"Full speed ahead! Hurry!"
"Surround the Uchiha Clan Compound! Don't let so much as a fly out!"
Firelight and figures crisscrossed the streets of Konoha.
Hiruzen Sarutobi led the charge. His aged face was filled with fury at having been played.
He had finally realized it!
The Uchiha's earth-shattering Fire Style bombardment had been nothing but a diversion!
Not a single Uchiha ninja had charged out. Those flames had merely been expended fruitlessly against the village's defensive barrier!
Their real objective had been to buy time!
"Damn you, Uchiha Gen'yō! To think an old man like me was fooled by a brat!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi gritted his teeth. He could already imagine it: the Uchiha Clan Compound must have been deserted by now.
"They won't get away!"
Behind him, Shimura Danzō's voice was as cold and sinister as a venomous snake.
"I've already had Root seal every secret passage leading out of the village! Their only way out is to break through head-on!"
"Hiruzen, don't hold anything back! Today, we must erase the Uchiha name from the history of the shinobi world completely!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi said nothing, merely picking up speed in silence.
He knew Danzo was right.
Things had reached this point. There was no longer any room for compromise between Konoha and the Uchiha.
One side had to die!
Five minutes later.
When Hiruzen Sarutobi led over a thousand Konoha ninja to surround the entire Uchiha Clan Compound so tightly that nothing could get through, everyone was stunned by the sight before them.
There was none of the fierce resistance they had imagined.
There was no tragic scene of battle cries shaking the heavens.
The entire Uchiha Clan Compound was deathly silent, without a soul in sight.
Only the wide-open gate stood like a giant, mocking mouth, silently speaking of the victor's composure.
"Where are they? Where did everyone go?"
Utatane Koharu shrieked, disbelief written all over her face.
"Search! Search every room! They must be hiding! Even if you have to dig three feet into the ground, find them!"
But before the Konoha ninja could rush inside.
A figure slowly rose to his feet on the roof of the ancestral hall at the very center of the Uchiha Clan Compound.
Black hair, black eyes, and a jet-black tachi flashing with lightning in his hand.
It was Uchiha Gen'yō!
He stood there alone in silence. Facing over a thousand murderous enemies outside, his gaze was as still as a pool of stagnant water.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi, you're too late."
Gen'yō's voice was not loud, yet it reached everyone's ears clearly.
"Gen'yō!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi's pupils suddenly contracted as he stared fixedly at him.
"Where are your clansmen? Where did you hide them?"
"Them..."
Gen'yō smiled, a hint of playfulness in his smile.
"They've already gone to a new world without oppression or discrimination, where they can breathe fresh air freely."
"Don't even think about it!"
Danzo shouted fiercely. "Konoha's barrier is completely intact! There's no way they could have left the village!"
"Oh? Is that so?"
The corners of Gen'yō's mouth curved into a mysterious smile.
He slowly raised the Lightning Flame Tachi in his hand, pointing it toward the entire Uchiha Clan Compound beneath his feet.
"Why do you think I stayed here?"
"To fight you alone? Or to cover my clansmen's retreat?"
"No. Neither."
His gaze suddenly became incomparably frenzied and blazing!
"I stayed here to personally ignite this grand fireworks display bidding farewell to our past!"
"Kamui Dimension Coordinate Detonation!"
The instant his words fell, he drove the Lightning Flame Tachi in his hand hard into the roof beneath his feet!
Hum!
A visible spatial ripple instantly spread outward from him like ripples on water!
At that moment, countless densely packed purple inscriptions lit up across the ground of the entire Uchiha Clan Compound!
These inscriptions connected every corner, every house, and every inch of land!
This was...
This was a colossal spatial detonation array that Gen'yō had secretly laid beneath the entire compound using Kamui's power before the operation began!
And the array's core was connected to none other than the crates upon crates of explosive tags he had just emptied out of the ninja tool storehouse!
"This is bad! Retreat!"
For the first time, an expression of utter horror appeared on Hiruzen Sarutobi's face!
He sensed a terrifying energy powerful enough to wipe the entire area off the map!
But it was already too late!
"Burn my mortal remains in blazing sacred fire!"
Uchiha Gen'yō stood on the roof and spread his arms. Like a god embracing rebirth, he delivered his final declaration!
"From tonight onward, there will be no Uchiha of Konoha in this world!"
"In flames and glory, we will..."
"Be reborn!"
"Explode!"
Boom!
An explosion beyond words erupted!
All of Konoha shook violently at that moment!
A pillar of fire so thick it inspired despair, mingled with purple lightning from shattering space, shot skyward from the center of the Uchiha Clan Compound, as though it would punch a hole through the sky!
The terrifying shock wave became a hurricane that destroyed everything, sweeping wildly in every direction!
The Konoha ninja at the very front did not even have time to scream before the intense heat and spatial power tore them to pieces!
Hiruzen Sarutobi, Danzo, and the others retreated desperately. Only by exhausting every defensive ninjutsu they had did they barely preserve their lives in that destructive storm!
When all the dust settled.
The ancient, peaceful Uchiha Clan Compound had vanished completely.
In its place was a gigantic, bottomless crater, spatial rifts still flickering along its edges!
Nothing had been left behind.
Houses, streets, history, glory...
Everything had been reduced to nothingness in that grand act of self-destruction.
"A madman. He's a complete and utter madman."
Utatane Koharu slumped to the ground, muttering to herself in a daze.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, meanwhile, stared fixedly at the center of the crater.
Uchiha Gen'yō had disappeared as well.
Had he perished along with the compound in the explosion?
No!
Hiruzen Sarutobi knew perfectly well. With his spatial dōjutsu, there was absolutely no way he would die in an explosion like this!
He had merely used this most resolute, most devastating method to declare to all of Konoha, to the entire shinobi world...
The Uchiha had severed all ties with their past!
Meanwhile, in a secluded valley several dozen kilometers from Konoha.
Space twisted, and Uchiha Gen'yō stepped out completely unharmed.
Before him, over a thousand Uchiha clansmen were gazing toward the towering firelight in Konoha's direction, their expressions complicated.
There was grief and reluctance to part. But more than anything, there was the lightness of a burden lifted and boundless hope for the future.
Seeing their leader return unharmed, everyone erupted into earth-shaking cheers!
Just then, the long-awaited system notification sounded in Gen'yō's mind.
[Ding! Congratulations, host! Main quest Clan Migration: Burning the Boats completed perfectly!] [Quest rating: SSS!] [With astonishing resolve and unparalleled ingenuity, you led your entire clan in breaking the shackles of the past and declared the Uchiha's rebirth in the most resolute manner!] [Clan cohesion, independence, and future potential have all reached the system's assessment limit!] [Calculating final rewards...] [Congratulations, host! Clan prosperity +20,000 points!] [Congratulations, host! As prosperity has surpassed the critical threshold for the first time, the system's core functions have been upgraded!] [New feature unlocked: Clan Holy Land!]