Just as Madara Uchiha was about to fall asleep, he heard his clansman's challenge. He sprang up from the pile of corpses, lunged toward Indra, and shielded him.
"He's my big brother."
Indra rested a hand on Madara's shoulder and stepped forward. His lowered gaze slowly rose to the man who had spoken, the three scarlet tomoe looking sinister and uncanny in the night.
"A clansman? What right does someone without Uchiha blood have to bear the Uchiha name?"
The Uchiha who had challenged him looked puzzled, but did not retreat a single step. "What do you mean by that?"
"What does he mean? Are you stupid? Our lord means he's not an Uchiha!" Uchiha Naoto picked his ear, then applied medicine to his companions.
Apart from the one whose broken leg was badly injured, the others only had superficial wounds. Once treated, those would heal before long that night.
"N-not an Uchiha? Impossible. We all grew up in the Uchiha clan."
At that moment, the eyes of the man who had spoken changed, evolving straight from one tomoe to three. Clearly, the shock had hit him hard.
"What's impossible about it? Is his mother an Uchiha? Is his father an Uchiha? If one of them isn't, can you guarantee he's an Uchiha?"
Although Uchiha Naoto was a little unhinged, even he could tell that children born to two Uchiha had greater talent and were certain to awaken their Sharingan. That was why he had stayed single all this time: he wanted to return to the clan compound, find an older Uchiha woman who had awakened hers, and marry her and have children.
"If both parents are Uchiha, can you guarantee the child is actually theirs? If you're certain he's the child of an Uchiha couple, why can you awaken your Sharingan while he can't? It certainly can't be a problem with the Uchiha. It can only be a problem with him."
"The only possible truth is that he's not an Uchiha!"
Madara Uchiha was so stunned by this twisted argument that he could not utter a word. He had not needed a single word of the explanation he had just prepared.
And... it actually sounded pretty reasonable.
As for the Uchiha who could not accept that explanation, doubts began to creep in. Had shinobi from other clans really infiltrated the Uchiha as children?
They instinctively distanced themselves from any clansmen who had not awakened their Sharingan.
How could the proud Uchiha tolerate being deceived?
That gesture instantly made the Uchiha who had yet to awaken their Sharingan do so on the spot.
You can question my character, but you can't question my bloodline.
"Look, look! There, you've awakened them! Doesn't that prove all of you still alive are pure-blooded Uchiha?" Uchiha Naoto could barely contain his disgust. These brainless idiots had better not infect him.
Seeing that his clansmen had finally settled down, Madara Uchiha collapsed against Indra with a thump and lost consciousness completely.
"Madara! Madara!" The twin brothers came over, one hopping and the other crawling, and gathered around Madara Uchiha to check his injuries.
"He's fine. He's just exhausted his chakra and stamina. He's asleep, that's all."
Indra slung him over his shoulder, used Earth Release to build a simple shelter, and placed Madara Uchiha inside. Then he dissolved a Military Rations Pill in water and poured it down his throat.
When he came back out, he looked silently at the handful of shinobi from the Ino-Shika-Cho Clans who had raised their hands in surrender.
"My lord, should we kill them? They look pretty useless." Uchiha Naoto was bustling about, almost excessively eager to please.
Now all these prisoners belonged to him alone. He was secretly glad Kaguya had not come along to compete with him for them.
"Wait! We accepted a mission issued by the Blood Pond to drive the Senju out of the Land of Lightning. We have no quarrel with you Uchiha... right?!"
The Nara shinobi held both hands up in surrender. His arms were already aching, but he did not dare lower them.
"Submit, or die."
Since he was in a good mood, Indra gave them two choices.
The shinobi from the Ino-Shika-Cho Clans exchanged furtive glances. How were they supposed to choose? They might as well have died fighting.
They had no authority to decide to submit.
If they returned to their clans as prisoners, they would be condemned behind their backs.
They had been given no way out alive.
Uchiha Naoto stepped forward with mincing movements, pressed his fingertips together, and said in an affected high voice, "My lord, leave them to me. No one understands how to handle prisoners better than I do."
Goosebumps instantly rose all over Indra. He edged two steps away, then beat a hasty retreat.
Seeing Indra leave, Uchiha Naoto shifted his gaze, a deranged smile spreading across his face.
As far as he was concerned, his lord's failure to refuse meant approval. These prisoners were now his private property.
They were all assets he could use to compete with Kaguya Hall for his lord's favor.
For the next two days, Uchiha Naoto kept every Uchiha running in circles.
The clan leaders also received intelligence about the battle involving several major clans. Their initial shock was no less than Uchiha Tajima's.
Now intelligence operatives from every clan were gathering detailed information about the battlefield on the Land of Fire's border.
The Uchiha Clan Compound.
Izuna sat in the courtyard with letter after letter in his hands. Pouting, he muttered to a little yellow dog, "Madara, Xing, and Yue are living it up with our big brother, and they've all awakened their Sharingan. I'm the only one left."
"You'd better behave. Whether I can awaken mine is all up to you."
He remembered Madara saying that their big brother had awakened his Sharingan because of a dog. Though he did not know what kind, being able to keep a dog at all was already good enough in times like these. The breed did not matter.
"Ugh, Madara, Xing, and Yue have all gone to the battlefield. Our big brother not only trains them, but teaches them new ninjutsu too. It's bad enough that I'm stuck eating cold leftovers at home, but no one teaches me either. Why don't we go find them together?"
Returning from handling clan affairs in the Meeting Hall, Uchiha Tajima heard his youngest son sitting in the covered corridor, holding a dog and muttering to himself. The veins on his forehead throbbed furiously.
It was bad enough that Xia had caused trouble, but he had made such an enormous stir.
The Blood Pond, the Ino-Shika-Cho, the Uchiha, the Senju, and even Kaguya were involved. Just thinking about it gave him a headache.
In all thirty years of his life, he had never led a few dozen people into a free-for-all, much less a battle among several clans involving nearly two hundred shinobi.
The bad news was that four of his five sons had taken part.
The good news was that they were all alive.
"Izuna, have you received any letters from Madara?" Uchiha Tajima stood behind Izuna and sighed inwardly. This son was the cleverest, but he was always clinging to Madara.
Perhaps it was because Madara had personally raised him when he was little. He was not even close to his own father.
"Huh? Father, no. I haven't heard from Madara." Izuna sprang to his feet, crumpled the letters in his hands, and stuffed them into Big Yellow's mouth, holding his muzzle shut to keep him from spitting them out.
Uchiha Tajima's eyelid twitched violently at the sight. He felt as though Izuna was insulting both his intelligence and his eyesight. How could he lie with a straight face while pulling such an obvious trick?
"Are you sure you haven't? Then what were you just reading?" Uchiha Tajima was so angry that his Sharingan emerged as he glared, demanding an answer through gritted teeth.
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