{Posted one of the most important chapters of the fic on pat.}
~~~
The moment Ren vanished, the battlefield fell into a stunned, suffocating silence.
For the rebels, his disappearance wasn't a relief, it was a verdict.
Just moments ago, his presence alone had crushed what little confidence they had left. Now that he was gone, the meaning of that absence became even heavier. Ren hadn't retreated, he hadn't been forced away. He had simply left, as if this battlefield was no longer worth his attention.
That single fact settled deep into their bones.
Their greatest support was gone.
The one figure they had been clinging to, the masked man Kyoshiro called their ancestor, the supposed savior who would lead them to victory was nowhere to be seen. No divine strength descended, no overwhelming presence returned and certainly no miracle arrived.
Without him, the truth was laid bare.
They had absolutely no chance.
Around the compound, Uchiha rebels stood frozen, weapons hanging loosely in their hands. Their breathing was heavy, uneven. Some stared blankly ahead, others looked around as if hoping reality would suddenly change if they looked hard enough.
But nothing changed.
They were still surrounded.
They were still outmatched, and now, they were alone.
Here they were, dozens of seasoned Uchiha shinobi, many with fully matured three-tomoe Sharingan, and they had been struggling just to hold their ground against their own clan head and his son, Fugaku and Itachi. Two people they had dismissed as lapdogs of the village.
If this was the wall they couldn't cross, then what chance did they ever have against the Third Hokage?
The answer was obvious.
None.
A wave of despair spread silently through the rebels. Some lowered their blades a fraction. Others clenched their fists, knuckles whitening as the reality of their situation finally caught up with them.
For the first time that night, many of them truly wondered.
'''Why did we even think of rebelling?'''
There had been no solid plan, no guaranteed allies and absolutely no realistic path to victory. Everything had been built on blind faith, faith in a single figure only Kyoshiro had spoken to, only Kyoshiro had seen, only Kyoshiro had believed in.
And now that faith had evaporated.
Slowly, inevitably, their gazes shifted.
One by one, eyes turned toward Kyoshiro Uchiha.
He stood at the front, shoulders tense, his earlier ferocity gone. The confidence that had once poured from him like fire was now cracked, fractured. The crowd behind him waited, silently and desperately, as if he alone could still give meaning to what they had done.
Fugaku and Itachi noticed the shift immediately.
They stopped as well, putting distance between themselves and the rebels, neither of them eager to continue the slaughter if it could be avoided. Their Sharingan remained active, but their stances loosened, ready rather than aggressive.
The masked man was gone.
That alone changed everything.
With him out of the picture, this rebellion had lost its most dangerous variable. Even one of them, Fugaku or Itachi, would be enough to end this if it came to it. Together, it wouldn't even be a battle. It would be an execution.
Fugaku's gaze swept over the rebels, calm but heavy.
'If they stop now,' he thought, 'there is still a way out.'
It wouldn't be a good one, certainly not a clean one, but there will be a way.
They could be taken in and judged. Perhaps used as expendable forces on the most dangerous missions. Death soldiers, thrown into the frontlines where survival was uncertain, but not impossible.
It was cruel.
But it was still a chance.
If they continued to fight, however, there would be no mercy left to give. Fugaku would not hesitate to end them. Neither would Itachi.
And the rebels knew it.
Kyoshiro knew it most of all.
Inside his chest, his heart pounded erratically. Every instinct screamed at him to stop, to raise his hand, to call this madness off before it consumed what little remained of them.
'This was wrong,' a quiet voice whispered inside him. 'It was wrong from the beginning.'
They had never been strong enough, never united enough and never prepared enough. He had led them into this based on resentment, old wounds, and pride, nothing more.
For a fleeting moment, Kyoshiro's shoulders sagged.
He wanted to give up.
He wanted to turn around, face Fugaku, and end this before more blood stained the clan. He wanted to admit, if only to himself, that this rebellion had been a mistake.
But then, whispers crawled into his ears.
They were soft at first, almost imperceptible.
'You can't stop now.'
Kyoshiro stiffened.
The whispers grew louder, sharper, pressing against his mind.
'If you stop now, everything was meaningless.'
'All the blood, all the hatred, all the sacrifices, wasted.'
'You cannot retreat.'
His breathing grew shallow.
'Fight,' the voices urged.
'Fight for the Uchiha.'
'Fight for freedom.'
'Fight for the ancestor.'
Kyoshiro's hands trembled, but then he felt it then.
Not as a sudden shock, not as a sharp realization, but as a slow, crawling clarity that settled deep into his skull. Like waking up underwater and realizing the pressure had always been there.
Genjutsu.
High level and subtle. The kind that didn't overwrite your thoughts, but nudged them through whispers. Fed what was already rotting inside and let it bloom into madness, the one that would work even if he knew he was inside a Genjutsu.
His fingers twitched.
He wanted to warn them. He needed to warn them. He could feel it now, something foreign, something invasive coiled around his perceptions, pushing him forward, refusing to let him stop.
But when he opened his mouth, the words that came out weren't the ones he intended.
"Even though our ancestor lost, we cannot afford to stop."
The sound of his own voice felt distant, wrong.
"If we stop now, our fates will be worse than death," he continued, tone hardening as the Genjutsu guided him along its path. "Best case, we become death soldiers. Worst case, execution after our Sharingan are extracted. There is no mercy waiting for us."
A few rebels stiffened at that.
"There is no way out except to fight," Kyoshiro said, raising his voice. "We escape and we survive, and when we regain our strength, we strike again. We will take back what belongs to us and we will never lose again."
Silence followed, heavy and uneven.
A handful of die-hard rebels straightened, resolve rekindled by his words. Their eyes burned with the same desperate fire.
But most of the others didn't move.
Their faces twisted with doubt, fear, exhaustion. The speech hadn't ignited them, it had terrified them.
Then one of the younger ones broke.
He dropped to his knees as if his legs had simply given out, shoulders shaking as sobs tore free.
"Please, please forgive me, clan head," he cried, forehead pressing into the ground. "It was Elder Kyoshiro who convinced me. He said this was revenge for my father… my father died in the Third Great Ninja War because of the village."
His voice cracked completely.
"However, he was always called a Hero, I don't want to die like this."
That was all it took.
Another followed.
Then another.
Some fell to their knees. Some threw their weapons aside. A few went further, hands flashing through seals as they sealed their own chakra pathways, choosing helplessness over more blood.
But not everyone yielded.
The hardliners snarled, voices rising, calling the others cowards, traitors and weak.
Kyoshiro's eyes darkened.
"Those who cannot understand the bigger picture," he said coldly, the Genjutsu tightening its grip, "do not deserve to live. Kill them."
Even the hardliners hesitated.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then one of them stepped forward, jaw clenched, and drove a kunai straight into the back of the nearest kneeling Uchiha, with no warning and no chance to react.
The body collapsed.
Blood spread.
That was the spark.
Others followed, chaos erupting as blades flashed and screams filled the compound, Uchiha killing Uchiha.
That was when Itachi finally spoke.
"Elder Kyoshiro is under a genjutsu."
His voice cut through the noise like a blade through silk.
Fugaku exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing. "That explains it. He's extreme, but he would never order the slaughter of our own like this."
He straightened, resolve settling into his posture.
"You stop the hardliners," Fugaku said firmly. "I'll handle Kyoshiro, and Itachi."
Then he turned to Itachi, his voice softening just a fraction.
"There has been enough killing for one night," he said. "Let's end this now."
~~~
When Ren arrived at the clearing where Danzo, Yoru, and Hiruzen had converged so he didn't rush in.
He stopped.
Perched on a high branch, half-hidden by the canopy, he took in the scene like a spectator arriving late to a long-awaited performance. The air was heavy, thick with chakra residue, scorched earth, and the kind of tension that only accumulated after years of buried resentment finally surfaced.
It was, in a way, a three-way faceoff.
But only in appearance.
Ren could tell at a glance that Hiruzen wouldn't be fighting today. No matter how much guilt weighed on him, no matter how ugly the truths being dragged into the open became, Hiruzen Sarutobi would not raise his hands in violence tonight, not against Danzo, and certainly not against Kagami.
And Yoru wouldn't strike Hiruzen either, not truly. Rage, hatred, and betrayal burned in him, but there were lines even that anger wouldn't cross.
So Ren did what any reasonable person would do in this situation.
He made himself comfortable.
He shifted his weight, sat properly on the thick branch, and leaned back against the trunk. Once settled, he reached into his space belt and pulled out a large popcorn bucket, followed by a tall cup filled with orange juice. He gave the cup a brief, disappointed look.
"No coke," he muttered to himself.
Unfortunate, but acceptable. The snacks weren't the main attraction anyway.
Ren adjusted himself again, crossed one leg over the other, and finally slid his sunglasses back onto his face. The lenses caught faint reflections of chakra flares and moonlight as he looked down at the figures below.
These were the front row seats for the greatest entertainment he would ever witness aside from teasing Naruto and Fugaku, so he definitely had to look closely.
Hiruzen stood farthest from the others, his posture straight but tired, staff resting lightly against the ground. He looked old in a way Ren hadn't fully appreciated before, not weak, not frail, just… worn. Like a pillar that had held up too much weight for too long.
Danzo, on the other hand, was a mess.
He was seated on the ground near Yoru's feet, having apparently lost the dignity to even stand. One hand still clutched his blade, knuckles white, but it was more reflex than readiness. His expression was naked terror, eyes darting, breath shallow, mind scrambling for exits that no longer existed.
And then there was Yoru.
No, since one of the mask was gone he was now, Kagami Uchiha.
Ren chewed slowly as he watched Kagami stand there, sword lowered but not relaxed, chakra coiled tight beneath his skin. His presence was oppressive, not because he was flaring power outward, but because everything about him felt contained. Like a storm that had already decided where it would strike.
Ren wasn't surprised, he was a bit by Kagami's face but not by his existence.
He had known the truth since long before tonight, he had known since that first meeting before the Land of Iron mission. Back then, the realization had come with confusion and curiosity more than shock. After all, in Ren's understanding of the canon, Kagami Uchiha was supposed to be long dead, his fate an unresolved footnote.
But Ren had stopped caring about canon the moment he arrived in this world.
From the moment he'd taken his first breath here, things had already gone off the rails and the canon was f'ed up. His existence alone guaranteed that. Worrying about what should have happened felt pointless. This world wasn't a script, it was a living thing, messy and reactive, shaped by the people inside it.
And honestly?
Ren liked this version better.
He tossed another handful of popcorn into his mouth and leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees.
Below him, Kagami finally moved.
He took a step closer to Danzo.
Danzo flinched.
Ren's lips curved into a grin.
'Oh, this is going to be good.'
~~~~~
{Well, the Uchiha massacre is certainly not finished, there will be more to come about the Uchiha's however before we could go ahead, I just wanted to let you know that the massacre was fueled by two people, Danzo and Obito. That's all for now, the rest would come in the story itself.}
{Also, I hope you haven't forgotten about Ren's Observe and it's upgraded features, if you have, well, you gotta wait a bit then, because I myself have forgotten the detailed explanation about them, I'll summarize them for you guys next chapter.}
{One more thing, the real drama starts next chapter, hope you guys enjoy it.}