{Hey guys! Sorry about that unexpected break, but if it wasn't important i wouldn't have stopped anyway, as you know. But now it's all sorted out, also, if we have any more trial scenes in the future, I'll be able to write them better, just to let you know.}
{You guys were also surprisingly patient about it, I guess what happened with the Devil made you guys hesitate huh! Lol enjoy this one, I'm here, atleast for now.}
~A little while earlier~
The compound where Danzo had been confined sat on the outskirts of the village like a scar that never quite healed. It was old, ugly, and layered in enough seals that even ANBU avoided standing too close to it for long. Tonight, however, it was anything but quiet.
Nearly a hundred Root shinobi gathered in the shadows, appearing one by one from rooftops, alleyways, and underground passages that only they knew. Their movements were silent, precise, practiced to the point of inhuman coordination. To any outsider it would have looked like an army materializing out of nothing.
The moment they converged on the holding area, blades were drawn, chakra surged, and killing intent flared openly. The order was simple, kill the guards and free their lord.
But the moment they struck, something felt wrong.
The ANBU that were supposed to be guarding Danzo… weren't there.
No guard, no resistance.
Just empty space.
A few Root operatives paused mid-motion, their instincts screaming at them, but discipline won out. Confusion was noted, catalogued, and set aside. Their lord mattered more than unanswered questions.
The Fuinjutsu specialists moved in immediately.
Three of them knelt around the hut where Danzo was sealed, their hands moving through practiced signs as they began inspecting the formation layered across the structure. The seals were dense, too dense. Old work mixed with newer lines, overlapping arrays feeding into each other in a way that felt… aggressive.
One of them frowned.
"This formation…"
He didn't get to finish.
The seals detonated.
Not with fire alone, but with compressed chakra ripping outward in a violent bloom. Light flared, heat surged, and the hut ceased to exist in an instant. The explosion swallowed the entire forward squad, vaporizing bodies before screams could even form.
The shockwave slammed into the remaining Root shinobi, throwing several of them off their feet.
For half a second, there was nothing but roaring flames and collapsing debris.
Then training kicked in.
Water Style jutsu erupted across the compound as multiple shinobi worked in tandem, suppressing the fire, cooling the ground, clearing the smoke. They moved with ruthless efficiency, pulling back scorched earth and shattered wood, searching for one thing.
Their lord.
A coughing sound broke through the hiss of steam.
From the center of the wreckage, a hunched figure emerged.
Danzo Shimura stepped forward, leaning heavily on his cane. His clothes were scorched, his breathing uneven, but he was alive. Very much alive.
He spat to the side and scowled.
"Damnit," he muttered hoarsely. "They made me waste one Sharingan already."
His visible eye flicked upward, sharp and cold, as the remaining Root shinobi rushed to kneel before him. Their numbers were… fewer than expected.
Far fewer.
Danzo's brow furrowed.
"Where are the rest?" he demanded. "Why have only this many of you gathered?"
For a brief, dangerous moment, a thought crossed his mind.
Betrayal.
But he dismissed it just as quickly.
Root would never betray him. They had been broken, rebuilt, and bound too thoroughly for that. They would betray the village before they betrayed him. That was the absolute certainty he had cultivated over decades.
Fu stepped forward and dropped to one knee, head bowed.
"Danzo-sama," he said, voice flat but strained. "Earlier this evening, Ren Senju patrolled the entire village."
Danzo's grip on his cane tightened.
"He rooted out several of us," Fu continued. "One by one, the ones you see here were only able to arrive safely because… he stopped searching."
Danzo's eye narrowed.
Before he could speak, a sound cut through the air, a soft, amused snicker.
"I don't know," a voice drawled, light and almost cheerful, "whether I should say you have good luck for surviving the evening purge…"
A pause.
"…or bad luck," the voice continued, tone sharpening just slightly, "that you get to die much more violently now."
Every head snapped upward.
On a tree some distance away, a lone figure stood balanced casually on a branch, hands in his pockets as if he were out for a stroll rather than standing over an execution ground.
Ren.
For the first time in a long while, he wasn't wearing his sunglasses.
His light blue eyes were fully visible, clear and bright in the moonlight, calm, focused, and utterly merciless. There was no humor in them now, no teasing edge. Just certainty.
Danzo's gaze flicked away from Ren for a split second, scanning the surroundings.
And then he saw him.
On another tree, positioned slightly farther back and to the side, stood Yoru.
The ANBU Commander was in full gear, mask on, cloak fluttering faintly in the night breeze. A sword rested in his hand, angled downward, casual but ready.
The silence between the three of them was heavy.
Danzo straightened as much as his battered body allowed, his eye burning with hatred as it locked back onto Ren.
"So," he rasped, "the hound and the heir come together."
Ren tilted his head slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting.
"Yeah," he said easily. "Lucky you."
Danzo snorted, the sound sharp and contemptuous as he leaned harder on his cane. "Hmph. You think just the two of you are enough for me?"
Ren tilted his head, considering that for a moment, then shook it lazily.
"No," he said honestly. "Just one of us is enough to deal with you. The other is for your cronies."
His gaze drifted over the gathered Root shinobi, rows of masked figures, silent, disciplined, radiating a loyalty that was almost suffocating.
"Which," Ren continued casually, "by the way, are still way too many."
He turned his head slightly toward Yoru without breaking eye contact with the field.
"Commander, how does he still have this many people inside the village? I rounded up hundreds last time. Then a bunch more today. And now there's this." He gestured vaguely at the compound. "What's going on?"
Yoru didn't bother to look at Danzo as he answered. His gaze swept over the Root forces with cold familiarity, as if he were counting inventory rather than people.
"What you're seeing here," Yoru said evenly, "are the ones absolutely loyal to him. Even without seals."
He shifted his stance slightly, sword still loose in his hand.
"These are the children, war orphans that were taken young and raised by him. The ones you caught before, most of them were originally village shinobi. Academy students. Genin pulled in early. They were trained extensively, yes, but at their core they were loyal to the village first. Danzo worked on them slowly through indoctrination, isolation and pressure. The seal was only there to ensure silence once the cracks started showing."
Ren clicked his tongue softly.
"Figures."
Yoru continued, voice flat.
"Over the years, he had more than enough opportunity to create an army far larger than this. I made sure to cull them regularly. Otherwise…" His eyes flicked briefly toward Danzo. "There would be far more standing here tonight."
For the first time since Ren and Yoru appeared, Danzo spoke again, his voice carrying a bitter edge.
"How arrogant," he spat, "to lecture right in front of me."
His visible eye burned as it shifted between Ren and Yoru.
"You should have let the balance continue as it was. You should have let the darkness exist where it belonged." His voice dropped, heavy with venom. "Now you'll pay for meddling. The whole village will."
The air distorted.
Danzo vanished.
Ren felt it but he didn't move. His eyes slid to the side instead.
Danzo reappeared beside Yoru, cane in hand as lashed out, Sharingan in his right eye spinning madly.
Steel rang.
Yoru met him head-on, blade intercepting Danzo's strike in a burst of sparks. The impact cracked the ground beneath their feet, chakra screaming as the two collided.
On the opposite tree, Ren pouted.
"…He didn't choose me," he muttered, genuinely offended. "How heartless."
He watched Danzo and Yoru clash once more, Danzo's movements were sharp and ruthless, Yoru's calm, precise and deadly.
Ren shrugged.
"Oh well," he said lightly. "We can take turns. It's not like he only has one life."
His attention shifted.
The Root forces were moving.
Half of them broke formation immediately, peeling away toward the village under Fu's lead. The other half surged forward toward Ren, Torune at the front, insects already beginning to crawl from beneath his sleeves.
Ren exhaled slowly.
"Oh," he sighed, sounding almost disappointed. "Splitting up, how cliché."
He raised a single hand.
The ground pulsed.
Seals ignited.
A massive fuinjutsu formation erupted from the earth, crimson lines racing outward in a perfect circle. Barriers slammed into place mid-run, cutting off the Root shinobi attempting to flee. Several of them crashed headfirst into invisible walls, bones snapping under the sudden stop.
The compound was sealed.
Ren's grin widened in a sharp, and completely unhinged manner.
"Don't die too fast," he said cheerfully. "Okay?"
Then, he vanished.
The first Root shinobi never saw him coming.
Ren reappeared inside their formation like a ghost slipping between heartbeats. A hand came up and two fingers pressed lightly against a mask.
There was a dull thump.
The shinobi folded inward, organs ruptured, body collapsing bonelessly to the ground.
Ren was already gone.
He reappeared behind another, grabbed them by the collar, and slammed their head into the barrier hard enough to leave a spiderweb of cracks across the invisible surface. The body slid down slowly, leaving a smear of blood in midair before dropping.
Torune shouted an order.
Insects surged forward like a living tide.
Ren stepped into them as his chakra flared.
A wave of heat rippled outward, not fire ball or any other fire style jutsu, just pure fire chakra. The insects disintegrated mid-flight, reduced to ash before they could reach him.
Ren's foot came down.
The ground buckled.
Three shinobi lost their footing as the earth twisted beneath them, and Ren was already there, one kick snapping a neck, another folding a chest inward, a third body used as a blunt weapon to crush the fourth.
Blood sprayed.
Masks cracked.
Screams were cut short.
To the side, Fu turned back in horror as he realized the barrier wasn't breaking.
"Retreat!"
Ren appeared in front of him, crouched low, eyes glowing faintly.
"Uh-uh," Ren said softly. "Wrong direction."
~~~
At the same time, within the Uchiha compound, the air itself felt heavy, thick with chakra, resentment, and something long overdue.
A large crowd had gathered in the central courtyard. Dozens upon dozens of Uchiha stood shoulder to shoulder, their red eyes glowing in the night. Some bore a single tomoe, others two, but the majority, far too many for comfort had fully matured three-tomoe Sharingan. Their gazes were sharp, restless, predatory, like blades drawn halfway from their sheaths.
At the front stood an old man.
His back was slightly hunched with age, his hair white and unkempt, his face lined deep with years of bitterness rather than wisdom. Yet despite his frail appearance, the killing intent radiating from him was so dense that even veteran Uchiha felt a chill crawl up their spines.
Kyoshiro Uchiha.
Once overlooked, once ignored, once swallowed whole by another's shadow.
Born on the same day as Kagami Uchiha, the prodigy, the golden boy, the one whose name history remembered, Kyoshiro had spent his entire life watching praise flow toward someone else. Where Kagami shone, Kyoshiro disappeared. Where Kagami was trusted, Kyoshiro was doubted. That contrast had never faded. It had only fermented, rotting slowly into something ugly and sharp.
He looked over the gathered shinobi, old memories rising unbidden.
The dismissive glances, the quiet comparisons. The constant reminder that no matter how hard he worked, someone else would always be better.
His jaw tightened.
When he spoke, his voice was hoarse but powerful, cutting cleanly through the murmurs.
"Time and time again," Kyoshiro said, "the Uchiha have tried to coexist with this village."
His gaze swept across the crowd.
"We lowered our heads. We compromised. We bent our pride until it nearly broke." His voice hardened. "Some of us even groveled before the village's so-called leaders."
A pause.
"Tell me," he demanded, "did they ever truly consider us?"
"NO!"
The response was immediate, loud, unified, filled with years of bottled resentment.
Kyoshiro's lips curled slightly.
"The position of Hokage," he continued, "is said to belong to the strongest."
His eyes burned brighter.
"And yet, did they ever consider us? The strongest clan in the village?"
"NO!"
The chant echoed off the compound walls.
"Not for the Third," Kyoshiro spat.
"Not for the Fourth."
"And now" his voice trembled with fury, "not even for the Fifth."
His gaze sharpened, veins standing out along his temple.
"We have been rejected again," he said slowly. "Cast aside and ignored. Treated as a threat rather than as the pillar we are."
He raised his cane slightly, slamming it into the stone beneath his feet.
"Is that acceptable?"
"NO!"
The answer shook the courtyard.
Kyoshiro straightened as much as his body allowed, Sharingan spinning violently.
"That's right," he snarled. "It is not acceptable."
His arm rose, pointing forward.
"So tonight, we take what should have always been ours."
His voice rose.
"We will not beg. We will not wait. We will not be denied."
"We will fight for it."
"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"
The chant erupted, raw and furious, reverberating through the compound like a war drum. Chakra flared. Killing intent surged. The radical faction had fully crossed the line, there was no turning back now.
High above them, unseen by those below, a lone figure crouched atop a tall pole.
Itachi Uchiha.
His expression was calm, almost eerily so, as he watched the scene unfold. His eyes were closed at first, as if in silent contemplation, listening not just to the words but to the emotions beneath them, the anger, the fear, the desperation masquerading as pride.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
Red light bloomed.
The Mangekyo Sharingan flared to life, its pattern spinning gently as his gaze sharpened.
"So this is it," he murmured under his breath.
The night had fractured completely now, Danzo moving in the shadows, Root burning, the Uchiha standing on the brink of rebellion and a shadowy figure waiting for his chance to strike.
The night was destined to be one of the bloodiest since the founding of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, a night forced by the mistakes of the older generation, a night which would pave the way for the future of the leaf and possibly the entire ninja world.
The entire village sat with bated breath, because, the Shadows War had begun.
~~~~~
{Oh man, I'm so excited to write this out, can only hope it turns out as good as I have it in mind and not disappoint you guys and myself too.}
{Also, I just had to add Itachi's scene, because that pose is still, one of the greatest in the anime history.}