Ash choked the air, tasting like death and burnt wood. Cold wind clawed through the gaping holes in what was once his home, carrying phantom screams. Nishida's breath hitched, each inhale a sharp reminder of the devastation. He stood amidst the skeletal remains of the Uchiha compound, silence pressing in, heavier than any physical weight.
His hand trembled, gripping the cold steel of a kunai. A dark, sticky substance coated the blade and his palm. Blood. His own, perhaps, or someone else's. He couldn't recall. The last few hours were a blur of terror, flashing steel, and screams that still echoed in his skull.
He pushed a loose timber aside with his foot, the creak loud in the oppressive quiet. Rubble scraped under his worn sandals. Every shadow seemed to writhe, every broken shard of pottery a grim monument to what had been lost. He was alone. Terribly, utterly alone.
Memories flickered, fragmented and violent. The sudden, chilling quiet before the storm. The sound of distant shouts, then too close. His mother's frantic push, 'Run, Nishida! Don't look back!' His father, a fierce warrior, standing defiant in the doorway, a blur of motion against the encroaching darkness.
Nishida hadn't run far. A child's fear kept him hidden, not fleeing. He’d cowered in the old storage shed, hands clamped over his ears, trying to block out the sounds that ripped through the night. The thud of bodies. The guttural cries. The sickening wet sounds of steel meeting flesh.
He walked now, past collapsed walls and overturned furniture, each step a slow, agonizing pilgrimage through a graveyard of memories. His eyes scanned the debris, searching, dread coiling tighter in his gut with every empty room. He needed to find them. He had to.
Then he saw it. A familiar sandal, half-buried under a splintered beam. His mother’s.
His heart seized. Blood drained from his face, leaving him colder than the night air. He dropped to his knees, scraping them on jagged stone, ignoring the pain. He dug frantically, clawing at the debris, his fingers raw and bleeding, until the sight became clear.
His parents. They lay intertwined, a final embrace in death. His father's arm was still around his mother, shielding her, even in lifelessness. Their faces, frozen in grotesque masks of terror and agony, stared blankly at the ruined ceiling. Wide, unseeing eyes. Empty.
A choked sound escaped Nishida's throat, half-whimper, half-gasp. His vision blurred, not with tears, but with something else. A hot, searing pain erupted behind his eyes, a pressure building, twisting. His pupils contracted, then flared.
Crimson. Two black tomoe, sharp as ink, spun into existence within his irises. The world around him shifted. Details previously lost in the gloom sprang into sharp relief. Every splinter of wood, every fleck of dried blood, every jagged edge of stone. He saw the precise angles of the wounds on his parents' bodies, the clean, brutal efficiency of the kills.
No longer blurred by grief, his mind processed. His father's defensive posture, his mother's desperation. The cold, calculated nature of their end. This wasn't a random attack. This was an execution.
Fury, cold and absolute, replaced the terror. It wasn't a childish tantrum; it was an inferno of ice, burning away everything but a singular, burning purpose. They were gone. His clan was gone. And Konoha, his village, had done nothing. No, worse. Konoha had allowed this.
His grip tightened on the kunai, the blood on it now feeling like a part of him. He wouldn't be weak. He wouldn't be helpless again. The image of his parents' vacant eyes seared into his soul, an eternal brand. He would never let this happen to anyone he cared about again. He would gain power. Whatever the cost.
A faint rustle of leaves, unheard moments before, now registered with chilling clarity through his activated Sharingan. A subtle shift in the air pressure. The faint scent of ozone and dried sweat. Someone was here. Someone else.
His head snapped up, eyes still burning crimson. He tracked the almost imperceptible movement, a ripple in the distorted reflections of a broken mirror shard. His heart hammered, not from fear, but from a primal surge of adrenaline and a fierce, nascent resolve.
A figure dropped silently from a shadow-laced rooftop, landing with a whisper-soft thud. Tall. Lean. Dressed in the dark, practical attire of a Konoha shinobi, but with a porcelain mask obscuring their face. ANBU. The dog mask. A cleanup crew. A chilling wave of realization washed over Nishida.
The ANBU moved with predatory grace, scanning the devastation. Their head tilted slightly, as if listening to the absolute silence. Nishida remained utterly still, a statue of grief and silent rage beside his parents' bodies. His Sharingan absorbed every detail: the subtle tension in the ANBU's shoulders, the slight flex of their calf muscles, the way their fingers hovered near the hilt of a tanto strapped to their back.
This wasn’t a rescue. This was another wave of the slaughter. He was not a survivor to be saved; he was a loose end to be tied. The truth clawed at his throat, a bitter, metallic taste. Konoha had betrayed them all.
His mind raced, a terrifying efficiency now guiding his thoughts. The ANBU was alone. Nishida was a child, yes, but now he saw the world differently. He saw the ANBU's chakra flow, faint but visible, swirling within their body. He saw the minute tells, the almost imperceptible twitch of a muscle before a movement.
“Found another one,” the ANBU's voice, muffled and devoid of emotion, sliced through the air. The ANBU took a step closer, their gaze falling upon Nishida and his fallen parents. No sympathy. Just a cold, calculating assessment.
Nishida didn't move. He didn’t dare. Every fiber of his being screamed to attack, to avenge, but his new eyes showed him the ANBU's speed, their practiced stance. He was outmatched. He knew it with a clarity that stung more than any physical blow.
The ANBU’s head tilted again. “A stray dog we missed.”
They moved. Not a lunge, not a charge, but a smooth, deceptively swift glide. Nishida’s Sharingan tracked the blade as it was drawn, a glint of silver in the dim light. He saw the angle, the trajectory, the intent. He tried to react, but his body, unused to such speed, was too slow.
A sharp, metallic tang filled the air. Nishida felt a sudden, agonizing pressure against his neck, his vision blurring as the ANBU's blade bites deep.