I still remembered the downpour from three days ago.
Today, I suddenly received news that left me utterly stunned.
Shisui Uchiha had died! Three days ago, no less!
It had all happened so suddenly.
That old man Setsuna was the one who had told me.
The entire Uchiha Clan had been in an uproar lately.
Setsuna had come to visit during this time, hoping I would side with the clan.
But Setsuna was surprised to discover that I knew nothing about any of it.
It made sense. Every Uchiha was focused on what had happened to Shisui. Not many people would spare a thought for an outsider like me.
Chuanhe Residence was one of the Uchiha Clan's most heavily guarded places. Almost no one came by uninvited.
Only Setsuna, who couldn't forget Hui, had decided to pay me a visit.
Fugaku seemed to have fallen silent, too. He was refusing to see anyone.
He was also letting the clan members discuss everything they wanted at clan meetings.
I only knew how to seal away other people's memories. I had no way to read them.
If I really had that ability, I would have gone to Itachi right then to get the answers I wanted.
Unfortunately, Itachi had vanished without a trace.
Everything seemed normal with Hui. Sasuke was also wondering where his older brother had gone these past few days.
The two clever boys had both noticed that something was wrong within the clan.
Hui knew more than Sasuke. Faced with the situation, he understood that the village and the clan were about to go to war.
At that moment, my mind was full of questions.
But no matter how many questions I had, there was one problem I had to face now: it seemed they were about to make their move.
I went to Shisui Uchiha's memorial tomb. Countless flowers and kunai had been laid around it.
The ground was covered with messy footprints. Even now, plenty of Uchiha clan members were still coming to pay their respects.
I stood before the memorial tomb, lost in silence for a long time.
Why was this part the same, too?
The questions in my mind kept piling up, but as far as I could tell, Danzō was the most likely culprit.
The tangled mess of events had thrown all my plans into disarray.
All I had wanted was for Hui to spend his childhood in peace and happiness.
No matter how dark Konoha was, on the surface, it was still the best shinobi village in the world.
The biggest reason was that when Hui was born, I wasn't as strong as I was now.
Since we were in Konoha, Hui really could make the most and best friends here. Unlike me, with only Yuki left.
In my previous life, I hadn't been an orphan.
I'd had a happy, complete family.
You only learned to cherish some things after losing them.
I'd desperately researched ways to save Yuki, and Hui was part of the reason, too.
I was an orphan of war, and so was Yuki.
But I didn't want my child to become one, too.
Not a single person could be lost!
I wanted Hui to grow up safe and healthy.
I clearly remembered that Hui's first dream had simply been to protect me. Later, he told Sasuke in the study that his dream was to protect everyone.
I didn't want Hui to pursue either of those dreams.
Hui should pursue what he truly loved.
Whether it was poetry, painting, singing, dancing, business, or even becoming a daimyō, I would support him with all my might.
The one thing I didn't want was for Hui to become a shinobi. Yuki felt the same way about Hui.
Being a shinobi was a profession built on killing.
No matter how noble or glorious it seemed in the original story, killing was still killing.
From the very first day they took up the profession, shinobi were bound by a chain of hatred to everyone they killed.
That was what I'd learned from twenty-four years of experience.
I'd been through so much in those twenty-four years: repeated partings and deaths, the greatest joys and sorrows of life, the stagnation and breakthroughs of research, and more.
These were all things the person I'd been in my previous life could never have understood.
At first, I'd wanted to forbid Hui from enrolling in the Ninja Academy. Not going to the Academy didn't mean he couldn't make friends.
But when I saw the determination in Hui's eyes, my resolve softened.
Hui only wanted to protect me. His dream was so simple.
As his father, I couldn't refuse him.
So I replanned the future.
I drew up a detailed training program to make Hui stronger. If he followed my lessons, one step at a time, he could attain power on par with the Ōtsutsuki Clan's—and even surpass them.
No matter what, since Hui had chosen this path, he had to be able to endure everything the shinobi world could throw at him.
He only had to make it through these six years. Once the Fifth Hokage arrived, Konoha would put down new roots and begin to flourish again.
Even if Hui enrolled in the Ninja Academy, not a single student would die during those six years.
I, too, yearned for the friendships described in the original story.
So I gave Hui the chance to experience them.
I had few friends of my own. I hoped Hui would have more.
Things hadn't yet reached the point where I felt they were completely out of control.
I hadn't disrupted Hui's life. I just needed to make some new preparations.
I had to make sure everyone survived before the executioner brought down the blade.
Fugaku, why were you willing to accept the executioner's naive proposal, but not even listen to my opinion?
Even Setsuna was astonished that I hadn't heard the news.
Setsuna had wanted to question Fugaku about it all, too. Unfortunately, he hadn't succeeded.
After I got the news, I did try to find Fugaku.
No answer when I knocked.
I could sense that he was definitely inside.
If he didn't want to see me, I wasn't going to force myself on him.
I would keep my promise to Yuki in my own way.
Yuki was about to wake up. If she did, only to find the entire clan gone, I couldn't imagine how much she would suffer.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi, Shimura Danzō, Mitokado Homura, Utatane Koharu, Obito Uchiha—you'd better wait a little longer before making your move. That way, you'll 'live' a little longer."
I whispered each name in front of Shisui's grave.
If I went and killed Danzō right now, from my perspective, Konoha and the Uchiha Clan would go to war immediately.
Whether they were the people I knew in Konoha or the Uchiha clan members, I didn't want to see a single one of them die.
"Shisui, sleep a little longer. I'll take on the burden of bringing you back to life—as punishment for my own arrogance." I thought to myself.
I was genuinely puzzled about how Shisui could still have been ambushed by Danzō. The boost my medicine had given him had been enormous.
Right now, I really did have the power to destroy everything.
So what if I could wipe the entire Land of Fire off the map?
Besides, that ammunition could only be used once.
With the abilities I'd mastered, I could kill almost any shinobi at first sight. Even the known members of the Ōtsutsuki Clan would have little chance of escaping.
As long as no one figured out how to counter my abilities, I was the world's deadliest assassin.
Power was ultimately just power. It couldn't solve every problem between people.
Power could only make everyone afraid. Everything I'd done was to help the Uchiha Clan survive this period and truly become part of Konoha.
I'd experienced peace in my previous life. Compared with that, peace was what I longed for more in this world.
A world without war or famine, where the old could live out their days, the able-bodied could put their talents to use, and the young could grow up.
Everything about it seemed so beautiful, so impossibly far away in this world.
Even when Naruto and Sasuke eventually gained the power to destroy the world, they still couldn't bring about that kind of peace. They could only ensure that a few shinobi villages were mostly happy.
Looking back on my life, it seemed that everything had changed—and yet nothing had.
This world was like an albatross, deeply devoted to its home, flying along the same path again and again.
This time, I decided to break the cycle for good.
If we couldn't become part of the village, then we wouldn't.
I would take the Uchiha Clan away from Konoha and find a whole new way to live.
My heart was weary. After fulfilling my promise to Yuki, I wanted to leave the Uchiha Clan with my family and be done with it.
The world was vast. People didn't need to live in one of a handful of shinobi villages.
To be honest, I was curious about how those daimyō lived.
How different was their life from that of the emperors I knew about?
As for Hui, if he had a better suggestion, I'd be happy to take it. After all, I was still an outsider.
That was also the fundamental reason I'd never called Hui by his surname.
His surname was both the reason Hui could enjoy all of this—and the heaviest burden he carried.
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