"Tch, idiot. Even if you ended up crippled, your big brother would still protect you."
Uchiha Naoto left the room and got down to work.
By then, Indra had received the intelligence and told Kaguya to pass it to Uchiha Fuliu for her to handle.
But the ninja Kaguya did not leave immediately. Instead, she said with a smile, "My lord, those two Uchiha young masters are riding pigs!"
With that, she vanished from the room with a whoosh.
"Wait, what did you say?"
Madara Uchiha was so furious that his three-tomoe Sharingan activated. He snorted at the Nii-san who had drugged him yesterday, then leaped out the window without even washing up to find his two good-for-nothing younger brothers.
Indra froze for a long moment and rubbed his ears, thinking he had misheard. Then he used the Body Flicker Technique to catch up with Madara.
When they reached the clearing behind the mountain, they found Uchiha Xing and Uchiha Yue each riding a pig, fighting with swords raised.
Madara Uchiha was practically steaming with rage. Chakra erupted beneath his feet as he delivered a flying kick to each of them, sending both younger brothers and their pigs flying.
"You two..."
"Madara, big brother, let us explain..." The two sprawled on the ground no longer had any thoughts of playing on pigs. Their older brother's fists soon hammered into them, each blow painful but leaving no real injury.
"I told you to read, and you went riding pigs! Unless you can last ten thousand moves against me today, neither of you gets to eat! Your training is doubled-tripled!"
Madara Uchiha was utterly furious. If they had been doing any proper training at all, he would never have been this angry.
He used every bit of the punishment his eldest brother had inflicted on him on his two younger brothers instead. It would not injure them anyway, and he had plenty of experience now.
After beating his younger brothers for three hours, he cast a genjutsu on them in which pigs rode them, determined to leave them traumatized by pigs for the rest of their lives.
Indra pressed his lips together. If he had only suspected it before, now he could say with absolute certainty that something was wrong with his descendants' brains.
"Don't beat them to death. We're going to the Uchiha Clan Compound tomorrow."
The corner of Madara Uchiha's mouth twitched when he heard his eldest brother intervene. He had already been beating them for three hours, and only now did his brother stop him. Without his experience, his younger brothers would have been beaten to death.
"We're going back so soon?"
Madara Uchiha was a little surprised. The food and accommodations here were good, his father was not around to boss him about, and he even got to see his eldest brother dressed as a woman occasionally.
He would have been even happier without the woman his eldest brother had brought out yesterday and his disobedient younger brothers.
Even if he was not his eldest brother's only younger brother, his eldest brother had to belong to him alone.
"You don't want to go back?" Indra patted the two pigs that had run back after Madara kicked them away. He washed them clean with Water Release, turning them into little pink pigs again.
"Ah, no. Uh, it's just..."
He simply did not want to go back. Without his father's supervision, his strength had grown by leaps and bounds. Clearly, there was something wrong with his father's teaching.
Going back meant seeing his father's cold face again, but he did not know how to tell Nii-san that, so he could only change the subject. "Oh, you're going back to deal with Father finding you a wife, right?"
"Big brother, why don't you and Madara go back? We'll stay here and train." Their faces bruised and swollen, Uchiha Xing and Uchiha Yue crawled to their feet in bizarre postures.
The reason was simple: Madara had beaten them until they ached all over, but apart from the slightest superficial injuries, their muscles and bones were completely unharmed.
Seeing how pitiful his younger brothers looked, Madara Uchiha felt a little guilty and rubbed his nose, but he was still furious.
Since his younger brothers looked so pathetic, he simply turned his head toward Nii-san. As long as he could not see them, he would not feel sorry for them.
He had told them to read, and they had gone riding pigs. If they had done any proper training at all, he would not have beaten them. His eldest brother's books were all very useful for training.
Sure enough, younger brothers only behaved after a beating.
"You two really aren't suited to going back."
Indra thought for a moment. These two had better stay here rather than go out and embarrass him. Two of his descendants had managed only a pair of single-tomoe eyes between them. He had never encountered anything so humiliating in his life.
"You can leave Asagiri Town once your eyes are normal."
"Yes, big brother. We'll train hard." Uchiha Xing and Uchiha Yue stopped pretending to be pitiful. Ever since arriving here, they had not wanted to go back.
They had good accommodations, plenty to eat, and could even ride pigs-no, train.
Even their swordsmanship had improved.
As for their eyes... they themselves had never imagined that the two of them would produce only a pair of single-tomoe eyes between them.
Could it be that, because they were twins, their talent had been split evenly too?
"Will they be all right staying here?" Madara Uchiha was still a little worried about his two younger brothers. Those two had been the most troublesome ever since they were little. Izuna was much better behaved.
"They won't die." Indra had already decided to go to the Uchiha Clan Compound. Heh, that Uchiha Tajima really deserved to die, daring to arrange a wife for him.
Only Indra, Madara, and Uchiha Hachishaku made the trip back to the Uchiha. As for Uchiha Liuhuo, his older brother had broken his legs, so he could only stay behind to recover.
On their way back to the Uchiha, the three strangely encountered no ninja at all, prompting Uchiha Hachishaku to activate his Sharingan and inspect their surroundings every so often.
"Why has it been so quiet lately? We haven't encountered a single ninja along the way."
"The Daimyo is making a move." Indra slowed his pace to accommodate the other two. They were also traveling along the Official Road, which made both of them especially uncomfortable.
Along the way, they also learned an important piece of news-the Senju Clan's Young Master had gone missing.
"Big brother, those people... you're not really going to keep them farming and raising pigs, are you?!"
Madara Uchiha leaned close to Indra's ear and asked quietly. On his occasional strolls, he could still see those captives getting up at three to feed the pigs, taking the sheep out at five, milking the cows at seven, cleaning at nine, and starting to water and weed the fields at eleven.
They ate one meal at noon, bathed the animals at one, picked vegetables to air-dry at three, and still had to wash clothes at seven in the evening. They could not sleep until midnight.
It wore down not only their chakra, but their physical stamina as well.
After a few days, those captives had become mentally numb.
Thinking of that, he felt his eldest brother treated him very well indeed.
"Yes. The Senju have good stamina. That work suits them well."
Following Uchiha Natsu's old practice, Indra squeezed every last drop out of each batch of captives he caught. Eventually, he discovered that the Senju had the longest lifespans: under intense workloads, they could survive seven or eight months, while captives from other clans lasted three months at most.
"Um, that Senju young master..." Madara Uchiha thought killing him would still be the safest option.
"It's fine." Indra was keeping him only as a precaution. After all, his once-naive self had been betrayed by Asura, and even after wandering for thousands of years, that thorn had never been pulled out.
As they passed the Naka River, Indra keenly sensed Asura's chakra.
For a moment, he lost himself in thought, and the chakra gathered beneath his feet cracked the ground. He did not come back to himself until they returned to the Uchiha Clan Head's residence and Izuna hurled himself at them, hugging one of his thighs and one of Madara's.
"Big brother, Madara, I missed you so much! Oh, where are Xing and Yue?"
"They stayed at our eldest brother's place to train. We came back first."
Madara rubbed Izuna's head, his gaze darting about. When he spotted a beautiful Uchiha standing respectfully by the entrance, his face instantly fell.
Before you continue