WNDR8834
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Ryuuto Uchiha
The Ash of Silent Houses The wind through the Forest of Death always carried a bite, but on the morning after his tenth birthday, it felt unnaturally cold. Ryuuto Uchiha adjusted the strap of his short sword and wiped sweat from his brow. His father, a harsh man who served in the Leaf Village’s Military Police Force, had sent him into the forest with a single directive: Do not return until you can mold fire chakra without making a single hand seal. He had spent thirty-six hours straight in the damp, monster-infested woods. His hands were raw, his knuckles bruised, and his chakra reserves hovered near empty, but he had done it. On his final attempt, a thin, superheated blade of crimson flame had hissed from his palm, cleanly slicing a fallen log in two. "He'll have to acknowledge it this time," Ryuuto murmured to himself, wiping ash from his dark blue sleeves. Leaving the shadowed canopy of the forest, Ryuuto crossed the boundary line into the main village streets. The morning sun was just beginning to peek over the stone faces of the Hokage Monument, casting long, pale shadows across the roofs. Oddly, the village was quiet. Usually, at six in the morning, the bakeries were opening and the shinobi returning from night patrols were filing through the main gates. Today, an eerie silence hung over the cobblestones. As Ryuuto approached the high wooden fence that separated the Uchiha Compound from the rest of Konoha, his instincts flared. No sentries on the watchtower. He slowed his pace, his hand instinctively dropping to the hilt of his blade. He activated his Sharingan—a single tomoe spinning slowly in each dark crimson iris. The visual field sharpened, but what struck him first wasn't a sight. It was the smell. It was the heavy, metallic stench of fresh blood, mixed with the acrid bite of scorched wood and burnt incense. Ryuuto leaped onto the outer wall. The main street of the Uchiha district was littered with debris. Doors swung open on broken hinges, creaking in the morning breeze. Banners bearing the fan crest of the clan hung torn and spattered with dark stains. "Father? Mother?" Ryuuto’s voice was barely a whisper as he dropped to the ground. He ran down the central avenue. The ground beneath his sandals was slick. At the entrance to the compound's training hall lay the body of an elder, his eyes wide and blank, staring up at the clear morning sky. A few yards further, two former officers of the Police Force lay slumped against a stone wall, their weapons still drawn but unfired. Every house was the same. Every home held the quiet, unmoving shapes of his kin. Men, women, elders—slain with terrifying, surgical precision. There had been no war here; this was an execution. Ryuuto reached his family's courtyard. The wooden door to his house was splintered inward. He stepped inside, his knees trembling violently under his weight. "Mother...?" In the main room, slumped near the low dining table, were the bodies of his parents. His mother’s hand was still stretched toward his father’s, frozen in an unfulfilled gesture of comfort. Ryuuto fell to his knees beside them. His breathing turned ragged, coming in sharp, painful gasps. The single tomoe in his eyes spun wildly, thrashing against his irises as a surge of intense, agonizing chakra flooded his brain. Why? Who could do this? Who possessed the strength to erase the grandest clan in the Leaf overnight? Then, his gaze caught a mark on the wall—a shallow, clean groove cut into the cedar wood. It was the signature mark of an Uchiha blade, angled precisely to deflect a counter-strike. Only one person in the younger generation fought with that exact geometry. Itachi. Footsteps crunched outside on the gravel. Ryuuto snapped his head toward the entrance, his short sword clearing its sheath with a ring. Instead of a murderer returning to finish the job, three figures clad in dark gray armor and porcelain animal masks materialized in the doorway—Anbu