Orochimaru

Yue waved a hand, signaling Hikari to be patient.

He had expected Fugaku to refuse.

If Fugaku Uchiha had been the kind of man who could make bold, decisive choices, the Uchiha Clan wouldn't have met the same fate as in the original story.

The man's greatest weakness was his indecisiveness. He wanted his clan to prosper, yet couldn't bring himself to sever its ties with the village. In the end, he failed on both fronts.

"Sit down, Fugaku."

Yue's voice remained calm.

"I'm not asking you to decide right now, and I don't expect you to pack your bags and come with me tonight."

Fugaku stiffly sat back down, his expression shifting uncertainly.

"I'm just leaving you—and the Uchiha Clan—a way out."

Yue pointed to the metal token.

"On the Night of the Nine-Tails, a month from now, you can do as you see fit: prove your loyalty to the village and try to turn things around. But if... and I mean if, you find that things really are as I said—that the Uchiha have been driven to the edge of a cliff, forced into a corner of the village to barely scrape by..."

Yue's gaze grew unfathomably deep.

"Remember, there's still a door open for you here, and you have a token that can contact me."

"Consider this token insurance I managed to get for you, out of respect for our shared Uchiha blood and for someone we both once knew, who has since passed away."

Fugaku stared intently at the metal token.

He wanted to refuse it and declare his loyalty to Konoha, but... there was nothing wrong with keeping a way out.

After a long while, he reached out with a trembling hand, closed his fingers around the token, and tucked it into the pocket closest to his chest.

He hadn't agreed to migrate, but neither had he refused this "insurance."

"I'll stop the Night of the Nine-Tails... no matter what."

Fugaku took a deep breath, seeming to regain some of his clan leader's dignity. "If that Masked Man really shows up, I'll personally clean house."

"Suit yourself. If you dare to defy the orders from above, all the better."

Yue shrugged indifferently and stood up.

He had accomplished what he came for.

He had never expected to convince the entire Uchiha Clan to migrate in one go.

Every one of these red-eyed fools was unbearably arrogant. They wouldn't lower their noble heads until reality gave them a brutal beating.

But the seed had been planted. When the storm came, that metal token would become the Uchiha's only lifeline.

By then, what he'd gained wouldn't be a bunch of arrogant "Konoha nobles," but a desperate "revenge army" with nowhere else to turn but Rōran.

"Then, we'll be going."

Yue turned and headed outside, with Hikari following close behind.

At the doorway, Yue suddenly stopped. With his back to Fugaku, he said:

"Oh, and since little Sasuke is so cute, I'll leave you with one last piece of advice."

"On the Night of the Nine-Tails, no matter what happens or what orders Danzo gives... don't send the Uchiha's elite to their deaths. The waters that night will run far deeper than you can imagine, and there'll be more than two sides involved."

"And as for that boy, Itachi, don't fill his head with too much of that nebulous 'Will of Fire.' Sometimes, a clan and a village aren't simply a choice between right and wrong."

With that, the two vanished from the courtyard, leaving behind a few windblown leaves.

Fugaku sat alone in the empty Japanese-style room, the cold metal token against his chest seeming to grow scalding hot.

He turned to look out the window. The sun shone brightly, and all seemed peaceful.

Yet he felt a bone-deep chill slowly seeping up from the depths beneath Konoha.

"The Nine-Tails... the Masked Man... Rōran..."

Fugaku murmured, a flicker of confusion and inner conflict in his eyes.

After a long while, he sighed and closed his eyes.

"The future of the Uchiha... where does it truly lie?"

After leaving the Uchiha Clan Compound, Hikari tugged at Yue's sleeve.

"Yue, that clan leader doesn't seem very bright."

The young woman delivered a particularly blunt assessment. "He kept hesitating, like those small clan leaders during the Warring States period who were surrounded but still couldn't decide whether to surrender or break through. They usually ended up dying horribly."

"Yeah. Indecision is a major flaw."

Yue walked along the bustling street, seemingly unaffected. "But it's precisely because he can't make up his mind that we have a chance to take over that enormous clan legacy."

"If he doesn't lose all hope, he'll never willingly come to Rōran."

"Where are we going next?" Hikari asked.

"To meet someone who's actually smart."

Yue looked toward a gloomy building in the distance. It was Konoha's Root Base, and the site of Orochimaru's former secret laboratory.

"Since we've come to Konoha, we should bring back some souvenirs. Maybe Hashirama Senju's cells, or some of the forbidden jutsu records Orochimaru left behind."

"That snake-loving creep may be a pervert, but his research is priceless."

Several days later.

Deep beneath Konoha, in the labyrinthine sewer system.

The place was dark and damp, and the air reeked of a sickening mixture of formalin and rotting flesh.

Water trickled down moss-covered stone walls, dripping steadily through the deathly silent passage.

"Disgusting."

Uchiha Hikari frowned and covered her nose with one hand. A little mud had splattered onto her pretty red-and-white shoes, much to her dismay.

"This place smells worse than the trenches piled with corpses during the Warring States period. Those smelled of death, but this... this is just nauseating."

Hikari rested her fingers on her Short Blade. Her Mangekyō Sharingan was still inactive, but her keen instincts told her that countless cold eyes were lurking in the darkness.

"Bear with it, Hikari."

Uchiha Yue walked ahead, calmly stepping over a pool of some unknown, viscous liquid.

"Scientific progress always comes with stench and sacrifice. The man we're going to meet is the closest thing the Ninja World has to a madman pursuing the 'truth.'"

The two stopped in front of what looked like a dead end.

Yue didn't form Hand Seals or search for a hidden mechanism.

He merely raised his right hand and lightly tapped the air with his index finger.

"Yin Style: Spirit Piercing."

A highly concentrated surge of Yin Release Chakra pierced the rock wall in front of them, striking the sensory hub hidden beyond the Barrier.

"Rumble..."

The stone door disguised as a rock wall slowly slid open, revealing a long, dim corridor leading deeper underground.

The candles lining both sides of the corridor flared to life at once. Their eerie green glow cast the pair's shadows long and twisted.

"Heh heh heh..."

A hoarse, icy laugh, like a snake hissing, came from the end of the corridor.

"What rare guests. S-rank rogue ninja Uchiha Yue, and the little girl in red who caused such a commotion in the Land of Wind..."

A pale figure slowly emerged from the shadows.

He had long black hair, and his golden, vertically slit pupils glinted with a chilling light. Purple eye shadow made him look both eerie and dangerous.

Orochimaru.

He hadn't defected yet. Though the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi had already noticed signs of his activities, he still wore the mantle of one of Konoha's Sannin while conducting his secret experiments into immortality beneath the village.

"You didn't hide away like a rat. Instead, you came straight to my laboratory."