Near the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Mist
The night forest exploded into motion.
Steel flashed through the air.
The storm of weapons from Toyoma's golden portals tore through the darkness as dozens of kunai and swords shot forward like arrows.
The masked Root shinobi scattered instantly.
Some leapt backwards.
Others raised their blades to deflect.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
Metal collided with metal as the first wave of weapons struck.
But before the echoes could fade—
"Now!" Raizen shouted.
The Uchiha squad moved.
Raizen was already charging forward.
His blade slid from its sheath with a sharp sound.
The ground beneath his feet cracked as he stepped heavily.
Stone Breathing — First Form: Earthbreaker Slash.
His sword crashed downward.
A Root shinobi tried to block—
The impact shattered his guard and threw him violently across the clearing.
Dust exploded into the air.
Two more masked shinobi rushed toward Raizen from both sides.
Raizen's Sharingan spun.
He saw their movements clearly.
"Fire Style — Great Fireball Jutsu!"
A massive sphere of flame erupted from his mouth.
The fire roared through the forest, forcing the attackers to scatter.
On the other side—
Suki moved like drifting smoke.
Three Root shinobi rushed her at once.
She didn't retreat.
Her sword slid forward calmly.
Mist Breathing — Second Form: Hidden Veil Slash.
A thin mist spread across the ground.
Her blade moved through it almost invisibly.
One Root shinobi froze.
A red line appeared across his chest.
He collapsed before he could even scream.
The other two attackers hesitated.
That moment was enough.
Suki's Sharingan flashed.
Their bodies suddenly stiffened.
Genjutsu.
For a split second, their minds locked in illusion—
Her sword cut through both of them.
Behind them—
The remaining Uchiha squad members clashed with the rest of the Root shinobi.
Kunai clashed.
Explosive tags burst among the trees.
The forest echoed with the sounds of battle.
But the Root had come prepared.
More masked figures emerged from the shadows.
Their numbers were nearly doubled.
Raizen clicked his tongue.
"Persistent bastards."
At the centre of the battlefield—
Toyoma still hadn't moved.
He watched the fight calmly.
Another golden ripple opened beside him.
A blade slid slowly into his hand.
The Root shinobi noticed him.
Five of them rushed forward at once.
Toyoma tilted his head slightly.
His Sharingan glowed faintly in the darkness.
"Only five?"
Ten golden portals opened behind him again.
Weapons pointed forward like a royal execution.
Toyoma smiled.
"Come."
The night erupted again.
Weapons burst from the golden portals like a storm.
Kunai and swords shot forward with terrifying speed, forcing the five Root shinobi charging Toyoma to halt mid-step.
Two were struck instantly.
Blades tore through their shoulders and thighs, sending them crashing to the ground.
The remaining three twisted their bodies, barely avoiding the deadly rain of steel.
But Toyoma had already moved.
In a blur, he stepped forward.
The sword he had pulled from the golden ripple flashed once.
A clean arc.
One masked shinobi dropped.
The second barely managed to raise his blade—
Clang.
Their swords collided.
For a moment, their eyes met through the mask.
Then three more weapons shot out from the portals behind Toyoma.
The shinobi's body froze as the blades pierced through his side.
Toyoma pulled his sword free and stepped back calmly.
Across the clearing, the battle was already turning.
Raizen moved like a falling boulder.
Stone Breathing — Third Form: Crushing Ridge.
His blade slammed sideways into a Root shinobi's guard.
The impact shattered the man's stance and sent him rolling across the ground.
Another attacker rushed Raizen from behind.
Raizen's Sharingan flickered.
Without even turning—
His sword swung backwards.
The blade struck the attacker's wrist, sending his kunai flying.
A moment later, Raizen's foot drove into the man's chest, knocking him into a tree.
Not far away, Suki danced between two opponents.
Mist curled around her feet.
Her movements were quiet.
Precise.
Mist Breathing — Fourth Form: Vanishing Current.
For a moment, she disappeared inside the thin fog she had created.
The two Root shinobi hesitated.
That was their mistake.
Her blade flashed from the mist.
One fell instantly.
The second turned just in time to see the tip of her sword already at his throat.
He collapsed a moment later.
Around them, the remaining Uchiha squad members began pushing the Root back.
The numerical advantage the enemy had held moments ago was disappearing quickly.
Within minutes—
Only silence remained.
Bodies lay scattered across the forest floor.
Raizen wiped his blade against a piece of cloth and exhaled slowly.
"That's the last of them."
One of the Uchiha squad members began checking the fallen enemies.
"Captain, over here."
Raizen walked toward him.
The shinobi was kneeling beside one of the masked bodies.
"I found something."
He pulled a folded scroll from inside the dead man's vest.
Raizen took it.
Toyoma and Suki walked closer as he opened it.
Inside—
A map.
Raizen frowned.
"This route…"
His eyes moved across the markings.
The path drawn on the map was the exact road Toyoma's squad were using to meet the incoming supplies.
Several points along the route were circled.
Ambush positions.
Suki's expression hardened.
"So they knew our path."
Raizen nodded slowly.
"But that's not all."
He turned the scroll over.
Another set of notes was written along the bottom.
Toyoma read the lines quietly.
Then his eyes narrowed.
"Fake supplies."
The others looked at him.
Toyoma pointed at the markings.
Raizen's expression darkened.
"They found our deception."
Toyoma looked down at the map in his hand.
"It seems there are more traitors within the Uchiha than I thought," he muttered quietly.
Raizen glanced at the bodies of the masked shinobi lying around the clearing.
"Are they really Danzo's people, Toyoma?" he asked.
"Wasn't Root disbanded?"
"It was," Toyoma replied with a faint sigh.
"But where would the members of Root go? They were already part of it."
Raizen frowned slightly.
Toyoma continued.
"The Tongue-Sealing Jutsu bound those shinobi. Once someone enters Root, they lose the freedom to choose anything for themselves."
Most of them had already been cut off from their clans.
No clan wanted them back.
Root training stripped away their emotions, turning them into tools that followed orders without question.
Shinobi like that could not return to normal clan life.
That was also why most clans refused to send their people to Root.
Danzo knew this very well.
The members already inside Root had nowhere else to go.
Their only purpose was to serve him.
That was also why the Third Hokage had placed Danzo under house arrest instead of forcing him to hand Root over to ANBU or other village forces.
The moment that happened, Root shinobi might completely lose control.
Raizen clenched his fist slightly.
"I still don't understand how something like Root was even allowed to exist in the village," he said with clear anger in his voice.
"Who had the idea to control the lives of shinobi like that?"
Suki looked at the bodies scattered across the ground.
"And how could the clans allow their people to join Root in the first place?" she said quietly.
"They must have known that once someone entered Root… they could never truly return to their clan."
She stared at the masked faces.
Even in death, the Root shinobi looked empty.
Emotionless.
Like broken tools.
Raizen let out a slow breath and turned toward the squad.
"Alright. Burn the bodies and start setting up camp and traps," he ordered.
"We leave early in the morning."
The Uchiha squad immediately began moving.
Some gathered the bodies.
Others started preparing the camp.
Toyoma gave a few instructions to the shinobi nearby before walking away from the clearing.
A river flowed quietly not far from the camp.
Toyoma walked toward it and sat down near the water.
For a while, he said nothing.
Suki noticed him sitting alone and walked over.
"What happened?" she asked.
"You look like you're thinking about something."
Toyoma watched the water flow past the rocks.
He picked up a small stone and tossed it across the river.
The stone skipped across the surface two or three times before sinking beneath the water.
"Just thinking," Toyoma said slowly.
"We're risking our lives on a mission to protect the village…"
He gave a quiet laugh.
"And at the same time, the village is trying to stab us in the back."
"Isn't that a little funny?"
Suki folded her arms.
"Well… that's their mistake," she said calmly.
"They've been corrupted by power."
"You don't need to worry about people like that."
Toyoma glanced at her and smiled faintly.
"Who said I was worried?"
He looked back toward the river.
"I was just wondering how long it will take for our clan to wake up finally."
"How many times do we have to be betrayed before they stop dreaming about sacrificing the Uchiha to cure Konoha's sickness?"
His voice carried a trace of bitterness.
"Sometimes I wonder… is fifty or sixty years really enough for people to let go of a hundred years of hatred?"
"But our people still cling to this illusion."
He laughed quietly.
"They talk about protecting the village."
"But they forget something simple."
Toyoma looked toward the camp where the other Uchiha were working.
"They should protect their own families first."
Their clan.
Their people.
"Their own house is already burning,"
Toyoma thought to himself.
"And they are still talking about saving the village."
To him, it felt absurd.
While their own clan faced suspicion and persecution, many Uchiha still believed in a fragile peace with the village.
But that peace was nothing more than an illusion.
A carefully maintained illusion that kept them from seeing the danger around them.
And while they believed in it—
They slowly forgot the most basic instinct any clan should have.
The instinct to protect their own people.
Next morning—
As the birds began chirping, the squad finished preparing and headed to the meeting point.
Raizen walked ahead, scanning the road in front of him.
Soon, a small settlement appeared in the distance.
He slowed down.
"We've reached the point," he said.
The others also slowed their pace.
"So where is the meeting point, Uncle?" Suki asked as she looked around.
In front of them stood a small village.
But the place felt strangely quiet.
Only a few old villagers could be seen moving slowly between the houses.
Most of them looked weak, as if they were already close to the end of their lives.
The village itself looked gloomy.
Calling it a proper village almost felt like an exaggeration.
It looked more like a small tribal settlement.
Simple thatched houses stood scattered around the area, with little sign of life.
"From the looks of it, Uncle Genzo should have reached here by now," Toyoma said as he looked around.
In the letter Uncle Uzuku had sent, it was written that Genzo would arrive at the meeting point two days earlier.
Toyoma scanned the empty streets once more.
"Let's wait here for a while," he said calmly.
The squad began looking around the quiet settlement, waiting for Genzo's arrival.
Soon after—
A Uchiha shinobi came running toward them.
"Senior Raizen… we found Genzo-senpai,"
he said while trying to catch his breath.
From the way he was breathing, it was clear he had run here as fast as he could.
Toyoma and Suki both looked at the shinobi and immediately became alert.
Something had clearly happened.
"What happened?" Raizen asked in a stern voice.
"Sand shinobi…" the Uchiha ninja replied.
The moment those words left his mouth—
Toyoma's expression darkened.
"So she finally gave them the intel," he muttered under his breath.
To Toyoma, hearing that Genzo was being attacked by Sand shinobi meant only one thing.
Pakura had betrayed them.
"Let's go, Sister Suki. Uncle Raizen."
Toyoma didn't wait any longer.
He disappeared from the spot.
In the next instant, he reappeared several meters ahead, using Blink to switch places with objects within his sight as he rushed toward Genzo's location.
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