Brotherly affection

The training grounds of the Uchiha Clan Compound.

A group of teenage Uchiha stood opposite Indra and Madara Uchiha, their faces flushed with rage. If they hadn't been inside the clan compound, they would have drawn their swords.

"Madara, so this is your older brother with the impure bloodline. Let's see what gives him the right to call us trash."

An Uchiha boy of fifteen or sixteen clenched his fists and charged at them, baring his teeth. Before, he had been curious and wanted to spar. Now, he genuinely wanted to beat Indra to death-and give Madara a beating while he was at it.

"You don't have the Sharingan." Madara Uchiha stated the fact with a perfectly straight face.

He found this a little troublesome, but his older brother, who had appeared out of nowhere, wasn't wrong. These people really were trash.

"You'd still be trash even if you awakened it," Indra added, keeping his hands tucked away. As the boy reached him, he leaped lightly into the air, planted his toes on the boy's shoulder, then landed on the ground.

The sight of these unfilial descendants annoyed him. Not one of them was particularly strong, and they all acted like idiots.

He had both brains and strength. Aside from his looks, these descendants hadn't inherited a shred of his bearing.

"Damn you! You're a stain on the Uchiha bloodline! You deserve to die!" One Uchiha, completely blinded by rage, pulled out a kunai and charged at Indra.

Madara Uchiha immediately drew a kunai to stop him. He remembered that something was waiting for them, so they couldn't get bogged down here-but he had forgotten what it was.

Seeing Madara Uchiha and Indra both join the fight, the others swarmed them, dozens attacking the pair at once.

Indra dodged with his hands still tucked away, not taking these childish, unfilial descendants seriously at all. His behavior infuriated everyone present except Madara Uchiha.

"What utter trash. Having you in the Uchiha clan is a disgrace." Indra's casual remark enraged several hotheaded youths so much that they forgot about Madara Uchiha and rushed him instead.

Stunned by his older brother's strength, Madara Uchiha tried to help hold them back. But no one listened to him anymore, and he could only watch as Indra single-handedly surrounded dozens of people.

When an Uchiha tried to ambush Indra from behind with a kunai, Madara shouted, "Watch out!"

Indra didn't even lift his eyelids. Lightning spread around him, lashing everyone nearby.

Everyone who had been screaming for blood moments earlier fell rigidly to the ground.

"A bunch of trash dreaming of challenging a god. How laughable." Indra had kept his hands tucked away from beginning to end. He strolled past Madara Uchiha, feeling as though he had forgotten something, though he couldn't remember what. Hunger stirred in his stomach, and he said, "Find somewhere to eat."

"Did you kill all this tra... all these clansmen?" Madara Uchiha glanced at the people on the ground. It would be trouble if they were dead. By now, he had completely forgotten Uchiha Tajima's instructions.

"Ants aren't worth the effort." As Indra finished speaking, every fallen clansman's money pouch flew into his hands. He was short on money right now.

Madara Uchiha's eye twitched at the sight. It felt a little wrong, yet somehow perfectly reasonable. If they had been Senju, they would have lost their lives, not their money. Put that way, there was nothing wrong with it.

"Oh, what Lightning Release did you just use? It looked pretty good."

He then took Indra to a restaurant, where they sat down and ordered a bowl of noodles each. He tended to view powerful people in a favorable light, especially this older brother who had appeared out of nowhere and was so much on his wavelength.

Neither of them considered that those dozens of clansmen had challenged them only because they both had big mouths.

When Uchiha Tajima and several elders arrived at the training grounds, they found dozens of people lying motionless on the ground.

The first person who had tried to move them had collapsed too.

The third elder stepped forward to examine them, feeling a faint tingling in his fingertips. "They're still alive. Lightning Release Ninjutsu did this. Madara and Xia took down dozens of people between them. They certainly have the strength."

The Uchiha who had gone to fetch help earlier saw the clan head and elders arrive, but instead of approaching them, he hid off to the side to watch.

"Judging by the traces, the fight stayed within a very small area and ended quickly. These clansmen have no other external injuries. This Lightning Release... was your eldest son's work." The fourth elder examined them too, then spotted the clansmen hiding nearby with stretchers. Beckoning them over, he asked, "What happened here?"

Several clansmen gave a jumbled account of what had happened, and the elders turned peculiar looks on Uchiha Tajima.

"Ahem. Where did they go?" Uchiha Tajima rubbed his nose, somewhat embarrassed. His two sons' big mouths had caused all this. "Did they go to the meeting hall?"

"We don't know, but from the direction they headed, it looked like they went to get something to eat." The clansman glanced at the others lying on the ground, their condition unknown. Luckily, he hadn't joined in, or he would have been lying there too.

Uchiha Tajima: ...

Meanwhile.

Indra had almost finished his noodles when he suddenly remembered that he seemed to have come out for a reason.

What was it...? I forgot!

Seeing his older brother sink into thought across from him, Madara Uchiha recalled how they had beaten up dozens of clansmen earlier and offered some reassurance. "You don't need to worry. Clansmen spar with each other all the time. Getting injured occasionally is normal."

"Hmm?" Indra lifted his eyes toward Madara Uchiha, who was earnestly explaining things to him. "What did you come out with me for?"

"Huh?" Madara Uchiha froze. Time seemed to stand still. He remembered promising Izuna that he would train with him that afternoon. He hadn't planned to go out.

So why was he here with an older brother he had only just met?

And why had they gotten into a fight with their clansmen?

What were we supposed to do again...?

I think one of Father's covert guards came to see me. What did he say? I wasn't really paying attention.

The two stared at each other.

I forgot!

"Father asked me to show you around and help you get familiar with the clan compound." Madara Uchiha figured that, since his older brother had only just returned and didn't know his way around, their father must have asked the covert guard to show him around... probably.

Their father was always busy, and Madara looked after his younger brother. He was probably supposed to look after his older brother too.

Something felt wrong to Indra. Why would he agree to such a boring request?

Uchiha Tajima and the others, who had suddenly appeared at the noodle shop, heard their entire conversation.

They had waited in the meeting hall for hours, yet these two had treated the summons as so much hot air-and then forgotten it.

Both of them had forgotten.

That showed just how little attention they paid to him as their father.

"Father? Elders?" Seeing every influential figure in the Uchiha clan appear in a noodle shop gave Madara Uchiha a bad feeling.

Indra didn't even lift his eyelids. He picked up his bowl, drained the noodle broth in one gulp, then rose unhurriedly and turned to leave. As he passed Uchiha Tajima, he ordered, "Pay the bill."

"What... did you say?" Uchiha Tajima stared in shock at this unfilial son, feeling as though his dignity had been pressed into the ground and ground underfoot.

Madara Uchiha was a little stunned too. Wait... don't you have money?

You just looted so much of it.