Outside the crumbling Uchiha ruins, Kenya sat easily in a chair he hadn't brought with him—one of those small, casual details that made him look as if he'd always belonged there. Jin'narō stood at his side, eyes scanning the horizon. For a few long seconds they watched the place where the fight was going on, as if they were spectators at a play.
"Master Aizen," Jin'narō said at last. "They did it."
A thunderous explosion answered him, shuddering through the ruins. The shockwave trembled beneath their feet as though someone had struck the earth with a giant fist.
Kenya didn't flinch. Calmly, with the same cool detachment he always wore, he asked, "How are we doing on Naruto—surveillance?"
Jin'narō swallowed. "Naruto's still in Konoha. He hasn't had time to get here. We've set guards to stop him if he tries—"
Kenya nodded once, eyes already distant. He was thinking faster than his words, cataloguing the risks. If Pain himself had come for the boy now, they would have had no choice but to force Nine-Tails' power out; that alone could have—would have—changed everything. He let the thought pass through without comment.
Above the ruins, a third of the roof blew skyward. Shards of black and red fluttered like falling banners: members of Akatsuki's force had been thrown aside. From the smoke and dust, Rong—masked, furious—leapt up and took a precarious stance on top of the rubble.
Purple lightning braided across the sky. It flashed and danced around Sasuke as if obedience to the boy's will was its only law. Jin'narō, watching from the edge of the fight, couldn't hide his astonishment.
"That lightning… it's not ordinary," he breathed. "Except for Aizen-sama, I've never seen such a technique."
Sasuke had just moved out of the cave that had been opened by raw power. In that second the brothers' two wills locked like opposing blades.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!" they shouted at once.
Two pillars of flame erupted, huge and incandescent, meeting in the air with a thunderous hiss. For five seconds the fire from Sasuke's side began to eclipse Itachi's. Jin'narō's mouth hung open in disbelief. Sasuke—who'd been beaten by Itachi three years ago—had grown so quickly as to close that once-unbridgeable distance?
This had been the plan, in a way. Itachi's entire strategy had been one for Sasuke alone. Every step Itachi had taken was to pave a path, to protect his brother while steering him toward what he believed necessary. It was brilliant—too brilliant—and wise where it needed to be. But it was narrow: all that ingenuity funneled into a single life.
For an observer, it could be admired. For a player seated at the world's table, it was limiting.
A jagged rumble rolled through the sky. Kenya blinked and looked up: thick, black stormclouds had knitted overhead.
"Kinnaruo—he's going to call down something big," Jin'narō warned. "Sasuke's using rain with lightning—"
Sasuke's lips curled, cold and composed. "Watch how you die."
He raised his left hand and released the chant in a single, brutal syllable. "Kirin."
The sky answered like a beast called. A bolt the size of a choked column fell from the height of heaven, unholy and crackling with thunder. Jin'narō braced, sealing signs the way any sensible man would do.
"Master Kenya—" he shouted.
Before Jin'narō could finish, the Kirin struck. The blast hammered down like an erupting mountain and ripped the world apart for the span of a breath. When the dust cleared, the two men who'd stood closest—Kenya and Jin'narō—had vanished. Nothing remained of the place they'd occupied but a gouge in the stone and the perfume of ozone.
----
Far from the ruins, in the outer forest ring surrounding Konoha, a figure stepped out of the shadow like a memory made flesh. Pain—Tendō—moved slowly, each step measured.
"This is Konoha," he said, his voice dry as flint. "Day 1.7."
In his sight, the village was a jewel wrapped in a semicircular field of chakra—an invisible bastion that hummed with defence. The grand white of the Hokage building gleamed under the summoned sky.
Two meters behind him, sheets of paper drifted down and assembled into a human shape: Konan, companion and blade, her paper wings folding and refolding with a whisper.
"They were able to enter easily because Rong—the old Anbu—knew the paths," she noted, voice low.
Pain's Rinnegan turned, cold and infallible. "We have our own means. This will not be a raid to hide in the night. Konoha will feel the pain."
The words hung in the air like a promise and a threat both. Somewhere between the ruins and the village, plans slid into motion—some old, some new, all shifting toward the inevitable clash.
And beneath it all, quiet and patient, Kenya's smile survived. He'd said before that some things only required waiting. The world was beginning to keep time with that patience.