Indra turned stiffly and saw Madara Uchiha sitting cross-legged on the tatami, draped in his outer robe with his chin propped on his hand. Madara stared at him with a look that said, I understand everything, but I'm not happy about it, and Indra couldn't help feeling a little guilty.
To keep him from noticing, he kept his expression cold.
Still, he truly hadn't expected Madara Uchiha to break free of his genjutsu so quickly.
Only two hours had passed since he went down to the basement.
"Hmph, your genjutsu can't hold me anymore." Madara Uchiha sat firmly in place, his chin slightly raised, secretly pleased with himself and waiting for praise.
Indra strolled over to the low table beside him and brewed a cup of tea. His eyes narrowed slightly, and, out of Madara Uchiha's sight, his fingers rubbed against the cup before he brought it to Madara's lips.
Madara Uchiha snorted. Since Nii-san had recognized his mistake, he would reluctantly forgive him. He took the cup and drained it without a second thought. Finding the tea more bitter than usual, he remarked, "Where did you get this stale tea? It's horribly bitter..."
His elder brother began to blur into double images before his eyes, and his head swam. Remembering the tea he had just drunk, he stared at Indra in shock.
He had never imagined his elder brother would fight dirty.
"Under...handed..."
"Don't blame me for playing dirty. After all, my genjutsu can't hold you anymore!" Indra's lips curved into a smile as he watched Madara Uchiha sway and collapse onto the tatami again. "This year's fresh tea tastes quite good. A shame there's so little of it."
In the room next door, Uchiha Xing tossed and turned under the bedding. "Xing, is Brother Madara sleeping in our eldest brother's room again tonight?"
"Probably. Brother Madara gets beaten down by genjutsu every day, after all. Moving him back and forth would be a hassle. This room is just right for the two of us."
Uchiha Yue lay under the covers, flipping through a book without taking in a single word. The book was even upside down. Yue dropped it onto Yue's face and let out a wail.
"Aaaaargh! Why do we have to read this stuff? It's so hard! I want to go raise pigs with the Kaguya on the mountain out back."
"I don't want to read either. How about... we go ride pigs tomorrow?"
Early the next morning, Uchiha Xing and Uchiha Yue covered their faces as they trailed Uchiha Naoto to the mountain out back.
Several Kaguya ninjas were each riding a pig, wielding blades as they fought one another.
Every pig beneath them was powerful and muscular. The two had never seen such sturdy pigs.
"Huh? Young masters, what brings you here?" Uchiha Naoto had noticed someone following him long ago. He had simply wanted to find out what they were up to-gathering intelligence or skipping lessons.
He remembered that his lord had scheduled eighteen hours of lessons for those two weaklings.
Their lord could hardly be blamed. Mainly, he had never in his life seen two Uchiha who could only scrape together a single tomoe between them.
It wasn't quite right to say they lacked talent: on the battlefield, they were ruthless and stronger than others their age.
But calling them talented ninjas wasn't quite right either. Awakening half a tomoe was utterly unprecedented and unlikely ever to happen again.
"Heh... hehe, Brother Naoto, could you let us have a ride too?" Uchiha Xing flashed an ominously friendly smile. This was much more interesting than reading. An Uchiha ought to fight.
"Sure. Go help those prisoners finish watering the fields, and I'll wash two pigs for you."
Uchiha Xing and Uchiha Yue immediately ran off to learn how to water the fields.
Watching them leave, Uchiha Naoto revealed a chilling smile and muttered to himself, "Once you're in Asagiri Town, even a dog has to work."
As for his dear younger brother, he had been hauled off to pose as a courtesan and gather intelligence.
In Asagiri Town's pleasure quarter, the exploited Uchiha Liuhuo uncovered an important piece of intelligence.
The daimyo of the Land of Fire and the Land of Lightning were deeply dissatisfied with the clans' unauthorized wars. The current peace was nothing more than the deceptive calm before a storm.
He immediately sent the intelligence back to his clan, but before his ninja hawk had even left the courtyard, it made a sharp turn and flew to a gentle-looking courtesan opposite him.
Uchiha Liuhuo sensed no chakra fluctuations from her whatsoever. She was an ordinary person, yet she had intercepted the ninja hawk carrying his intelligence.
"Thank you very much." The graceful courtesan bowed to Uchiha Liuhuo in thanks, then blew into a spoon hanging around her neck. Its whistle sounded like birdsong, though he couldn't tell which bird.
A Kaguya ninja immediately appeared before her, and she handed over the intelligence she had just obtained.
Uchiha Liuhuo gathered chakra beneath his feet and leaped after the ninja. But halfway into his jump, a fierce gust struck from behind. He instinctively dodged the danger, yet his back still burned with pain.
Landing on an ornamental rock formation in the courtyard, he discovered that his attacker was his own elder brother, holding a bone whip.
"Ninth Brother, you're being dishonest. Trying to send intelligence out before our lord has seen it? Do you have a death wish?"
Gripping the bone whip, Uchiha Naoto approached step by step. He stopped two meters away, raised the whip, and lashed at Uchiha Liuhuo.
Having been left out in the rain himself, he was determined to tear apart his younger brother's umbrella too.
"I tell you to perform, and you mop the floor. I tell you to brew tea, and you fart. I tell you to sell wine, and you turn a profit. You useless piece of trash! I'll beat you to death!"
Uchiha Liuhuo was completely bewildered by the tirade. Before he could even resist, several lashes landed on him.
"Ah! Brother, what are you doing?"
The whip tore Uchiha Liuhuo's skin open, shocking a man's voice out of him.
"You uncouth thing! Who gave you permission to make that sound? Don't you know the guests prefer soft, sweet voices?"
Uchiha Naoto delivered two more cracking lashes. The commotion drew quite a few guests over to watch.
He immediately slipped into character and apologized respectfully to the surrounding guests. "My apologies, honored guests. This is Liuliuzi, a newcomer who doesn't know the rules. She's offended you all. I'll take her away and teach her properly."
With that, he picked up Uchiha Liuhuo, whose mouth hung open wide enough to fit an egg, and dragged him into a room used for resting. Then he gave him a resounding slap.
"Brother, are you really my brother? Are you really my own brother, the one so proud and stubborn he could kill an ox with it?"
Uchiha Liuhuo didn't even register the pain in his slapped cheek. He was utterly stunned by his elder brother's behavior just now.
He could accept his brother being a little unhinged after disappearing for five years, but that groveling display wasn't remotely Uchiha-like. He seemed nothing like the brother whose attitude had always been, You stab me, I stab you, and whoever dies first is out of luck.
If not for that face, he would have suspected someone had swapped his brother out.
"What? Are you questioning me? This isn't the Uchiha Clan Compound. Here, Lord Indra comes first, heaven second, earth third, and me fourth. Don't bring the clan's rules into Asagiri Town."
"But, this-aaaaaargh!"
There was a crack.
Uchiha Liuhuo screamed like a pig being slaughtered. Uchiha Naoto had stomped on one of his legs and broken it.
"You'll stay here and recuperate for a while!"
Clutching his broken leg, sweat rolling down his forehead, Uchiha Liuhuo stared in disbelief at the brother who had once doted on him. He stammered, "The... intelligence... the daimyo... is going to..."
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