The Show Begins (Seeking Follows and Recommendations)

Uchiha Shisui loved the village more than anyone, and he loved the Uchiha clan more than any other clansman.

Only a true and burning "love" can serve as the catalyst for awakening the Mangekyō.

And when two equally important loves fall into an irreconcilable conflict, reaching the point of drawing blades against one another, the result is endless agony.

According to the original flow of events, Shisui would have fallen into an endless cycle of mental attrition due to the conflict between the village and his clan, eventually throwing himself into the river after his final efforts failed.

But now, The data and theories presented by Uchiha Chen had decoupled the village from its high-level leadership, redefining the Hokage—who once symbolized the very concept of Konoha—as "the patriarch of the Sarutobi clan, a leader who is neither strong enough nor qualified."

When virtue does not match the position, disaster is inevitable.

With the village, which once stood on equal footing with the clan, now being equated to Sarutobi Hiruzen and the Sarutobi clan, the scales in Shisui's heart immediately lost their balance.

Who are the Sarutobi clan, anyway? I'm really not that familiar with them.

Night fell, and the cold wind of late autumn howled, bringing a bone-chilling frost. Uchiha Chen and Shisui ended their conversation and returned to the clan grounds along the somewhat deserted road.

Along the way, Shisui remained silent with a furrowed brow, lost in thought.

"Shisui!"

At a fork in the road within the clan grounds, Uchiha Chen stopped and reached into his robes, intending to pull out the evidence of the Sarutobi clan's crimes he had collected to add more fuel to the fire for the hesitant Shisui.

"Huh?"

A distracted Shisui responded instinctively, immediately forming hand seals to set up a sound-dampening barrier before speaking to Uchiha Chen with a grave expression:

"Brother Chen, we cannot talk about assassinating the old ghost Sarutobi within the clan!

My ocular jutsu, Kotoamatsukami, is very special. If I seize the right moment, I might be able to resolve him quite easily, avoiding bloodshed between the village and the clan!

First, I need to create an opportunity where I am alone with Sarutobi Hiruzen."

Wait, what is all this?

What did I miss? How did we fast-forward to assassinating the Third Hokage?

Uchiha Chen stared at Shisui, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"Shisui, you've been thinking about this the whole way here—don't tell me you were thinking about how to assassinate the Hokage?"

"Not exactly, it was half and half. The other half of the time I was thinking about the shifting relationship between the Hokage faction and the clan."

Shisui was quite candid, not feeling in the slightest that his statement was "treasonous":

"Brother Chen, you are right. The sin lies with the old ghost Sarutobi!

The First Hokage reconciled with the Uchiha to establish Konoha, the Second Hokage took my grandfather as a disciple, and the Fourth Hokage even took Obito as a disciple.

Only the Third Hokage has always been full of discrimination and prejudice against the Uchiha.

Now that the Third Hokage has restored his rule, he is a scourge to both the village and the clan! Only by replacing him with a Fifth Hokage who does not discriminate against the Uchiha will there be hope for the future."

Watching Shisui, who was clearly planning to make Sarutobi Hiruzen "open his mind" in every sense of the word, Uchiha Chen suddenly felt the autumn wind was chillingly cold, leaving his hands and feet icy.

The goat of Uchiha studies, the Uchiha slaughtering master Senju Tobirama, once said:

When an Uchiha understands love and loses it, their brain secretes a special type of Chakra, which promotes the evolution of the Sharingan.

And this Chakra makes the Uchiha love more deeply and hate more purely!

The love and hate of ordinary people, no matter how intense, have thresholds and time limits, but the Uchiha are different.

The more powerful an Uchiha's eye power, the more extreme their emotions and the more stubborn their thinking.

Likewise, once they undergo a change, it is a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree reversal, racing from one extreme to the other; there is no such thing as moderation.

"Shisui, don't be so extreme!

The situation hasn't reached that point yet, really!"

Uchiha Chen smacked his lips, forced to turn around and dissuade Shisui:

"If you do this and get caught, the village and the Uchiha will completely break apart, leaving no room for maneuver.

Everything I said before meant that we must seek unity through struggle, for only then will unity survive; if we seek unity through concession, unity will perish!

It does not mean taking the risk of assassinating someone at the cost of the village being destroyed and the clan being wiped out!"

"I know, I won't do anything I'm not sure about!" Shisui changed the subject, pointing to the documents in Uchiha Chen's robes and asking, "What is that? Is it for me to see?"

Having said that, Shisui very naturally took the stack of evidence regarding the Sarutobi clan's crimes from the hands of the somewhat stiff Uchiha Chen.

"Shisui," Uchiha Chen started, but stopped himself.

The night was deep now, but by the dim moonlight, Uchiha Shisui's Sharingan could still clearly read the tiny characters listed on the white sheets of paper.

How could a clan of thousands not have a few scoundrels? Did you think Konoha was heaven?

Seizing wives, encroaching on farmland, corruption and bribery.

These were undoubtedly true, but as a "hit piece" specifically prepared by Uchiha Chen, it mostly selected incidents where the perpetrators had not received severe punishment.

This information completely shattered Shisui's filter regarding Sarutobi Hiruzen as Hokage.

"Under the leadership of such vermin, how could Konoha not go from bad to worse?"

"Absurd, simply absurd!"

Uchiha Shisui let out one final, long sigh, but as he turned, he offered Uchiha Chen his usual bright and sunny smile:

"Don't worry, Big Brother Chen, I won't do anything reckless! I trust you; I'll listen to whatever you say from here on out."

"Absurd, simply absurd!"

At the first jonin meeting held by Konoha after the Night of the Nine-Tails, the atmosphere was tenser than ever before.

At the long table, Shimura Danzō, who had just shouted out, was furious, his hands gripping the table so tightly that he gouged long claw marks into the Iron Wood surface, while both Hokage advisors also wore faces of rage.

Among the Konoha F4, the only one who could barely maintain his composure was Sarutobi Hiruzen, who was puffing desperately on his pipe.

"Uchiha Fugaku, how dare you?"

Shimura Danzō's eyes were practically spitting fire, his words coming out one by one, each syllable accompanied by a low, resonant rumble from his chest, showing he had reached the peak of his fury:

"How dare you slander a former Hokage? Are you trying to start a rebellion?"

Uchiha Fugaku, who usually acted as timid as a mouse whenever he saw Shimura Danzō, faced the interrogation with an indifferent reply:

"Watch your tongue, Assistant to the Hokage! I am merely expressing a suspicion.

I suspect that after Madara died, some high-ranking official with a penchant for researching forbidden techniques and human experimentation stole his corpse and Sharingan, ultimately leading to the Nine-Tails Incident a few days ago. I have no intention of accusing the Second."

Researching forbidden techniques, conducting human experimentation, high-ranking official—was there any difference between that and naming him directly?

Did he need to add the white hair and red eyes to make it complete?

Shimura Danzō's expression darkened further.

He accepted, and even took pride in, the conspiracies, acting as a troublemaker in the Shinobi World, and suppressing the Uchiha.

However, if there was one pure land, one sliver of moonlight left in the depths of his filthy heart, it was his mentor and idol, Senju Tobirama!

He would never allow these evil Uchiha brats to slander his teacher; even if it were true, it had to be false!

Shimura Danzō, his face flushed a deep, purplish red, slammed his hand on the table and stood up, drawing the long sword from his waist:

"Uchiha Fugaku, how dare you insult Teacher Tobirama like this? Do you think I've grown old and can no longer lift my blade?"