Saiki moved like a streak of light, tearing through the air and appearing at the dango shop in seconds.
"SENSEI KUSHINA!"
The stall was empty. Only the discarded three-colored dango lay in the dirt.
Kushina was gone. There wasn't even a trace of her chakra left in the immediate vicinity.
Saiki's face went pale, his fists clenching so hard his knuckles turned white.
A wave of pure, physical killing intent erupted from him, so intense that the civilians on the street began to scream and scramble away in terror.
He forced himself to focus, expanding his Divine Sense.
Several blocks away, he picked up a cluster of fast-moving signatures.
They were carrying a faint, suppressed trace of Kushina's energy.
They were heading straight for the Uchiha Compound.
"UCHIHA!"
The roar that tore from his throat sounded like a wounded, feral beast.
His hands blurred through signs.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
POOF. A single clone appeared beside him, its face a mirror of his own cold fury.
"You!" Saiki barked, pointing at the clone. "Get to the Hokage Building! Tell Tsunade those Uchiha bastards have taken Kushina! Tell her to mobilize every loyalist she has! Tell her we are putting down a rebellion!"
"Understood!" The clone vanished in a blur, racing toward the center of the village.
Saiki took a long, shaking breath, struggling to keep his rage from blinding him.
He needed a weapon.
Storming the Uchiha district bare-handed would take too long. He wanted efficiency.
His eyes swept the street and locked onto a nearby weapons stall.
He strode over, his heavy boots echoing on the stone with the finality of a heartbeat.
The pressure rolling off him made the air feel like it was made of lead.
"A sword. Now."
The vendor, a middle-aged veteran, turned ashen. He began to shake uncontrollably, his voice cracking. "Wh-what kind... sir?"
Saiki didn't waste breath. His eyes raked over the display, settling on a plain, unadorned tachi.
"That one."
"Th-that's... five thousand ryo..."
Saiki didn't even look at him. He pulled a handful of bills from his pocket and threw them on the counter, not caring as change scattered into the mud.
He snatched the black-sheathed blade. It was heavy, well-balanced.
SHING. He drew the steel an inch.
It was high-quality mass production. The edge was wicked, and the polish was clean.
The steel reflected Saiki's face—a mask of absolute, lethal indifference.
The sunlight glinting off the blade felt cold.
"Perfect."
Saiki clicked the blade back into the scabbard.
He didn't spare the vendor another glance. He turned toward the Uchiha district.
*** Saiki's clone arrived at the Hokage Building.
"HALT!"
Two Anbu sentries materialized from the shadows, blocking the path.
"The Hokage is in a high-level meeting! Access restricted!"
The clone looked at them, his eyes like freezing pits of void.
"Do you not recognize me?"
The Anbu felt a shiver of primal dread climb their spines.
Technically, Saiki's status was a secret known only to the High Command, and these guards had only been briefed on his face, not his power.
The clone didn't have time for a lecture. He was preparing to simply break their necks and move on when a voice boomed from the office above.
Tsunade, whose sensory range was already on high alert, had felt his arrival.
"LET HIM IN!"
The guards stepped aside instantly, though their hands remained on their hilts.
The clone flickered past them, appearing inside the office in a swirl of leaves.
Tsunade was buried behind her desk, Shizune at her side.
She looked up, her brow furrowing as she noted his expression. "Saiki? Why are you back? Where is Kushina?"
"The Uchiha have taken her."
The clone's voice was a monotone of ice.
"The main body is heading to their district now. He has one message for you: mobilize the army. Today, we purge the Uchiha."
"WHAT?!" Tsunade stood up so violently her chair shattered against the wall.
Her amber eyes flared with a golden, terrifying fury. "They... they dared?!"
*** Saiki reached the perimeter of the Uchiha Compound.
As one of the village's Great Clans, the Uchiha occupied a massive, wealthy district.
But because of their legendary arrogance, the streets were deserted of ordinary villagers. It was an island within the village.
Tobirama Senju had been a petty man. Giving them the Police Force looked like power, but it was a cage. It turned the Uchiha into the village's debt collectors and executioners—the most hated class of ninja.
It had pushed them to the edges of society, ensuring they could never claim the Hokage's hat.
That historical resentment had finally boiled over today.
Saiki leaped from rooftop to rooftop, his senses locked on the fading trail of Kushina's energy.
"STOP!"
Four ninja in the deep-blue uniform of the Police Force blocked his path.
They stood with their chests out, their eyes filled with a genetic, unearned sense of superiority.
"Get out of my way. This is your only warning."
Saiki's hand rested on the hilt of his new tachi.
The killing intent rolling off him was physical, manifesting as a faint red shimmer in the air.
The Uchiha guards felt the temperature drop. Their muscles locked up in a reflexive panic.
They instantly activated their Sharingan, the crimson wheels spinning as they locked onto the intruder.
"No one enters the Uchiha District without authorization!" the leader barked. His three-tomoe eyes spun frantically, trying to find a gap in Saiki's posture.
The other three guards drew their kunai, their chakra beginning to surge.
Saiki didn't answer. He didn't even look at them. He was triangulating Kushina's exact position.
"ENGAGE!"
The three-tomoe leader issued the order. He had received his instructions: stall anyone who comes for the girl.
The four Uchiha unleashed a coordinated volley of shuriken and kunai.
The steel hissed through the air, weaving a web of death that blocked every possible avenue of escape. They even mixed in several explosive tags for good measure.
The moment the weapons left their fingers, Saiki moved.
He didn't dodge. He charged.
He transformed into a blur of motion, flying directly into the teeth of the iron rain.
He moved so fast he left a physical afterimage behind, which was promptly shredded by the incoming shuriken.
"WHAT?!"
The leader's Sharingan barely tracked the movement, but his nervous system was too slow to react.
SHING—! The sound of the tachi leaving its sheath was a short, high-pitched scream.
A blinding line of silver light erupted across the roof.
SPLAT. SPLAT. SPLAT. Three wet, heavy sounds followed.
The three lead guards froze mid-motion.
Before the shock could even reach their brains, a fountain of hot blood erupted from their necks.
Their heads were tossed into the air by the sheer kinetic force of the swing, only to fall back to the tiles with dull thuds.
The three headless bodies tumbled forward, their blood painting the roof tiles a vibrant crimson.
Fast.
Impossible speed.
Ruthless.
Absolute finality.
Saiki appeared on the far side of the blood-mist, his blade pointed toward the ground.
Thick, dark blood snaked down the steel and began to drip onto the roof.
Drip... drop... He didn't spare the corpses a single glance. His ice-cold gaze locked onto the final guard—the three-tomoe leader who had been standing a few feet further back.
The man's arrogance had vanished, replaced by an abyssal, soul-crushing terror.
His Sharingan was spinning wildly in its sockets, his body shaking so hard his teeth were chattering.
He had just watched his elite team be decapitated in a literal blink.
This wasn't a fight. This was an extermination.
"M-monster..." he rasped, his voice a broken, high-pitched wheeze. He stumbled backward, his boots slipping on the bloody tiles.
Saiki took a step forward.
The man's survival instinct finally crushed his Uchiha pride. He opened his mouth to beg for his life.
Saiki didn't give him the chance.
The blade hissed again. The sound of steel cutting through muscle and bone was the last thing the man ever heard.
The leader clutched at the massive diagonal gash opening across his torso.
The light in his eyes died instantly as he tumbled backward, rolling off the edge of the roof and hitting the cobblestones below with a heavy, wet CRUNCH.
From the moment they attacked to the moment they were all dead, less than two seconds had passed.
Saiki stood alone on the rooftop, a dark silhouette against the sky.
A heartbeat later, he flickered out of existence, continuing his relentless charge toward Kushina.