Interlude: The Streets Remember
The explosions echoed like thunder across Kirigakure.
But the villagers did not scream.
Not at first.
They had been taught silence—conditioned by years of executions, disappearances, and curfews enforced by blades.
So when the gates erupted and the tower smoked, they watched.
From balconies. From alleys. From shattered windows.
Children clutched mothers. Vendors closed carts. Elders sat unmoving, faces carved with doubt.
Was this another purge?
Or something else?
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Then came the masks.
Hunter-nin moved through the chaos—not to kill, but to direct. To protect. To pull civilians from collapsing streets and guide them to cellars.
One woman fell while running. A masked shinobi caught her. Told her to hide. Told her it would be over soon.
She stared at him in disbelief.
And then obeyed.
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A child looked up at a rooftop and saw Mei Terumī silhouetted in fire.
A girl saw Chōjūrō hold the line beside her uncle.
An old man saw a rebel tear down the banner of Yagura's regime and leave it burning in the square.
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They began to whisper.
"She's back."
"They're fighting for us."
"It's ending."
And then the whispers became a roar.
The streets moved.
Citizens grabbed old weapons. Shopkeepers barred doors—not from fear of rebels, but to keep loyalists out.
A boy threw rocks at armored guards and vanished into the smoke.
An old hunter laid a trap with wire across a back alley.
The village didn't just rise.
It remembered.
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For years, they had feared the blood.
Now, they were ready to wash it away.
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