Uchiha Takashi had not been idle in the village. Instead, he had patrolled it over and over, committing every feature of the terrain to memory.
This would be the place where the Uchiha built their fortune in the future. How would they develop? What approach would they take? Geographically speaking, the terrain was very important, and as both the village chief and the third elder, he naturally had to memorize it.
Just as his patrol brought him to the entrance, he heard the clanking of chains in the distance. Fū Uchiha had returned.
Uchiha Takashi turned to look and saw Fū Uchiha and the dozen or so Uchiha clansmen escorting a vast throng toward the village.
Fū Uchiha spotted Uchiha Takashi from afar as well, and immediately hurried over to him. "Reporting to the third elder!
"The mission has been successfully completed. I've captured everyone in the bandit stronghold and brought them back. They're all here. Not a single person escaped."
Uchiha Takashi nodded in satisfaction. "Well done. Thank you for your hard work."
Fū Uchiha said, "It was no hardship. For the glory of the Uchiha Clan!"
Uchiha Takashi ignored the second half of Fū Uchiha's reply. Instead, he looked at Tsukina Fujiwara tucked under Fū Uchiha's arm. "You went out... and abducted yourself a girlfriend?"
The tips of Fū Uchiha's ears instantly reddened at those words. He hurriedly set Tsukina Fujiwara down and explained, "No, no! She's someone we found in the bandit stronghold.
"She said his name was Tsukina Fujiwara and that the bandits had captured her. I figured that since she was an ordinary person they'd captured, I should bring her back. We couldn't just leave her there alone, could we?"
Uchiha Takashi nodded. "You're right, but why did you bring her back tucked under your arm?"
Fū Uchiha replied with a serious expression, "Because there's something wrong with this woman's feet. She could trip on perfectly level ground just walking along. She was really slowing us down, so I figured I'd tuck her under my arm and carry her back."
Uchiha Takashi said, "..." You call that carrying her in your arms? You tucked her against your waist. Does that count as carrying her in your arms?
Uchiha Takashi looked at Tsukina Fujiwara. She stood there with her face slightly flushed. Was it because she had been carried back, or was there some other reason?
Noticing that Uchiha Takashi kept staring at Tsukina Fujiwara, Fū Uchiha cautiously leaned closer and asked, "Third Elder, what are you doing?"
Only then did Uchiha Takashi withdraw his gaze and turn to Fū Uchiha. "You brought her back like that, and you really don't have any intentions at all?"
Fū Uchiha said, "What intentions? I don't understand."
Uchiha Takashi slapped his forehead, then leaned over and whispered a few words into his ear. Fū Uchiha's face instantly turned red.
"How could that be? What kind of person do you take me for? Am I that sort of person? I'm not interested in women! Women will only slow down my progress toward becoming stronger!"
Uchiha Takashi said, "Really? Then what about your parents? What about carrying on your family line? With such an outstanding bloodline, don't you want to pass it on?"
Fū Uchiha said with a red face, "That really isn't it. I'm not interested in women, and my parents already died on the battlefield. All I want now is to become stronger and avenge them.
"It's just... I seem to be better at management, so I've always handled administrative tasks within the clan. But marriage and all that really hasn't crossed my mind."
Uchiha Takashi looked at the Uchiha clansmen beside him and asked, "Is he really like this? Has he always been this way?"
An Uchiha clansman beside him nodded with absolute certainty. "That's right. Lord Fū has quite a few admirers within the clan, but he's already made it clear that he has no interest in women."
At that thought, Uchiha Takashi shook his head and sighed. "What a shame. I thought you'd finally wised up and even knew how to find yourself a girlfriend. Who would have thought?"
Fū Uchiha said, "Third Elder, please stop teasing me."
"All right, all right. You don't have any intentions, okay? In that case, go arrange a place for Miss Tsukina Fujiwara to stay, then take her there.
"Let Miss Fujiwara stay with us for a while. We're rather busy here ourselves, after all."
Fū Uchiha nodded, tucked the girl under his arm, and walked off.
Uchiha Takashi, however, remained standing where he was without moving. As Fū Uchiha and the girl passed him, he immediately called Fū Uchiha to a stop.
Fū Uchiha turned around in confusion. "What is it? Is there something else?"
The girl in Fū Uchiha's grasp also cautiously looked toward Uchiha Takashi, and her gaze met his.
What the girl saw, however, was not a pair of bright, dark eyes, but Uchiha Takashi's Mangekyō Sharingan.
The instant their eyes met, the girl went blank, immediately falling under Uchiha Takashi's Genjutsu.
"Third Elder, what is this?" Fū Uchiha looked at Uchiha Takashi in confusion.
Uchiha Takashi ignored him and instead asked the girl, "What is your name?"
The girl replied blankly, "Tsukina Fujiwara..."
Uchiha Takashi rubbed his chin. "Fujiwara? What does your family do? What is your father's relationship to Suke Fujiwara, the minister serving under the daimyo?"
Tsukina Fujiwara said, "My father is Suke Fujiwara's younger paternal cousin. Our family does business in the nearby City of Red."
"Then how did you get captured and taken there? Tell me exactly how you were captured and everything that happened afterward."
"My father sent me out to do business with another city, and..."
Tsukina Fujiwara blankly recounted everything that had happened. After using his Genjutsu, Uchiha Takashi roughly pieced together the sequence of events.
Tsukina Fujiwara's father had sent her out on business, but she had encountered bandits along the way.
The people escorting her had all been killed before they could even react. The bandit chief, Arikaze Tanaka, had taken a fancy to Tsukina Fujiwara and abducted her to the stronghold.
What somewhat surprised Uchiha Takashi, however, was that this had happened just that morning. In other words, shortly after Tsukina Fujiwara had been captured, the two of them had gone to the bandits' stronghold and killed everyone there.
No wonder the bandits had still been there even after abducting someone. It turned out there simply hadn't been time to react.
"The Fujiwara Clan..." Uchiha Takashi then released the Genjutsu, rubbing his chin as he murmured under his breath.
In truth, Uchiha Takashi did not care about Tsukina Fujiwara's identity, but if he wanted to fully accept her, he had to learn about her background.
Uchiha Takashi's original idea had been to have Tsukina Fujiwara integrate into the Uchiha Clan, but after learning her identity, he changed his mind.
As the daimyo's number one lackey, the Fujiwara Clan had an extremely close relationship with him. The two families were, in fact, relatives to begin with.
Such a force absolutely could not be underestimated at the court of the Land of Fire.
If they could win them over, perhaps the Uchiha Clan's plans could proceed even more smoothly...