Konoha Tarnished

July 2, 12:08 a.m.!

Konoha, Hokage's Office. The captain of the guard who had awakened from the forbidden area reported the emergency of Madara's corpse having gone missing!

"What did you say?!" Naruto slammed his bandaged right hand onto the desk, sending the mountain of documents piled atop it scattering all over the floor!

"Are you certain? The one who broke into the forbidden area and took Madara's corpse was that Uchiha Chen?"

"Yes, Seventh Hokage. Years ago, when I returned to the village from a mission, I met Chen once! I could never mistake such a distinctive face! He took down all my subordinates! I was careless for a moment too and fell under his Sharingan Genjutsu, passing out!"

Naruto's face tightened. "How many casualties were there?"

The captain said, "Fortunately, there were no casualties! Everyone was merely knocked unconscious! I suppose that Chen didn't dare take things too far!"

"I see..." Naruto let out a breath, sat back down, and rested his chin on his hands as he considered what to do next.

How had he bypassed the Guardian Barrier and the Yamanaka Clan's Sensory Division, coming and going without a trace...?

Naruto was troubled, but faced with the accomplished fact, he could only accept it.

At that moment, Shikamaru, the Hokage Advisor standing nearby, suddenly asked, "Did Uchiha Chen leave behind any message?"

"Huh?" The captain froze. "A message! Right, there really was one! He asked me to deliver it to the Seventh Hokage!"

"What message?"

At the moment he had fallen under the genjutsu, a sentence had indeed vaguely echoed in the captain's mind.

"It seemed to be... 'Tell the Hokage that I've already given you plenty of warnings. Since you've decided to do nothing, I'll have to do things my way.'"

"Huh? Warnings?" Naruto frowned and looked toward Shikamaru. "Chen said... he was going to take Madara's remains?"

After pinching his chin and pondering for a moment, Shikamaru shook his head with certainty. "No. Over the past decade or so, he did contact us unilaterally many times through letters, but he never once mentioned wanting to make a move on Madara's remains."

Since they were not official exchanges between the Five Great Nations, Chen's private letters were not directly submitted among the official documents Naruto handled each day. Instead, Shikamaru, as an advisor, reviewed them first and decided whether to submit them.

(Just a heads-up regarding the controversy over Shikamaru's characterization: he was affected by a certain "technique," carried out by an unknown existence neither faction currently knows about. This was originally meant to be revealed as the story progressed, but since there has been quite a bit of controversy, here's an early heads-up.)

But Shikamaru had felt that the contents of his letters were either impractical or alarmist, so he intercepted them all.

It was not until three years ago, when Chen first mentioned in a letter that he was a member of the Uchiha Clan, that Shikamaru informed Naruto.

Naruto thought... a descendant of the Uchiha. Though he was from a branch that had guarded the Blood Pool Clan's forbidden grounds in the Land of Lightning nearly a century ago, and his status had long since become that of an ordinary civilian, he could still be considered Sasuke's distant relative, right?

So Naruto had planned to find time to meet Chen personally... but at the last moment, the Feudal Lord of the Land of Fire summoned Naruto over an extremely urgent matter. With no choice, Naruto rushed there without even having time to leave behind a Shadow Clone.

And so, he stood Chen up.

Naruto recalled, "I remember that day. We made him wait in the reception area for quite a while, didn't we?"

The captain said, "Yes, yes! I had returned to report on my duties that time and saw him in the reception area. He sat there, constantly lowering his head to check his watch!"

Naruto said, "After I stood him up that time, he completely disappeared without a trace. I never expected that today, he would do something so unprecedented..."

At the mention of that incident, an indescribable look flashed through Shikamaru's eyes.

"Naruto, now that things have come to this, there are some things about Chen that I should tell you..."

Naruto's expression turned slightly grave. He gave the captain a look, and the latter immediately understood. He left the room, locked the door behind him, and stood guard in the corridor.

Naruto propped up his chin with both hands. "Go on, Shikamaru."

Shikamaru lit a cigarette.

"I shouldn't have kept this from you. Because Chen's remarks in his letters were highly suspicious, I began investigating his background in secret a long time ago."

"First, it was true that Chen was a descendant of the Uchiha Clan. Back then, the chaos caused by the Gold and Silver Brothers of the Hidden Cloud also affected the Uchiha clansmen stationed at the Blood Pool Clan's forbidden grounds. Most of them died. The few survivors did not return to Konoha, instead concealing their identities and settling down in the Land of Lightning."

"Chen's parents were among those who remained in the Land of Lightning. But their identities were accidentally exposed, drawing retaliation from surviving members of the Uchiha Clan's former enemies, the Blood Pool Clan. They both died."

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"Chen and Jin were left behind, the two brothers relying on each other for survival."

"Quite a complicated background. And then?" If not for the matter involving Madara, Naruto might have felt sympathy for Chen upon hearing this.

"Later, it was said that the surviving Blood Pool Clan members were eliminated one after another. Not even women and children were spared. Every survivor of that clan was completely wiped out. There is no definitive intelligence proving that the brothers did it in revenge, but I doubt they were uninvolved."

"Revenge... the same path Sasuke walked back then. It really is like the Uchiha's destiny."

Shikamaru continued, "Chen and Jin did not belong to any Ninja Village, nor did they join the Allied Shinobi Forces to participate in the later Fourth Great Ninja War."

"If they were civilians, it would be understandable for them to avoid the wars of the ninja world. But his actions after the war were far too deliberate."

"You should know that as the most outstanding hero of the ninja war, you possessed the strongest influence in the entire ninja world and were the undisputed leader of the Five Kage. He had ties to Konoha's Uchiha, so it would have been one thing if he wanted to cling to you and find a place to settle down. Yet he insisted on using such a sensational method."

Naruto asked, "What kind of sensational method?"

Flicking ash from his cigarette, Shikamaru said, "That man actually questioned the Hokage's system of personal rule in his letters! He said that as a village's greatest fighting force, a Kage should not spend vast amounts of energy handling tedious official duties. Instead, an organization similar to a secretariat should be established to take over the Kage's functions. The Kage should focus entirely on training their combat strength! Was that something he had any right to worry about?!"

Naruto did not comment on that.

"Later, I heard that his younger brother died."

Naruto was startled. "How did he die?"

Shikamaru said, "There was no way to investigate this matter. But after his brother's death, Chen's actions began to deviate from the normal path. The Mercenary Agency and auction houses in the underground black market—those shady corners hidden in the ninja world's shadows—were places where traces of his involvement began to appear!"

"It is said that in only a few short years, he amassed enough funds to support a large Ninja Village like Konoha for several years. What would a wandering ninja unaffiliated with any Ninja Village want with so much money? It is difficult not to think of Akatsuki, whose interim goal back then was also to accumulate wealth!"

"If that were all, then in my eyes, he would have been nothing more than an underground broker who, after losing all family ties, began accumulating wealth without restraint!"

"What truly made me classify him as a 'dangerous individual' was his claim in a letter that members of Kaguya Otsutsuki's clan were still active on this land!"

"What?!" The words "Otsutsuki" made Naruto shoot to his feet.

When he had first become Hokage, Sasuke had once gathered the Five Kage and made a similar conjecture based on Kaguya cultivating White Zetsu soldiers—that other Otsutsuki might be lurking upon this land of the ninja world.

To verify that conjecture, Sasuke had spent all these years conducting secret investigations outside the village!

But Shikamaru's next words were even more shocking. "Yet Uchiha Chen directly stated the name of that Otsutsuki in his letter, despite even Sasuke being unable to verify this intelligence!"

"What name?!"

"I remember it was... Otsutsuki Isshiki!"

"Otsutsuki Isshiki?"

Seeing that Naruto seemed to be taking it seriously, Shikamaru said, "This is my deduction. After that discussion back then, one of the Five Kage carelessly leaked the information, and Uchiha Chen began making a big deal out of it after hearing the rumor."

"But... what would he gain by doing that?"

"Three years ago, on the very day you stood him up, I went to the reception room and asked him personally how he knew about the Otsutsuki intelligence. Guess what Uchiha Chen said?"

Naruto slowly sat back down. "What did he say?"

"He actually said he foresaw it in a dream. Hah, that was an ability only the Great Toad Sage of Mount Myōboku possessed. What made him think he could do that? He did not even bother coming up with a believable lie."

"But I didn't expose him on the spot. Perhaps he had some unspeakable difficulty regarding the source of his intelligence and could not say it outright. To be cautious, I decided to test whether he was truly sincere."

"And how did you test him?" Naruto's brow furrowed deeply.

Shikamaru said, "I told him bluntly that his words and actions were far too suspicious. From the standpoint of Konoha's Hokage Advisor, I could not trust anything he said."

"If he wanted to prove himself, he would have to cooperate with Konoha's procedures. First, seal his Chakra, then spend some time in Konoha's holding cell. Afterward, the Yamanaka Clan of Konoha would verify whether what he said was true or false!"

Naruto rested his chin on his hand and asked with a frown, "And then? How did Chen respond?"

"Snap!" Shikamaru's face darkened as he lowered his head and lit another cigarette.

As smoke rose, Shikaku crumpled the cigarette filter between his fingers. "That Uchiha Chen actually said..."