Uchiha Shisui was moving through the crosshatched tree shadows at a speed nearly impossible to follow with the naked eye.
That night, Shisui had arranged to meet his closest friend, Uchiha Itachi, at the cliffside of Naka River.
Danger was closing in.
"Whoosh!"
Dozens of kunai, gleaming with a cold light, completely sealed off every path forward, backward, and sideways available to Shisui.
"Not good, an ambush!"
Shisui's heart plummeted, and every muscle in his body tensed to its absolute limit in an instant.
In a flash, Shisui's body twisted mid-air in a way that defied all physical logic.
He slipped through the gaps between the kunai by the narrowest margin.
"Body Flicker Technique!"
At the same time, Uchiha Shinsuke also received a system alert warning him of Shisui's ambush.
'It seems you've still walked toward your end, Shisui!'
Shinsuke let out a helpless sigh.
Perhaps this was Shisui's fate, and Shinsuke had chosen not to go to his rescue, as he had already given Shisui the chance to choose.
But Shisui had still chosen to trust the Third Hokage.
Shisui's death would completely shatter the naive illusions of the Uchiha Doves.
For Shinsuke, this was the best opportunity to consolidate the Dove faction.
Compassion?
Sympathy?
In the brutal shinobi world, these were nothing but epitaphs carved for the weak.
He, Uchiha Shinsuke, was no saint, and certainly no savior.
[Ding! The host's current state of mind and behavioral pattern have been detected, matching the trigger conditions for the hidden strategic mission: "Cold-Eyed Observation: A Sacrifice of the Age."]
A virtual light screen appeared before Uchiha Shinsuke.
On the screen, everything happening at the cliffside of Naka River was being broadcast in real time.
Returning to Shisui's side.
At the top of the earthen wall, dozens of figures wearing various animal masks silently emerged.
"Root!"
Shisui's heart sank to rock bottom in an instant.
He had recognized who these people were.
They were Shimura Danzō's Root operatives.
They... had actually dared to make a move against him.
"Uchiha Shisui."
Danzō stepped forward from the shadows, leaning on his cane, flanked by two Root ninja.
"Danzō-sama, what is the meaning of this?"
Shisui forcibly suppressed the rage surging within him and bowed toward Danzō.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"You little Uchiha brat, you don't need to understand."
Danzō walked up to Shisui and stared at this Uchiha who possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan, his eyes filled with greed.
"You only need to know that those eyes of yours do not belong to you."
"Hand them over, for the sake of Konoha!"
Before his words had even faded, the hand wrapped in bandages swung violently as Danzō launched a sudden sneak attack on Shisui.
Shisui's reaction was fast, but at such close range, Danzō's kunai still slashed open his arm.
Shisui felt a wave of intense pain throughout his body along with a creeping sense of powerlessness, and he immediately used the Body Flicker Technique to leap back.
Danzō's kunai had been coated in poison.
"Attack!"
"Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall!"
"Earth Style: Earth Barrier Wall!"
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
A dull roar surged up from beneath the ground as the earth trembled violently.
From every direction, thick and towering earthen walls burst up from the ground, closing in from all sides and rapidly sealing shut to form a massive, solid square cage that trapped Shisui firmly at its center.
Dozens of Root ninja lunged at Shisui from all directions without a moment's hesitation.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"
"Wind Style: Breakthrough!"
"Bastards!"
Shisui roared in fury, the three tomoe in his eyes spinning at a furious pace as a terrifying ocular power far beyond that of an ordinary Sharingan erupted with full force.
The Mangekyō Sharingan activated in an instant.
"Susano'o!"
Green chakra energy surged out from within him like a volcanic eruption, rapidly condensing around his body into a massive skeletal armored warrior clutching a spiraling long sword.
Boom, boom, boom!
Countless jutsu slammed violently against the green Susano'o.
However, the sheer number of Root ninja was overwhelming.
Although the Susano'o's defensive power was extraordinary and the Root ninja were completely unable to deal effective damage, Shisui's chakra was not unlimited, and combined with the poison already spreading through him, his condition grew worse and worse.
Shisui's heart was gripped with desperate urgency.
Under this suffocating siege, he would eventually be ground down and killed right here.
He had to break through.
"Kotoamatsukami!"
He placed his last remaining hope in his most powerful genjutsu, attempting to seize control of Danzō and thereby collapse the entire siege.
However, a cunning smirk of triumph spread across Danzō's wrinkled old face.
It was as though he had anticipated this move all along.
"Don't even think about it!"
A cold glint flashed in Danzō's eyes, and a Root ninja beside him wearing a bird-shaped mask slammed both hands into a seal.
"Genjutsu: Dark Passage Technique!"
A strange chakra wave instantly spread outward, and Shisui felt his vision go completely black as all light was ripped from the world around him, plunging him into endless, absolute darkness where he could not see his hand in front of his face.
Although Shisui, drawing on the immense ocular power of his Mangekyō Sharingan, broke free of that genjutsu's grip in nearly a tenth of a second, that brief instant of stolen sight was already more than enough to be lethal against a top-tier shinobi.
"Mind Body Switch Technique!"
Yamanaka Fū's figure appeared from the right, unleashing the secret technique of the Yamanaka Clan.
Shisui felt a powerful and brutish mental force, like a steel needle, attempting to forcibly invade his mind and seize control of his body.
"Get out!"
Shisui roared again, and the ocular power of his Mangekyō erupted without reserve, forcibly scattering the invading mental energy of Yamanaka Fū.
But Shisui's chakra burned away even more fiercely because of it.
The intensity of the battle caused the poison to spread even faster.
Shisui could no longer even maintain his Susano'o.
"Heh heh, Uchiha Shisui, your struggle is futile."
Danzō's right eye, which should have been hidden beneath layers of bandages, was now unmistakably a crimson three-tomoe Sharingan.
"Izanagi!"
Danzō muttered under his breath, and those three tomoe instantly lost all their light, turning a dull, ashen gray.
Danzō's figure materialized out of thin air directly in front of Shisui.
Thud!
A right hand wrapped in layer upon layer of bandages lunged savagely toward Shisui's right eye.
"Ahhh!"
A wave of searing agony instantly shot through every nerve ending in his body.
Shisui let out a bloodcurdling scream as warm blood mixed with tears poured wildly from the hollow of his right eye socket.
Shisui staggered backward and crashed to the ground, instinctively pressing his hand over his blood-soaked right eye.
Just as Danzō was about to reach for Shisui's remaining left eye, a fierce shout rang out.
"Stop!"
A figure burst in like a black bolt of lightning.
It was Uchiha Itachi.
Itachi roared, the three tomoe in his eyes spinning wildly, giving Danzō no time to react whatsoever as his body turned into a blur and shot straight at Danzō.
Dozens of shuriken and kunai flew from Itachi's hands at all manner of sharp angles, aimed directly at Danzō and every Root ninja surrounding him.
"Hmph, you little Uchiha brats just keep coming one after another to throw your lives away!"
Danzō snorted coldly, but he dared not be the slightest bit careless, and he rapidly fell back.
The Root ninja immediately stepped forward, forming a defensive formation to block Itachi's storm of attacks.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
The sound of metal clashing rang out without pause.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Technique!"
Itachi expelled several fireballs from his mouth that scattered like flowers, yet precisely cut off the Root ninja's lines of movement and created a chaotic field of fire.
The chaos lasted only one second.
But for Uchiha Itachi, that was enough.
Itachi seized that fleeting opportunity, flickered again, appeared at Shisui's side, and pulled his gravely wounded closest friend into his arms.
"Shisui, hold on!"
"Move!"
Itachi wasted not a moment fighting further, carried Shisui, pushed the Body Flicker Technique to its absolute limit, and continuously unleashed Fire Style jutsu to forcibly break through Root's encirclement.
"Danzō-sama!"
"No need to give chase."
Danzō watched the direction in which the two had vanished, and no expression whatsoever could be read on his bandage-wrapped face.
He slowly opened his left hand, and resting in his palm was a freshly extracted Mangekyō Sharingan, still warm with blood.
Half of his objective had been accomplished.
"Send word."
"Uchiha Shisui attacked a Hokage adviser, intended to defect, and has taken his own life out of guilt."
"Have this news spread throughout the entire village before dawn."