"What Should We Do?"

In the days that followed, Naoki began recovering in the seaside cottage.

Aikawa Yumi came by once or twice every day to bring him food. Sometimes it was fish soup with rice balls, sometimes pickled vegetables with rice balls, and sometimes fresh seafood. One thing never changed, though: her unrestrained behavior.

Naoki was the one benefiting from this sort of thing, but still—was Uchiha Naoki the protagonist of some harem novel? Did every woman who saw him lose all self-control?

Impossible!

He was sure this woman had some other motive...

After resting for a while and recovering seventy or eighty percent of his strength, he decided it was time to lay his cards on the table with Aikawa Yumi.

Early one morning, Aikawa Yumi pushed open the door and saw Naoki standing by the window. She smiled. "You're up early today. Come eat."

As she spoke, she set the lunchbox on the wooden table and walked over to him.

As usual, she draped an arm over Naoki's shoulder and reached out to touch his face.

Before she could, Naoki clamped down hard on her hand.

"Well, well. Little brother finally couldn't resist making a move on big sister?" Aikawa Yumi didn't retreat. Instead, she leaned closer, her smiling eyes only inches away. "Let's see what you can do to me."

Naoki released her hand, then stepped back to put some distance between them.

"Yumi, I'll always remember how you looked after me all this time." His tone turned serious. "But I really should be going. Someone's waiting for me to return."

Aikawa Yumi raised an eyebrow, dropped her playful expression, and looked him up and down.

"Are you healed?"

"How much?"

"Seventy or eighty percent?"

Her rapid-fire questions left Naoki stunned.

No wonder she's been teasing me all this time. She was testing how well my injuries had healed... he thought. His suspicions only grew.

"Even if you were completely healed, that still wouldn't do." She shook her head, plopped down in a chair, and crossed her legs. "You were unconscious for over a month. Your body's badly weakened. If something happened to you on the way back, all my effort would've been for nothing."

Naoki fell silent for a long while before finally speaking.

"Then what do you want?"

"Stay for now and help me with something."

"What is it, and how long will it take?"

"You don't need to know what it is. As for how long..." A mischievous smile spread across Aikawa Yumi's face. "How about ten years?"

From the first time he'd met Aikawa Yumi, he'd been wary of the strikingly beautiful woman. The longer they spent together, the less he understood her, and his wariness had only increased.

Now, at last, he'd heard what she wanted. He felt a little relieved.

"No." Naoki shook his head. "Ten years is too long. I can do three things for you, then I'm leaving."

Aikawa Yumi shook her head. "I won't change my mind."

"In that case, forgive me for what I'm about to do..."

Naoki had no intention of wasting more time arguing with her. There was still plenty waiting for him in Konoha...

As Naoki activated his Sharingan, Aikawa Yumi smiled.

"Naoki... have you ever had a dream like that?"

As she spoke, she suddenly made a hand sign that filled Naoki with fear...

Naoki's breathing grew ragged. He remembered that dream he could hardly bear to think about.

The Eerie Buddha Statue, the red veil, and Hideko's slashed throat...

A wash of blood red appeared before his eyes again. His towering body swayed twice, then crashed to the ground with a thud.

"Has Naoki... still not been found?" Sakurai Hideko asked in Uchiha Yashiro's office.

After a long silence, Uchiha Yashiro spoke.

"I... will find him... I'll find him..."

Tears welled in her eyes. Sakurai Hideko bowed, her voice choked with sobs. "Thank you. Please let me know if you hear anything."

Then she hurried away.

Only after Sakurai Hideko had left did Uchiha Yashiro let out a long sigh.

His wife had died on the battlefield years ago, and he had no children. He'd treated Naoki, entrusted to him by a dying old friend, as his own son. But he'd never imagined that the young man, so eager to hone himself on the battlefield, would lose his life on the Southern Border. Even someone as accustomed to death as he was couldn't help but be shaken.

He opened a drawer and took out a photograph, yellowed with age.

It showed two young ninja standing together. The smiling young man on the left was Naoki's father, his very best friend.

"My old friend, I didn't take good care of your son."

Uchiha Yashiro reached out and gently brushed a finger over the young man's face in the photograph.

"Your son was exceptional," he murmured, as if confiding in his old friend. "More exceptional than any young person I've ever met. He was clever, courageous, and willing to speak up when it mattered... Fugaku thought highly of him, and many in the clan had begun to respect him too. If he could return alive, perhaps the future of the Uchiha Clan really would be different..."

He sat there until the sky gradually darkened and the light in the office grew dimmer and dimmer, until the darkness swallowed it completely... Then footsteps sounded outside.

Taking a deep breath, Uchiha Yashiro put the photograph away. Just then, someone knocked on the door.

He turned on the light and said, "Come in."

The visitor said, "Sir, Lord Fugaku would like you to come see him."

When Uchiha Yashiro arrived, he found Uchiha Fugaku smoking one cigarette after another in silence.

Seeing Uchiha Yashiro enter, Uchiha Fugaku invited him to sit. "Today, Utatane Koharu hinted that I should move the clan grounds to a new location..."

"Yashiro, we can't put it off any longer. What should we do?"

Uchiha Fugaku's question left Uchiha Yashiro deep in thought.

Back then, Naoki had suggested accepting the Third Hokage's demand to relocate the clan grounds, while leaving the matter of the Uchiha members who didn't want to move, whose houses were still undamaged, to the Third Hokage.

Later, Uchiha Fugaku had made some additional demands. For example, he wanted Konoha to increase the Police Force's budget. He also wanted the Uchiha Clan to take full responsibility for relocating and protecting Naka Shrine and the surrounding area, and for any non-Uchiha entering the area around the shrine in the future to obtain the Uchiha Clan Head's approval in advance. He had also demanded that the Third Hokage publicly clarify the suspicions surrounding the Nine-Tails Incident and hinted that the Uchiha Clan had long been denied any say in the village's major decisions. And more...

The Third Hokage had agreed to all these demands. The only thing he hadn't agreed to was Uchiha Fugaku's hint that he wanted a place in the decision-making body. But he hadn't explicitly rejected it either; in fact, he'd even hinted that he would start making preparations.

In all fairness, Uchiha Yashiro felt they'd already exchanged plenty of benefits, and that the Third Hokage had been more than reasonable. It would be hard to justify not relocating the clan grounds now...

Uchiha Yashiro's fingers tapped unconsciously on the table. After a long silence, he finally lifted his head and looked at Uchiha Fugaku.