"Clan head Fugaku, you should step down."
Inside a sealed room, Uchiha Haruma smiled as he spoke softly and gently to Fugaku, the clan head.
It was hard to imagine how a mouth at thirty-six degrees could utter something so cold.
Not a single wasted word. Sincerity was the name of the game!
Fugaku's expression shifted several times. His initial composure turned into bewilderment, then hotheaded anger...
A vicious red light faintly stirred in his pitch-black eyes. His face livid, Fugaku said, "Uchiha Haruma! Do you know what you're saying?!"
"Of course."
Still composed, Haruma nodded slightly and said, "If you keep leading the Uchiha Clan, this day the year after next will be the death anniversary of the entire clan."
"You insolent brat!"
Here in the clan compound, a subordinate had urged him to step down, even claiming that the glorious Uchiha Clan would be destroyed next year.
Uncontrollable anger surged forth. At some point, Fugaku's eyes had transformed into the Three-Tomoe Sharingan, and he fixed the young Haruma with an icy stare.
If he couldn't give a proper explanation today, he had better be transferred to the medical department to recuperate for the next few months.
Not just to treat the injuries he would soon sustain, but, more importantly, to get his head examined.
The atmosphere in the cramped room instantly froze.
Looking straight at Fugaku's activated Three-Tomoe Sharingan, Haruma's expression remained unchanged. He still wore a sunny smile befitting his name.
"I'm not being alarmist... I simply saw it, that's all."
The next second,
An even stronger surge of ocular power erupted from Haruma's eyes. Under clan head Fugaku's incredulous gaze, his pitch-black eyes turned into scarlet, spinning pinwheels.
"Th-this is the Mangekyō Sharingan?!"
"H-how is that possible?!"
His anger vanished as quickly as it had come. Fugaku, who had been shouting just a moment ago, now stared blankly at Haruma's eyes.
He had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan at fifteen.
If Haruma's talent for ninjutsu had been as dazzling as their ancestor Madara Uchiha's or Itachi's, Fugaku would have had little trouble accepting this reality.
But,
Uchiha Haruma was a notorious failure throughout the clan. He was still a genin at fifteen and had yet to pass either the clan's or the village's Chunin Ninja Exams.
His records even showed that he had not awakened the most basic One-Tomoe Sharingan.
He stood in stark contrast to Fugaku's eldest son, Uchiha Itachi, a gifted ninja who, at twelve, served as a squad leader in the Anbu and already possessed strength comparable to a jonin's.
If he hadn't always shown such a sunny disposition and a fondness for helping others,
And frequently volunteered around the compound to care for elderly clan members who had lost their loved ones to war or missions, as well as disabled people who had lost their mobility,
Who knew what sort of ostracism and scorn a fifteen-year-old genin with absolutely no talent for ninjutsu would have faced within the clan.
"Release!"
He instantly formed the hand seal for breaking genjutsu, and chakra comparable to kage level erupted from his body.
"It's not genjutsu..."
After the shock, Fugaku looked at Uchiha Haruma, who still wore a warm smile, with an immensely complicated expression.
With talent like this, he had nevertheless been treated by everyone in the clan as a harmless little bunny all along.
This was an ultimate old six.
Fugaku silently revised his previous impression of Haruma.
Madara Uchiha, the most powerful member of the Uchiha Clan in history, had only awakened his eyes at fifteen, too.
Yet the boy standing before him, whom the clan had judged to have unawakened eyes, might already have broken Madara's record.
Looking into Haruma's eyes, Fugaku's shock gave way to immense confusion. As clan head, he knew perfectly well how much hardship and pain it took to evolve from one-tomoe to the Sharingan.
Yet this old six had quietly evolved to this level without a word.
"Those eyes... when exactly?"
"When I awakened them isn't important." Haruma's tone was gentle. "What matters now is that you should step down."
Fugaku's face went from white to blue, then red, shifting as brilliantly as a rainbow.
When the matter of stepping down came up again, Fugaku finally remembered that this old six wasn't joking.
Had this proposal come before he had seen the Mangekyō, Fugaku might have sent him straight to the front of the line at the medical department.
But now, Haruma's image in Fugaku's mind had changed from a little bunny to an ultimate old six. And there was that line he had said earlier...
He simply saw it.
The change in strength and impression also made Fugaku realize the importance of those words.
"When you said you saw it, was that an ability of your eyes?"
Haruma nodded again. As expected of a clan head, he wasn't stupid.
He had grasped the key point immediately.
"I saw the future."
Haruma pointed to his eyes and said evenly, "If the clan stays as it is, one year from now will mark the beginning of the night of the massacre."
Prophecy, or perhaps a dōjutsu that traversed time and space...
Fugaku frowned. Though the words were much the same, he clearly took them far more seriously now. His mind raced through every ability the Uchiha had acquired upon awakening their eyes throughout history.
Silence fell for a moment.
This was the advantage strength brought.
When you were weak, even the truth would be treated as a mental patient's ramblings. When you were strong, even a wild claim about destroying the world would send the world into a panic.
"Clan head, don't resist. Let me show you the Uchiha compound one year from now, and you'll understand."
Haruma spoke softly. Without waiting for Fugaku's answer, his Mangekyō Sharingan began to spin. Hearing his words, Fugaku did not resist, willingly sinking into the illusion Haruma controlled.
A silent night, a blood moon overhead.
Within the illusion, Haruma led Fugaku step by step through the Uchiha Clan's gates.
Blood. Blood was everywhere, covering the dark ground.
The clan members lay lifeless in pools of blood, the bewilderment still lingering on their faces.
The night was frighteningly quiet, as frightening as Fugaku's expression at that moment: hideous and terrifying, like a beast poised to devour someone.
Fugaku strode past Haruma, quickening his pace toward his own room. He wanted to see just what he was doing at this moment!
Why had people died right outside the gates without so much as a sound or a response?
Haruma did not follow. Instead, he leaned leisurely by the gates and closed his eyes to wait.
Foreseeing such a clear future so far ahead with just a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan? How could that be possible?
The ability to traverse time and space was fake, but Haruma, who knew Naruto's plot inside out, was telling the truth.
If the Uchiha Clan didn't change, on this day next year, that "filial" child Itachi really would send them all off.
In his previous life, he had been a shut-in on Blue Star who loved games and anime.
He had just finished showering and downloaded a new Naruto mobile game, without even getting the chance to enjoy a few rounds.
Then he had unceremoniously fallen to his death beside his bed, giving rise to the present Uchiha Haruma.
Sure enough, the mobile game he hadn't gotten to enjoy became Haruma's golden finger.
Its functions were simple, and its effects were powerful.
But just like every mobile game in his previous life, if you wanted to play well, spending money was essential.
Forget shocking Fugaku by awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan at fifteen. As long as you topped up enough money, you could rule this Shinobi World at five.
Five years, five years, then another five years.
He had spent seven years doing genin missions catching cats and finding dogs, starting at eight.
There were also all those years spent rushing around the recuperation area in a corner of the compound, slowly working away with his sunny smile and silver tongue...
At last, he had swindled those elderly clan members out of their pensions-pah, gotten them to deposit their pensions with him.
Was the Sharingan cool? Pensions paid for it.
P.S. To make the early plot more plausible, Itachi's awakening of the Mangekyō in this book has been moved to the night of the massacre. (In the original, he awakened the Mangekyō after witnessing Shisui's suicide.)
This minor adjustment won't affect the reading experience later on.