Uchiha Madara's Pawn

"Heh heh, it seemed that even after I'd been gone for so long, an old man like you still remembered me. How rare."

Uchiha Madara had arrived uninvited, smiling pleasantly. Yet the more pleasant his smile was, the more chilling it felt.

Elder Itachi faced him as if confronting a formidable enemy, sweat streaming down his face as he assumed a fighting stance. "So you really are alive."

Unlike his opponent's tense vigilance, Uchiha Madara leisurely found a chair and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. His expression was calm, yet naturally imposing—a complete confidence in his own strength. "It seemed you weren't surprised that I was alive."

As Elder Itachi caught his breath, he noticed Madara's right eye, which had turned white from blindness. He froze for a moment, then his expression darkened. "So you used Izanagi."

"Oh? You guessed what I did just by seeing my right eye?" Uchiha Madara's tone carried a trace of admiration. The corner of his lips curled up slightly. "What an impressive man... as expected of the teacher who once guided me."

"I wouldn't dare call myself the teacher of an executioner like you, someone who would even lay hands on his former senior brother for power."

Elder Itachi's face openly displayed his mockery.

Mocked coldly by his former mentor, Uchiha Madara did not grow angry. He merely replied, "Then who was it that hinted this information to me in the first place? If I remembered correctly, it was you standing before me who told me."

Those words instantly left Elder Itachi ashamed beyond measure. It was as though all the strength had been drained from him, and his hands fell heavily to his sides.

That was right. He had been the one to tell Uchiha Madara how to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan.

Because he lacked the talent to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan himself, he could only place that hope upon others and fulfill his long-cherished wish through them.

But after doing all that, he had felt incomparable pain. He finally understood why their ancestors had sealed away this information and allowed only a handful of people to know it. Yet it was already too late. Pandora's Box had been opened.

Soon after, Izuna had followed in Uchiha Madara's footsteps, personally killing his good friend and awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan.

Uchiha Madara said unhurriedly, "But even so, I'm still very grateful to you. After all, the Mangekyō Sharingan you helped me awaken allowed me to stand at the pinnacle of the world and behold a different kind of scenery."

Elder Itachi took a breath to steady his emotions. "You deliberately chose a time when Tobirama was away. What exactly do you want? And you seemed to have anticipated your defeat long ago, deliberately implanting Izanagi in your eye. What was your purpose? What do you want?"

"You seemed to be getting more and more irritable. You're nothing like the calm person you used to be... Fine. For the sake of you once being my mentor, I'll answer you."

Uchiha Madara smiled faintly. From the very beginning of their conversation, he had held absolute initiative firmly in his grasp. The man opposite him was not someone easily flustered, but before Uchiha Madara's absolute strength, few could maintain their former composure.

"It would be too troublesome to explain one thing at a time. To sum it up, my goal has always been just one thing: peace."

"Peace?"

"You saw it too, didn't you? The moment Hashirama died, war broke out in this world again. Humanity truly is a group of ignorant creatures. I once believed in Hashirama, but the truth was that I was naïve. People like Hashirama, who possessed no selfishness and remained steadfast from beginning to end, are exceedingly rare. So rare that I only met one in my entire life."

As he spoke of this, Uchiha Madara seemed to be reminiscing about the past. He slowly raised his head and looked at the ceiling, pausing briefly before gathering his thoughts and asking the old man across from him, "Do you know why people can never understand one another?"

Elder Itachi answered in a deep voice, "Why?"

Uchiha Madara pulled at his lips. "Desire. Human desire is endless. No one ever thinks they have too much food, and no one ever thinks their house is too large. Once they have a small house, they want a large one. Once they have a large house, they want a whole cluster of large houses. Human desire is like a boulder rolling down a mountain—once it begins, it can never stop.

"But the resources in this world are limited. When everyone wants a large house, conflict naturally arises. It begins with insults and eventually develops into slaughter. Once the seeds of hatred are planted, they can never be erased. In the end, war naturally brews forth. By the time the fighting ends, people have already forgotten their original purpose, leaving only hatred itself."

After saying that, he rose to his feet and extended a hand. "So? This is a good opportunity. Would you like to lead the Uchiha Clan back under my command? Konoha is not a suitable place for the Uchiha Clan. I've already found a fine place, one very suitable for the Uchiha Clan's development."

Uchiha Madara had left Konoha, but he had always planted Ninja Cats within the village to keep watch over it for him. He knew perfectly well about the suppression the Uchiha Clan currently faced.

If the Uchiha Clan moved to the Land of Water, then by undergoing the Land of Water's graduation examination, the Uchiha Clan's theoretical chances of producing Mangekyō Sharingan would greatly increase. The Mangekyō Sharingan's abilities came in countless varieties; perhaps a few pairs with interesting powers would emerge.

Elder Itachi fell silent for a moment, determination showing in his eyes. "The only constant in this world is change. I am changing, and so are you. That era filled with slaughter has passed. Though friction still exists between the nations, things are already far better than before. Humanity's average lifespan is visibly increasing. You can't become fat in a single bite. I believe that in the future, people can continue learning and make the world peaceful."

"Wrong. And not just wrong—you're utterly wrong." Uchiha Madara rose to his feet, his expression solemn. "The only thing humanity has learned from history is that humanity has learned nothing from history. A ninja's child remains a ninja, a Daimyo's child remains a Daimyo, and a commoner's child remains a commoner. That is why humanity keeps repeating history."

"Perhaps you're right." Elder Itachi met his sharp gaze without fear. "But how will we know if we don't try?"

After many years of research, Elder Itachi had gained a new understanding of the Sharingan. The power of the Sharingan did not come from hatred, but from love.

That child possessed a temperament unlike any other Uchiha. Though it sounded mysterious, his intuition, honed over many years, told him that perhaps the child could change the Uchiha Clan's fate.

"Foolish. It seemed that brief peace has muddled your mind. Beauty is only a fleeting sensation. Only reality is eternal, and reality will never be beautiful!"

At that point, Uchiha Madara seemed to see through his thoughts. He bared his teeth in a sinister grin. "Or have you wagered everything on a ten-year-old brat?"

"You..."

With the thoughts in his heart exposed before him, Elder Itachi could no longer maintain his earlier composure. He panicked.

Seeing his flustered expression, Uchiha Madara laughed darkly. "Heh heh... After living to such an old age, you still have less awareness than that little brat."

Elder Itachi's eyes widened. "What are you going to do to Aokiji?"

"I need a handy tool, one that can help me do certain things when necessary in the future. That is all."

Uchiha Madara spoke as casually as if discussing the weather, yet the meaning behind his words was cold enough to make one feel as though they had fallen into an ice cellar.