Although the Third Hokage had always seemed to represent the gentle faction, and the two Advisors appeared to be taking sides, in truth, these three members of the Konoha High Command played no more honorable a role in the Uchiha Clan's massacre than Shimura Danzō, the ruthless hardliner. They were all disgraceful figures who couldn't show their faces in public.
Moreover, this Night of the Massacre had clearly diverged in some ways from the events in the original story. Naruto couldn't be certain, but he believed it was highly likely that Uchiha Itachi had let some clues slip before he acted, and that some of the hardliners who had already wanted to rebel had discovered them. Then, unable to contact one another, some of the Uchiha had rioted. Otherwise, there was no way to explain the huge commotion the previous night.
And it had to have been a riot involving only some of them for it to be put down so quickly.
Otherwise,
there was no way to explain what happened afterward, either.
After all, the Konoha High Command had openly announced the Uchiha Clan's destruction, naming only the rogue ninja Uchiha Itachi and the surviving Sasuke Uchiha. That much was believable. In other words, the Uchiha Clan's fate was the same as in the original story, making it easy to deduce the conclusion above.
After all, the Uchiha Clan was the Shinobi World's greatest clan.
If only some of the clan members had rioted,
rather than the entire clan rebelling in earnest,
then regardless of whether they could all be subdued, even if they could, it wouldn't have been so easy. Who knew how many Jonin and Chunin the Uchiha Clan had? And with the Sharingan, known as the Shinobi World's greatest ocular technique, Konoha would have faced a much harder fight to kill all the Uchiha ninja, as it had in the original story. The resulting unrest would have been far more than yesterday's commotion, which seemed noisy but was, in reality, quite subdued.
Of course, these thoughts had merely crossed Naruto's mind a couple of times.
He wouldn't pay them much attention.
Nor did he have the time or inclination to dwell on them.
Or, rather,
Naruto didn't yet have the means or the standing to concern himself with such things.
Living his own life as usual was what mattered most.
Even after what had happened the previous night, classes at the Ninja Academy went on as usual.
But when Naruto arrived at school,
he wasn't surprised to find Sasuke Uchiha absent.
In fact, Naruto could already guess that this Uchiha orphan wouldn't be back at the Academy for a while. It wasn't just because of the shock of the massacre the previous night. If Naruto remembered correctly, Itachi had used Tsukuyomi on the kid for the first time that night. It was one of the earliest, and for a long time one of the most powerful, genjutsu in the original story. Even if Itachi had held back, the kid was still just a child the same age as Naruto. And he had witnessed every last member of his clan being killed, then watched his beloved older brother murder their parents right in front of him, before being struck by Tsukuyomi.
The two things combined,
the trauma to his mind
couldn't possibly be healed in a short time.
Even with the Third Hokage's special care
and the best medical treatment available,
a wound like that
couldn't be healed by treatment alone. It would also take time to recover.
And just as Naruto had expected,
a full month passed after the Night of the Massacre
before Naruto saw the kid in class again.
When the kid returned to the Academy, an icy aura seemed to envelop him from head to toe. It wasn't the feigned coldness he'd shown before, but a genuine chill, as if he'd fallen into darkness.
And the moment Naruto saw him,
something stirred deep inside him, too.
Because Naruto understood that the Sasuke Uchiha before him was no longer the seemingly cold boy who was really just a simple, smug, slightly arrogant child.
He had become a vengeful avenger whose eyes held nothing but the color of blood.
That day,
the girls who had always been hanging around the kid
were unusually quiet, too.
They might have been lovestruck,
but they weren't stupid.
With the Uchiha Clan having just been wiped out,
to keep hanging around him
would have been a truly brainless thing to do.
"What a poor guy..."
Looking at Sasuke Uchiha's expressionless face and dull, vacant eyes,
Naruto quietly shook his head to himself.
In a way,
Sasuke and Naruto had a lot in common.
Maybe this guy could become an important asset to my plans someday...
Looking at his profile as he sat there, Naruto couldn't help recalling the scene from the original story in which Sasuke Uchiha defected, and what he did after learning the truth about Itachi and the Night of the Massacre. Naruto couldn't help thinking to himself.
To be honest,
in this world,
there was no clan more gullible than the Uchiha.
And that gullibility had been a tradition since ancient times.
It applied even to Indra, the eldest son of the Sage of Six Paths, Otsutsuki Hagoromo, from the most ancient era. Then there was Uchiha Madara, followed by Uchiha Obito during the Third Shinobi World War, and now Sasuke Uchiha. They were all the kind of people anyone could fool. Even Uchiha Itachi and Shisui Uchiha, who seemed so rational and so sure of their own opinions, struck Naruto as a little foolish.
Of course, this was a very personal, highly subjective opinion.
But looking at these Uchiha,
Naruto really did think they were far too easy to fool.
Especially the kid.
Looking at the original Naruto story as a whole, the kid never once had an opinion or judgment of his own. First, his beloved older brother, Itachi, fooled him. Then Uchiha Obito fooled him. And in the end, even after Orochimaru said he wanted to see which way the wind named Sasuke Uchiha would blow, wasn't he still fooled all the same?
So, all things considered,
the kid could be fooled!
Not to mention,
Naruto held a huge trump card in his hands—the truth behind the Uchiha Clan's massacre!
He couldn't say he was completely certain,
but Naruto was quite confident
that he could use this to persuade Sasuke to become his ally someday!
Naruto thought to himself.
Of course, at this stage, it was still only a tentative plan. He would have to think carefully about when and how to tell him, how to make Sasuke believe him, and what other pros and cons might be involved.
A plan for the future
was already gradually taking shape in Naruto's mind. In this world, he would forge a glorious path as a ninja unlike anyone else's.
"The future..."
Looking out at the bustling scene beyond the window, a faint golden glimmer shone in Naruto's blue eyes.
For now, he still needed to keep making himself stronger.
Only then
would his future self
have the power to shift the great game unfolding across the Shinobi World.
And under these circumstances,
five years passed in the blink of an eye.