"Zong Xian, you..."
Shisui pointed at Sōken, opening his mouth several times, but not knowing what to say.
His mind was a tangled mess. The Nine-Tails Jinchuriki had appeared in Sōken's home, and the shock of it was simply too much to process. This was the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, for crying out loud! Konoha's one and only weapon of war, and the Third and the other elders' precious little secret!
What kind of trouble would this bring down on the clan? How would the village react?...
There were so many questions, and he couldn't sort through any of them. His brain was about to shut down.
"Don't point at me. I told you, I'm not scheming anything. The one scheming is the Third. Shisui, you're Anbu. Don't you know how many Anbu are guarding the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki? If the Third hadn't given his approval, do you really think Toka could've brought the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki here?"
"It was an accident. I doubt anyone expected Toka to bring the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki here." Sōken spoke slowly. "The Third will almost certainly take advantage of the situation. He'll use this chance to keep suppressing our clan. After all, opportunities this perfectly justified don't come around often."
"And you? What are you planning to do?"
Shisui took a deep breath, regaining his composure. "What do you intend to accomplish by using the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki?"
Sōken didn't answer.
The reason was simple—
Dinner was ready. It was time to eat.
"Toka, dinner's ready!" Sōken stood in the corridor beside the veranda and called out at the top of his lungs. Barely ten seconds later, Toka and Naruto came rushing out of the bamboo grove one after the other. But when Naruto saw Sōken standing in the corridor, he clearly grew wary and slowed his steps.
Why does he seem a little afraid of me? Is my smile not friendly enough?
Sōken stroked his chin, reflecting on himself.
Still, he didn't forget to grab his little sister by the head and spin her around like a top. "Toka, just look at how filthy you are! Did you go wrestling with some toads?"
"Hey! You're the one who went wrestling with toads!"
Furious, Toka kicked at Sōken's shin.
The siblings tussled back and forth in the corridor, making a racket as their feet pounded against the floorboards.
Then,
they were punished.
Uchiha Saki gave her son, who had none of the dignity of an older brother, a hard smack on the back. As for her daughter, who had none of a well-behaved young lady's manners... Saki grabbed her by the ear and hauled her into the kitchen for a thorough scolding. Toka's cries sounded painfully fake, but they scared Naruto half to death. He stood beneath the corridor, trembling.
The noisy family finally settled down at ten past seven.
After washing their hands, the siblings sat obediently at the dining table, one on the left and one on the right, facing each other. Shisui stayed as well, seated beside Sōken. Naruto hadn't left either; he sat beside Toka, directly across from Shisui.
"Dad, tonight's dinner is amazing!"
Toka's eyes lit up as she looked at the huge plate piled high with fried chicken. Beside her, Naruto quietly swallowed. Kids loved fried food like this... Well, adults did too, for that matter.
"If you like it, eat as much as you want. I made plenty tonight, and there's more if it isn't enough!"
Uchiha Masashi said with a warm smile.
His face looked eighty percent like Sōken's. No, that wasn't quite right—Sōken looked a lot like his father. He had inherited the Uchiha Clan's sharp features, black hair, and dark eyes. Toka, being a girl, looked more like her mother, Uchiha Saki. She had black hair and dark eyes too, though, and hadn't inherited her mother's brown eyes.
"Naruto, help yourself! Dad's fried chicken is the best!"
Toka cheerfully welcomed her first—and, for now, only—little underling.
Life at the Ninja Academy wasn't quite what she had first imagined.
Her dream of recruiting a group of underlings at school and ruling the Ninja Academy had taken a serious hit. Apart from Naruto, she hadn't managed to recruit a single other underling. For some reason, whenever people saw her and Naruto, they kept their distance. Only Sasuke, who already knew her, wasn't afraid.
But she didn't think much of that clingy pest who went around saying "Big Brother" every other word. Brothers were the worst. And for some reason, all the girls in class were always crowding around Sasuke, chattering away like a bunch of hens in a coop.
At least Naruto hadn't avoided her like the other students.
So,
Miss Toka had invited Naruto over to her house.
She had even shared her favorite fried chicken with him.
"...Thank you!"
Naruto hunched his shoulders and cautiously picked up his chopsticks. He glanced at Sōken across the table, making Sōken feel rather put out. Was he really that scary? Why was Naruto so afraid of him? Could this be the so-called idiot's intuition? Had he sensed Sōken's intention to use him?
"Delicious!"
The taste of the fried chicken amazed Naruto, and a light seemed to shine in his beautiful sapphire-blue eyes.
"Dad's fried chicken is Konoha's Best."
Toka proudly lifted her chin.
Uchiha Masashi was delighted too. He wasn't a ninja, so he knew nothing about certain matters concerning the family. And, because of his work as a novelist, he had no idea that the yellow-haired, blue-eyed child in front of him was the Demon Fox of the village. He simply thought Naruto was a friend his daughter had made at the Ninja Academy.
Dinner was lively.
Mainly because the siblings, Sōken and Toka, wouldn't stop fooling around.
Even after their mother had scolded them, they kept horsing around. Their chopsticks clashed above the table, while their legs kicked and dodged beneath it.
After dinner,
Sōken and Shisui went to sit in the corridor beside the veranda, slowly digesting their meal. Looking up from there, they could see stars scattered across the night sky.
"Did you see it?"
"See what?"
Shisui looked at the countless stars, utterly confused.
"I didn't mean the stars." Sōken rolled his eyes. "I mean the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki. That kid... didn't you notice anything strange about him?"
"...No."
Shisui thought it over carefully, but nothing seemed wrong.
"That kid... has had a rough life. He's the same age as Toka, but a head shorter. It was just fried chicken, yet he ate like he'd never had it before... Don't you think our Nine-Tails Jinchuriki has had it a bit too hard?"
"What are you trying to say?"
Shisui furrowed his brow.
"Don't tell me you don't know who that kid is." Sōken let out a cold laugh. "He's the Fourth Hokage's orphan. You could even call him the Third's great-grandson. As a hero's child, he hasn't received a life of comfort; instead, he's become the Demon Fox whom the villagers fear like the plague. He's grown up without ever getting to eat anything decent, and despite inheriting the Uzumaki bloodline, he's much shorter than the other kids his age... Don't you think the Third has a heart of stone?"
This time, Sōken didn't even bother beating around the bush. He openly criticized the Third right in front of Shisui.
Shisui fell silent.
This matter—
He... had nothing to say.
There were things he knew about, but he had instinctively chosen to avoid them, to turn a blind eye. Like the other clever people in the village who knew the truth, he had pretended not to notice. Uzumaki Naruto's identity was no secret to many people. Did he really think all those people who knew the Fourth Hokage were blind?
Of course not.
They had simply chosen to pretend they were.
Perhaps some of them privately criticized the Third's methods, but their complaints never went beyond that. No one dared openly voice any objections.
"If even the hero's child has fallen to such a state, how can you expect the Third to truly accept the Uchiha?" Sōken pressed his advantage and drove the point home.
"Sōken, the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki's situation... is different. They're two separate matters. You can't lump them together..." Shisui's rebuttal was so weak and feeble that he truly didn't know how to defend the Third anymore.
"What's different? The Nine-Tails Jinchuriki just happens to be incredibly useful. The Third is probably playing hard to get, trying to make himself the only one who came to that kid's aid when he was in need. That way, he can get the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki under his control."
The more Sōken spoke, the more fired up he became, smearing the Third as much as he could.
And perhaps it wasn't even a smear.
Wasn't the discrimination and cold treatment the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki had endured until now the best proof?
"Shisui, think it through. Maybe you respect that Shinobi Hero, but to be honest, I can't stand the old man. If only the one who'd died back then had been the Third, instead of the Fourth!" Sōken's quiet sigh fell like a stone into a mirror-still lake, disturbing Shisui's peace of mind.
"Sōken, you really can talk..."
Shisui's smile was bitter.
He knew Sōken's words had to include some falsehoods. But even after stripping away the slander, the facts that remained were enough to make him feel... a little disheartened.
That was right!
If even the Fourth Hokage's orphan had such a hard life, how could the Third truly be willing to accept the Uchiha?
"It's not that I can talk. It's that the Third and the others really do these things. If they hadn't done any of this, then what good would it do if I talked until I was blue in the face? Shisui, are you really the kind of person who'd let a few words from someone else shake your resolve? Deep down, you already know all this. You just can't see any other hope, so you're the one who's been pretending not to understand all along."
Looking at Shisui's pale face, Sōken suddenly felt a little impressed with himself. Had he somehow mastered the Shinobi World's most powerful Talk no Jutsu without even realizing it?
Still,
these really were Sōken's honest feelings.
"I'm not forcing you to make a decision right now. You've got the next couple of days to look around and get a sense of what the clan members think. After that... give me your answer. For now, I'm going to help take the kid home."
Sōken stood up.
Naruto couldn't possibly spend the night at the Uchiha Clan Compound. If they really kept him there... the Third would probably come storming over with the village leadership in the middle of the night.
"I'll go with you..."
"No need. My foolish little sister caused this trouble, so I should be the one to clean it up. Besides, we're just taking a kid home. Are you worried something's going to happen? It's not like they'd send someone to kill me over this."
"How could that happen?"
Shisui laughed in spite of himself. The conflict between the village and the clan could never escalate to the point of open warfare.
At least, that was what he thought.
Before you continue