A massive screen hung in the night sky. It looked like a projection, but there was no projector.
No chakra warnings, no buildup. It just shattered the peace of the Konoha night, lighting up the village like it was high noon.
The picture was crystal clear—4K definition—and the audio system was cranked to eleven.
"Hiruzen has already given his tacit approval."
The sentence echoed over the rooftops. Every single villager heard it.
Hokage's Office. Hiruzen Sarutobi sat behind his wide desk.
A stack of unfinished paperwork sat in front of him, next to a plate of his favorite tri-color dango.
One second ago, he was in a good mood.
It was dinner time. A rare moment of peace.
He picked up a skewer of dango, ready to take a bite.
The moment the voice boomed, Hiruzen's hand froze in mid-air.
He saw the screen in the sky. He saw his old friend standing on high, looking down on the world.
When he heard that sentence, Hiruzen nearly had a stroke.
"Hiruzen has already given his tacit approval."
The sweet, sticky dango dropped onto the desk. Splat.
His mouth hung open, his pipe listing to the side. His mind went blank.
What is Danzo doing? Is he insane?
Tacit approval? Kill them all? Spare no one, not even the babies? Kill the Jinchuriki too?
"Is... is this... something you say out loud?"
In the corner.
Four ANBU Black Ops guards knelt on one knee.
They wore masks, so you couldn't see their faces, but their bodies gave them away.
These were elite killers who had crawled through mountains of corpses, yet right now, they were shaking. Not from fear of an enemy, but from the collapse of their faith.
What did we just hear?
The Hokage we swore to die for? The "Professor"? The man who preaches the Will of Fire? He approved a massacre?
Even the babies?
That wasn't just cruel. That wasn't just cold-blooded. That was beneath an animal.
One ANBU lowered his head even further. He didn't dare look up, terrified he might see a look of confirmation on the old man's face.
The office was deadly silent, but the noise outside continued.
Danzo's roaring orders, Sasuke's screams, the explosion of paper bombs—it all mixed together into a symphony of chaos.
"DANZO!!!"
Hiruzen finally snapped out of it.
His desk shattered into splinters. Paperwork flew everywhere like snow.
Hiruzen stood up, ripping off his Hokage robes.
"This is slander! This is an enemy plot!"
He roared at the kneeling ANBU.
"Go! Investigate! Find the source! Shut that damn screen off!"
"YES SIR!"
The four ANBU vanished instantly, relieved to escape the suffocating atmosphere.
Hiruzen leaned heavily on the windowsill, staring up at the sky.
Plot or not, genjutsu or not, the bucket of filth had been dumped on his head.
And it happened in front of the entire village.
---
Ichiraku Ramen.
Teuchi held a strainer, ready to dump fresh noodles into a bowl.
When the screen lit up, he froze like a statue.
There were two customers in the shop.
Iruka Umino, fresh off his shift at the Academy, and Genma Shiranui, waiting for his order.
Iruka's chopsticks hovered in the air.
Half a noodle dangled from his mouth as he stared blankly at the sky.
On the screen, Danzo pointed at the blonde kid and said coldly: "Even if he is the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, if he gets in the way, dispose of him too."
"Naruto..."
The noodle fell from Iruka's mouth back into the bowl. Naruto was his student.
Yeah, he was a brat. Yeah, people called him the Demon Fox. But he was a living, breathing child.
The High Council wants to kill him? And frame it on the Uchiha?
"Is... is this a joke?" Iruka stood up. "The Third Hokage would never agree to this!"
Genma let the senbon (needle) in his mouth drop onto the table.
He was a Special Jonin. He had lived through the Third Great Ninja War.
He understood politics better than Iruka.
The look in Danzo's eyes. The tone. The way he treated human life like trash.
You couldn't fake that. It was real.
"We're in trouble," Genma picked up his needle. "If this is true, the sky is falling on Konoha."
---
The Streets of Konoha.
The bustling commercial district was dead silent.
Everyone stopped.
Might Guy, who had been walking on his hands across a rooftop, slipped and fell. But he didn't jump up and shout about "Youth." He lay on the eaves, staring at the sky in shock.
At the corner bookstore, Kakashi Hatake was leaning against the wall, reading Make-Out Paradise.
Kakashi snapped the book shut and lifted his headband.
His Sharingan snapped open, three tomoe spinning wildy.
"Genjutsu?"
Kakashi whispered.
The Sharingan could see through any illusion.
But in his vision, the sky screen had no chakra flow.
It wasn't a genjutsu. It was a projection. Which meant the footage was real.
Kakashi locked onto Danzo in the video, specifically the arm embedded with Sharingan eyes.
As a former ANBU, Kakashi had heard rumors about Danzo collecting eyes.
But he never imagined the man was this insane.
"He stole Shisui's eye too..."
Shisui... the gentlest man in the clan... was driven to suicide?
Do the higher-ups have no humanity left? Is this the only way they can keep power?
"Father..."
His father, Sakumo, had been driven to suicide by village opinion, too.
Was that Danzo's doing? Did the Third tacitly approve that, too?
Kakashi's anger spiked, turning cold and sharp.
BBQ Restaurant.
Asuma Sarutobi heard the line "Hiruzen has already given his tacit approval" and lost his words.
"Old man..."
He knew his father was indecisive. But genocide? Killing the whole Uchiha clan?
"Impossible!" Asuma shouted, trying to convince the crowd, trying to convince himself. "It's an enemy tactic to divide us! The old man would never do this!"
No one answered him.
The villagers had initially thought it was a prank or a drill.
But as the scene played out, as Danzo's words cut deeper, the mood shifted. They realized this wasn't entertainment. It was a confession.
A woman clutching a baby instinctively held her child tighter.
"That's Lord Danzo, right? No mistaking him."
"He said the Third approved it... and oh my god, they want to kill Naruto too?"
Someone in the crowd shouted.
"Lord Third! Come out and explain this! What is going on?!"
"Danzo, get out here!"
The halo of the Hokage shattered.
---
Uchiha District, Naka Shrine.
Tonight was the clan meeting. Every Uchiha elite was here.
The atmosphere was already tense.
The radicals were polishing their weapons, screaming for a coup to seize the government.
The moderates were worried that war would mean extinction.
Clan Head Fugaku Uchiha sat at the front.
His eyes were closed, brow furrowed, until the booming voice penetrated the shrine walls.
"Clan Head! Look outside!"
A clan member rushed in, face full of horror.
Fugaku opened his eyes and walked out. He saw the Sky Projection.
He saw the blood-soaked figure of his son. Sasuke, only seven years old.
Sasuke was lying in a pool of blood, his back charred black.
He had taken a paper bomb blast to save Naruto.
"Sasuke..."
Fugaku's hands began to shake.
Then, he saw Danzo.
He heard Danzo say "Spare no one."
Fugaku's mind went blank. He had tried so hard to avoid war. He had tried to restrain his clan.
He had even considered giving up control of the Police Force if it meant the village would let them live.
But he was wrong. Dead wrong. The village never planned to let them live.
From the start, it was a death trap. Danzo wanted them exterminated.
The Third approved it.
They were like sheep trying to negotiate with the butcher while the knife was already at their throats.
"Ha... ha ha ha..."
Fugaku started laughing.
"Clan Head?"
Behind him, Yashiro, Tekka, Inabi, and the other elite Jonin watched him.
Fugaku turned around. His eyes snapped open. The three tomoe spun and merged into a complex geometric pattern.
The Mangekyo Sharingan.
A terrifying chakra pressure exploded from him, sweeping across the shrine square.
The clan members were stunned.
The Clan Head has the legendary eyes too?
"Did you see that?"
Fugaku pointed at the sky.
"That is the village we serve. That is the Leaf we protect."
"They want to kill us all. They won't spare the elderly or the children. They want to kill Sasuke!"
Fugaku drew the sword at his waist and pointed it toward the commercial district.
"Even from this distance, I can feel the ominous chakra. The Nine-Tails' chakra is resonating with the image on the screen!"
"The source is there. That new shop in the corner of the commercial district—The Mirage Dojo!"
"ROAR!" Hundreds of Uchiha roared in unison.
"Since the Village has no honor, don't blame us for having no loyalty!"
Fugaku's voice thundered through the night.
"All units, listen to my command!"
"Target: That shop in the commercial district!"
"Sasuke is there! Naruto is there! The Truth is there!"
"Go protect them!"
"Anyone who stands in our way—kill them without mercy!"
"Let's fight! If the village wants us dead, then we revolt!"