Standing amidst the wreckage, Ren Uchiha looked at the devastation around him.
Roofs had collapsed, stone bricks were shattered, and massive support beams lay splintered across the ground. Beneath the debris, innocent civilians of the Land of Lightning struggled to crawl free, gasping like fish out of water, their faces contorted in agony.
He heard the chaotic shouts, the heart-wrenching wails, and the terrifying reports of the assassination spreading like wildfire through the city.
Ren's heart sank. Events were moving far too fast.
The Daimyo? Assassinated again? If his memory served him correctly, this was the third time that "bird-man" had been targeted.
Ren's first instinct was to look up, gazing toward the center of the city where the opulent palace stood. After a few moments of contemplation, he began to piece together what had actually happened.
The first explosion was an accident—his own loss of control after gaining the Two-Tails' chakra, causing the Mouse Hair Fireball to detonate.
Combined with what Kakashi had said about being watched by the Cloud, it was likely that the Kumo ninjas had followed the trail of his investigation straight to Sasori's hideout.
And Sasori just so happened to have a black-market Chakra Cannon that was a classified Cloud secret.
The moment they met, it would have been a fight to the death. Sasori likely used the very cannon he had intended for Ren's Susanoo skeleton, triggering the second round of explosions.
As for the third round...
Without a doubt, it was linked to the intel he had heard earlier. The members of the "Immortal Cult" who were supposed to be executed had been broken out of prison.
The people who rescued them—or rather, the various hidden village factions in the city using their name as cover—couldn't even wait until nightfall. They had launched a bold, daylight assault on the Lightning Daimyo!
Ren frowned.
Having arrived in the city several steps behind everyone else, he was still in a fog regarding the current situation. He had no way of knowing if Hidan was among those rescued this morning.
His "little brother" might be tied up right now, being used as a human shield by someone charging toward the Daimyo!
The urgency grew in his heart. He turned to Kakashi.
"Kakashi, since you're here with Minato, you should be part of the diplomatic envoy for the Five-Kage Summit. If you show your identity, the Cloud won't touch you."
"Stay here and see if you can help rescue some of these people. I need to head over there and see what's happening."
Ren turned his head, "gazing" in the direction of the Tenshu Pavilion in the city center.
However, Kakashi, who had just recovered from the shock of the chaos, grabbed Ren's arm with a grip of iron.
"No! Wait! You can't go there right now!" Kakashi said, his voice heavy with warning.
"You can't expose your identity. You absolutely cannot let the Land of Lightning or Kumogakure know that you are still alive!"
"As far as the world is concerned, you are already 'dead'!"
Ren blinked, utterly bewildered.
What do you mean, I'm dead?
I'm standing right here in front of you, Kakashi, alive and well, capable of eating ten bowls of rice in one sitting. Can't you see me?
"Konoha needs you to be dead. At least until the Five-Kage Summit concludes and all matters are settled, you cannot be among the living!"
"Besides," Kakashi looked at Ren with a grim expression, "do you really not understand?"
"Right now, the entire shinobi world is hunting you!"
"The intel from the battle at Hell's Valley has been leaked! Everyone knows you might have survived."
"Your eyes were gouged out, you lost your Tailed Beast, and you lost your Bloodline Limit. Right now, you're essentially a crippled Jonin."
"But a person like you carries a bounty that would tempt any ninja. Outside of Konoha, you are the only one who holds the secrets of the 'Zero-Tails,' the tenth Tailed Beast. You even managed to merge with it without the help of sealing jutsu!"
"Why do you think Minato-sensei placed the Eight-Trigrams Seal on you back then?!"
"Everyone wants to interrogate you to find the location of the Zero-Tails! They want the secret to wielding that terrifying power!"
"And compared to the 'Ren Uchiha' currently active in Unming City, your head is the only thing that could truly satisfy the Lightning Daimyo and the Third Raikage."
"They need your life to wash away the shame of Kumo's defeat! They will use your death as a sacrifice to the flag, a war cry to mobilize the Cloud's armies for the Third Great Ninja War!"
In Kakashi's eyes, Ren's plan was nothing short of suicidal. A bloodline ninja without his bloodline, a Jinchuriki without his beast—what was left?
If Ren appeared in the eyes of the Five Great Nations now, it would be a death sentence. Konoha's plans would be disrupted, and the mission would fail. To the current Kakashi, who lived by the creed that "completing the mission is everything," this was unacceptable.
"For the sake of the mission, I cannot let you appear before the Lightning Daimyo!"
"I'm sorry, Ren Uchiha!"
With those words, Kakashi drew his White Light Chakra Sabre from his back. He stepped forward and turned, blocking Ren's path with a cold, determined expression.
Ren, however, merely raised an eyebrow. He filtered through the wall of text and locked onto one specific sentence.
"Konoha... needs me dead?"
Why? Why did Konoha need him gone?
Was it to facilitate the plan finalized by the Lightning Daimyo and the Third Raikage? Was it to point the war machine of the Cloud toward a specific target?
Who was that target? Which nation? Which village? Or perhaps...
Ren's eyes suddenly lit up. It felt as though, amidst a thousand tangled threads, he had found the core string that connected everything.
In the original timeline during the Third Great Ninja War, a brutal conflict had broken out between Iwagakure and Kumogakure. It was the war that forced the Third Raikage, A, to fight ten thousand Iwa ninjas single-handedly until his death.
How did that war start?
Perhaps the answer lay in Konoha's bizarre behavior right now!
Even though Konoha knew other villages wanted Kumo to attack them, Kakashi was told to wait—to wait a week until everything was settled. Doing nothing while a disastrous situation brewed.
It was almost as if Konoha wanted the target the Cloud's war machine pointed at... to be Konoha itself!
Ren's lips curled into a smirk as he looked at the white-haired boy blocking his way.
"Kakashi, if that's the case, then I have even more reason to stay alive!"
"And I'm not just going to stay alive. I have a reason I must go there. I have a comrade I must save!"
Ren's gaze hardened with absolute resolve.
"For that, even if I have to put my life on the line, I won't hesitate!"
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