Although Minagawa Uchiha had decided to act in this incident and protect the Uchiha Clan, the current situation was not something he could easily turn around. He had to take things one step at a time. The first step was to muddy the waters and make the factions that had been united turn suspicious of one another.
There were currently three parties seeking to destroy the Uchiha. The first were the Konoha High Command led by Sarutobi Hiruzen, and Obito Uchiha. There was no room for reconciliation between those two sides; they were dead set on wiping out the Uchiha Clan. The best approach was to divide them and make them tear each other apart.
The final party was Uchiha Itachi. He was a contradictory man. You could say he loved Konoha, yet until his death, he had never provided Konoha with any information whatsoever about the Akatsuki Organization.
You could say he loved the Uchiha, then? Yet he had been ruthless enough to slaughter the entire Uchiha Clan.
Then was Second Pillar his greatest love? Not necessarily. Second Pillar had stayed with Orochimaru for three years, and Uchiha Itachi had been perfectly content to let him remain there. In the end, to prevent Second Pillar from seeking revenge against Konoha, he had even planned to use Kotoamatsukami to control Sasuke before he died.
Did he love himself? That was even more impossible. He had gone easy on Sasuke to an absurd degree in their battle, and when he fell ill, he had given up on treatment and calmly embraced death. That described him perfectly.
In Minagawa Uchiha's view, what Uchiha Itachi loved was the ideal he had arrived at himself.
He believed the Uchiha could not defeat Konoha, that they would bear the stigma of traitors, and that they would invite the covetous gaze of other Ninja Villages toward Konoha. So why launch a military coup d'état? It would only hurt others without benefiting themselves. Better to wipe them out entirely. As long as the Uchiha Clan was destroyed, Konoha would suffer no losses, the Uchiha would not bear a bad name, and the other Ninja Villages would find no opportunity to attack Konoha. What was that? It was the perfect answer that avoided all three disadvantages!
Thus, Uchiha Itachi had decided to personally put an end to the Uchiha. What a genius!
So, to deal with Uchiha Itachi, he either had to kill him outright or change his way of thinking and turn him into an ally.
As long as he made Itachi realize that the other two sides were merely paper tigers, that the combined strength of all Konoha could not stand against the Uchiha's three pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan, and gave a proud man like him a way to back down, he would inevitably return to the Uchiha camp.
After analyzing the relationships among the various forces and making his corresponding plans, Minagawa Uchiha raised his head to look toward the Hokage Building. A mocking smile appeared at the corner of his lips, and then his figure vanished from the window in an instant.
When Minagawa Uchiha appeared again, he had changed into a Black Cloak with Red Clouds and wore an Orange One-Eyed Spiral Mask. This attire was undoubtedly the guise Obito Uchiha used when pretending to be Uchiha Madara. Minagawa Uchiha intended to use Obito Uchiha's identity to infiltrate the Root Base.
After waiting a short while, it became time for the Root Ninja to change shifts. Minagawa Uchiha immediately turned intangible and followed the Root Ninja closely. Before long, the Root member led Minagawa Uchiha to the secluded entrance of the Root Base.
The Root Ninja formed several hand seals, and the disguised entrance before them revealed itself. After confirming that this was indeed the Root Base, Minagawa Uchiha did not linger. He passed directly through the guide's body and entered the Root Base.
"This place really is dark and oppressive. It truly deserves to be called Root. No wonder that old dog Shimura Danzō has such a gloomy, extreme personality. If any normal person stayed in this environment for long enough, his personality would gradually become gloomy and extreme too."
Walking through the dim underground passage, which was only wide enough for two people to walk side by side, Minagawa Uchiha surveyed his surroundings while silently criticizing them. Yet paired with his current outfit, he seemed somewhat smug.
Minagawa Uchiha was uniquely suited to impersonating Obito Uchiha. He possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan, and the pattern of his Mangekyō Sharingan was very similar to Obito Uchiha's. In such a dim environment, unless someone inspected him carefully from close range, there was a high chance he could fool them.
As for Obito Uchiha's signature ability, Intangibility, Minagawa Uchiha could perfectly replicate it through Materialization to Void. With such a flawless disguise, anything Minagawa Uchiha did in Root could be pinned on the identity of Uchiha Madara.
Thus, Minagawa Uchiha activated the intangible state of Materialization to Void. Like Obito Uchiha, he ignored every trap, seal, and barrier, strolling through the Root Base as casually as if he were wandering through his own backyard.
It had to be said that although the Root Base was built underground, it was still enormous. Minagawa Uchiha followed the passage downward for around five minutes before reaching a vast area resembling a great hall. Bridges leading in different directions crisscrossed the hall, all connected to a central point. It looked like the central hub of the entire Root Base.
The dome above the hall was extremely high, so there had to be more than one exit besides the entrance he had used. Below, it was pitch-black, like a bottomless abyss. Such a massive construction showed just how great Shimura Danzō's authority in Konoha was.
Faced with these maze-like passages extending in every direction, Minagawa Uchiha did not panic. He headed straight into the passage opposite him. Now that he had fused with White Zetsu Cells, both his chakra reserves and chakra recovery speed were enough to sustain Intangibility for a long time.
Moreover, Minagawa Uchiha had not chosen this passage at random. He remembered that in the Original Work, when Shimura Danzō summoned Sai, he had emerged from this direction. Danzo presumably kept his important things closer to himself. A place like this was the destination of Minagawa Uchiha's infiltration of the Root Base.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. As expected of that old dog Danzo. He kept talking about doing everything for Konoha, yet behind the scenes he carried out these human experiments that harmed others for his own gain. Look at these test subjects. Heh, it seems Danzo was very unwilling to let the Wood Style ninja Hashirama, who should have belonged to him, be snatched away by the Third Hokage."
"There don't seem to be any intact Hashirama Cells stored here. This should be a place for Root to observe its test subjects. But since the test subjects are here, the Hashirama Cells should be nearby as well."
Minagawa Uchiha then began carefully searching every room along the passage. Before long, he discovered an iron door covered in Fuinjutsu formulas. Excitement immediately rose in his heart. Without hesitation, he ignored the seals on the door and passed directly through the iron door into the room.
But to his disappointment, the room contained neatly arranged shelves piled with scrolls of all sizes. There were no Hashirama Cells that Minagawa Uchiha had hoped to find.
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