The forest blurred past as several figures tore through the rain-slicked undergrowth.
They were Root operatives—usually arrogant, now fleeing in panic.
"Faster! Faster!" Terai, the lead, barked between ragged breaths. He kept glancing back, terror widening his eyes. "Don't slow down. That… that brat is still on us!"
Their lungs burned. Every inhale felt like fire. Still, none of them dared ease up.
How did it go so wrong?
Ten minutes earlier, the plan had been flawless: snatch the kid trailing Tsunade, drag the Sannin away from Uchiha Sogetsu, and give Hanzo his window. And they had done it—until the "kid" moved.
The girl sliced the captor to chunks in the space of a heartbeat.
Then, calm as snowfall, she wiped the blood from her cheek. In her eyes bloomed a windmill of scarlet—Mangekyō Sharingan.
"We have to report this to Lord Danzo," Terai thought, hearing the phantom scrape of death at his back. "The Uchiha are running a deeper game—"
A small, black-clad figure dropped onto a branch ahead, cutting them off.
Every Root ninja froze like they'd been nailed in place. Their gazes crawled up to the slight silhouette poised above them.
"I hate being touched," the girl said—flat, almost bored. "Who said you could lay those filthy hands on me?"
No killing intent flared. No shout. Yet a blade-edge cold slid along their throats.
"Together!" Terai forced out before fear shattered them all.
Hikari Uchiha covered one eye with her palm. The other unfurled—Mangekyō's crimson star—and her smile turned beautifully wrong.
"I belong to him," she murmured. "Only he may touch me. As for you… disgusting little scraps—die."
"Kill each other," she whispered, voice like silk through ice. "To. The. Last."
—
Sheets of rain hammered the ruined valley.
Konan didn't move. Tears slid down her face and vanished into the downpour.
Hanzo was dead—devoured by the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. Nagato had collapsed after the summoning, his body skeletal and shaking, black receivers having pierced him through. The only reason he still breathed was a red-haired boy's stubborn will and an Uzumaki's iron life.
"Konan…" Nagato's lids fluttered. Blood traced his mouth. "Take us… home."
He slumped into darkness. The Gedo Statue dissolved with a thunderclap.
"Nagato!" Konan stumbled to him, ignoring the mud and the cold, and hauled his limp weight into her arms. The Statue had drunk oceans of chakra from him. He wouldn't last if she didn't move—now.
"Why… why did it come to this?" Konan's voice cracked. "Was this fate's punishment for defying it? For daring to change it?"
No answer. Only the rain.
Yahiko's body lay blackened and broken, swaddled in Konan's paper as gently as a shroud. She gathered him, then Nagato, and began the long walk back—one step after another, each taking all she had left.
She almost missed the collapsed ANBU behind a shattered boulder.
Konan stopped. Even through the blood she saw it wasn't a killing wound—deep, ugly, but not fatal. Someone had wrapped it in haste.
"Not fatal," she breathed, binding the gash with crisp, clean paper. "Hold on. When Tsunade returns… you'll live."
She lifted her burdens again and vanished into the rain.
Silence took the valley.
A moment later, Uchiha Sogetsu opened his eyes.
He pushed himself to a sit, fingers brushing the gnarled scar across his chest. "Damage Transfer," he said lightly. "The Magician's trick never disappoints."
His gaze drifted to Hanzo's husk, mummified where it fell. He nudged his glasses up, expression unreadable.
"If there's a next life," he murmured, "remember my warning—beware the Spectator."
What a performance.
And the director behind every cue—Uchiha Sogetsu.
Hanzo. Konan. Yahiko. Nagato.
Puppets, all, dancing the steps he'd written to the ending he wanted.
"Sorry, Yahiko," Sogetsu said softly. "In the future I'm building, there's no role for you."
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