Thud.
A crisp, sickening sound—
Koharu Utatane's head hit the floor and rolled.
Silence.
Dead silence swallowed the office whole.
Fugaku and Hiruzen stared at Ren as if struck by lightning, their faces blank with disbelief.
Terrifying.
Too terrifying.
Neither of them had expected Ren to move like that—no warning, no hesitation—killing Koharu and Homura so cleanly they didn't even get a second sentence.
"Gulp…"
A few seconds later, Fugaku finally swallowed, throat dry.
The shock in his eyes slowly shifted into something else—
admiration.
Respect.
Even worship.
To kill Konoha's high command—Shimura Danzō, Koharu Utatane, Homura Mitokado—like it was casual conversation…
In the entire shinobi world, maybe only Ren could pull that off.
Too brutal.
Too overbearing.
Too absolute.
"It's over…"
Hiruzen's vision swam. The room tilted.
He'd tried to stop it—
but Ren's strike had been too fast.
All he could do was watch.
Now the truth was simple and horrifying:
Danzō was dead.
Koharu and Homura were dead.
Root's elites were gone.
The Sarutobi clan's shinobi had been wiped out.
Konoha's strength had been carved down by at least a third overnight.
And once word spread—
it didn't take a genius to know what would happen next.
Sunagakure. Iwagakure. Kumogakure. Kirigakure.
None of them would pass up a chance to kick Konoha while it was bleeding.
The Second and Third Shinobi World Wars had ended with Konoha standing victorious.
Now Konoha was tearing itself apart.
A gift from the heavens.
Only an idiot would fail to seize it.
The more Hiruzen thought, the colder he became.
The more his mind raced, the more his spine crawled with dread.
He'd spent his entire life chasing one thing—
to sit on the Hokage's seat just a little longer, to keep Konoha peaceful a little longer, to be the "guiding fire" that led the village forward.
And now?
Everything was smoke.
All of it.
And Hiruzen didn't know—
if he'd been a better man, Ren might never have been forced to reveal himself at all.
Cause and effect.
This was simply his reckoning.
"Uchiha Ren…!"
At last, Hiruzen snapped.
Maybe he couldn't endure anymore.
Maybe he finally realized his Hokage era was ending here.
His face twisted with fury as he roared:
"What do you think you're doing?!"
"You're dragging Konoha into an abyss—into ruin it can never climb out of!"
"Oh?" Ren tilted his head, eyes flat.
He looked at Hiruzen the way you looked at something pitiful.
"You did this to yourself."
Yes—Hiruzen had once been a real figure.
Otherwise the Second Hokage wouldn't have handed him the hat.
He'd beaten Danzō not because he was cleaner—
but because his willingness to "sacrifice" had been more convincing.
But after he took the seat—
he changed.
He grew addicted to the position.
The White Fang was condemned for choosing comrades over mission, and Hiruzen stayed silent.
Orochimaru grew more dangerous by the day, and Hiruzen looked away—because he didn't want to lose power.
The night of the Nine-Tails attack, he gave Minato too little support.
After Minato died, he returned to the throne.
Naruto's "arrangement."
The Uchiha's isolation.
The massacre.
One compromise after another—until compromise became his nature.
"And you think the Uchiha are normal?" Hiruzen spat, voice sharp with desperation.
"Name one Uchiha powerhouse who was ever normal!"
"Madara. Izuna. Kagami. Shisui. Itachi…"
"Even Fugaku."
"And you?" His voice dropped into something ugly. "You're the least normal of all."
"So yes," Hiruzen said, slamming a hand to his chest like he meant it.
"Erasing the Uchiha would've been good for everyone."
"Do you have any idea how much I've endured for Konoha's peace and prosperity?"
"How much effort I've spent holding everything together?"
Ren's mouth curved slightly.
"For once… you're not wrong."
Uchiha who awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan—
their minds often weren't stable.
Even Fugaku had only become "better" after being nudged by Kotoamatsukami.
But so what?
As long as Ren himself was steady, everyone else's sanity was their problem.
…Though, with a system like his, maybe "normal" was a luxury he'd already lost.
Hiruzen shook his head, eyes unfocused, breathing rough.
"It's finished."
"Konoha is finished."
His voice became hoarse—almost mad.
"When a man has nothing left…"
"…he has nothing left to fear."
Whoom—!
Chakra surged from Hiruzen like a rising flood.
A massive wave of power exploded outward—hot, heavy, unmistakably Hokage-level.
Ren's eyes lit up.
"Good."
He smiled.
"If you're finally done holding back…"
"Then let's flip Konoha completely upside down."
He clenched both fists.
A pale-white glow wrapped around his knuckles, layered with Armament Haki.
"Air Quake—"
His fists drove forward—
and smashed into the air itself.
In the next instant, a terrifying vibration burst outward like a magnitude thirteen earthquake, surging through the Hokage Tower and racing toward the entire village.
The air exploded.
Invisible force became visible.
From the Hokage Tower as the center—
hairline fractures spread through the sky like cracks through glass, rippling outward in rings, turning the air above Konoha into trembling water.
And the whole village—
began to shake.
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