The roar of the Nine-Tails was not just a sound. It was a shockwave of despair that struck Kenji's mind. He stood there, helplessly watching the monster that Minato and Kushina had tried so hard to contain being set free. He watched the masked man, his Sharingan blazing, manipulate the beast like a puppet.
An Uchiha... The thought was as cold as ice. No... not quite. This is something else. More ancient, more malevolent.
A yellow flash streaked by. Minato had teleported the weakened Kushina to a safe location. Then he reappeared, standing atop his own likeness on the Hokage monument, wearing his Hokage cloak, facing the monster that was devastating his village.
"Ryū!" Minato's voice echoed in Kenji's mind through a short-range chakra communication link. "Your mission now is to protect the villagers! Evacuate them! Minimize casualties! Don't worry about me!"
It was the last order he would receive from his commander. An order not to fight the enemy, but to protect the innocent.
"Understood!" Kenji replied, the hesitation within him vanishing, replaced by an iron-clad resolve.
He didn't waste another second.
Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!
One hundred Shadow Clones. Two hundred. All the chakra he possessed, he poured into his ninjutsu, creating a veritable rescue army. The Leaf Village was drowning in a sea of fire, and Kenji's grey-clad shadows spread out like rain, becoming the unsung heroes in the most tragic of nights.
They didn't fight the Nine-Tails. They fought against the collapse, against the fire, and against despair.
One group of clones formed a human ladder, helping dozens of civilians escape a burning apartment building.
Another group used their own bodies as shields, absorbing the full force of debris from an explosion to protect a group of children. They vanished in puffs of white smoke, but the children were safe.
They dove into collapsed houses, searching for signs of life, pulling out the injured and carrying them to safe zones.
The real Kenji moved like a shuttlecock. He was the brain, commanding the entire rescue network. He was everywhere at once. He saw the Third Hokage and other shinobi fighting bravely. He saw his friends, his comrades, fall. Every life lost was like a knife stabbing into his heart.
He also witnessed the battle of legends from a distance. He saw Minato confront the masked man, a battle of wits and space-time jutsu on an unimaginable level. He saw Minato defeat him, freeing the Nine-Tails from his control, but at a cost.
And then, he saw the final scene.
When Minato teleported both the Nine-Tails and a massive Tailed Beast Bomb away from the village, Kenji knew what was about to happen. He felt it through the fluctuating chakra of his master.
He wanted to run there. He gripped his Flying Thunder God kunai tightly. But then he saw a small school, where terrified children were huddled together, and a large wall was about to collapse on them.
He made his choice.
He and his fifty remaining clones formed a seal in unison. Doton: Doryūheki! (Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall!). A gigantic wall of earth rose up, blocking the collapsing concrete wall and saving dozens of children. The massive chakra expenditure forced the real Kenji to a knee, panting for breath.
And in that very moment, in the distance, he felt Minato's chakra flare up one last time, as brilliant and warm as the sun. Then it merged with another stream of chakra, a complex and powerful seal was formed... before they both faded away.
Silence.
The roaring had stopped. The monster was gone.
Kenji looked up at the sky, tears streaming down his cheeks, mixing with the dust and smoke.
He had followed his orders. He had protected the villagers. But he couldn't protect their hero.
As the first light of dawn shone down on a devastated Leaf Village, Kenji stood there, a lone figure amidst the loss. He was no longer Ryū, the Anbu of the Fourth Hokage. He would receive no more orders.
But he knew his mission wasn't over. It had just begun. Minato's will was not an order. It was an orphaned newborn, carrying both the legacy of a hero and the curse of a monster.
Kenji looked towards the center of the village, where that baby was. And in his tired eyes, a new fire was kindled. The fire of a protector.
He would not let the sacrifice of Minato and Kushina be in vain. He would be that child's shadow, an anonymous existence, ensuring that the little sun of the Leaf Village would one day have the chance to shine.