That night.
Izumi dragged her utterly exhausted body home. The tension that had gripped her all day finally relaxed, and she collapsed onto the couch, completely drained.
Today had been way too intense—so much so that her brain was still trying to process everything.
She was just a recently graduated genin from Konohagakure!
"Come to think of it… how did Senpai end up walking the path of Absolute Justice anyway…?"
Now that she finally had a moment to rest, Izumi couldn't help but let her mind wander.
"You're really that curious?"
"Mm…" she responded instinctively.
Wait—
That wasn't her mother's voice.
It was…
Keizumi-senpai's voice?!
"Eh!!"
Startled, Izumi shot upright and spun toward the voice—only to see Keizumi-senpai crouched casually on the sill of an open window.
His calm, inscrutable eyes met hers. Izumi could never tell what was going through his mind.
No—
The real question here should've been: Why was Senpai even here in the first place?!
Uchiha Keizumi spoke: "Tachibana Jirō discovered a new lead. I happened to be passing by, so I figured I'd bring you along. It should be a rare chance for you to gain some real combat experience."
Right on cue, a large round orange cat face poked out from the corner of the window.
"Meow! Rookie! Hurry up!"
Of course Senpai's ninja cat would be just as no-nonsense as he was.
Izumi scrambled to her feet. "Yes, Senpai!"
Then she called out to the kitchen, "Mom, don't worry about making dinner! I'll eat out tonight!"
After grabbing her ninja gear, she leapt out the window without hesitation.
Only then did it hit her—and she froze for a second.
"W… Wait. Combat experience?"
Keizumi gave a simple, concise reply: "Follow me. We're heading out of Konohagakure."
What?! Out of the village?!
Izumi's mind flooded with questions, but this clearly wasn't the time to ask them.
She had no choice but to grit her teeth and follow with everything she had.
…
"Meow! Rookie, my kids found a secret base outside the village!"
Fortunately, the ninja cat Tachibana Jirō was there to explain things to Izumi.
"It looks kind of like a research facility. It's probably a little over ten kilometers from Konoha."
Izumi followed closely behind Uchiha Keizumi and Tachibana Jirō, leaping swiftly from rooftop to rooftop.
As she panted slightly, she couldn't help but ask, "Tachibana Jirō-senpai, how are you sure something's going on at that base?"
"Experience, of course!"
Tachibana Jirō's voice was unusually sharp and high-pitched.
"Rookie, I've been working with Keizumi-sama for five whole years, meow! Even if it's just one percent, I've inherited some of his experience and skills! But honestly, it's mainly because my kids saw ninja dressed like ANBU going in and out of that base."
"Any base tied to Root or the ANBU usually isn't a good place, meow."
Tachibana Jirō declared with great confidence, "Because Keizumi-sama once said—there's barely a single good person in all of Konoha's ANBU and Root!"
"If you kill them all, sure, a few might be innocent—but if you only kill half, a lot of the bad ones would slip through the cracks!"
Izumi swallowed hard.
She was beginning to get a sense of what Keizumi-senpai had meant by 'real combat experience.'
Wait… was Senpai planning to raid an ANBU black site?
"Rookie, a piece of advice for you."
Uchiha Keizumi's voice came through the gusts of the night wind—faint, but Izumi strained to hear.
"Don't assume that just because ANBU serves the Hokage, they must be on the side of good. If you look at them through that filter, you're in for a rude awakening. Whether it's Root or ANBU—they've always been one of the greatest concentrations of 'evil' in the entire shinobi world."
A chill ran down Izumi's spine. She quickly responded, "Understood, Keizumi-senpai!"
But deep down, she felt that there was another layer to his words.
—Don't view the Hokage through rose-colored glasses, either.
Then a realization struck her, and she blurted out, startled, "Keizumi-senpai, are you sure tonight's 'case' falls within the jurisdiction of the Konoha Police Force?"
Uchiha Keizumi didn't even turn his head.
"It falls within the jurisdiction of Justice."
Hiss…
So he really didn't care about the village's rules or the Police Force's regulations.
Tonight—was this a night of justice enforced by Senpai's own hand?
"You're wrong," came Keizumi's faint voice, drifting through the dark.
"This is a night of Absolute Justice—a night of execution. Since you've chosen to follow me as your evaluator, rookie, you'd better get used to it. There will be many nights like this… and they'll last a long time."
"!!!"
Izumi was shaken to the core.
Keizumi-senpai really can read minds, can't he?!
She shuddered involuntarily.
"Meow, no—it's just that you're really easy to read, girl. You wear every thought on your face and in your tone, meow."
Tachibana Jirō added quietly, like a dagger to the heart.
"…!"
Even a cat could read her like a book?
Izumi was devastated.
As her mind swirled with confusion and dread, she suddenly realized—
Without even noticing, she had followed Keizumi-senpai out of Konoha.
The village was already several hundred meters behind them.
...
"This is the research material on the Uchiha clan's Sharingan that the Hokage ordered me to deliver. Also, three Three-Tomoe Sharingan have been sent along with it."
Inside a hidden experimental base, an Anbu ninja from Konohagakure spoke to another Anbu operative stationed at the facility.
"So the old man sent them, huh…"
The Anbu ninja inside the base accepted the file and also took the three Sharingan eyes, which were suspended in a nutrient solution within test tubes.
Staring at the three eyes, each exuding an eerie aura—
A flicker of suspicion passed through Sarutobi Shinnosuke's gaze. He asked, "Where did the old man get these Sharingan?"
The Anbu ninja from the village hesitated for a moment. But the man in front of him was not only the Hokage's eldest son, but also a senior member of the Anbu, and one of the Hokage's closest confidants.
He figured there was no harm in telling him.
In a low voice, he replied, "They came from Shimura Danzō of Root."
"Danzō, huh…" Sarutobi Shinnosuke seemed to realize something. "I thought so. The old man's always been conflicted—deeply curious about many things, yet convinced that as Hokage, he shouldn't engage in them himself. He wouldn't have gone so far as to steal the Uchiha's Sharingan."
"If there's anyone in the village who'd do something like that, it could only be that 'Darkness of the Leaf,' the leader of Root—Shimura Danzō."
Shinnosuke shook his head and remarked bluntly, "Still… he's basically the old man's black glove. All the dirty work the old man doesn't want to do himself—he turns a blind eye and lets Danzō handle it."
The Anbu ninja from the village stayed silent.
"Go back and tell him this—on our side, we'll do our best to fully absorb and understand this Sharingan research."
"Yes, senpai."
...
The village Anbu stepped out of the secret base and glanced back at the seemingly unremarkable forest behind him. He reached out and lightly touched the air, causing a ripple to appear.
"What a brilliant genjutsu… As expected of the Hokage's eldest son."
He shook his head, brushing aside stray thoughts, and just as he was about to head back to the village—
He suddenly heard a sharp, unexpected meow.
"Meow~"
The Anbu frowned and instinctively turned his gaze in the direction of the sound.
—What a fat cat!
That was his first thought.
The very next moment—
A sharp slicing sound tore through the air from the side, startling the Anbu into ducking low. Three shuriken zipped past his face, one of them slashing the strap of his mask and forcing it off, revealing a young face beneath.
"An enemy?!"
As he quickly drew his ninja blade, two crimson Three-Tomoe Sharingan filled his field of vision.
"Uchiha…"
His pupils contracted, and almost instinctively, he tried to avert his eyes to avoid direct contact with the Sharingan.
[Pshk!]
A sharp pain exploded in his chest. He looked down in a daze—only to realize the sword he thought he had drawn had never left its sheath. The sound of a blade being drawn had come from the other person.
A ninja blade had already pierced straight through his heart.
A genjutsu!
[Ding! You have successfully killed a 'Red-Named' villain! Your chakra has received a minor boost! Congratulations, you have obtained: Konoha-ryū Kenjutsu Skill Book ×10!]
"The fourth one," Uchiha Keizumi murmured as he withdrew his blade. "Rookie, that's four failed attempts now. Your shuriken-throwing technique seriously needs to go back to the forge."
"I… I'm sorry, senpai…" Izumi stepped out from behind him.
She was overwhelmed with guilt, yet couldn't hide the fear in her eyes as she stared at the now-limp Anbu ninja on the ground.
This was the fourth Anbu that Keizumi-senpai had killed tonight.
The previous three were all stationed outside on patrol.
Staring at the fresh blood bubbling and gurgling from the man's chest, and at his now lifeless face—which couldn't have been more than a few years older than her—Izumi suddenly felt uncertain.
"Senpai… were they really all villains?"
"Yes."
Uchiha Keizumi flicked the blood off his blade, his gaze fixed on the forest ahead. Against the power of his Three-Tomoe Sharingan, even the most sophisticated genjutsu seemed like child's play.