The air in the archives room grew thick, so tense it could be cut with a knife. Three pairs of Sharingan eyes bored into Kenji, analyzing his every breath, every twitching muscle fiber. He knew that in this situation, one wrong move, one clumsy lie, would be the end.
"A bold rat," Uchiha Fugaku repeated, his voice frigid. "You got past my men, neutralized our seal. You are no common shinobi. Speak. Who sent you? Minato? Or that old man Hiruzen?"
Kenji stood still, his back to them, his hand still resting on the scroll. He was calculating at a frantic pace. To fight was suicide. To use Minato's kunai would ignite the war immediately. There was only one path. The path of a Shadow Clone master.
He slowly turned to face them. He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
"No one sent me, Fugaku-sama," Kenji said, his voice unnaturally calm. "I came here for myself. For the truth about my comrade's death."
Fugaku's brow furrowed. "Comrade?"
"Uchiha Naoki," Kenji said. "I know he didn't kill himself. And I know there is a larger conspiracy behind it all."
It was a gamble. Using a piece of the truth to conceal his greater purpose. He was trying to plant a seed of doubt, to redirect Fugaku's attention.
Fugaku scoffed, a humorless smirk on his face. "You think you can fool me with such words? Men! Seize him! I will 'talk' to him myself."
The two Uchiha officers rushed forward.
In that exact moment, Kenji formed a hand seal so fast that no one could see it.
POOF!
Kenji's body exploded into a cloud of white smoke.
"A clone?!" Fugaku roared, knowing he'd been tricked. "He's still in this room! Seal every exit!"
But as the smoke cleared, they didn't see Kenji anywhere. Instead, they saw hundreds of scrolls simultaneously fall from the shelves, creating a chaotic rain of paper.
And then, they heard alarms from outside.
"INTRUDER IN THE WESTERN SECTOR!"
"FIRE! THE NORTHERN ARMORY IS ON FIRE!"
Fugaku was stunned. This man hadn't just created one clone. He had laid an even bigger trap. The infiltration of the archives was merely a diversion. While all attention was focused here, his other clones had attacked different locations to create widespread chaos.
"Don't be fooled!" Fugaku yelled. "His main objective is still to escape from here! He can't have gotten far!"
He scanned the room with his Sharingan. Nothing. The man had vanished like a ghost.
But Kenji was still there.
He had never left the room.
From the moment he entered, he had created three Shadow Clones. The first clone, carrying the bulk of his chakra, was the one that had performed the entire infiltration, neutralized the seal, and finally confronted Fugaku. The second and third, weaker clones, had already slipped out to prepare the disturbances.
As for the real Kenji, he had used a minuscule amount of chakra to perform an advanced concealment jutsu, pressing himself into a narrow gap between two large bookshelves, holding his breath, and suppressing nearly all of his chakra. He had made himself a part of the room's fixtures.
A trap within a trap. He had used his own clone as bait, only for that clone to then become bait for his own escape.
He heard Fugaku order his men to spread out, the sound of thundering footsteps. He waited. Five minutes. Ten minutes. As the chaos outside reached its peak and the majority of the forces had been drawn away, Fugaku finally left the archives room to take command directly.
Kenji was left alone in the silent room.
He gently slipped out of his hiding spot, his body aching from holding one position for so long. He wasted no time. He knew the information he had just read about Danzō could be even more important than the coup plot.
He quickly put everything back in its original place. Then, like a wisp of smoke, he disappeared from the Military Police Force headquarters, leaving behind an Uchiha clan drowning in rage and chaos, and a captain wondering what kind of monster he had just faced.
Once at a safe distance, Kenji leaned against a wall, panting. He had succeeded. He had gotten the information.
But he also knew that from this night on, Uchiha Fugaku would no longer be searching for "the truth." He would be searching for him. The hunt for "the shadow" had officially begun. And at the same time, he had to find a way to expose an even darker conspiracy, one that might be connected to the village's greatest tragedy.