An Uchiha who couldn't awaken his Sharingan-that kept the Third Hokage thinking for quite a while longer.
Early the next morning, in the Uchiha Clan Compound.
Sasuke pushed open the door to his second-oldest brother's room. The bedding was neatly folded, but there wasn't a soul in sight.
He began to wonder. Today was enrollment day. Had the guy already slipped away?
Had he gone off to browse that pastry shop on South Street again?
Sasuke mulled it over.
But Uchiha Satoru hadn't gone wandering off as Sasuke imagined.
He was crouched in an inconspicuous corner of Naka Shrine, poking around at a stone tablet.
The tablet was an old relic passed down through generations of the Uchiha Clan.
Was this the tablet Black Zetsu had tampered with?
Uchiha Satoru had originally come to the shrine for some peace and quiet, only to stumble across it in a corner.
The tablet looked dull and gray, nothing special, but one sweep of his Six Eyes told him that what lay hidden within was anything but ordinary.
That was right. This was the stone tablet left by the Sage of Six Paths, which Black Zetsu had later revised several times.
After sealing away his mother, Otsutsuki Kaguya, the Sage of Six Paths had two sons.
Black Zetsu had meddled in their affairs, driving the brothers down a path of irreconcilable conflict.
The Sage of Six Paths had carved this tablet in the hope that Indra's reincarnation would one day turn back.
But history never unfolded according to anyone's wishes.
Once the Sage of Six Paths died, Black Zetsu found his way here and replaced everything written on the tablet.
Later, the tablet was placed in the Uchiha Clan's Naka Shrine and became the clan's property.
To read the deeper layers of its contents, one first had to awaken the Sharingan.
Quite a few people in the anime had read this tablet.
Successive Uchiha Clan Heads, Itachi, Sasuke, and even Obito after he turned evil-who among them hadn't come over for a look?
Itachi and Sasuke's father, Fugaku, had read it more times than anyone could count.
The tablet described matters involving the Senju and Uchiha clans.
It claimed that combining their two powers could produce something even stronger.
Naturally, that was nonsense Black Zetsu had inserted.
The original text had been a warning from the Sage of Six Paths to the reincarnation of his son Indra.
After Black Zetsu altered it, one disaster after another followed.
This single tablet had duped generation after generation of clever people.
What a menace.
The corners of Uchiha Satoru's mouth curled into a mischievous smile. Then he channeled his cursed energy and altered the latter half of the inscription.
What should I change it to?
The Uchiha, overflowing with love?
The Uchiha, warriors of love?
Tsk, tsk. I wonder which little cutie will be the first to stumble across this.
His smile grew brighter and brighter.
Just as he put the doctored tablet back in its place, a familiar voice calling for him reached his ears.
Great. They won't even give me a moment to catch my breath.
After a bunch of people ganged up on me yesterday and left my whole body feeling like it was falling apart, couldn't they give me today off to recover?
Both my body and my mind need a rest, don't they?
The Third Hokage really knows how to screw people over.
Ugh.
He thought it over. The first major ordeal facing him right now wasn't the night of the clan massacre.
It was having to attend school with a bunch of little brats.
Did school really suit me?
Making me a teacher would be more like it, given how much I like teaching people things.
With that thought, Uchiha Satoru strolled out of Naka Shrine.
"Yo, Sasuke!"
"Coming to find me this early? What's up?"
"Miss your big brother?"
He looked up and spotted Sasuke glancing around.
Sasuke had long since become immune to his antics. "Dad told me to remind you that new students have to register today," he said, then turned and left, his expression icy.
"So cold-blooded."
"My little brother's all grown up and won't listen anymore."
"You've broken your big brother's heart."
Even after Sasuke had walked a long way off, he could still hear Uchiha Satoru's aggrieved muttering behind him.
Yet a moment later, every trace of frivolity vanished from Uchiha Satoru's face.
He casually gathered his things and prepared to head to the school to get his enrollment taken care of.
Dad even sent Sasuke over just to remind me.
Fine. This time, I won't dance all over the limits of Dad's patience.
But if I keep hopping back and forth along the edge, does that really count as crossing the line?
Of course not.
Here's hoping Dad and that old man Third have strong enough hearts, so they won't regret this later.
Once they've put me in there, they'll have to be ready to clean up after me at all times.
Before you continue