Chapter 169: Showing Shisui The Night Of The Clan Massacre
The cold disinfectant scent stubbornly drilled into his nostrils, every breath carrying a faint chill.
Shisui Uchiha lay on a hospital bed in the medical department of the Star Capital military base, his eyes wrapped in thick gauze, blocking out all light.
In the darkness, only the regular beeping of medical equipment echoed in the deathly silence.
He tried hard to recall the battle in front of the temple hall, Danzō’s cold face, the sudden sharp pain, the tearing sensation of his right eye being gouged out…
‘That dojutsu, no mistake, it was Izanagi…’ As one of the only two Mangekyo wielders in the clan, Shisui had learned much about Sharingan secret techniques from Fugaku, such as the reality-rewriting ‘Izanagi.’
But he couldn’t figure it out no matter what—why did Danzō have a three-tomoe Sharingan capable of activating Izanagi… Could it be that Danzō…
Just as he tried to sort through his chaotic thoughts, an irresistible flood of will slammed into his mind!
The darkness before his eyes shattered and peeled away like fragile glass.
The pungent blood scent instantly replaced the hospital room’s disinfectant smell, so thick it was nauseating.
He slowly opened his eyes to a scarlet moon hanging in the pitch-black sky, casting a sickening, blood-soaked glow.
That light enveloped the familiar scene below: the Uchiha Clan’s clan territory.
However, this was no longer a peaceful home.
It was hell!
Blood, blood everywhere!
Thick, dark red liquid like disgusting paint splashed on the familiar courtyard walls, soaking the meticulously maintained stone paved road, reflecting eerie light under the scarlet moonlight.
The suffocating blood scent and the stench of ruptured organs hit Shisui’s senses like a tangible tidal wave, instantly triggering violent spasms in his stomach.
“No… this… what is this?!” Shisui’s consciousness screamed.
He found himself “floating” above the clan territory, like a desperate spectator nailed in front of a painting.
His gaze was uncontrollably pulled downward.
On the central street of the clan territory, a figure was moving.
Movements fast as a ghost, every flicker accompanied by a cold blade light and a abruptly cut-off scream.
It was Itachi!
That face was Shisui’s familiar close friend, now like wearing the most perfect, cold and emotionless Noh mask.
Scarlet Sharingan eyes gleamed with inhuman chill under the moonlight, Mangekyo Sharingan slowly spinning.
The ninja sword in his hand struck with precision, efficiency, and cruelty that chilled the heart.
The sound of the blade slicing flesh and severing bone was infinitely amplified in the deathly night, clear as if sawing right by Shisui’s ear!
“Itachi! Stop!!” Shisui’s consciousness roared madly in the illusion, his soul trembling.
He desperately wanted to rush down, to stop it, to grab that figure and demand answers!
But an invisible force pinned him dead in the air, like a desperate ghost who could only watch helplessly!
Slaughter!
A indiscriminate, efficient slaughter targeting every Uchiha clansman!
No fierce resistance, only one-sided, cold harvesting!
Elders, women, even infants in swaddling clothes…
The faint cry that just started in some room was silenced instantly, like a chick with its neck snapped.
Dead silence.
Utter dead silence.
Only Itachi’s ninja sword cutting through air and flesh, the monotonous and terrifying “splurch” sound like hell’s drumbeat pounding on Shisui’s near-collapsing nerves.
“Itachi! Why! Why is this happening…” Shisui roared, instinctively wanting to rush forward to stop it.
However, his body was like an incorporeal ghost, passing straight through burning houses, toppled trees, even through the body of a clansman being pierced through the chest by a ninja sword!
He could only watch helplessly, watching the once gentle Uchiha Itachi, now with empty eyes, his ninja sword precisely and efficiently slitting familiar throats, regardless of gender, age.
Every flicker of blade light brought a spray of warm blood, splattering on Itachi’s numb face, and into Shisui’s despairing pupils.
A toddling child was swept by the merciless blade edge, small body softly collapsing; an elderly woman tried to shield the child behind her with her body, the next second, the cold knife edge pierced both at once…
“No—!” Shisui’s eyes nearly split, his soul roaring in sharp pain.
He lunged at Itachi again, arms outstretched to block the swinging slaughter blade.
The result was the same; like a puff of void wind, he futilely passed through Itachi’s body.
He could only stand by Itachi’s side, watching those Mangekyo Sharingan eyes under firelight coldly reflecting clansmen’s deaths, without a ripple.
“Why is this happening… why?!” Shisui looked incredulously at his valued clansmen being slaughtered by Itachi, a chill rising from his spine.
Not far from Itachi’s side, a mysterious figure wearing an orange-red spiral-patterned monocular mask and dark robe was also moving at high speed.
This person’s methods were even stranger, an iron chain hanging from his arm like a predatory tentacle, easily grabbing fleeing clansmen, snapping their necks with a yank, or pulling them back to impale with a ninja sword.
The single eye under that mask emitted a bone-chilling, pure madness of enjoying slaughter.
Through slivers of moonlight, Shisui saw a scarlet Sharingan in the mask’s eyehole.
“Who are you?!” Shisui roared furiously at the masked man, his voice dissipating in the storm of slaughter.
The masked man seemed utterly unaware of his existence, merely coordinating with Itachi’s actions, efficiently clearing every corner of life.
Despair like an icy venomous snake coiled around Shisui’s heart, tightening ever more.
Why? Besides Uchiha Hikari, were there other Uchiha clansmen scattered outside?
And though the Uchiha Compound was on the village outskirts, a slaughter of this scale, and the village had no reaction?
Where were the Anbu ninja?
Finally, that figure approached the largest, most majestic mansion at the clan territory’s center.
The clan head mansion, Fugaku the clan head’s home.
The door slid open silently.
Clan Head Fugaku sat upright on the tatami in the main hall, back to the door, spine straight as the pride he upheld all his life.
His wife Uchiha Mikoto quietly knelt beside him, her face without fear, only a deep, almost tragic calm.
Itachi’s figure appeared at the doorway, moonlight stretching his sword-holding shadow across the room floor.
Fugaku didn’t turn, his low and calm voice rising, each word like a heavy hammer on Shisui’s soul: “You’ve come, Itachi.”
Mikoto’s body trembled slightly, she closed her eyes, two lines of clear tears silently falling.
“Father, Mother.” Itachi’s voice came, cold, steady, without a ripple, as if stating something unrelated to himself.
Fugaku slowly, with a heavy ritualistic solemnity, turned around.
His face showed no expression, only a pair of three-tomoe Sharingan quietly burning in the dim light. “This is… your choice, Itachi.”
His voice held no questioning, only a dust-settled confirmation.
Itachi was silent, the ninja sword in his hand slightly raised at an angle, knife edge reflecting the scarlet moonlight outside the window, coldly glaring.
Fugaku’s gaze passed over Itachi, as if piercing the wall to see the land outside flowing with clansmen’s blood.
He nodded slowly, ever so slightly, as if relieving a thousand-jun burden.
“Do it, Itachi. The Uchiha Clan’s… sins, will be ended by our father and son… with our own hands.”
He closed his eyes, his straight spine like a mountain about to collapse.
Mikoto opened her tearful eyes, her gaze weaving indescribable pain and the deepest maternal understanding.
She parted her lips: “Sasuke… please…”
Itachi’s figure moved.
Fast!
Fast to leave only a blurred afterimage!
Splurch!
Splurch!
Two sounds of blade cutting into flesh rang especially clear and heavy in the deathly silent room.
Fugaku and Mikoto’s bodies jolted simultaneously.
Fugaku’s straight back slowly hunched, blood surging from massive wounds in his chest and back, instantly staining the tatami beneath him red.
Mikoto’s body softly pitched forward, collapsing onto her husband’s back.
From start to finish, no scream, no curse.
Only the heavy gasps of life ebbing, finally settling into eternal silence.
Itachi stood before his parents’ corpses, figure frozen for a moment in the moonlight.
Blood droplets slowly dripped along the cold blade of his ninja sword in hand, tapping the floor in the silence.
“Father… Mother…” Itachi’s voice was so low as to be nearly inaudible, carrying an indiscernible tremor.
He slowly raised his left hand, as if to touch something, but stiffly stopped midway.
“Itachi! Have you gone mad?!!” Shisui’s consciousness completely collapsed in the illusion, roaring madly!
Witnessing Clan Head Fugaku and his wife die under Itachi’s blade in such calm, such compliant posture!
And those countless clansmen bloodily slaughtered!
This destroyed his beliefs more thoroughly than any torture!
This was not just slaughter, it was the core of the entire Uchiha Clan in silent self-sacrifice!
For what?
For Sasuke?
For Konoha?
At that moment, a powerful force yanked Shisui’s consciousness away from the clan head mansion tragedy.
Instantly “floating” to the highest wall at the outermost edge of the Uchiha Compound.
Icy night wind brushed his incorporeal body.
Outside the wall, in the dense forest shadows about fifty meters from the compound wall, several indistinct figures stood.
They all wore Anbu and Root masks and uniforms, distinctly divided into two factions like silent sculptures, quietly standing in the darkness.
Not one tried to rush in to stop the clan downfall tragedy unfolding.
No exclamations, no anger, only a nearly cold… observation? Or rather, surveillance?
One Anbu wearing a white bird mask was slightly tilting his head, as if listening intently through some jutsu to the increasingly sparse screams and weapon clashes from inside the wall, then low-voicing a report to the fox mask Anbu beside him, whose aura was even heavier.
That fox mask Anbu nodded slightly, posture composed, as if merely assessing a report from an unrelated drill.
Inside the wall were clansmen’s death throes, houses bursting in flames; outside, Konoha Anbu and Root’s cold surveillance and waiting.
“Konoha Anbu… and Danzō’s Root…” Shisui suddenly realized something.
Not shock, not anger, but bone-deep, abyss-like chill instantly freezing the last spark in his soul depths!
So… that’s how it is.
So this Night of the Uchiha Clan Downfall was not merely Itachi’s madness, nor merely the Uchiha’s destiny.
It was a permitted, observed, meticulously arranged purge!
From the village they protected!
“Aaaaaah—!!!”
Immense grief and fury, betrayed despair, powerlessness at clansmen’s deaths…
All extreme negative emotions erupted like volcanic lava in his soul depths!
This unbearable, undeclenchable mental storm instantly found its only outlet.
His one-tomoe Sharingan eyes, covered in gauze, recently transplanted and still weak!
