The impromptu meeting of Konoha's ruling quartet, the so-called F4, was cut brutally short.
The door to the council chamber burst open. Before Homura or Koharu could even react, an ANBU agent in his white animal mask was already kneeling, whispering a rapid, urgent report directly into the Third Hokage's ear.
Hiruzen shot to his feet, his face darkening like a thunderhead. "Is the intelligence confirmed?"
The ANBU's silent nod was all the confirmation he needed. Hiruzen slammed his fist onto the table, the wood groaning in protest. "Those damned bastards!"
Seeing Hiruzen, normally the picture of stoic control, lose his composure so completely made Danzo's frown deepen.
Koharu was less restrained. "Hiruzen! What is it?"
"A joint surprise assault," Hiruzen bit out, the words tasting like ash. "Kirigakure, Kumogakure, and Sunagakure. They've invaded Uzushiogakure. Our reinforcements… we're a step too late."
"A surprise attack?!" Homura Mitokado's voice was low, thick with disbelief. "The Mist and the Cloud, perhaps… but how did Sand's mobilization escape our entire intelligence network? Has it been compromised?"
"We cannot confirm that yet…" Hiruzen took a long, steadying breath. When he opened his eyes again, they held the cold, sharp glint of unsheathed steel. "The priority now is to dispatch our forces with all possible speed. We must save whoever we can of the Uzumaki."
——
Tsunade held her chopsticks motionless, mechanically turning a piece of long-cold grilled meat on her plate. Her gaze was distant, fixed on nothing.
Her obvious distraction finally drew Yuta's attention.
"Tsunade?"
"I… I have a bad feeling," she murmured, jolting back to the present at his prompt. The worry knotting her brows didn't ease; if anything, a deeper anxiety tightened its grip on her heart. "Like something terrible has happened."
Before Yuta or the others could offer any comfort, he looked up and saw a figure he really didn't want to see striding into the barbecue joint.
Danzo.
'The old buzzard coming here now…' Yuta's stomach sank.
"Team Danzo… Emergency mission."
Danzo's voice was a blade of ice. For Tsunade, the world seemed to slow and mute.
She saw Danzo's mouth moving, but the sounds were blurred, distant nonsense. It wasn't until the phrases "Uzushiogakure," "surprise attack," and "reinforcements" finally pierced the fog that her expression shattered.
Yuta's mind raced, piecing together the grim timeline.
Konoha had received the distress call, convened the council, and voted to send aid—a process of hours. But Kirigakure, Kumogakure, and Sunagakure had moved with a terrifying, coordinated swiftness. That gap in time… was a death sentence.
He took a deep breath and reached out, his hand coming to rest gently on Tsunade's trembling arm.
——
"Run! Damn it, we're surrounded!"
"Young Clan Head! Another squad from Kumo has cut us off from the east! They mean to wipe us out!"
The panicked shouts swirled around Uzumaki Shinji. He clutched his two-year-old daughter tighter to his chest, breathing in deeply.
The air was thick with the scents of blood, sweat, and fear—a pungent mix that sharpened his fading focus.
He took stock. He'd broken out of the village with over fifty clansmen. The relentless pursuit had whittled them down to thirty. With the wounded, maybe twenty could still fight.
The enemy's intent was clear: total annihilation.
The clansmen who had stayed behind to make a last stand at the Shinigami Mask Hall, guarding the vault of sealing scrolls… they were surely dead.
His father, Uzumaki Ashina… was likely gone too. Which meant the ragged, desperate souls around him might be all that remained of the once-great Uzumaki clan.
'We cannot end here.'
He looked down at his daughter, Kushina, her innocent eyes wide with confusion but not yet fear. A wave of longing washed over him—for the future he'd planned, the life she'd never have.
It was gone in an instant, burned away by a hotter, fiercer emotion: resolve.
"Nusaku," Shinji said, his voice dropping to a low, commanding register. He held out his daughter. "Take her. Take everyone and head northwest. Konoha's reinforcements must be on the way. If you keep moving, if you can just reach them… you'll be saved."
He spoke as a man giving his final orders. "When you reach Konoha, surrender our clan's sealing arts to them. For Grandma Mito's sake, the Hokage will grant our people sanctuary."
He straightened, meeting the eyes of his clansmen. "I will cover your retreat."
"Young Clan Head!" The cry was a chorus of anguish.
The man named Nusaku stepped forward, his face a mask of agony. "No! If the Uzumaki are to be reborn in Konoha, you must be the one to lead us! Kushina is just a baby… she needs her father! Let me be the rear guard!"
"This is an order!" Shinji's expression hardened into something fierce and unforgiving. "My father is dead. My elder brothers are dead. As their kin, it falls to me to do this one last thing for our clan."
The sounds of pursuit were closing in—shouts, the rustle of undergrowth, the chilling whisper of drawn blades.
"GO!" Shinji roared, the force of his will cutting through their despair. "If you don't move now, it will be too late for all of us!"
As his voice echoed, Shinji tore the tattered remains of his shirt from his body, revealing his torso.
It was not bare skin, but a canvas covered in intricate, glowing red seals—a masterpiece of pre-inscribed fuinjutsu formulas.
He watched as Nusaku, clutching little Kushina, led the last of his people into the deepening shadows of the forest, disappearing toward a sliver of hope.
A grim, bloody grin spread across Uzumaki Shinji's face.
'Damned Mist. Damned Cloud. Damned Sand.
You come for our sealing arts to chain your beasts, and you bring slaughter upon my entire clan? If this is the price… then you will pay it with us.'
He judged the distance. The enemy was almost upon him.
"This should be close enough."
Shinji's expression transformed into one of razor-sharp focus. In the next second, the blood in his veins seemed to ignite. The intricate seals tattooed across his flesh flared with incandescent power.
A three-dimensional sealing matrix, hundreds of meters across, erupted from the ground around him in a silent, brilliant explosion of crimson light.
The Uzumaki Clan's S-Rank Forbidden Jutsu: Four Symbols Seal!
"Come, then. Let us all die together."
Every ounce of his chakra was consumed in an instant. A torrent of blood erupted from Shinji's mouth, but he did not fall.
It was in this exact, perfected moment—prepared in advance, requiring no hand seals, no spatial jutsu—that the forbidden technique achieved its full, catastrophic potential.
In an instant, every enemy shinobi who had stepped into the radius of the blazing light was ensnared, their forms distorting as they were violently, irrevocably pulled into the sealing barrier centered on Uzumaki Shinji's body.
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