"Heh heh, before the Sharingan of our great Uchiha Clan, even the invulnerable Monkey King was nothing but trash! Hahahahahaha!"
Among the dumbstruck children, Uchiha Misaki was the first to come to her senses. What roused her, however, was not anything as complicated as intelligence, but the honor and pride of the Uchiha Clan, something that flowed through every Uchiha's veins, as inseparable from them as their spiky black hair and Sharingan-
Their fiercely burning chūnibyō spirit!
Imitating the adults, Uchiha Misaki threw back her head and laughed wildly. The bewildered Uchiha Kaen and Uchiha Kazuma, who never minded stirring up more trouble for his own amusement, stared blankly at her before joining in.
The three thought they sounded outrageously, insanely arrogant. In reality, their babyish chorus of Uchiha laughter echoed over the silent Ninja Academy, lingering above the heads of all the little tykes caught between speechlessness and shock. A black crow flew overhead and gave two hoarse caws, as though calling them idiots.
"Big Sister, stop laughing! Have you forgotten what the clan leader and the elder told us?"
At the end of her patience, Uchiha Inari had a vein throbbing on her forehead, her playful little face icy cold. Misaki rarely saw her younger sister like this. After a few more guffaws, she finally stopped laughing, but being as perpetually oblivious as she was, she still could not remember what the clan leader and the elder had told them.
Of the two sisters, Inari seemed to have inherited all the brains. How could she not know what Misaki was thinking? Seeing her sister's vacant expression, she sighed helplessly, once again lamenting her misfortune in having such an idiot for a sister.
"They told us never to reveal that Lady Shingetsu had awakened her Sharingan!"
"Oh, right. That old geezer did say something like that."
The dead memory came back to life and repeatedly assaulted Misaki's wrinkle-deficient brain. Her smile froze on her face, and her rosy complexion turned paper-white. Staring in disbelief at Shingetsu, who stood on the training ground with her Sharingan active, she clutched her head and wailed:
"N-no, you can't! Lady Shingetsu, how could you activate your Sharingan?!"
The secret the elder had repeatedly insisted they guard with their lives had been exposed on the very first day! What were they supposed to do now?!
"Big Sister, with that shout, even people outside the school will know."
Uchiha Inari rolled her eyes in despair, grabbed Miki, and clamped a hand over her wailing mouth. Her gaze swept over the bewildered students, the terrified, confused Uchiha children, and Uchiha Hōkaku, who had turned into a stone statue. Finally, she cast a wary glance at Tobirama Senju, who stood in front of them all, staring fixedly at Shingetsu.
To think the secret had been exposed in front of this man. They were really in trouble now.
At that moment, Tobirama Senju's feelings were difficult to put into words. Only one thought flashed through his mind like lightning-
As I suspected, Uchiha Shingetsu had awakened her Sharingan!
Half a month earlier, ever since receiving intelligence that someone in the Uchiha Clan had awakened their Sharingan and the entire clan had celebrated, Tobirama Senju had been wondering who it could be.
After all, the whole affair was decidedly strange upon closer examination. Granted, the Uchiha Clan's awakening rate was not particularly high. Compared with the Hyuga Clan, whose members could almost all awaken the Byakugan, awakening the Sharingan was indeed difficult.
But a mere One-Tomoe Sharingan was nothing compared with the Three-Tomoe Sharingan or the Mangekyō Sharingan. Tobirama could not understand what warranted a clan-wide celebration. Yet the notoriously loose-lipped Uchiha had uncharacteristically guarded this person's identity with their lives. He could only surmise that whoever had awakened it must hold a rather special position.
He had soon put the matter out of his mind. He had no choice; there was simply too much for him to handle. Village affairs, school affairs, clan affairs-countless tasks and problems piled up like mountains, and expecting Hashirama Senju to deal with them was completely unrealistic.
Only when he saw the Uchiha brats at the Ninja Academy today had Tobirama dug through the rubbish heap of his brain for the various pieces of intelligence concerning the Uchiha, including that inconspicuous little report. But after meeting Uchiha Shingetsu, a bold conjecture had begun replicating and spreading through his mind like cancer cells.
Could that important person who awakened the Sharingan be Uchiha Shingetsu, who was only five years old?
For the Uchiha Clan, an ordinary adult awakening a One-Tomoe Sharingan was hardly noteworthy. But the clan leader's five-year-old disciple awakening one was an entirely different matter.
An Uchiha prodigy who awakened her Sharingan at five meant that, if she survived to adulthood, she would very likely-or rather, inevitably-awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan in the future, perhaps even surpassing it.
Just like her master, Madara Uchiha.
As the minutes and seconds passed, Tobirama Senju, sitting in his office, found himself completely unable to dismiss this seemingly outlandish conjecture.
Madara Uchiha. That short name was a nightmare that had always haunted him, a humiliating brand inevitably seared into everyone who had witnessed that demon-like man fighting on the battlefield.
The God of the Shinobi World and the Asura of the Ninja World had appeared on the battlefield like deities. No one could keep pace with them, not even their own blood relatives and descendants. As Hashirama Senju's younger brother, and having personally witnessed the birth and growth of Hashirama's son, Senju Ryūju, Tobirama had discovered with regret that not a single member of the Senju's new generation possessed potential that could match Hashirama Senju's.
The most disappointing of them was undoubtedly Senju Ryūju. Not only had he failed to inherit his father's Wood Release, but the potential he displayed during training was utterly mediocre. He showed not even a fraction of his father Hashirama Senju's brilliance, completely shattering the fantasies of the Senju elders who had hoped to perpetuate the legend of the God of the Shinobi World.
The only consolation was that Madara Uchiha had no intention of marrying or having children, and the Uchiha Clan had produced no exceptionally outstanding powerhouse either.
With the legends of both great clans seemingly destined to end with this generation, Tobirama Senju had wondered whether this was a kind of balance. The vast majority of people in this world would ultimately remain mortals, and gods would vanish like fleeting meteors.
But just as he was finally struggling toward accepting this truth, the Uchiha suddenly produced a prodigy who might very well become the next Madara Uchiha?!
What a joke!
That indescribable sense of devastation had reached its peak after Tobirama heard Uchiha Shingetsu's downright outrageous speech. He had found a trace of someone in her, yet could not immediately identify who.
Only while standing on the second floor, watching the little brats laughing and joking, had Tobirama suddenly realized whom she resembled.
So alike. This hateful little brat was far too much like Madara Uchiha.
The resemblance lay neither in her appearance nor in her personality, but in something far more fundamental.
When Tobirama realized this, his mind went blank for a moment. By the time he came to his senses, he was already walking toward the training ground.
Whether as Tobirama Senju of the Senju of the Forest or as Tobirama Senju of Konoha, he had to confirm whether Uchiha Shingetsu truly possessed the potential to become the next Madara Uchiha.
Back in the present, when Tobirama Senju saw those eyes, blood-red and radiant as a rainbow, it felt as though his worldview and common sense had been slammed to the ground and viciously stomped on, shattering into countless fragments.
It was the same shock he had experienced as a boy when he first saw his elder brother, Hashirama Senju, inexplicably use Wood Release-unprecedented, unparalleled, and utterly unique. Before Hashirama Senju, no one in the Senju Clan could use Wood Release. Before Uchiha Shingetsu, no one in the Uchiha Clan had possessed eyes like these.
Whose Sharingan had an iridescent luster?!
Relying on his unfathomable self-restraint and mental fortitude, Tobirama Senju forcibly suppressed the urge to let his expression change-or kill someone. His brain raced as he reviewed everything he knew about Uchiha Shingetsu, and an enormous question arose in his mind.
Whose daughter was Uchiha Shingetsu, really?
As Konoha's actual ruler, Tobirama Senju naturally knew perfectly well that Uchiha Hōkaku was Shingetsu's father. That did not stop him from immediately stripping Hōkaku of his fatherhood.
What a joke. After fighting him on the battlefield for all these years, how could he not know exactly what Uchiha Hōkaku was capable of? Even Hashirama Senju could not produce a son who could use Wood Release. What gave Uchiha Hōkaku the right to produce a daughter with such a genetic mutation?
Then he crossed Madara Uchiha's name off the list as well.
Although that seemed like the correct answer, given how much Madara Uchiha valued his family, along with his domineering arrogance, having a child would only make him announce to the whole world, "Look, I've got a kid!" He would never palm her off on someone else.
Of course, Tobirama could not imagine what sort of woman Madara Uchiha could fall in love with in the first place.
Working out the timing, reviewing every Uchiha man of a suitable age, and eliminating every impossible option left only one answer, however unbelievable it sounded. Uchiha Shingetsu's father was-
Uchiha Izuna!
At that moment, Tobirama Senju believed he was infinitely close to the truth. For one thing, Hōkaku having a daughter without ever marrying was extraordinarily strange. Tobirama knew better than anyone how obsessive those red-eyed freaks were about romantic exclusivity. For another, Madara Uchiha treated her exceptionally well and even taught her Izuna's swordsmanship. But if she was Izuna's daughter, all of that made perfect sense.
Given Madara Uchiha's attachment to his younger brother, even extending one-tenth of that affection to Shingetsu would be enough for him to love her to death out of love for Izuna.
But who was Uchiha Shingetsu's mother?
Tobirama suspected she was not a woman of the Uchiha Clan.
Recalling those peculiar eyes, Tobirama Senju almost immediately thought of the Hyuga Clan. As the only two great ninja clans with ocular kekkei genkai in Konoha, or indeed the entire Shinobi World, perhaps combining the Byakugan and Sharingan bloodlines could produce such a mutation.
Tobirama Senju's mind was in turmoil, all manner of seemingly outlandish conjectures flashing through it.
There were simply too many peculiarities about this child, so many that ordinary reasoning could hardly explain her origins.
Clans with kekkei genkai only ever married within the clan to preserve the purity of their bloodlines. But if it was Uchiha Izuna, the man who had always sacrificed himself to protect his elder brother and his clan, he might well have married a woman from another clan and fathered a child to obtain a more powerful kekkei genkai.
Those mentally deranged red-eyed freaks were capable of absolutely anything!
Before you continue