Six months terThe air in Konoha no longer hummed with summer.

  It was thick. Heavy. Stale.

  Not with heat—but with tension.

  The Uchiha compound had become a fortress. Conversations stopped when Leaf patrols passed. Meetings moved underground. Ken had watched it all unfold from behind a mask and a codename.

  And he had waited.

  He’d sent his mother and father away that morning—no words, just packed bags and a simple order.

  “Go to the safehouse. Don’t look back.”

  It was a small cabin hidden beyond the southern forest, just outside vilge jurisdiction, shielded with fuinjutsu and chakra-masking wards Ken had built himself over the past few months.

  He hugged them both—quick and tight—and didn’t answer when his mother asked if he’d come back.

  Because he wasn’t sure.

  That night, it happened.

  The Uchiha compound went dark.

  Not the kind of dark caused by shadows.

  But by silence.

  No chakra signatures. No nterns. No sounds of conversation or children sparring in the backyards.

  Just the slow crawl of death.

  Ken moved fast, knowing it was already too te.

  He found the first bodies near the courtyard—the elders, cut down clean. No struggle. No resistance. Just decisive, surgical ends.

  Itachi’s style.

  But the chakra... something else pulsed nearby. A familiar twist, a warped signature. One that didn’t belong here.

  Ken followed it, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, until he found them:

  Itachi and Obito—cloaked in red clouds, drenched in blood and silence.

  Surrounded by fallen Uchiha.

  And a child, barely ten, trying to crawl away from the corner.

  Ken dropped down between them.

  “Enough.”

  Obito turned, mask gleaming under moonlight.

  “Well well… the stray.”

  Ken’s bde was already in hand.

  “I won’t ask twice. You want the adults? Fine. But you leave the children.”

  Itachi stepped forward slowly.

  “Ken…”

  Ken’s eyes locked on him, spinning into Sharingan.

  “You don’t have to justify it. I knew it would be you.”

  Obito’s ugh was low and quiet. “He made the choice. Just like you would’ve if you weren’t so sentimental.”

  Ken didn’t move.

  Obito did.

  A flicker of bck mist—and then—

  CRACK.

  Ken hit the wall hard enough to dent the stone, Obito’s warping space jutsu smming him backwards without mercy.

  Ken coughed blood.

  Tried to stand.

  Fell again.

  Obito stepped forward. “You’re just a half-measure. A whisper of what we needed.”

  Itachi turned to him, voice sharp.

  “Don’t kill him.”

  Obito looked back. “Why?”

  “He’s not the enemy,” Itachi said. “Not yet.”

  They left him there, slumped against the wall, body broken, but eyes still burning with fury.

  And around him, the Uchiha burned.

  By morning, the vilge was silent.

  News spread like fire in a dry forest.

  The Uchiha were dead.

  Dozens of bodies. Entire families. The inner compound leveled. Survivors? Only one child found sobbing near the main house.

  Sasuke.

  Ken woke in the medical ward with three cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and a message beside his bed:

  “Come to the Hokage’s office. Now.” – H.S.

  Hiruzen looked like a man who had aged ten years overnight.

  His face was pale. His robes hung heavier than usual. ANBU lined the corners of the office, motionless.

  Ken entered without a word, scroll tucked beneath his arm.

  The Hokage didn’t speak at first.

  Then: “Itachi is gone. Sasuke is safe.”

  Ken set the scroll down on the desk.

  “This is why.”

  Hiruzen opened it slowly.

  Inside—a full report.

  Seals copied from Root communication tags.

  Mission transcripts acquired during bck-ops operations.

  A personal letter Shisui had left behind—addressed to Ken and never opened until now.

  And most damning of all: a log stolen from Danzo’s personal Root database.

  A record of the mission.

  The mission Shisui never returned from.

  “Objective: Acquisition of Uchiha Shisui’s eye.”“Status: Complete.”“Cause of death: Escation during extraction.”“Operative elimination protocol triggered: Root suppression squad deployed.”

  Hiruzen read it all.

  Then closed the scroll with trembling hands.

  Ken said, softly:

  “Danzo provoked Itachi into doing this. He maniputed the threat. Cornered the cn. Took the choice out of both their hands.”

  Hiruzen’s jaw tightened.

  “Can you prove it?”

  Ken’s voice turned cold.

  “I just did.”

  That afternoon, Hiruzen summoned Danzo to the Tower.

  No ANBU escort. No council support.

  Just the two of them, in silence.

  Ken wasn’t there—but he heard from Daen ter:

  “Hiruzen didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. He id out every document, and Danzo knew the game was over. No trial. No arrest. But Root was dismantled. Disavowed. All agents reassigned or released. Danzo… vanished.”

  Some said exile.

  Some said retirement.

  Others whispered that a quiet bde found his throat days ter in the woods behind the old training sectors.

  No one ever confirmed it.

  Ken never asked.

  That night, Ken sat alone on a cliff, looking down at the vilge.

  He should’ve stopped it.

  He should’ve saved Shisui.

  He should’ve killed Obito when he had the chance.

  But all he had now… was time.

  Time to pn.

  Time to wait.

  Because war hadn’t ended with the Uchiha.

  It had just gone quiet.

  And when it started again—

  Ken would be ready.