Outside Shisui Uchiha's pad, night was thick as tar, bugs on mute.
"Shisui."
Itachi's voice cut the silence—calm on the surface, but underneath? A stubborn psycho ready to blow.
Door creaked open.
Moonlight carved Shisui's tall frame. He blinked, surprised.
Their eyes locked, and Shisui's gut dropped.
Itachi's usual dead-calm black pools? Now razor-sharp, batshit crazy, ice-cold. Stranger danger.
"Itachi, it's late—"
"Come with me. Now." Itachi steamrolled him, tone like a guillotine. That buried madness colder than the night breeze.
"Where?"
Shisui's unease cranked to eleven. Cloud snatching Makoto? He'd smelled the powder keg. Just didn't expect Itachi to light the fuse this fast.
"Sarutobi clan compound." Itachi's stare drilled straight through him. No dodge. "Right now."
"The Hokage's family turf?"
Shisui's brows knotted like barbed wire. "Itachi, that's suicide. Get caught and we're—"
He swallowed the rest, conveniently forgetting how he'd recently dumped a Cloud envoy's corpse on Hyuga property at midnight like a flaming bag of dogshit.
Or maybe deep down he still saw the Hokage's clan as untouchable—some sacred VIP lounge.
"I need to see it myself," Itachi said, voice flat but freezing the air solid. "The 'truth' Makoto talked about—what the hell is it?"
Losing his baby bro to Cloud had cracked something in Itachi. That look? Pure no turning back.
Shisui knew Uchihas. Knew Itachi. Once the dude locked onto a path, nine tailed-beasts couldn't drag him off.
Silence. Just wind rustling leaves like dry bones.
Standoff dragged… until Shisui sighed—heavy enough to crater the ground. Helpless, but with that big-brother fine, you little shit vibe.
"Stay on my six. Zero chakra leakage. Not a flicker."
Two shadows melted into the ink-black night.
Shisui went full ghost-mode—elite stealth cranked to max. Him and Itachi slinked over rooftops and alleys like smoke.
Patrolling MPs, ANBU sentries, sensor barriers… all dodged like pros.
Heart of the Leaf. Prime real estate.
Sarutobi clan compound.
Thanks to Shisui's OP skills, they ghosted right in.
Crouched in the shadows, eyes sweeping the massive sprawl. Lights sparse, but the core? Buzzing like a hornet nest.
Itachi leopard-crawled up a power pole hidden in thick branches—perched like a hawk. View opened wide.
Below: Sarutobi core training grounds. Floodlights blazing. Midnight, and the place was packed.
One scan: Sarutobi shinobi sweating bullets, drilling jutsu—more than the Uchiha field on a busy day. And Uchihas were one of the Warring States big dogs.
Sidelines: Even more clan-badge peeps coaching, watching, chilling.
Whole yard radiated power—boiling, in-your-face, aggressive prosperity.
Itachi's pupils shrank to pinholes. Ice shot up his spine.
Sarutobi in the old days? Strong, sure. But this scale? Outnumbering Senju and Uchiha combined?
Leaf founded a few decades ago… and they ballooned like this?
Worse: Most faces? Never seen 'em in the meat-grinder wars. Not even on sketchy out-village mission rosters.
Third Hokage's "Will of Fire" spiel? Stabbed his brain like an icicle.
Hiruzen's squeaky-clean "selfless village dad" image? Under these floodlights, it cracked—teeth-gritting, glass-shatter loud.
Makoto's smug voice echoed like a curse:
> "Guess how many shinobi the Sarutobi got now? More than us."
> "Buncha leeching bastards—Saru's shiny toys, Hashi's morning glory—sucking blood, gnawing bones off the other clans to bulk up."
Leeching. Gnawing.
Every word slapped by this roaring, thriving training ground.
Itachi's breath stopped. Perched on that cold pole, eyes sank into black holes—light-eating voids.
He turned slow to Shisui.
Shisui was stunned too. Rubbed his trademark garlic nose, forced his usual chill smile. Voice a little too innocent:
"Huh… never thought the Hokage's fam blew up this big. Shinobi count even beats the Uch—"
"Prosperity?"
The word seared Itachi like a branding iron.
Third Shinobi War—brutal meat grinder. Every clan bleeding numbers left and right.
But Sarutobi…?
Shisui's casual remark? Final straw.
Itachi's voice dropped—each syllable dredged from a freezer, smashing the night:
"See it now?"
"Any hope of fixing village-clan beef? Can't bank on the brass anymore."
"Third Hokage's like this…" No more "Lord" in his tone—just ash. "What about Danzo and those two fossil advisors?"
"They never gave a shit about the whole Leaf."
Shisui got it. Smile froze. Gentle eyes shattered—first time ever, raw confusion and doubt.
"Then… who the hell do we bet on?"
Bet on who?
Itachi went quiet.