"Hey, hey, hey—what the hell are you all doing?"
All of a sudden, a barking reprimand came from behind the crowd of shinobi.
Everyone turned toward the voice.
Two drunken, middle-aged shinobi came stumbling over, propping each other up.
Any ninja who'd been around long enough recognized them right away.
They were from one of Sunagakure's deeply entrenched shinobi clans, the very same clan that had reported Teizawa for embezzlement to the daimyo.
They'd clearly been drinking hard.
Before they even got close, the reek of alcohol drifted over on the wind, making Otofu frown.
"Isn't that Otofu? Ahaha—Tokiri and Satetsu are here too? C'mon, c'mon, let's go grab a drink!"
One of them said it cheerfully.
The other guy was a bit more sober.
His eyes flicked over the shinobi forces standing in formation across the plaza.
He immediately sensed something was off.
He shook off his wobbling companion and tried to turn and bolt, but shinobi had already closed in from behind, cutting off his escape.
Otofu didn't bother acknowledging the two of them.
Instead, he turned his head toward the prison.
At that moment, lights suddenly flared from the prison's direction.
Then a column of shinobi filed out, each with a red scarf wrapped around their shoulder, splitting into two lines and standing at attention.
Seeing that, Otofu didn't hesitate for a second. He turned to face the thousand-plus shinobi lined up in the plaza, and his voice dropped like iron:
"All units… the war has begun! Execute the plan—rise up!"
"For the Kazekage-sama, for Sunagakure!"
Whoosh—
Over a thousand shinobi turned in unison, their eyes burning with fanatic fervor, and shouted as one:
"For the Kazekage-sama, for Sunagakure!"
"Huh?"
The sudden scene made the two clan shinobi's expressions shift at the same time, and they blurted out together:
"Otofu, Satetsu—what are you doing?"
"Gentlemen," Tokiri cut in before Otofu could speak, turning with a cold, vicious look—then dropping a line that made the air freeze.
"The times have changed."
"Sunagakure needs a more outstanding Kazekage—and that person can only be Teizawa-sama!"
"What?!"
The two were stunned into blank disbelief, again speaking in unison.
After a heartbeat of dumbfounded silence, they snapped awake one after the other.
Then one of them retreated a step as if facing an enemy, voice low and sharp:
"Tokiri —how dare you say something this treasonous!"
"Damn it," the other shinobi said, sobered completely, his voice cracking. "Stop them! They're breaking him out! Go notify the clan head—no… notify the Kazekage-sama…"
Swish—swish—swish—
Before they could even move, a string of piercing, air-splitting shrieks sounded without warning.
Kunai flashed into existence mid-flight, and in a single exchange the two were pinned into porcupines.
A pack of shinobi surged in immediately.
They closed the distance and swung their blades without hesitation…
But the two were jōnin.
Even with their bodies riddled through, they didn't die on the spot.
"Damn it—who told you to start swinging steel right here?!"
Seeing former comrades collapsing into a pool of blood, Satetsu hurried forward and barked, "Don't waste time here—move! Execute the plan!"
Thk—thk—thk…
Before Satetsu's words even finished, the sound of blades slicing through air rang out again.
Two jōnin appeared at the fallen men's side at some point, nobody even seeing them arrive.
They raised their swords and, without the slightest pause, severed both heads.
"Satetsu-sama," one of them said as he looked up, eyes blazing with zeal, "this is war."
"Anyone who stands in Teizawa-sama's way—no matter who they are—is our enemy."
With that, he didn't linger.
He turned and sprinted back into the main force, racing like a gale toward some point within Sunagakure.
Satetsu's heart sank.
He stared at the two companions lying in blood, now utterly still, his expression complicated.
Of course he supported Teizawa-sama.
But he didn't want this to turn into a massacre of Sunagakure shinobi.
What he hadn't expected most of all… was that two powerful jōnin would meet their end like this.
Just then, gut-ripping shouts and the scream of killing began to rise— from every corner of Sunagakure, overlapping and cascading.
It was obvious: shinobi loyal to Teizawa were purging dissent.
They were moving to secure Teizawa's seizure of the Kazekage seat.
As the killing cries suddenly echoed across the sky above Sunagakure, a shrill alarm was triggered right on their heels.
In an instant, the roar of battle and the bark of commands tangled together into a death-knell— and a coup eight years in the making finally tore open the curtain.
…
"Report—armory secured…"
"Ninja Academy secured…"
"The ninja hospital has been brought under control…"
"The Kazekage Tower is under our control…"
"All village entrances and key junctions have been seized."
"Report… several shinobi clans are resisting fiercely. They refuse to surrender."
Still inside Sunagakure's prison, Teizawa listened to the steady stream of updates without the slightest change in expression.
He wasn't like Fugaku—soft, indecisive.
A man who'd single-handedly buried his own clan.
If Fugaku had resisted his "filial" son even a little longer… even if the Uchiha were crippled, even if they were slaughtered to the last— at least a few might've survived.
So, Fugaku could be called a neurotic father— but he couldn't be called a qualified clan head.
Which meant that since Teizawa had already decided to move… what was there to hesitate about?
Hesitation only leads to defeat.
So from the moment he decided to act,
the entire village had already been within his grasp.
Bloodshed was unavoidable, but the road of power was always paved in blood.
If he didn't strike first, maybe tomorrow the one dying would be him— or these shinobi who'd sworn loyalty to him.
When he heard that those clans were still resisting, Teizawa's eyes flickered once. Then he spoke calmly, almost lazily:
"Then wipe them out. The new Sunagakure doesn't need the dregs of the old era."
"Yes!"
A shinobi immediately accepted the order and hurried off to pass it along.
A little later, another shinobi rushed in again.
"Report! The jinchūriki Gaara and his remaining forces have appeared in the plaza. They're facing us."
"Gaara is trying to persuade our side to put down our weapons."
"He's made his move?" Teizawa asked.
"No!"
Teizawa simply shook his head.
If Gaara dared to fight—to gamble everything—Teizawa might have respected him a little more.
That kid used to be the type to crush anyone he didn't like.
But after meeting Naruto, it was like he'd become a different person.
Was that the charm of a chosen-by-fate protagonist?
"Let's go," Teizawa said. "It's time to meet our Fifth Kazekage-sama."
With that, Teizawa finally stood— ready to go receive the Sunagakure that belonged to him.
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