Chapter 9: He Was Only Protecting

Uchiha Clan Grounds.

Smoke filled the air.

The scent of blood mixed with the stench of burning paper bombs. Thick plumes of smoke from the explosions blanketed the distance. Corpses littered the streets—severed limbs and organs scattered everywhere.

Uchiha Police Force Dungeon.

Inahori leaned against the wall, barely breathing. The anguished screams echoing from the clan grounds rang in his ears, as if calling to him.

Among them, he could hear the voices of his parents, brothers, and fellow clansmen.

"They… sound like they're calling me…"

His cracked, pale lips moved slightly. The blood on his face had long since dried.

His consciousness was slipping.

But he couldn't die yet.

He had to hear of Uchiha Yu's death before he was willing to go to hell.

His remaining three-tomoe Sharingan trembled as he stared at the space in front of him, which began to distort—

his eyes filled with shock and confusion.

The air twisted clockwise.

The masked man slowly stepped out, his Mangekyō Sharingan glowing through the hole in his mask.

"Another… Mangekyō?!"

Inahori's eyelids twitched violently.

His mind was on the verge of collapse, but this shock forced him back into clarity.

The masked man surveyed the rooftop—chaos everywhere.

He took a step forward, walked past Inahori, and crouched down, inspecting the corpses of the Uchihas nearby.

He lifted a body. Put it down.

Lifted another. Put it down.

Shook his head and sighed.

He walked a full circle around the dungeon, then returned to his starting point.

His brows furrowed.

There were over fifty corpses of core members of the Uchiha Police Force,

and all of them had lost their Sharingan.

Splat—

Just then, the sound of sticky footsteps echoed.

Itachi ascended the stairs to the rooftop, stepping over the corpses of countless clansmen.

He was drenched in blood,

leaving crimson footprints with every step,

like he had just crawled out of a mountain of corpses.

The killing intent still clung to him.

Inahori weakly turned his head.

Upon seeing Itachi, his face twisted with fury.

He clenched his fists and, with a raspy voice, forced out a question:

"The screams in the clan…

Were they caused by Yu slaughtering the civilian members?

Uchiha Yu is a traitor to the clan!

Itachi… Did you kill him?"

But Itachi ignored him, offering no reply.

The masked man broke the silence.

His lone Mangekyō gleamed red as he looked at Inahori and asked calmly:

"These Police Force members…

They were all killed by that Uchiha Yu?

And the Sharingan—he took all of them?

He alone wiped out the entire Police Force?"

Inahori's face turned ghostly pale.

Memories surged back as despair filled his expression.

He nodded weakly.

"That's right.

He killed all my men first…

then left me alive to lure in more reinforcements from the Police Force…

and slaughtered them all too."

"You're lying," Itachi said coldly, suspicion flashing in his eyes.

"That Yu is just an ordinary jōnin—one of the squad leaders in the Police Force.

He doesn't have that kind of strength.

There's no way he could've done all of this alone."

The reason Itachi had teamed up with the masked man was precisely because the Police Force—being the Uchiha's core power—required more effort to deal with.

It wasn't that Itachi couldn't do it—just that it would have taken time.

But judging from the scene…

Yu's speed in killing all these people might've even surpassed that of the masked man.

Inahori said bitterly:

"But that's the truth.

You can go find him yourself.

I… have no reason to lie to you."

Itachi's pupils contracted—judging by Inahori's tone, he wasn't lying.

The masked man let out a sharp, almost amused snort:

"No wonder... The Police Force only has a few old geezers left, and together they don't even make up a single pair of three-tomoe eyes. How disappointing.

But interesting.

Since this Yu guy has already done the work of collecting the Sharingan for me, then I won't be polite about it.

Itachi.

I'll leave this one to you. Take his three-tomoe eyes for me. I'm going after the rats that got away!"

With that, the masked man activated Kamui without hesitation—his body twisted in sync with the space around him, and in an instant, he vanished.

"Take… my three-tomoe eyes…"

Inahori muttered blankly.

He sensed killing intent in the air.

His remaining Sharingan glared fiercely at Itachi.

Itachi's face was expressionless. He let out a sigh, drew his ninjatō, and walked toward Inahori.

"Itachi, what are you doing?!"

Inahori's eyes widened. But after asking that question, he began to connect the dots between Yu's actions and Itachi's silence.

Then, in his mind, Yu's final words echoed:

"Inahori, keep those three-tomoe eyes wide open—and see clearly what's about to happen to the Uchiha Clan!"

At last, Inahori understood everything.

But in the very next second—

Blood splattered.

"Sorry. The ones who killed our clan… were me."

Itachi's blade had pierced through Inahori's heart, blood staining the steel, emerging clean through his back.

Inahori's face twisted in agony.

The fire of life in his eyes flickered and died.

His three-tomoe Sharingan, filled with resentment, fury, and regret, stared furiously at the traitor before him.

The one who truly wanted to wipe out the Uchiha tonight…

was Uchiha Itachi.

At last, Inahori realized—Yu, labeled a traitor and thrown into prison, had slaughtered the Police Force's elite not to betray the clan, but to grant them release.

If those people had died at the hands of Itachi, whom the clan had placed their hopes in…

Then like him, they wouldn't have died in peace.

The Uchiha Police Force HQ was only a few hundred meters from the dungeon.

Before getting himself arrested, Yu had already planned out the patrol roster for tonight.

With the patrol squad lured far away from the clan grounds, he struck—first killing the Uchiha jailors, then drawing in the Police Force to ambush and eliminate them all, taking their Sharingan.

Once the patrol squad returned, Yu deliberately led them on a chase—guiding them out of Konoha and away from the massacre.

No wonder… he said that as long as he lived, the Uchiha could survive in this world with dignity.

So… he had already prepared the seeds of the Uchiha's future.

Yu had orchestrated the entire plan like a precise machine—time, location, people… not a single mistake.

He was on a completely different level.

Stronger than that useless clan leader.

Stronger than those worthless elders.

One day, he'll return—leading a new Uchiha clan…

Thinking of this, Inahori's expression became complicated. Remembering how he had misunderstood Yu's intentions before… he felt he truly deserved to die.

He sighed with emotion.

Yu really was as gentle as ever.

He hadn't slaughtered innocent clan civilians.

And his blade—swift, precise, merciful—gave a clean death.

Far better than this heartless wolf before him…

As these final thoughts scattered,

Inahori died.

His eyes remained open.

The three-tomoe Sharingan that Yu had deliberately left him…

was cleanly and swiftly harvested by Itachi.

Itachi stood and turned to leave.

As for the bodies of the clansmen—they didn't matter.

The priority now was to eliminate that Uchiha squad that had escaped.

Otherwise, the higher-ups of Konoha… might not honor their promise to protect Sasuke.

—-—

At the edge of the Uchiha Clan grounds—

Screams still echoed.

The small-scale battle between Root and the Anbu had ended.

Anbu had won—but lost half their operatives.

Root had fared worse—eighty percent dead.

The remaining twenty percent of Root agents now lay on the ground, clutching wounds, writhing in pain, screaming in agony.

They'd completely lost combat capability.

The Anbu captains, despite their victory, were shaken.

They withdrew temporarily from the area in fear and disbelief.

None of them had expected the enemy to possess such tactics—

They'd been caught totally off guard.

But the second wave to arrive was not the Third Hokage.

It was a few glory-seeking, overzealous jōnin.

Woof! Woof! Woof!

The sharp, anxious barks of ninken echoed through the night sky—

A deep fear lingered in their voices, reacting to some residual energy in the air.

Five figures appeared.

"Whew… what a massacre."

Asuma exhaled a puff of smoke, glanced around, and flicked his half-smoked cigarette onto the blood-soaked ground.

Looking at the forest, littered with corpses, his spine tingled.

Yet strangely, his heart surged with excitement.

Root and Anbu had both suffered enormous losses.

If he could capture the ones responsible for all this…

It would be the achievement of a lifetime.

And when that happened—his own reputation would skyrocket.

In Konoha, Asuma thought—

if he wanted to challenge the authority of that old man Hiruzen Sarutobi,

he'd need to first accumulate enough fame.

That was one of the political lessons he'd learned while guarding the feudal lord.

With that in mind—

The young Asuma suddenly felt… not so afraid.

The bigger the mess, the greater the credit.

°°

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