Night settled over Konoha like a wounded animal finally collapsing after a long struggle.
The fires had begun to die down.
Smoke still curled into the sky from shattered buildings, and the scent of ash mixed with blood lingered heavily in the wind. Shinobi moved through the ruined streets, carrying the injured, rebuilding collapsed walls, and searching through debris for survivors.
And above it all…
The carved stone faces of the Hokage watched silently over the broken village.
The days passed in a blur after that.
Little by little, Konoha began to recover from the impact of the Nine-Tails' attack.
But while time could heal physical wounds, it could not so easily mend the ones carved into people's hearts.
In the past, after Shiki and Tsunade took control of Konoha following the Third Hokage's fall, the Uchiha clan's position had risen far beyond what it had once been.
From that moment on, the Uchiha clan truly rose.
They became one of the largest clans in the village. Their political standing, influence, and authority all soared to heights they had never reached before.
Many Uchiha walked with pride in their chests and their heads held high.
The Uchiha were a clan of pride and honor.
Never in their history had they enjoyed such prestige.
And precisely because of that, the clan tolerated no blemishes—no stains, no reminders of disgrace.
So after the Nine-Tails incident, unlike the original timeline, the ones who suffered most were not Kushina or the not-yet-born Naruto.
This time, the ones struck hardest were none other than the Uchiha clan.
The attack had a direct connection to the Uchiha rebellion, and the clan head had personally been dealt with by Shiki. Because of that, the Uchiha clan's situation became even worse than it had been in the anime.
With Shiki and Tsunade's support, they had enjoyed a far better position than before.
But after this incident, everything they had gained was almost thrown away overnight.
Even the ordinary clan members, who had been content with the previous status quo, began to resent those responsible.
They were being blamed for the madness of the radicals who had followed the Uchiha clan leader.
That alone was an unforgivable stain.
But since Fugaku and the clansmen who had rebelled had already been killed by Shiki, the Uchiha clan had no one left to push the blame onto.
If Fugaku had not already died by Shiki's hand, he would have faced a far worse fate.
Public execution by his own clan or, at the very least, permanent exile.
But Fugaku died cleanly.
When the guilty were gone, the hatred they left behind had to settle somewhere.
And as the saying goes, a father's sins fall upon his children, and a husband's sins fall upon his wife.
So it settled on Uchiha Mikoto.
And on her child.
Inside the Uchiha clan's meeting hall, the atmosphere was suffocating.
No one spoke calmly.
Every word carried anger, fear, and humiliation.
"Fugaku dragged the entire clan into this disgrace. If we do nothing, how are we supposed to face Shiki-sama and the Hokage?"
"Mikoto had no part in the rebellion. She was his wife, nothing more. Expel her and the child from the clan. That should be enough."
"Enough? Don't be naive. If Uchiha blood leaves the clan, someone else will use it. We cannot allow that."
"Then lock them away. Let them live, but never let them step outside again."
"Fugaku… that fool. Because of him, the Uchiha name has been stained in front of the entire village."
The arguments continued without end.
Voices clashed.
Tempers flared.
Hatred mixed with fear, and fear turned into anger.
In the end, it was the young Uchiha Shisui who stepped forward.
With careful words and a composed attitude, he suppressed the radicals and forced the meeting toward a conclusion.
The biggest reason the Uchiha even listened to him was because, during the Nine-Tails incident, news had spread that Shiki had specifically asked for Shisui's protection.
Because of that, many naturally assumed Shisui belonged to Shiki's faction.
They did not have the courage to test whether that assumption was true or not.
So they held themselves back but that did not mean the insults disappeared.
Uchiha Mikoto and her child would not be executed.
They would not be expelled either but the price was still heavy.
Uchiha Mikoto would be imprisoned within the clan for life.
She would live under constant surveillance, stripped of freedom in everything but name.
As for her son, Uchiha Itachi—
He was given an almost impossible condition.
He had to become a Jōnin before the age of six and an elite Jōnin before the age of eight.
If he failed even once, he would be sealed away permanently.
On the surface, this result could already be called mercy.
They did not have to die.
They were not cast out into the wilderness.
They were merely confined.
Monitored like criminals for the rest of their lives.
Yes, they would be discriminated against.
Yes, they would be bullied.
But even so…
Living was still better than dying.
At least, that was how the Uchiha clan saw it.
Some of them even believed their so-called "mercy" should earn Uchiha Mikoto's gratitude.
After all, in their eyes, she was merely a gentle and naïve woman.
But they forgot something very simple.
A woman may endure many things for herself.
A mother will not endure them for her child.
If it had only been her own humiliation—being insulted, mocked, trampled on—Uchiha Mikoto might have silently accepted it all. She might even have convinced herself that this was the price she had to bear for Fugaku's crimes.
But Itachi was innocent.
And yet, in less than a single day, she personally witnessed at least three different groups targeting her son.
They shoved him around.
They struck him without restraint.
One of them even smashed Itachi's head against the wall hard enough to draw blood.
And worst of all…
Some of them had begun looking at her differently.
Not as the former wife of the clan head.
Not as a fellow clansman.
But as prey.
One drunk Uchiha had even tried forcing himself on her right in front of Itachi.
If her son had not screamed loud enough to alert the others nearby… before he could even touch her...
The memory alone made her body tremble.
She had the power to fend him off—she could've killed that drunken fool if she wanted but what paralyzed her was the stark truth that she no longer had anyone to rely on.
A rabbit would bite when cornered.
And eventually...
Uchiha Mikoto broke.
The moment came suddenly.
The drunken Uchiha jōnin grabbed Itachi by the hair and slammed the child onto the floor hard enough to make sickening sounds echo through the room.
"Bastard brat…!"
The man raised his hand again and in that instant–
Mikoto moved.
A kunai pierced straight through the man's throat.
Blood splashed across the floor.
The drunken jōnin staggered backward, clutching at his neck as blood poured through his fingers.
Then he collapsed.
Dead.
For a brief moment, Uchiha Mikoto felt something she could barely describe.
Relief.
Pure relief.
Because she knew If she had hesitated even a little longer, that man might truly have killed her son.
But once the heat faded and reason returned…
Confusion followed immediately after.
She had killed an Uchiha jōnin.
And in the clan's current state, no one would listen to her explanation.
Not when she and Itachi were already viewed as stains on the clan.
"Defect…?"
"Run away from Konoha with Itachi…?"
"But I'm only a jōnin…"
"Where could I even go with a child?"
"We'd probably be caught before we made it past the village gates…"
"Should I ask Kushina for help…?"
The thought appeared for only a second before Mikoto forcefully crushed it herself.
Kushina's pale face immediately surfaced in her mind.
The image of her best friend lying in her arms, barely surviving after the Nine-Tails incident, made Mikoto bite down hard on her lip.
During this entire time, Kushina had come to visit her more than once.
But Mikoto refused to meet her.
She never told Kushina what the clan was doing to her.
And Kushina herself was still recovering. Even now, she regularly needed treatment and monitoring at the hospital.
Mikoto could not drag her into this.
The more she thought about it, the deeper her despair became.
Whether it was the Uchiha clan or Konoha itself, both were giants she had no power to resist.
To her, there seemed to be only one ending left waiting for herself and Itachi.
Death.
But…
People cornered by despair would eventually grasp at anything.
And suddenly—
Uchiha Mikoto remembered a conversation she had overheard the previous night.
Voices filled with drunken laughter, cruel and disgusting.
Yet now, those very words resurfaced in her mind.
["Hey, you think Shiki-sama was the one who asked Shisui to bail out that bitch Mikoto and her little bastard Itachi?"]
["Who knows? If not for Shiki-sama, I figured they'd have learned their lesson ages ago. Still, married or not, Mikoto's gorgeous… putting that body to use once in a while would've been showing real respect to Fugaku."]
["Hahaha! Careful what you say. What if Shiki-sama really is interested in her?"]
["You idiot, don't joke about that!"]
["Hahaha! Look at you getting scared."]
After returning to her senses, Mikoto slowly lowered her gaze toward the corpse lying at her feet.
A dangerous thought slowly formed in her mind.
The man who stood above the entire shinobi world.
The hero who had saved Konoha from the Nine-Tails disaster.
The shinobi who defeated entire villages by himself and carved out a reputation no one else could match.
Powerful.
Exceptionally handsome.
His ties run deep—to the Fourth Hokage, Lady Tsunade of the Senju, and to her closest friend, Kushina Uzumaki.
He is the Golden Lion—Shiki.
Did that mean…
could he become her protector as well?
At first, Mikoto had tried to stay invisible.
Shiki-sama, after all, might one day decide to purge every trace of Fugaku's bloodline—including her and little Itachi. Yet, so far, he had done nothing.
Even so, she understood it was only a matter of time. One encounter had shown how much chaos a single Uchiha could sow. If Shiki truly wanted a future without complications, the logical move would be to eliminate young Itachi before he could grow strong enough to seek vengeance or follow in his father's footsteps.
Unless she found another way to change that fate…
Standing before the mirror, Uchiha Mikoto examined her reflection.
Her features were almost flawless.
Motherhood had only deepened the curves of her body, leaving her figure as voluptuous as Lady Tsunade's.
After a long, silent struggle, she made her decision.
She called upon a small messenger hawk—her summoning beast shared with Kushina and sent a message to her old friend.
Dignity no longer mattered. She had lost the trust of her only friend and her husband, she refused to lose her son as well.
If shamelessness could buy Itachi a peaceful life, she would pay the price without hesitation.
Meanwhile...
Deep underground.
In a cavern hidden far beneath the earth…
White Zetsu clones stirred restlessly like maggots in the dark.
"He's dead."
"No really dead."
"Like SUPER dead."
"That slash was terrifying."
"His whole body got diced into little cubes—then, poof!"
"Do cubes even count as a proper burial?"
"Bah, ash counts… far as I know."
Several White Zetsu clones babbled over each other noisily.
Then...
"Silence."
The cave instantly became quiet.
Black Zetsu slowly emerged from the stone wall, his dark half-face colder than ever.
Unlike the White Zetsus…
Outwardly, he neither panicked nor cracked jokes about Uchiha Obito's demise. Beneath that calm façade, however, his thoughts churned in utter chaos.
Obito Uchiha was supposed to be Madara's replacement.
The Eye of the Moon Plan should have continued through him.
Nagato still existed, yes…
But without Obito manipulating events from the shadows, everything had become uncertain.
Worst of all–
Shiki existed.
After White Zetsu relayed the memory of that slash to him, Black Zetsu pictured it with perfect clarity.
Those strange eyes.
That power capable of harming even beings formed purely from chakra.
It made him deeply uncomfortable.
What infuriated him even more was that they'd failed to reclaim Obito's prized Kamui eye—along with Shisui's remaining Sharingan.
That damned impostor had hoarded both eyes and taken them to the grave. Damn it!
Black Zetsu raged inwardly. If he'd managed to secure those eyes, he might still have had a shot at turning everything around.
One White Zetsu raised its hand timidly.
"Soooo…"
"What do we do now?"
Another tilted its head.
"Should we find Nagato?"
"What about the Gedo Statue?"
"Should we revive Madara ourselves?"
"Can we even do that?"
Black Zetsu fell silent for several long seconds, his scheming mind churning for a way forward. At last, he spoke in a low, grim voice.
"We wait."
The White Zetsu clones blinked in perfect unison.
"...Wait?"
Black Zetsu's already pitch-black face somehow managed to darken further.
"The world has become unstable."
"Moving recklessly now would only invite death."
Especially from that monster, he thought silently.
For the first time in centuries…
Black Zetsu felt something dangerously close to uncertainty.
...
The incident was far too big to hush up, within hours, word of it blazed across every hidden village.
Kumogakure was no exception.
Inside the Raikage's conference hall, the air was thick with tension.
"What exactly happened in Konoha?"
The young Fourth Raikage frowned heavily while reading the intelligence report.
Beside him sat the monstrous figure of the Third Raikage, arms crossed.
"Did Yugito send any information back regarding the incident?"
The room immediately fell silent.
Several Kumo shinobi awkwardly exchanged glances.
Finally, one intelligence ninja coughed nervously.
"…Yugito-sama did send a message."
The Fourth Raikage narrowed his eyes.
"…Well?"
The ninja read slowly from the scroll.
[Don't worry. Everything is under control. I already handled the situation personally.]
The conference room became even quieter.
The ninja continued reading with increasing discomfort.
[Also, Shiki saved the village again. Truly reliable.]
"…."
"…."
"…."
The Third Raikage exhaled a slow sigh, rubbing his forehead.
"--That girl isn't even trying to hide it anymore…"
At that instant, the conference doors slammed open and Killer B swaggered in, launching straight into a rap:
"Yo, yo! Yugito's lost her mind in love, she's flyin' high above! Shiki's all she hears—no reports, no fears—Golden Lion in her ear, crystal-clear, oh yeah!"
"Bastard…" the Fourth Raikage muttered, mouth twitching violently.
Killer B kept going enthusiastically.
"She leapt in the brawl, gave it all her might—
Now Shiki's the name that keeps her up at night! Bee spits facts with surgical precision:
That cat-lady Yugito straight botched the mission!"
Several Kumo shinobi ducked their heads, shoulders shaking as they struggled not to laugh.
Veins throbbed across the Fourth Raikage's forehead.
He first looked at his father–who promptly averted his gaze, pretending to study the scenery outside the window—then turned back to his idiot brother still rapping in the doorway and sighed.
"…I really should've seen this coming."
A pounding headache began to pulse behind his eyes.
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