A certain crow's behavior once kept Fugaku's household on edge, terrified that it and Sasuke would stir up trouble again... mostly because they were afraid Kitahara would run away from home a second time, especially since Sasuke couldn't even crawl on the ground yet!
Such ambition... really made one worry...
The family racked their brains trying to separate Kitahara and Sasuke, with Uchiha Itachi taking the crow out for a stroll at the training grounds all morning every day.
After lunch, things became a bit more casual, with Uchiha Mikoto and Itachi occasionally taking Sasuke outside to bask in the sun, or Fugaku taking the crow to work with him.
After dinner, Mikoto and her husband went out to visit friends, which happened to be a good time to bring Kitahara along... by the time they returned home, Kitahara was already sleepy, so how could it have any energy left to quarrel with Sasuke?
Gossip in Konoha gradually began to increase again, stemming from two places: the Military Police Force and Ichiraku Ramen... There was no helping it; with so many people, eyes were everywhere, and there were plenty of witnesses!
Could the mighty head of the Uchiha clan really not even resolve a dispute between a pet crow and a baby? They even rashly mobilized the Military Police Force just to look for a crow!
"I hear everyone in the village is talking about this!" Mikoto said with a smile during dinner.
Fugaku felt the food tonight was a bit choking, paused, and then looked helplessly toward the other side of the dining table: "...They're at it again..."
That area was very lively right now...
"Pfft... pfft... pfft! Wah... ah..."
"Caw~ caw~"
"Sasuke, be a good boy, don't cry, don't cry, big brother is right next to you! You can't spit on people, you have to be polite!"
"Stop getting angry, Kitahara, hurry up and go eat... Please, Sasuke is still little, you're not allowed to hold a grudge against him!"
Itachi wiped the sweat from his brow as he separated the crow and the infant, sitting back down in his seat. Fugaku pulled out a tissue and handed it to him: "Well done, Itachi!"
"As expected, only Itachi can handle this kind of thing!" Mikoto served a glass of cold drink, placed it in front of her son, and covered her mouth with a chuckle.
"Dad, Mom..." The young boy's face was filled with utter helplessness...
"Alright, alright." Fugaku pushed aside the thought of teasing his son, stood up, and changed into his uniform: "I'm heading to the Military Police Force to arrange the duty roster. Kitahara, want to come along?"
Kitahara, who was licking up some meat porridge, shook its head...
The Military Police Force or whatever was utterly depressing, and every time it went there, people's gazes were very strange.
Fugaku had only mentioned it casually anyway; his workload had been a bit tight these past few days. Lately, Konoha's barrier defenses had been experiencing frequent problems, and the village believed someone might have infiltrated Konoha by sabotaging the barrier.
Therefore, Fourth Hokage Namikaze Minato proposed that the Konoha Military Police Force draw personnel to form an emergency team, thereby allowing the saved Anbu manpower to be dispatched outward.
Although Hokage Advisor Shimura Danzō questioned the ability of the Military Police Force, suggesting that the Root and others could replace the Military Police Force in monitoring abnormalities... which essentially meant smashing the Uchiha's iron rice bowl...
No matter who was in this position, this kind of thing simply couldn't be tolerated!
Fugaku resolved to find out the enemy who might have infiltrated Konoha and prove that the Uchiha were not a showy bunch of freeloaders!
"Itachi, in a little while, Mom wants to go check on Kushina..."
"Aunt Kushina, did something happen?" Itachi hadn't seen Uzumaki Kushina in a long time; ever since the Fourth Hokage assumed office, his wife seemed to have been living a secluded life.
Mikoto shook her head and rubbed Sasuke's cheek: "I ran into her today, and judging by the look of it, she should be giving birth soon. In the future, they'll definitely be in the same cohort as Sasuke!"
Aside from today's chance encounter, another reason was that Kushina didn't have many friends in Konoha, and pregnant women tended to feel somewhat anxious during this period, so Mikoto planned to go visit her close friend.
Although that thick-skinned scarlet habanero probably... didn't know what anxiety was?
"I'll take good care of Sasuke." The young boy scooped up his younger brother with an all-inclusive grip, his gaze sweeping imperceptibly over the burping crow.
If both of them were at home, and he was the only one left in the house, he felt he might not be able to handle it...
Mikoto noticed Itachi's movement, fought back a smile, bent down, and looked at the crow: "Kitahara, come visit with me! Kushina even mentioned you today!"
"Caw..."
The crow obediently landed on Mikoto's shoulder... Consider it a post-dinner walk... It was definitely not scared of that brat who only knew how to spit and make funny faces!
The weather was nice, and the moonlight was so bright it even outshone the streetlights. Aside from a slight chill in the air, it could be considered a fine season for a moonlight stroll.
Only... there was a bit of something different... It was the space-time fluctuation of the Flying Thunder God! Kitahara had practiced the Flying Thunder God Technique in private, and its senses were especially acute!
The Fourth... traveled like this using the Flying Thunder God... just to save time to cook for his wife?
He truly lived up to the name Namikaze Minato... In that case, why not simply draw a jutsu formula with chakra on Itachi and inside his room, wouldn't that save them from the daily bouncing around?
"Huh? Why are the lights out at Kushina's place..." Mikoto said in surprise. Logically speaking, pregnant women shouldn't be walking back and forth at this hour; they should be resting at home or waiting for delivery in a hospital ward.
"Caw?"
"Could she have gone to the hospital?" Mikoto pondered the curve of Kushina's protruding belly: "Judging by the look of it, it should be around these next few days..."
Kitahara secretly curled its beak. It couldn't understand what she was saying, what did "around" mean... Was she saying Kushina was about to give birth? That future Child of Prophecy, master of the Rasengan, Nine-Tails Jinchur...
Arguing with a brat really made one prone to losing their sanity...
"Caw..."
Kitahara raised its head, looking at the moon in the sky, and the chakra on its body began to gather... Why did Uzumaki Naruto become the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki? Of course it was because the previous Jinchuriki...
...Because of childbirth... losing the Nine-Tails... until losing her life... So those space-time fluctuations were not just Namikaze Minato's Flying Thunder God...
"Roar!"
"Caw!"
Uttered in unison, the giant beast that suddenly appeared in Konoha and the tiny crow standing on Mikoto's shoulder...
Nine-Tails!
As soon as it appeared, it possessed a terrifying aura!
"Caw!"
Without a second thought, Kitahara's tiny body fiercely pulled at Mikoto, dodging a collapsing house!
"That... is the Nine-Tails! Kitahara, let's hurry home!" Mikoto said in a panic, clumsily raising her arm to shield herself from the fierce gale... At home, there were still two children!
Even with this being the Nine-Tails' first time running amok in this new era, many people knew full well just how powerful it was! Those good-for-nothings from Sunagakure and those little punks from Kumogakure hadn't spared any effort in using tailed beasts on the battlefield!
Especially Sunagakure, the weakest in strength; there were no lack of Konoha shinobi who had witnessed that chubby tanuki unleashing its might... And that one was only the One-Tail, universally acknowledged as the weakest purely in terms of tails...
What appeared in Konoha now was the tailed beast with the most chakra and the strongest among them all—the Nine-Tails!
That was what they said... but for Konoha shinobi to be scared, that was simply impossible! To speak frankly, compared to the terrifying legends of the Nine-Tails, the fact that Konoha's First Hokage had thoroughly beaten the Nine-Tails to a pulp felt much more real...
And those tailed beasts on the battlefield had all been dealt with anyway...
Konoha's shinobi certainly didn't possess the strength of First Hokage Senju Hashirama, but the First's Will of Fire existed within them!
That would give rise to a rather awkward problem... To put it harshly, it was called optimism... To put it nicely, that was called hubris!
Until that fox under the moonlight... left people unable to see any possibility of defeating it, it probably wouldn't make the villagers of Konoha recall the fear of the strongest tailed beast from their childhoods...
And sear the memory of this very moment deep into their hearts...
Before you continue