Inside the Uchiha compound.
"Uchiha Keizumi… that brat has returned?" Uchiha Setsuna's already dark and weathered face grew even gloomier. If not for Keizumi, he would have forced Uchiha Fugaku down from his position two nights ago and taken the title of clan head for himself.
But instead, Keizumi's so-called Absolute Justice had somehow brainwashed many of the younger Uchiha.
The result: during the clan meeting, at least one-fifth of the members walked out.
And on top of that, another portion stood on Fugaku's side.
In such circumstances… even if the meeting had been pushed forward by force, he wouldn't have gathered enough votes.
To Uchiha Setsuna, Uchiha Keizumi was nothing less than a rotten pest!
Time and again, the boy had ruined his plans!
And more than that…
Setsuna hadn't forgotten that Uchiha Keizumi had killed his own grandson!
Without leaving even a body behind!
Old grudges and new hatreds piled one atop the other, leaving him seething with such fury that his liver ached.
He had once thought he could live another ten years or more—but now, in his rage, he felt he might not last five or six.
"Hah!" He clutched his aching chest, his expression shifting darkly as a thought struck him. "That brat—could he pin the crime of my grandson selling contraband drugs onto me? I didn't personally take part, but in secret, I did give Hayata plenty of hidden assistance… With that boy's extreme methods, he'll definitely set his sights on me, won't he?"
"Now that he's back in Konoha, could it be that he's here to cause me trouble?"
The moment that thought surfaced, Uchiha Setsuna suddenly felt as if half of his sense of security had vanished.
He knew well—this was someone who had killed even his own blood relatives without hesitation!
In that boy's eyes, even the Daimyō of the Land of Fire was nothing.
So what chance did he, an elder from the radical faction of the Uchiha, have?
Urged on by his growing unease, Uchiha Setsuna immediately summoned over a dozen young radicals from the clan.
He had them surround him closely.
Only then… did he regain a shred of security.
…
Meanwhile.
Elsewhere.
As Uchiha Keizumi was making his way toward the Uchiha compound, a sudden voice rang out, making him halt in his tracks.
"Hey, brat! So you finally came back."
Izumi, at his side, froze for a moment.
Brat?
Were they talking about her? But she had been in Konoha all along!
Wait!
Izumi's bright eyes widened.
Could it be… they were addressing her senpai?!
Shocked, she quickly turned her head—only to see a mature woman with a generous chest standing not far behind. Beside her stood a kunoichi in black clothes, holding a little pink pig, looking somewhat shy and withdrawn.
And behind those two… Izumi noticed an old, sleazy-looking man with spiky white hair, wearing wooden clogs.
What kind of bizarre group is this?
How had she not noticed them in Konoha these past few days?
"Meow, that's Tsunade-sama!" Tachibana Jirō's voice rose up, clearing the confusion in the girl's heart. "And… the one behind her must be Jiraiya-sama, one of the Legendary Sannin of Konoha."
"Ahahahaha! Didn't think even a ninja cat would recognize me." Jiraiya burst into exaggerated laughter, his tone smug and boastful. "That's right, I am the great and famous Jiraiya the Sage!"
Jiraiya… Tsunade…
As those two names flashed through her mind, Izumi's eyes widened even more.
Hiss!
The Legendary Sannin of Konoha!
Before Izumi could recover from her shock, Tsunade's voice sounded again.
"Brat, those seventy-nine kids—I've already settled them in Konoha's orphanage. They don't remember what they went through. Your Sharingan genjutsu really worked—it at least erased the shadow on their hearts."
Tsunade strode over in her bold, carefree way, even slapping Uchiha Keizumi familiarly on the shoulder.
She laughed heartily. "But I never expected you, brat—after slaughtering Tanzaku Town, you went and pulled off something this big."
"That was the Daimyō of the Land of Fire! And all those noble families too—you killed them without even batting an eye."
Izumi suddenly felt a bit nervous. Could it be that these two of the Legendary Sannin had come to accuse Keizumi-senpai?
"Brat, you've done pretty well!"
But Tsunade's reaction was completely different from Izumi's worries. "I kept saying in front of those two old fossils that what you did wasn't wrong. Don't you think you ought to thank me properly?"
Tachibana Jirō cut in: "Meow, the old fossils Tsunade-sama means should be Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu. But even if Tsunade-sama hadn't defended Keizumi-sama, they wouldn't have dared mutter anything strange in front of him anyway."
At that moment, Uchiha Keizumi's gaze moved past Tsunade and landed on Jiraiya standing behind her.
Jiraiya's complicated eyes also locked onto Keizumi.
"Ah… back when the Third Shinobi World War had just ended, we met once, didn't we?" Jiraiya scratched his head as he spoke.
At the time, he had been busy searching for the Great Toad Sage's Child of Prophecy. He had indeed once considered Uchiha Keizumi as a candidate—after all, he was an extremely rare shinobi with two kekkei genkai.
But after watching from the shadows for a while, he had found this brat's personality to be somewhat extreme, and so he had given up.
What he hadn't expected…
Was that after all these years, the boy had only become even more extreme.
"We did meet," Uchiha Keizumi replied coldly. "At the time, I kept feeling someone was following me. I thought it was a human trafficker, until you finally showed yourself."
"Cough, cough!" Jiraiya gave an awkward cough.
Just as he was about to explain in a hurry, Keizumi's voice cut through like a blade: "I suppose, at that time, you thought I might be the so-called Child of Prophecy, so you followed me to confirm whether your guess was right. Isn't that so?"
Jiraiya: "!!!"
If Jiraiya's expression before had carried an intentional air of clownishness, then the look of shock on his face now was pure, unfiltered disbelief.
He stared at Uchiha Keizumi.
His eyes were filled with astonishment, as if he were seeing a ghost in broad daylight.
"Child of Prophecy?" Tsunade frowned, shooting a glance back at Jiraiya. "What Child of Prophecy?!"
Jiraiya: "…"
He didn't answer her. Instead, he took a deep breath, forcing down the turmoil in his heart, and then, with a face full of complicated emotion, asked Uchiha Keizumi: "Where did you hear that from?"
"Have you been to Mount Myōboku?" Jiraiya probed further.
"Never." The terse reply left Jiraiya dumbfounded.
Keizumi, utterly calm, said coldly, "There are few secrets in the shinobi world I do not already know."
He continued, "If you pin the shinobi world's future—its peace or its destruction—on some so-called Child of Prophecy, then you're wasting your time searching. Because even without you taking him as a disciple, the Child of Prophecy will fulfill the duty of justice for the sake of peace in the shinobi world. As long as every last evil in this world is purged, peace will come to the shinobi world naturally."
To Jiraiya, Keizumi's words fell upon his ears like a thunderbolt from the heavens.
Jiraiya's eyes widened even further, his breathing growing short and uneven.
Uchiha Keizumi… Not only did he know that Jiraiya was searching for the Child of Prophecy—he even knew who the Child of Prophecy was!?
This…
Wasn't this far too absurd? Did he really know everything? But then, how could he possibly know?
Could it be that besides the Great Toad Sage, there was someone else in the shinobi world capable of foretelling the future?
Wait!
Jiraiya suddenly thought of something.
These past few days in Konoha, he had also gathered some intelligence on Uchiha Keizumi. He had learned that Keizumi's Sharingan could perceive both the evils of the past and the evils of the future.
The key point, of course, was the future evils—that ability itself carried a prophetic nature!
Could it be that Uchiha Keizumi had foreseen the existence of the Child of Prophecy as well?
And moreover, his prophecy was even more precise than the Great Toad Sage's—directly identifying exactly who that child was?
Jiraiya's face was filled with utter shock.
…
Hokage Tower.
"Uchiha Keizumi has returned unharmed." Utatane Koharu looked out the window at the buildings of Konoha, her tone tinged with disappointment. "In the end, Hiruzen still didn't strike against him. Hiruzen chose to indulge him once again."
"An Absolute Justice that was uncontrollable from the start—if it continues to be indulged like this, the day will come when not even the entire ANBU, including Hiruzen himself, will be able to restrain him. When that time comes, Hiruzen will regret it."
When Koharu spoke the word regret, her tone was utterly firm.
Mitokado Homura gave a cough and said, "Hiruzen has his own considerations. Besides, in the intelligence we received, he explained that it was the Daimyō's eldest son who stopped him."
Koharu snorted coldly. "If the Hokage of Konoha truly wished to move against Uchiha Keizumi, how could the Daimyō's eldest son—who isn't even yet the Daimyō of the Land of Fire—possibly stop him?"
"The Daimyō's son must have been threatened by Uchiha Keizumi! Otherwise, how could he so easily let go of the man who killed his father?"
"After all, who could endure having their father's killer walking freely before their very eyes?"
Homura added softly, "Hiruzen could."
Koharu fell silent for two seconds. Then she bit her teeth and said, "That is exactly why, under Hiruzen's baseless indulgence, that brat Uchiha Keizumi grows more and more unrestrained!"
"Hiruzen—he's old!"
But even as Koharu said this, it was only words. She had no intention of seeking another Hokage.
After all—
She, Hiruzen, and Homura were bound together by interests so deeply tied, they could never be separated.
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