In July, amid the cicadas of midsummer, the Uchiha clan welcomed a new life.
Sasuke Uchiha was born.
There was no terrifying night of the Nine-Tails attacking the village, nor was there any slaughter beneath a blood moon.
It was merely an ordinary summer day. Outside the delivery room, Fugaku held his swaddled second son and looked at that wrinkled little face. The last trace of hesitation in his heart regarding Uchiha glory finally vanished completely.
For this child, and for Itachi, the Uchiha had to survive—and they had to live better.
The Uchiha could not work as security guards forever! In the new era, security personnel who only knew how to fight no longer had a place.
They had to change!
With a single order from Clan Head Fugaku, along with a special approval channel from the Fourth Hokage, a vigorous Uchiha unemployment-and-reemployment movement quietly unfolded in Konoha.
The Military Police Force's staffing was voluntarily cut by two-thirds. Most of the remaining third became community officers handling neighborhood disputes.
And the Uchiha clansmen who took off their dark blue uniforms did not launch a rebellion as the villagers had feared. Instead, they flooded into factories and fields in groups.
That was right—into factories and down to the countryside.
One evening a month later.
Having just finished his classes at the Ninja Academy, Itachi Uchiha walked along the commercial street with his schoolbag on his back.
On a street corner, a new "Uchiha Select Agricultural Products Direct Store" had opened.
It was said to have been opened by Uchiha students who had gone through the programming system established by the Fourth Hokage before entering the agricultural sector. Their seeds and fertilizer were both cheaper and more effective than anyone else's.
Itachi stopped and watched quietly from a distance.
The person