At the earth-shattering explosion, the once grim and solemn scene before the Memorial Stone instantly descended into chaos.
Hiruzen Sarutobi's face turned as pale as paper.
He stared fixedly at the flames rising in the distance. Even his hand gripping the Adamantine Staff trembled slightly.
"Gen'yō! You actually sent people to attack the Hokage Building?"
"That's starting an all-out war! Do you want to doom the Uchiha Clan beyond redemption?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi roared hysterically. Not a trace of the Hokage's refined composure remained. He looked exactly like a gambler who had lost every last chip.
Uchiha Gen'yō stood amid the scattered remnants of Explosive Tags, as graceful as if he were strolling through his own garden.
He picked at his ear, his tone carrying a hint of mockery.
"Attack the Hokage Building? Hiruzen Sarutobi, you think far too highly of that building of yours."
"I'm not interested in some rundown building."
"However." Gen'yō's gaze turned cold. "If I'm not mistaken, that should be Shimura Danzō's private property, shouldn't it?"
At those words, Hiruzen Sarutobi froze.
The explosion had indeed come from a direction closer to Root's secret entrance!
A cruel smile appeared at the corner of Gen'yō's mouth.
"You called me out for a duel, while that old dog Danzo took his men to raid my home."
"Terribly sorry about that. I left a few Kamui markers near the compound beforehand."
"By now, those Root rats of his are probably busy being churned into mincemeat by spatial torrents."
Things were exactly as Gen'yō had said.
Half an hour earlier, Danzo had led dozens of Root elites to the outskirts of the Uchiha Clan Compound under cover of night.
Danzo had thought that with Gen'yō lured away by Hiruzen Sarutobi, he only needed to deal separately with Fugaku and Shisui, who remained in the compound, and slaughtering the Uchiha would be a simple matter.
What he never expected was that before leaving, Gen'yō had used his right eye's Kamui intangibility to plant an enormous spatial formation beneath the foundations of the Uchiha Clan Compound.
The formation would activate whenever a large amount of unauthorized chakra entered.
At that moment, a one-sided slaughter was unfolding at the entrance to the Root Base.
Space collapsed without warning. Countless Root ninja were sucked into the endless void before they could even scream.
Danzo watched the subordinates he had painstakingly trained fall in droves, his aged eyes filled with frenzied killing intent.
"Uchiha Gen'yō, you even prepared for this!"
Danzo clutched his right arm, which had been implanted with countless Sharingan. The greed and fear in his heart reached their peak at that moment.
"No. Those eyes... I must have them!"
Just as Danzo prepared to stake everything on activating Kotoamatsukami-
A cold whistle of something cutting through the air sounded behind him.
"Lord Danzo, tearing up someone else's foundations this late at night is hardly appropriate, is it?"
At some point, Shisui and Itachi had blocked his path, one on either side.
Behind Shisui, the afterimages of his Body Flicker Technique formed an unbroken blur. The Mangekyō Sharingan in his eyes remained locked on Danzo.
"Just as I thought. Big Brother Gen'yō was right about everything."
"People like you only ever hide in the shadows and resort to these dirty tricks."
Danzo gritted his teeth. He felt the situation had slipped completely out of his control.
Meanwhile, the battle at the Memorial Stone had also reached a fever pitch.
Seeing that the surprise attack had failed, Hiruzen Sarutobi had no choice but to steel himself and keep attacking, compelled by his duties as Hokage.
"Gen'yō, since you refuse to see reason, don't blame me for what happens!"
The Professor of Ninjutsu lived up to his reputation, unleashing techniques of all five natures in succession.
Earth dragons, waves, lightning, and flames surged toward Gen'yō from every direction.
Yet Gen'yō simply stood where he was, his left eye narrowing slightly.
"Kamui Great World Distortion!"
The various techniques of the Five Basic Nature Transformations rushing toward him seemed to encounter an enormous concave lens the instant they drew near.
Every attack had its trajectory forcibly altered.
Flames burned the Anbu, lightning shattered the Memorial Stone, and the earth dragons hurtled straight back toward Hiruzen Sarutobi himself in the distance.
"There's no way to fight this."
An Anbu elite threw down his kunai in terror.
No matter how hard they tried, they could never touch their opponent, only to be toyed with at his whim instead. That feeling alone could shatter a person's will.
Gen'yō yawned, seemingly already tired of this game of playing house.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi, I originally intended to let you save some face."
"But since you've decided to kill me, I'm withdrawing that three-day deadline."
"Starting tonight, Konoha will no longer owe the Uchiha anything."
"Because I'll collect it myself."
As soon as he finished speaking, Gen'yō vanished into the void.
The next second, he appeared directly behind Hiruzen Sarutobi and gently rested a hand on his Hokage robe.
"You've worn this outfit for too long. It's time it had a wash."
Gen'yō activated Kamui.
Riiip!
A large piece of the Hokage robe, the symbol of Konoha's supreme authority, was forcibly torn away and sucked straight into another dimension.
Hiruzen Sarutobi felt a chill across his back. It was the closest he had ever come to death.
If Gen'yō had targeted his heart, he would already have been a dead man.
"Tell Danzo I've laid claim to that right arm of his, too."
Leaving those domineering words behind, Gen'yō vanished into the void once more.
He did not kill Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Killing him would immediately plunge Konoha into chaos. The Uchiha were not yet ready to evacuate, and that chaos would cause casualties among the clan during their withdrawal.
What he wanted was a relatively orderly process of exploitation.
By then, alarms were blaring throughout Konoha.
All the villagers ran toward the shelters in terror.
Meanwhile, inside the Uchiha Clan Compound-
Clan Head Fugaku had already donned the Uchiha battle robes he had kept tucked away.
Every Jonin, every Chunin, and even the children who had yet to graduate from the Ninja Academy had shouldered their bundles and assembled in the ancestral hall square.
Gen'yō appeared in the very center of the square, purple Susanoo chakra enveloping his entire body like a demon god descending into the mortal world.
He raised the Sharingan longsword in his hand and pointed it toward the blood-red moon.
"My fellow Uchiha!"
"Konoha has already bared its fangs at us!"
"The air here is rotten and false. This place isn't worth clinging to!"
"Now, everyone, heed my command!"
The entire square fell utterly silent. More than a thousand clan members watched him fervently.
"Our target is the Konoha Gate!"
"Kill anyone who stands in our way!"
"Destroy anyone who provokes us!"
"Tonight, our entire clan is switching sides!"
That roar fully ignited the fury the Uchiha had bottled up for decades.
Meanwhile, outside the gate, Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi was scrambling back with his remaining forces to intercept them.
The two forces faced off, with battle ready to erupt at any moment!
But was this truly the entirety of Gen'yō's plan?
Just as the entire clan prepared to charge, Gen'yō suddenly turned his head and looked toward the laboratory deep within the compound.
There lay a special gift he had prepared specifically for Ōnoki.
Just what kind of bargaining chip could make the stubborn Ōnoki bow his head completely?