"Contact!" yelled a Kiri-nin, scrambling to activate his portable radio. "Enemy attack—"
"Raikiri!"
The loud cries of a thousand birds barely lasted a tenth of a second before Sasuke accelerated to Mach speed and buried his lightning-wreathed hand in the patrolling Kiri-nin's chest, causing him to choke on his next words as blood gurgled from his throat.
"Patrol, this is HQ! Do you copy?" came a crackling voice from his headset. "Patrol, what's wrong? Report your status! Patrol!"
Sasuke clicked his tongue in annoyance.
He'd been a split second too slow, and the radio call had gone through. It wouldn't be long before enemies swarmed his location, so it would be best if he made himself scarce… not because he couldn't defeat a hundred of these weaklings if he put his mind to it, but because he did not want to jeopardise the precious cargo he'd been sent to collect with such urgency.
"Special alert!" the radio went on. "Perimeter squads six and seven! Go check up on number eight… what the—"
The operator went silent, leaving the radio to fill the air with static.
Sasuke's pupils shrank as the atmosphere suddenly grew heavy with chakra. A thin beam of white light rose above the treetops, piercing through the clouds in an instant… and without warning, the glowing pillar began explosively expanding in width. Before he knew it, a great wall of light was rushing towards him, devouring the forest ahead at an impossible pace.
Reflexively, Sasuke made a heel turn and flickered away as fast as he could, covering incredible distances with each bound… when abruptly, the light stopped following him. Breathing heavily as he screeched to a complete stop, he slowly turned around, dread filling his veins as he gazed upon the vast plains of scorched earth stretching out before him.
"No…" he muttered dizzily. "This can't be happening…"
Sasuke fell to his knees, staring into the distance with glassy eyes.
Nothing but blackened dirt stretched for hundreds of kilometres around. The forest, the Hidden Leaf… they were all gone.
"Ah… ahh…"
Either the enemy had used some kind of secret weapon against the village, like the rumoured Tsuchigumo clan's Fury Jutsu that had been making the rounds amongst the men… or whatever secret plan Sakura had been hatching had backfired on her.
Sasuke's Rinnegan powers were based on the laws of space, so he could tell that the village and its surroundings were no longer anywhere to be found on this planet, or even on this plane of existence. Most likely, they had been shredded by the chaos of opening a spatial fissure and ground into cosmic dust as a result, given that his eye could not detect any remnants of a portal left behind by the use of Space-Time Ninjutsu.
"Sakura…" Sasuke choked out as tears streamed down his face. "Nanashi…"
The last pair of Uchiha females were gone, leaving him all alone in this cold, cruel world. Ironically, the Uchiha clan was now one of the last few surviving clans of the Hidden Leaf Village.
"Unforgivable… unforgivable… unforgivable…!!"
It was not the Uchiha clan's way to wallow in self-pity and misery. Sorrow rapidly turned into fury. He needed someone to blame for this catastrophe, someone on whom to take out his rage!
…
"I don't know!" a Kiri-nin cried as Sasuke's Raikiri slowly penetrated his chest, cauterising the wound with electrical arcs even as his fingers pushed deeper towards his heart. "We lost everyone, even Lady Terumī! I was lucky enough to be far enough from that… thing! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Please don't kill me—"
Sasuke executed him on the spot. He was telling the truth, but his information was useless.
…
"I'm not telling you anything—"
Sasuke killed the Kumo-nin.
"I'll talk, I'll talk!" his companion said eagerly. "Your Hokage defeated our A-B Combo, so that's why we were heading back! It's the truth, really!"
Sasuke executed him just to be safe, but the bulk of the enemy's forces were already doubling back towards him. Sakura had told him to stay away from Killer B if possible, so he needed to run away now. He had walked straight through where the Hidden Leaf had once stood to catch up with the fleeing Kumo army, but there were still the Stone and Sand invaders to interrogate. He couldn't afford to fight a powerful Jinchūriki right now.
…
"I'm… telling… the truth! I really… don't know… anything!" a Hidden Stone genin squeaked in terror as Sasuke tightened his fingers around his neck. All his comrades were already dead at their feet. "We really were leaving… on the orders of Lord Tsuchikage!"
At last, Sasuke had found some actionable information. According to the intelligence he had gathered from the Kumo-nin earlier, the Hidden Stone had been the first to withdraw from the conflict. After a brief skirmish with the Hokage, the Tsuchikage had ordered a full retreat, fleeing before the Sand and Mist could even arrive and turn the tide of battle in the invaders' favour.
Very suspicious.
"Why," Sasuke growled.
"Nobody… knows!" the Stone-nin choked out. "Not even my captain knows why the Tsuchikage pulled the plug on the operation at such a critical juncture! Personally, I think the higher-ups have some kind of plan… but why do you ask? Did something hap—"
The genin's neck broke with a loud crack, just like all the others'.
…
Sasuke went on to hunt down every straggler he could find, though he could not find any from the Hidden Sand. It seemed their invasion force had been completely swallowed by the cataclysm, along with the majority of the already admittedly tiny Hidden Mist contingent captained by Terumī Mei, who herself had probably been a sacrificial pawn, given Kirigakure's bloody internal politics.
By the end of the day, Sasuke had learned from another Iwa-nin of the Tsuchigumo clan's defection to the Hidden Stone. The Tsuchigumo had thrown in their lot with the Hidden Leaf and been paid handsomely for their services, only to betray them the minute the war situation worsened. Sasuke resolved to hunt them down and find out if they were responsible for the annihilation of the Hidden Leaf Village.
Two days later, Sasuke found a squad of Kiri-nin lording it over a nearby village of Land of Fire peasants. They had broken away from the main force to gather food, since the good Mizukage hadn't seen fit to send Terumī Mei's expedition out with enough supplies, and ever since losing contact with their leaders, they had simply been sitting tight. From them, Sasuke learned of the disastrous landing of the main body of Kirigakure's army on the eastern coast, where their comrades and ships had been obliterated by a white-eyed goddess clad in a cyan raiment of chakra.
Sasuke didn't quite know what to make of that information.
And at last, a few days later…
"Uchiha Sasuke," a deep, silky voice whispered in his ear. "Do you… desire revenge?"