Seen Through by the Old Man

"Heh heh, I knew you were no simple kid. I also knew you could keep your composure, so this old man ate venison and pranced around like a monkey swinging a sword for half the day, yet you still stubbornly refused to say anything."

The old man, Uchiha Nobutada, said smugly, "But you're still young. Once this old man brought out the emotional offensive, you finally let something slip, didn't you?"

Uchiha Yu: "..."

The Uchiha clan actually had an old fox like this?

With such a cunning old man around, how had Uchiha Fugaku been allowed to take power? How had the entire clan ended up facing the tragic fate of annihilation?

Uchiha Nobutada laughed heartily. "Don't overthink it. We old men were ruined by Madara, then targeted by that brat Tobirama. Thirty years ago, we lost our direct influence over the clan."

"Now, I'm the only one left alive."

"Originally, we placed our hopes on the second generation. That boy Kagami Uchiha had talent, strength, and character that could all be called perfect. Even Tobirama accepted him, yet he died out there."

"Even after he died, they refused to let him rest. That child Kagami was even turned into a negative example, used to prove that no matter how powerful a ninja was, a moment of carelessness could still get him killed."

"Ridiculous! What utter stupidity! Those of us who awakened the Three-Tomoe Sharingan naturally knew that even when the Sharingan was not activated, it still possessed alertness far beyond that of a jonin."

"Kid, tell me: under what circumstances would an Uchiha who had awakened the Three-Tomoe Sharingan let his guard down?"

Uchiha Yu sighed and said nothing. Uchiha Nobutada did not need an answer from him.

"Heh heh, only when we are with the people we trust most do Uchiha truly relax. That so-called carelessness is actually our own subconscious rejecting the Sharingan's warning signals."

A ninja like Kagami Uchiha had formidable combat strength and exceptionally well-rounded abilities. He was among the hardest kinds of ninja to kill. There were only two possibilities for his death.

Either he had encountered an overwhelmingly powerful Kage-level ninja, the gap in their raw strength had been too great, and he had insisted on fighting to the death until he fell in battle.

Or he had been betrayed by someone he trusted and died a miserable, stifled death.

But Konoha under the Second Hokage's rule and Konoha under the Third Hokage were entirely different concepts. Back then, Konoha was mighty, domineering, and arrogant. What brain-dead Kage-level ninja would dare lay a hand on Kagami Uchiha? Did he and his organization no longer want to survive in the Ninja World?

So there was a ninety-nine percent chance that he had been betrayed by someone close to him.

But there was definitely no evidence of it. Uchiha Nobutada and Yu both knew that if evidence had been found, the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama, would have dealt with it back then. He wanted to suppress the Uchiha clan, but he did not want to exterminate Uchiha ninja. Those were fundamentally different things.

Although they were one of the two great clans that had founded Konoha, the Uchiha clan and the Senju Clan were too powerful. In a sense, they could be considered tumors within Konoha.

If the two clans had continued to thrive, Konoha's benefits would have belonged only to them. The smaller clans that joined later would have received none of the dividends of development. New villagers who joined as ordinary families would have had it even worse; they might even have been exploited. If the lower class gained no benefits, population growth would stall, and Konoha could never have had a bright future.

The Senju and Uchiha had to be dismantled or weakened, forced to yield enough room for others to benefit. For Konoha's sake, Senju Tobirama dismantled the main body of the Senju Clan, leaving behind only the First Hokage's branch.

He then instigated internal strife among the Uchiha, drove out the powerful core figure Madara, and traded the Military Police Force for the Uchiha clan's relinquishment of administrative authority.

After removing the shackles of the founding clans, Konoha indeed entered an era of explosive growth, becoming a Konoha that could take on the entire Ninja World even without Senju Hashirama or Madara.

Dismantling the Senju Clan and suppressing the Uchiha clan had both been excessive corrective policies. Once their goals had been achieved, the policy direction should have been adjusted. Those core pillars of Konoha should have been appeased and gently guided to shift their loyalty from clan first to village first.

But Senju Tobirama died too suddenly. The policies that should have been adjusted were instead pushed to even greater extremes by his successors, provoking a severe backlash.

In reality, that backlash manifested as a decline in military strength. The Senju Clan and Uchiha clan, once the main forces, harbored misgivings and were unwilling and afraid to risk their lives in war.

The spirit of Konoha's ninja collapsed. From easily crushing the Ninja World during the First Shinobi World War, they had declined to being unable to defeat even two opponents at once during the Second Shinobi World War.

Konoha was much like Wei during China's Warring States Era. Situated in the Central Plains, where it faced war on all sides, it could only swing between the very best and the very worst. There was no middle ground.

When it could fight four enemies at once, Konoha struck out in all directions and sought supremacy over the world.

When it could fight only two enemies at once, Konoha was besieged from all sides and struggled merely to survive.

Under incompetent leaders, once Konoha could no longer withstand external pressure, increasingly vicious internal strife naturally followed.

The direct Senju line that had deliberately been retained as a banner was completely wiped out. The Uchiha clan, preserved as a reserve fighting force, suffered brutal exclusion. Hatake Sakumo, once shining like the blazing sun overhead, committed suicide under false accusations.

Konoha's decline spread from the spiritual level to the level of hard power, and it could never be reversed.

It was a vicious cycle. As Konoha's military strength declined and its situation grew more embarrassing, the Third Hokage's faction would intensify its treatment of the Uchiha clan, causing Konoha's strength to decline even further.

Uchiha Nobutada understood how dangerous the situation was. He worried about the Uchiha clan's future, and even more about Uchiha Shisui's safety.

But he was old. So old that even though he knew the clan's leaders were a bunch of useless trash, he did not have the ability to kill them, much less the ability to protect Shisui.

The old man had been so anxious that he was nearly despairing. After hearing about Uchiha Yu from Shisui, he had rushed over to meet him in a fluster, almost without any preparation.

After spending this day with him, Uchiha Nobutada was overjoyed.

Uchiha Yu was powerful yet low-key and composed, well-connected yet unknown, kind-hearted yet decisive in killing. Though not a trace of killing intent could be seen on him, an old killer like Uchiha Nobutada could still smell the overflowing stench of blood.

He was a man full of contradictions, but Uchiha Nobutada believed that only someone like him could survive amid such treacherous currents, only someone like him might preserve Uchiha Shisui's life and change the Uchiha clan's hopeless future.

"I'll leave Shisui to you."

The old man, his beard and hair snow-white, bowed with a trembling body, bending farther than ninety degrees.

Uchiha Yu said nothing and did not dodge. He accepted the bow without reservation, yet that alone made the old man beam with joy.

He said no more. He turned and strode away, his steps as light as though he had set down a burden weighing a thousand pounds.

Uchiha Yu raised an eyebrow and smiled unconcernedly.

He did not feel that a burden had been placed upon him, because he too was an Uchiha. Resolving the Uchiha clan's crisis of annihilation was a responsibility he could not shirk.

Moreover, Uchiha Yu needed the Uchiha clan. Only with this powerful ninja clan standing above him could he conceal his unusual circumstances and ensure that his path of cultivation would not be disturbed.

If the Uchiha clan were exterminated and only three or four Uchiha remained in the entire Ninja World, all sorts of monsters and demons would set their sights on him.

Placed beneath the spotlight, Uchiha Yu would be studied by everyone. Could he really keep any secrets then?

Even now, after being seen through by this old man, Uchiha Nobutada, Uchiha Yu felt uncomfortable all over.