Uchiha orphan, so what if I'm ruthless?

From the moment Shimura Danzo threw the scroll to his sudden attack, everything happened too fast for Hyuga Soma to even blink.

Standing a short distance away, he watched helplessly as that pale hand reached for Uchiha Taiga's eye socket, the fingers now less than an inch away.

Then...

There was no 'then.'

Danzo's hand stopped in midair, grasping at nothing, because the Uchiha Taiga in front of him had vanished.

The boy who had been paralyzed by the Shadow Possession Jutsu, who should have been completely immobilized, disappeared from the spot without a single sound, as if he had never existed at all.

The certainty on Danzo's face froze.

His eyes widened, his pupils shrank, and the smile that was about to bloom on his lips died instantly.

How was this possible?

Under the control of the Shadow Possession Jutsu, how could he have broken free in such a short amount of time?

But the boy was gone. It made no sense.

"Where are you looking?"

The voice came from behind him, causing every hair on Danzo's body to stand on end.

He tried to turn around, but before his body could even move, a sound like a thousand chirping birds rang out, followed by a muffled *thud*.

It was heavy and dull.

Like something being pierced straight through.

Danzo looked down and saw a hand protruding from his chest.

It was a pale, slender hand, fingers slightly curled, with arcs of lightning still crackling across the fingertips.

And resting in the palm of that hand was something still pulsing.

A heart.

His own heart.

"How... is this possible?"

Danzo's voice carried an incomprehensible level of confusion.

Blood spilled from the corners of his mouth, dripping down his chin and landing on the riverbank pebbles with soft, rhythmic ticks.

"Did you underestimate me?"

Taiga's voice came from behind him, perfectly calm.

"Even if you underestimate me, you shouldn't underestimate the Mangekyo Sharingan. Knowing these are the eyes Uchiha Madara once possessed, shouldn't you have been a little more careful?"

As soon as the words fell, the five fingers clenched violently.

*Squelch!*

The beating heart was crushed into a bloody pulp. Blood squeezed through the gaps of the fingers, trailing down that pale hand and dripping onto the ground.

Danzo's body went limp, as if all the strength had been siphoned out of him. His eyes remained open, but his pupils had already lost their focus. He slumped forward, collapsing onto the ground with a heavy thud.

Motionless.

Taiga withdrew his hand and casually flicked the blood off. The crimson droplets flew from his fingertips, splattering against the riverbank stones and gleaming dark red under the sunlight.

He looked up, his gaze sweeping over the others.

Soma's face was already as white as his eyes.

"Lord Danzo!"

He cried out instinctively, his voice pitching so high it cracked.

"You... you actually killed Lord Danzo!"

Panic overtook him. He stumbled backward, bumping into a Branch House ninja behind him. His lips trembled, his fingers shook, and the shock on his face rapidly warped into pure dread.

The Hyuga Branch House ninjas around him braced themselves for a deadly fight. Some dropped into Gentle Fist stances, while others drew their swords, but not a single one dared to step forward. No one even dared to breathe too loudly.

The Root members, however, reacted completely differently.

They did not retreat. They did not panic. Not a single one of them even glanced at Danzo's fallen body.

Beneath thirty-odd animal masks were thirty-odd pairs of eyes utterly devoid of emotion. To them, Danzo's death was like a tree falling in the woods or a rock crumbling to dust—it had absolutely nothing to do with them.

But they moved.

Not to flee, but to attack.

Over thirty figures rushed at Taiga simultaneously. No one hesitated, no one flinched, and no one made a single sound.

Their movements were perfectly synchronized, like marionettes controlled by the exact same strings.

The three at the very front drew the swords from their backs. The blades glinted coldly in the sunlight, their speed astonishing. In the blink of an eye, they were upon Taiga, slashing down from three different angles to seal off any room for evasion.

Dance of the Crescent Moon!

A few paces behind them, several others rapidly wove hand signs.

Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!

Water Style: Water Bullet!

Wind Style: Wind Cutter!

Fireballs, water bullets, and wind blades surged toward Taiga from multiple directions, forming a flawless, lethal combination with the three swordsmen in front.

Further back, a Root member wearing a black high-collared coat stood perfectly still.

He raised his right hand, and a swarm of minuscule insects poured out from his sleeve.

The bugs were so small they were nearly invisible to the naked eye, forming a faint black mist in the sunlight as they drifted silently toward Taiga.

A bug user of the Aburame clan.

These were special venomous insects, microscopic in size but incredibly toxic. The moment they touched bare skin, they would invade the nervous system within seconds.

Front, back, left, right, above, and below—every single escape route was completely sealed.

Then, everything stopped.

The fireballs halted in midair, their flames still licking outward but no longer advancing.

The water bullets hung suspended in the air, frozen like solid glass beads.

The wind blades stopped a foot away from Taiga, the visible vortexes of air still spinning in place, yet unable to move an inch closer.

The three swords stopped right in front of him, the tips of the blades less than half a foot from his body. The two Root members wielding them maintained their striking postures, suspended in midair as if someone had pressed a pause button on reality itself.

Even the faint black mist stopped.

The microscopic venomous insects were locked in the air, resembling fine particles of black dust.

In that instant, the entire battlefield completely solidified.

Only Taiga could move.

He stepped forward, walking right through the gaps between the three swords. His pace was neither fast nor slow, no different from a casual afternoon stroll.

He walked past the suspended fireballs and water bullets, past the swirling wind blades halted in front of him, and past the paralyzed Root members.

He reached out and plucked a kunai right out of thin air.

It belonged to a Root member who had just thrown it; the man's arm was still locked in the throwing motion.

Gripping the kunai, Taiga walked up to the bug user.

The Aburame ninja was frozen in place. Insects were still trying to crawl out of his sleeve, but they stopped right at the edge of the fabric, as if blocked by an invisible wall.

Taiga raised his hand and drove the kunai straight into the bug user's throat.

The motion was effortless, as easily as cutting through butter.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, he twisted the blade.

Blood surged from the wound, but the moment it left the skin, it froze in midair, floating like dark red pearls suspended in the atmosphere.

Taiga turned and walked toward the next target.

He plucked a shuriken from the air, walked up to a Root member frozen mid-cleave, and jammed the star-shaped blade into the man's throat.

He turned again, grabbed another kunai, and buried it into a third man's heart.

He took a fourth man's sword and casually slit his throat.

He walked slowly, as if taking a scenic tour.

With every step, he plucked a new weapon from the air. Every Root member he passed received a fatal wound.

The blood welling from their injuries froze in the air, leaving a gruesome trail of dark red floating behind him.

As he walked, he finally spoke.

"You should have figured it out by now."

His voice was calm, sounding like a teacher giving a mundane lecture.

"This is my Mangekyo's ability. It is named Tokoyokuni."

He stopped and glanced at the blood-dripping sword in his hand.

"As for its function, it naturally controls space."

He casually tossed the sword aside. It spun twice in the air before freezing completely, the tip pointing downward, hanging motionless in the void.

As his words fell, space returned to normal.

The fireballs, water bullets, and wind blades that had been frozen in the air instantly lost all their restraints.

The fireballs flew forward, but their target was no longer there. They smashed into the giant boulders on the riverbank, exploding into showers of sparks.

The water bullets crashed into the ground, splashing muddy water everywhere.

The wind blades tore through the air, gouging deep, violent trenches into the earth.

And the Root members who had been pierced by lethal weapons plummeted from midair all at once.

Some twitched a couple of times upon hitting the ground, while others contorted slightly before falling completely dead and silent.

The sword Taiga had thrown instantly pierced straight through a Root ninja's skull, killing him on the spot as he collapsed.

Out of the thirty-odd men, nearly half had been slaughtered in less than half a minute.

The heavy, suffocating stench of blood blanketed the riverbank.

Taiga turned around and looked at Danzo's fallen corpse.

The body lay face down in a pooling puddle of dark red blood, completely motionless.

Taiga scoffed. "How long are you going to play dead?"

His voice wasn't loud, but it echoed clearly across the dead-silent riverbank.

The corpse didn't move.

Taiga wasn't in a hurry. He just stood there, hands tucked loosely into his sleeves, watching with a half-smile. He completely ignored the surviving Root ninjas and the terrified Hyuga members trembling nearby.

One second, two seconds...

The corpse vanished from its spot.

Silently, without a trace, as if it had never been there to begin with.

The next second, Danzo's figure appeared beneath a large tree a dozen meters away.

He stood there, his face incredibly gloomy.

There was no blood on his clothes. There was no gaping hole in his chest. His heart was beating perfectly intact within his ribcage.

He was actually alive, completely whole and unharmed.

Seeing this, Taiga smiled.

"Excellent."

He spoke as if he had just heard wonderful news.

"You really have mastered Izanagi."

He paused, tilting his head slightly as he stared dead into Danzo's eyes.

"I just wonder how many times you can die. Not that it matters. This is perfect—I get to kill you a few more times."

His smile widened into something feral.

"You will die today. No one can save you."

He took a step toward Danzo.

"I guarantee it."