The boys were at the age when their appetites were biggest. Every visit to his shop was like a swarm of locusts passing through.
But he did not dislike it.
Sharing a lively meal, chatting about nothing in particular, watching them fight over a piece of meat-these everyday moments, so full of life, actually made him feel as though he was truly living in the present.
After taking the three exhausted boys to his shop and leaving them in the staff's care, Uchiha Makoto returned to the Uchiha compound and plunged straight into his Secret Base.
The evenings were his own time for research.
Bright lights shone over the workbench.
Uchiha Makoto spread out several thick scrolls, densely covered with his recent research notes, dissection data, chakra circulation diagrams, and extensive analyses and conjectures about the Earth Grudge Fear Secret Technique.
That old bastard Kakuzu's "secret technique of immortality" really was a treasure trove.
Though its core principle-stealing other people's hearts to gain their chakra affinities and life force-seemed crude, the chakra compatibility, life-force transfer, coordination between multiple hearts, and mechanisms sustaining the cellular activity of Earth Grudge Fear's black tendrils all held mysteries worth exploring in depth.
Uchiha Makoto spent several hours every night immersed in researching Earth Grudge Fear.
Whenever he hit a hurdle he simply could not figure out, he activated his "cheat."
The Lie Manifestation System.
But Makoto could not openly claim to know this forbidden technique. Every ability and piece of knowledge he manifested had to be disguised as some other ninjutsu.
As a result, the time needed to redeem them stretched on endlessly.
He performed similar work almost every night.
He could not simply say, "I want to learn Earth Grudge Fear," but through his everyday discussions with Kakashi, Obito, and Guy-or by coaxing