Red’s declaration, carrying the weight of an absolute judgment, echoed through the dead-silent courtyard.
“They won’t live to see that day.”
These words, like a heavy hammer, slammed hard against Uchiha Fugaku’s chest and struck a raw nerve in everyone present.
Fugaku’s face turned ashen, his hands trembling slightly inside his wide sleeves.
He stared at Red, his eyes flashing with a mix of shock, anger, and dilemma.
As the clan leader, he was furious at the Anbu’s shameless act of sneaking into a clansman’s home in the dead of night, yet he feared that directly killing them would bring ruin upon the Uchiha.
His attempt to smooth things over and deal with Hiruzen Sarutobi through political means was already the greatest concession he could make.
Yet Red, a Chunin who usually kept a low profile, was displaying an unreasonable level of toughness and wildness today!
He actually intended to summarily execute the Konoha Anbu right in front of him, the clan leader!
However, before Fugaku could even open his mouth to reprimand him, the emotions of the surrounding Uchiha clansmen from the Konoha Military Police Force were instantly ignited!
“Well said, Red!”
“Kill these three lapdogs! Let them know the Uchiha are not soft clay they can mold at will!”
“Clan Leader, what is there left to negotiate with the higher-ups? They’ve already held a blade to our necks! Are we supposed to just swallow our pride and take it?!”
“Kill them! The Uchiha cannot be insulted!”
The long-standing humiliation and anger of being marginalized and monitored finally found an outlet.
The radical clansmen, who were usually suppressed by Fugaku under the guise of the “bigger picture,” now had blood-Red eyes.
They glared intently at the three collapsed Anbu members, their Ninja blades reflecting a cold, bloodthirsty glint under the firelight.
The encirclement tightened inch by inch.
The three Anbu Ninjas looked in despair at the scarlet Sharingan eyes surrounding them.
They knew that if the blades fell today, not even their bones would remain.
However, at this critical juncture—
Whoosh!
A withered leaf was sliced in half mid-air by an invisible current of air.
A dark shadow, moving at a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye, silently flickered and landed on the ruined wall of the courtyard.
The figure wore the light grey armor of the Anbu, carried a short blade on his back, and wore a cat-faced mask.
With his arrival, an extremely cold, oppressive Chakra instantly spread through the air.
Under everyone’s gaze, the newcomer slowly reached out his right hand and removed the cat mask, revealing a slightly youthful but cold face marked by two iconic, deep tear troughs.
Uchiha Itachi.
Fugaku’s eldest son, the universally acknowledged top genius of the Uchiha Clan, and also a squad leader in the Konoha Anbu.
Itachi stood expressionless on the high wall, looking down at the courtyard full of clansmen, before finally fixing his gaze on Fugaku and Red.
His voice was quiet, yet it carried an unquestionable coldness and sense of righteousness:
“Hokage-sama has decreed that tonight’s incident is purely a misunderstanding.”
“These Anbu Ninjas intruded beyond their boundaries and will be dealt with by Hokage-sama himself at the Hokage Building. No one is permitted to take matters into their own hands.” Read this novel at novelping.com for the best experience.
Itachi’s voice was flat, without a single ripple of emotion, as if he were not a member of the Uchiha, but a high-and-mighty deity reading out a “divine decree” from the Hokage to mere mortals.
After a brief silence, an even more violent rage erupted!
“Uchiha Itachi! You traitor who bites the hand that feeds you!”
A radical member of the Konoha Military Police Force pointed right at Itachi’s nose, cursing furiously while trembling with rage:
“Our clansmen were almost crippled or even kidnapped on the spot by the Anbu! And now you, wearing the Anbu’s skin, come here to tell us it’s a misunderstanding?!”
“Are you Uchiha Itachi, or just a weasel raised by Hiruzen Sarutobi?!”
A torrent of angry curses rained down on Itachi from all sides.
Yet, in the face of his clansmen’s accusations and insults, Itachi’s expression remained completely unruffled.
His gaze was still cold and deep, even carrying a faint trace of pity and disgust as he looked down upon the foolish masses.
Hum—
Itachi slowly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they had transformed into the scarlet Three-Tomoe Sharingan.
The three tomoe narrowed slightly in his sockets, and a formidable, peerless spiritual energy, accompanied by a chilling genjutsu pressure, swept over the clansmen in the courtyard like a freezing tide.
“Ugh… such powerful ocular power…”
The clansmen who had been shouting curses just moments ago felt their heads suddenly grow heavy.
The vision before them began to warp, and cold sweat poured down their bodies as the curses at the tip of their tongues were forcefully choked back by this terrifying spiritual pressure.
Itachi used his immense ocular power to forcibly silence the entire Uchiha Clan!
Foolish, Itachi coldly evaluated in his heart.
In his eyes, these clansmen who cared only for their family’s interests and clamored to oppose the Village understood nothing of the true “bigger picture” or the “will of fire.”
However, just as Itachi was about to completely suppress the crowd with his ocular power and forcibly take the three Anbu members away—
“Hmph.”
A disdainful sneer rang out abruptly, sounding like a resounding slap in the face.
Thud!
Red, expressionless, took a sudden step forward.
As his foot planted, the “Dark-type” Chakra of Tyranitar within him erupted like a violent, dark-green storm, soaring into the sky!
That tyrannical, frenzied, and unimaginably heavy malice, like an ancient beast awakening in the dark of night, opened its bloody maw and instantly tore Itachi’s genjutsu pressure to shreds!
Shatter!
The sound of shattering glass seemed to echo in the void.
The Uchiha clansmen, who had been unable to lift their heads under Itachi’s ocular power, suddenly felt the weight lift and began gasping heavily for air.
Red stepped forward, shielding all the clansmen behind him and completely blocking Itachi’s ocular power with his towering frame.
Their gazes clashed fiercely in mid-air.
Both possessed the Three-Tomoe Sharingan. This story is hosted at g.com.
In Itachi’s eyes lay a bottomless darkness, dead silence, and an obsession with the “bigger picture.”
In Red’s eyes, however, burned a dark-green flame—an unbridled rage and a domineering will that crushed all rules underfoot!
“Uchiha Itachi.”
Red met Itachi’s condescending gaze, a deeply mocking sneer playing on his lips.
“Using Hiruzen Sarutobi’s word as a divine decree to act all high and mighty in your own home—are you proud of that?”
“Claiming it’s a misunderstanding, saying we should let the Hokage deal with it.”
Red tilted his head slightly, his Three-Tomoe Sharingan emitting a tyrannical Red glow as he enunciated every single word:
“What if I say—no?”
Boom!
The moment those words fell, the air between them seemed to be completely sucked dry!
Without any redundant words, two extremely violent Chakras collided fiercely right in the center of the courtyard!
Itachi’s Chakra manifested as a cold, dead, dark-blue color, faintly accompanied by the cawing of countless black ravens; Red’s Chakra, on the other hand, was a deep, tyrannical, and dark-green hue, as heavy as Mount Tai pressing down!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
At the center of the colliding auras, the stone slabs on the ground began to crack layer by layer, spiderweb-like fractures spreading wildly.
The torches held by the surrounding clansmen shook violently in this terrifying Chakra storm, large patches of flames blown out, casting the entire courtyard into alternating light and shadow.
Standing at the center of the clash, Uchiha Itachi’s usually expressionless face finally showed a violent tremor at this moment.
His pupils contracted sharply.
How is this possible?!
The moment their Chakras clashed, he felt as if he were using his bare flesh to resist a violently erupting volcano!
Red’s dark-green Chakra was not only monstrous in its sheer volume, but in terms of quality, it was also filled with a pure, ultimate destructive malice that he had never seen before!
In this clash of Chakra, he was actually being slightly suppressed by Red!
An unprecedented sense of mortal peril surged through Itachi’s entire body like an electric current.
This guy…
cannot be allowed to live!
Itachi growled coldly in his heart, tiny blood vessels bursting in his eyes from overexertion.
To counter the domineering malice crashing down on him like an overwhelming wave from Red, the originally round Three-Tomoe Sharingan in Itachi’s eyes suddenly began to spin at an almost frenetic speed.
The black tomoe began to elongate and deform under the high-speed rotation.
The tails of the three tomoe actually showed a faint tendency to connect, transforming into the pattern of a giant Fuma Shuriken!
A terrifying ocular power surpassing the limits of an ordinary Sharingan was frantically brewing in Itachi’s eyes.
That was…
the prototype of the Mangekyo Sharingan!