It didn't add up.
Half an hour later, Makoto Nishikado strolled into Root's headquarters without a care in the world.
Hiruzen Sarutobi and his old pal Danzo really were something else. The Night of the Massacre had barely ended before the Third Hokage stripped Danzo of every official title.
Any ninja in the village with half a brain could see the whole thing reeked.
The Uchiha clan had been wiped out the very night after a conveniently timed "disaster drill" that locked down all civilian movement after dark. Nobody bought the coincidence.
The message was clear enough for sharp minds like Shikaku Nara: the dirty work was Danzo's, and Hiruzen Sarutobi's hands were clean.
Like a king publicly demoting his spymaster while privately handing him the keys to the dungeon. A show for the village.
Danzo kept Root's base, kept his core operatives, kept everything that mattered. The only thing he lost was a title.
By the time Makoto arrived, Kakashi, Asuma Sarutobi, Genma Shiranui, and the rest of Konoha's elite had Danzo boxed in tight.
The old man was cornered. His right arm, grotesque and bare, bristled with stolen Sharingan. Makoto counted them: seven already dark and spent, three still clinging to life.
Utaha and the other players blanched at the sight.
"Makoto, his arm..." Megumi's voice was barely steady, the rest of the sentence dying in her throat.
The players had killed before. But that arm, studded with eyeballs packed tight like insect eggs... it made their skin crawl.
Makoto raised a hand for silence, his gaze fixed on Danzo.
Shisui's eye. Has he used it yet?
He'd dragged his feet getting here on purpose, waiting for exactly this: let Kakashi and the others burn through Danzo's "extra lives." Best case, force him to play the Kotoamatsukami too.
Hashirama cells could shorten the cooldown, true enough, but even in the original series, recharging took hours at minimum.
When that happened, Danzo would be a fish on the cutting board.
Right on cue, lightning erupted from Kakashi's right hand. He lunged from behind, driving the Lightning Blade straight through Danzo's chest.
A wet crunch. The blade punched clean through his heart.
Two seconds later, the body rippled like a heat mirage and dissolved into nothing. Danzo materialized behind Kakashi, poised to strike.
Before he could, Asuma burst from the flank and drove him back.
"What kind of jutsu is that?!" Ran Mouri cried.
Danzo's face twisted with fury. "What is the meaning of this?! I've bled for this village! I've given everything for Konoha! What right do you have?!"
"Save it, Danzo!" Asuma snarled, wind-natured Chakra screaming along his twin blades. "You murdered my father. You murdered both advisors. You helped Orochimaru infiltrate the village. And now you want to play the victim?!"
Danzo froze.
Killing Hiruzen? He'd entertained the thought more than once. And those two fence-sitting advisors, Koharu and Homura, swaying between him and Hiruzen for years while mostly siding with the Third... he'd wanted them gone too.
But this time, he genuinely hadn't done it.
And what was this about helping Orochimaru? His last collaboration with the snake had been the Hashirama cell experiments, years ago.
"Slander! This is slander!" Danzo roared. "I've been in this base all day! I haven't left once!"
Not that it mattered. Danzo's reputation in Konoha was already in the gutter. He could swear on every grave in the village and nobody would believe a word.
Kakashi's eyes narrowed, glinting with something predatory. "In that case, why don't you come with us? Let me put this Sharingan to work in a proper interrogation. The truth will sort itself out." He paused, letting his gaze drift to the row of eyes on Danzo's right arm. "I'm sure everyone here is curious about those."
Danzo's expression darkened.
If they interrogate me, every last secret comes spilling out.
For the first time, he understood what it meant to choke on a truth you couldn't spit out.
"Enough talk. Take him down!"
Makoto's voice cut through from the edge of the crowd, brooking no argument.
By rank, a freshly promoted Jonin had no business giving orders to veterans like Kakashi and Asuma. But everyone present had witnessed what he could do. Konoha's new strongest... nobody was about to argue.
It helped that Konohamaru was right behind him, screaming at the top of his lungs: "Didn't you hear my big bro?! Get that bastard! Avenge Grandpa!"
That was all it took. Every Jonin surged forward.
Danzo might have been dangerous in his prime, but age had shifted his talents from combat to conspiracy. In the original story, he'd burned through all ten Izanagi against a half-dead Sasuke and still lost. Against Kakashi and this crowd? No chance.
The last Sharingan on his right shoulder slowly closed.
Makoto smiled.
Good. Time to use Shisui's eye now, isn't it? Go ahead. The moment you do, you're dead.
He activated his own Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan, crimson depths reflecting Danzo's every twitch.
The instant Danzo channeled Shisui's eye, the Chakra flow would shift. With no more extra lives, one strike would be enough.
"Damn it! Damn it! DAMN IT!"
Danzo howled, fingers clawing at the bandage over his right eye. His last card: Shisui Uchiha's Mangekyou.
But in that instant, his gaze met Makoto's eyes.
Those eyes...
Danzo's face drained of color.
A Mangekyou Sharingan? And it looks... beyond anything I've seen.
What chilled him more was the aura rolling off Makoto. Something he recognized in his bones.
Kindred spirit. A fellow schemer.
"Makoto Nishikado! What have you done?!" Danzo screamed.
The smile deepened.
"Dead men don't get to ask questions."
Before the last word left his mouth, a storm of kunai exploded from his hands.
Through Shisui's Mangekyou, Danzo saw them all clearly: every single one bore the seal of the Flying Thunder God Technique.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves!"
He scrambled through hand signs, desperate to blast the kunai off course.
The seals had barely formed, the kunai were still mid-flight... and Makoto was already in front of him.
"How..."
One syllable. A flash of steel.
Makoto's left hand shot out, catching the severed head by the crown before it could hit the ground.
The kunai had been a feint.
The real technique was Fugaku Uchiha's Mangekyou ability: Shinatsuhiko.
He crouched, reaching into Danzo's right eye socket, and pried the Sharingan free with his bare fingers.
A cold system notification echoed in his mind:
[Player Makoto Nishikado has obtained item: Mangekyou Sharingan (Shisui Uchiha ver. / Right Eye)]
"That's my big bro! We avenged Grandpa!"
Konohamaru threw himself at Makoto's waist, face lit up with wild excitement.
But Makoto doubled over, voice thick with grief. "This isn't something to celebrate, Konohamaru."
He gripped the boy's shoulders. "Revenge or not... Master Sarutobi is gone. He's never coming back."
A pause. His voice dropped lower. "And not just him. Both advisors too..."
He drew a shuddering breath, fighting to hold himself together. "How could something like this happen to our village?"
By the end, he could barely speak through the sobs.
He looked up, tears streaming down his face, scanning the crowd. "Everyone... please display this monster's body in the village square. Let every citizen know what he did."
He buried his face in his hands, shoulders heaving.
"Big bro!!!"
Konohamaru broke down completely and threw his arms around him. The two clung to each other, weeping.
The scene was almost unbearably moving.
Kurenai's maternal instincts kicked in. She stepped forward and pulled them both into an embrace. "Don't worry. The Third Hokage's will lives on in all of us."
No one saw it: hidden in the crook of his arm, Makoto was biting down on his lip hard enough to draw blood.
Hold it in. Not yet. Can't laugh yet.
The dust settled.
Makoto's group left Root's base and surfaced to the streets above. After handing Konohamaru off to Iruka, the Konoha shinobi dispersed, leaving only the players behind.
"Mako-kun!"
A voice from down the road. Kayoko Akizuki waved, her children beside her.
"Mom!"
Airi and Marina ran to their mother and threw their arms around her.
Makoto's three-man squad returned too. Megumi limped along, one leg dragging, with Ran and Utaha propping her up on either side.
The Spirit Transformation Technique had taken a brutal toll.
Makoto grinned and walked toward them.
What happened next caught every player off guard.
He scooped Megumi up and lifted her high over his head.
"Amazing work, Megumi! You're the best! I could kiss you!"
The entire plan's success rested on her. MVP, no question.
Megumi's brain short-circuited. All she could do was watch the world lurch up and down, up and down, from her bewildering new altitude.
By the time she recovered, the stares from every direction had set her cheeks on fire.
Even with her unflappable temperament, she couldn't help shouting: "Makoto! Put me down! Put me down!"
So flustered she forgot to call him "Sensei."
In the distance, a figure stood frozen.
Tomoya Aki.
He'd hidden in the orphanage when the chaos erupted, only daring to emerge once things quieted down. And the first thing he saw was this.
Fragments of conversation drifted over from nearby Konoha shinobi:
"Who's that girl?"
"One of Makoto's students, I think. Kano... Kano-something?"
"Huh? Doesn't he only have two students? The one with the great legs and the one with horns?"
"Idiot. Jonin instructors take three-man squads. Everyone knows that."
"Now that I look though, she's pretty cute. Not flashy, but there's this sweetness to her. She and our village's strongest make a good pair."
"Wait, I thought he was with the Akizuki sisters?"
"Please. He's obviously going to be Hokage. Fifth or Sixth, take your pick. What's wrong with a few more?"
Every word landed like a punch to Tomoya's gut.
She was his heroine. HIS.
But the pathetic truth was he didn't have the guts to say a word. These people had superpowers. One wrong comment and he'd catch a fist before finishing the sentence.
What made it worse, unbearably worse, was the realization creeping over him: Makoto lifting Megumi like that... the image was gorgeous. Like a CG splash screen from a visual novel.
The feeling was specific and humiliating: watching your waifu get shipped with someone else, and somehow finding yourself shipping it too.
And it wasn't over.
Makoto set Megumi down.
Then kissed her on the cheek.
Mwah.
Only now did he understand the saying: a girl's blush is worth more than a thousand words.
Tomoya Aki could only sum up his feelings in one sentence:
I think I'm suffocating.
He felt like a rat that had spent its whole life in the sewers, hurled into blinding daylight.
"Makoto, you..." Megumi glared, mortified and furious in equal measure.
That was her first kiss. Her FIRST. And he'd stolen it here, in front of everyone, like it was nothing...
But the look of pure, unrestrained joy on his face swallowed every protest before it could leave her lips.
Then it came:
[Congratulations, players. Instance cleared: Konoha Crush Plan. Initiating transfer to the real world. Countdown: 9... 8... 7...]
As the Reincarnation Game's countdown hit zero, the world spun for over a dozen players, vision tilting and blurring into nothing.
When everything steadied, they remembered where they'd been before the crossing.
Tomoya, Eriri, Utaha, and Megumi sat in a family restaurant booth. It came flooding back: before the transfer, they'd been planning their galgame project right here.
Ran stood in her own living room, Kogoro's mess sprawled across every surface.
The Akizuki family gathered in their living room, waiting for Makoto to come home, same as always.
And Makoto Nishikado and Yukino Yukinoshita stood on opposite sides of a nighttime street, facing each other across the asphalt.
Yukino remembered too. Before this second crossing, she'd been hunting Makoto, determined to bring him to justice. If she could find an opening for an ambush...
But the memory of what he'd done during the Konoha Destruction Plan hit her like ice water. She looked across the road at the boy who'd returned to his sixteen-year-old body.
She was trembling.
The gap between us now... even an ambush wouldn't be enough.
"Heh... haha... AHAHAHAHAHA!"
Makoto threw his head back and let loose the signature Uchiha villain cackle.
Laughing like a maniac every time he came back from a crossing. It was becoming a tradition.