Beneath the clear sky, only blue stretched above the training ground.
The gale softened, gently brushing Qing Xuan's cheek. He stared at the man laughing so freely before him and realized he was starting to find him hard to read.
After laughing for a long while, Uncle Snake seemed to have finally cast off some heavy shackle. Beneath the blue sky and white clouds, he basked in the sunlight to his heart's content.
"Konoha is gradually beginning to rot. The once-spirited Third is growing old, and you still need a lot of time to mature. Konoha has become far too boring..."
He turned his face toward the sunlight and closed his eyes, as though lamenting something. "In a village slowly giving off the stench of decay, even the air has stopped flowing. The suffocating feeling has even made the wind feel constrained."
That poetic monologue left Qing Xuan with a head full of questions. Before he could ask anything, he saw Uncle Snake look at him, his eyes full of amusement in the sunlight. "I'm leaving, Qing Xuan."
Leaving? Wasn't he staying for lunch?
They'd been chatting just fine a moment ago. Why was he suddenly leaving?
"I'm leaving Konoha."
Qing Xuan froze, looking like a complete fool. "When?"
Uncle Snake smiled and turned around. "Right now."
Watching his back, Qing Xuan sensed an inexplicable carefree spirit.
Like the unrestrained wind above the training ground, this man made the word "defection" sound so refined and elegant.
"Won't you think it over?"
Qing Xuan called after him. Uncle Snake walked slowly, and though they were close, he gave no response.
This wasn't a topic that interested him.
The other man's bizarre train of thought and utterly unpredictable moves left Qing Xuan's scalp tingling.
First, he'd suddenly appeared and startled him, then spouted nonsense, and now he was defecting without warning. His reckless way of doing things was outrageously willful!
"Can I ask one last question?"
Uncle Snake finally stopped and turned his head, smiling.
"You have one chance."
Qing Xuan looked troubled. "Now I want to ask two things. It's hard to choose."
Uncle Snake's smile was remarkably generous. "Then I'll give you two chances."
What a flexible limit!
"How did you figure out I wasn't that person?"
Qing Xuan didn't waste time. He asked outright.
Uncle Snake seemed to have been waiting for him to ask. "So you don't call him Father anymore? And here Liu Yun is always saying you're the child he's loved most in his life!"
"Then why didn't you say so earlier?"
"Would that have changed how you feel about him?"
"You can't understand how much I love him."
"Is that so?"
Uncle Snake smiled, his snake-like gaze gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight.
"You're a lot like him, even in your personality. That's why I mistook you for him at first."
As he spoke, even his teasing smile softened. "But although Liu Yun has a shameless personality, he's still not as outrageous as you."
"You mean I've surpassed my predecessor?"
Qing Xuan was delighted to receive praise from Uncle Snake, one of the Legendary Sannin.
Uncle Snake narrowed his eyes and looked at him, then nodded and answered seriously. "I've always been a good judge of character. You're not only more shameless than him, you've got even less dignity."
Why was he insulting him now?
Since the man was leaving, Qing Xuan decided not to hold it against him. "Since you think so highly of me, could you give me a present before you go?"
Uncle Snake agreed without hesitation. "What do you want?"
Qing Xuan shook his head, then asked a completely unrelated question. "Do you care about your reputation in the village?"
When the other man shook his head, Qing Xuan immediately brightened. "Then could you give me your reputation? You're defecting anyway, so you won't need it anymore."
Uncle Snake grew interested. Looking at the audacious little fellow before him, he suddenly felt an urge to stay. But he knew it wasn't the right time, so he smiled and said, "Take it, then!"
"Thank you so much!"
Qing Xuan cheered as if he'd just obtained some heaven-defying forbidden technique, then hurried toward the training ground exit, moving even faster than Orochimaru.
"In that case, I won't keep you for lunch. Before they realize what's happening, you'd better hurry up and run, Uncle!"
Watching the little rascal hurry off, the amusement in Orochimaru's eyes didn't fade in the slightest.
"Liu Yun, Liu Yun... If you're the only unrestrained wind in this decaying place, then your son is a rampaging tornado—free as he pleases, yet utterly mad..."
The Uchiha Compound, at the edge of the village.
Inside and outside the towering walls, Uchiha Clan members with activated Sharingan kept watch, alert and vigilant. The entire compound was on lockdown, making the Anbu monitoring the clan from the surrounding trees frown deeply.
It all began when the Uchiha Clan's Young Clan Head came running back.
No one knew what he'd said. In any case, amid the ensuing chaos, a large number of Uchiha elites poured out of the compound and quickly took over all its visible and hidden guard posts. There were even two guards at the gate, both with their Three Tomoe Sharingan activated.
With security this tight, even Anbu elites couldn't sneak inside.
"What's going on?"
Itachi had just completed a mission to find a lovesick ninja cat. When he returned, he ran into this scene. Being scrutinized by Three Tomoe Sharingan made him deeply uncomfortable, and the guarded attitude made both his teammates extremely unhappy.
"What's this supposed to be?!"
Tenma had already had a poor impression of the Uchiha Clan. Now he directly lashed out.
"Is this how the Uchiha treat people? They're obviously treating us like enemies!"
As a jonin, Yuki sensed that something was wrong. He studied the Uchiha's security, so different from usual, then frowned deeply and raised a hand to stop Tenma from saying more.
"Something's not right."
He spoke while looking toward the two Uchiha jonin at the gate. For some reason, a deep sense of foreboding rose in his heart.
"Seems we picked a bad day to come..."
They'd only come to visit Itachi's younger brother at Kokoro's suggestion after completing their mission, but they hadn't expected to run into this.
"Is Itachi back?"
Just then, the gate opened, and a handsome Uchiha boy in a Green Vest stepped out. He seemed to have been waiting there for Itachi to return.
"Brother Shisui."
Itachi answered him.
Shisui wore a faint smile, but his eyes and brows betrayed a trace of worry and solemnity.
His gaze shifted to Itachi's teammates, as if he'd already guessed what was going on.
"Sorry, everyone."
An apologetic look appeared on his smiling face.
"The Uchiha Clan isn't receiving visitors today."
"How can this be?"
Watching Shisui lead Itachi inside, Kokoro looked reluctant and complained in a low voice.
"We walked all this way..."
"All right, don't say any more, Kokoro."
Yuki patted her shoulder. When she looked up, she saw that the usually warm, smiling man wore an expression of gravity she'd never seen before.
In a low voice, he said, "Looks like something big is about to happen in the village..."
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