of the massacre.
"Why... did you leave me alive..."
Izumi hugged her knees, her voice hoarse.
"Because you have value."
A voice abruptly rang out in the courtyard.
Izumi jerked her head up and saw the man standing on the wall, his back to the moonlight.
Chiya Uchiha.
He still carried the smoky scent of the burning Hokage Building. His suffocating presence made Izumi instinctively want to retreat.
"Chiya... did you kill Itachi?" Izumi asked, trembling.
"Yes."
Chiya jumped down from the wall and walked up to Izumi, admitting it without hesitation. "I cut off his head. It's in the morgue over there. If you want to see it, I can take you."
Tears spilled from Izumi's eyes, but she did not charge at him in a desperate attack. She knew she was incapable of it.
"Do you hate me?" Chiya asked.
Izumi bit her lip until blood seeped out, but said nothing. Hate him? Of course she did. But he had acted to protect himself, and Itachi had been the traitor... Those tangled emotions were driving her mad.
"It doesn't matter whether you hate me."
Chiya reached out, seized Izumi's wrist, and forcibly pulled her to her feet.
His movements were rough, without the slightest tenderness.
"I didn't spare you out of sympathy."
"It was because you awakened three tomoe."
Chiya stared into Izumi's tear-filled eyes, where three tomoe were indeed rotating.
"After enduring your clan's massacre, your lover's betrayal, and the threat of death, your emotional turmoil has been quite promising."
"You have the potential to awaken the Mangekyo."
To Chiya, both Sasuke and Izumi were valuable "crops" to be harvested.
Sasuke was the reincarnation of Indra's chakra, the key to awakening the Eternal eyes.
And Izumi, as Itachi's lover, could become a useful fighter if cultivated properly. Or... a tool to spur Sasuke's growth.
"Come with me."
Chiya spoke in a tone that allowed no argument.
"Where?" Izumi asked instinctively.
"Away from this nauseating village."
Chiya released her hand and turned to leave, not remotely concerned that Izumi might flee.
"From this day on, you are no longer a ninja of Konoha."
"You are my maid, and my tool."
"Only by following me can you see the truth of this world, and even... gain the power to take revenge on anyone."
Izumi looked at Chiya's retreating back, then at the empty clan compound filled with bloody memories.
She hesitated for a moment, then finally gritted her teeth, stood up, and followed him.
She had nowhere else to go.
A short while later.
At the entrance to the Uchiha Clan Compound.
Kakashi carried the unconscious Sasuke on his back, his expression conflicted as he watched Chiya approach, with Izumi following behind him.
"You're leaving?" Kakashi asked.
"Konoha is too small to hold my blade."
Chiya stopped and glanced at Sasuke on Kakashi's back.
"I originally planned to take him with me, too."
"But..." Chiya rubbed his chin, seemingly struck by a more entertaining idea. "Forget it."
"Traveling with two burdens would be too much trouble."
"Besides, hatred needs distance and time to fester."
Chiya pulled a scroll from inside his clothes and tossed it to Kakashi.
"This is the Uchiha Clan Fire Release Secret Technique Scroll."
"If you're going to be his teacher, don't teach him any garbage."
"Tell Sasuke."
"I'll be waiting for him in the world outside."
"If he wants to reclaim the Uchiha's glory, if he wants to kill me, he'd better fight like hell to get stronger."
With that, Chiya showed not the slightest reluctance to leave.
He strode toward Konoha's burned-out gates with Izumi.
Behind him lay ruins engulfed in towering flames.
A village whose faith had crumbled.
Countless pairs of eyes filled with fear and awe.
Chiya never looked back. With his back to Konoha, he simply raised his right hand high and gave a casual wave.
It was a gesture of farewell.
And a declaration of war.
"Goodbye, Konoha."
"The next time I return..."
"Will be when I unite the Shinobi World under my rule."
Before you continue