The bright moon hung high in the sky. Strange, eerie purple Rinne Sharingan patterns faintly shimmered across its surface, pulling everyone bathed in the moonlight into the illusion cast by Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke.
Every single person became Sasuke Uchiha, forced to feel what he had felt during the Fourth Shinobi World War—the moment he used Edo Tensei Reincarnation to summon the four Hokage and speak with them.
Itachi Uchiha...
To keep the Fourth Shinobi World War from erupting early because Konoha had fallen into a weak position, he accepted the Third Hokage's order and wiped out his entire clan, sparing only his younger brother.
They didn't care what Konoha's people or the rest of the ninja world thought. The Uchiha clan's rage couldn't be soothed, not ever.
Sasuke's life was spared, but what about the clan's non-combatants? What about the children—kids Sasuke's age, or even younger?
A lot of Uchiha wanted nothing more than to break out of the illusion. Even if they didn't kill Itachi, they at least wanted him locked up under strict guard.
But their fury crashed head-on into the pain in Sasuke's heart.
Because right now, they were all "Sasuke Uchiha."
Under the weight of Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke's grief, some Uchiha began to seriously reconsider what they had said to the Third Hokage.
So Konoha's higher-ups really had known all along about their plan to launch a coup.
If not for Itachi Uchiha...
The Uchiha and Konoha would've ended up in a massive slaughter.
That kind of internal war only had three possible outcomes:
A stalemate.
The Uchiha win.
Konoha wins.
But no matter which one happened...
Konoha and the Uchiha would both take devastating losses. And once one side was left weakened and drained—whether it was a weakened Uchiha or a weakened Konoha—other ninja nations would pounce and carve them up.
Those other nations weren't weak, either. Some, like Kumogakure, might even have been stronger overall.
And on top of that, Konoha no longer had the Fourth Hokage to keep the Four Nations in check, and no longer had a Jinchūriki who could control the Tailed Beast. If they then gutted themselves and lost eighty percent of their strength to infighting...
Then it wouldn't matter whether it was Konoha or the Uchiha.
Whether it was the Sharingan or the Byakugan, the Shadow Imitation Technique, the Multi-Size Technique, the Mind Body Switch Technique—or even the Edo Tensei Reincarnation, the Shadow Clone Technique, the Eight Inner Gates...
To the other ninja nations and villages, all of it was worth more than gold and silver.
The real ninja world was cruel. The moment the Uchiha or Konoha lost their standing, anyone hungry for Kekkei Genkai would absolutely do things like dig out eyes while the owner was still alive.
"Damn it! If only Konoha hadn't always pushed the Uchiha aside!"
Uchiha were boiling with thoughts like that, while Konoha ninja—shocked by the news that Itachi Uchiha had slaughtered his own clan just so more people could live—also found themselves drowning in Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke's pain.
It felt like they'd been pulled straight into Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke's body. And then they heard the Second Hokage on the other side, speaking through the Edo Tensei—
["I saw this coming long ago. Back then, Madara Uchiha's followers never truly stopped."]
The Konoha ninja went rigid. The Uchiha—no, the entire ninja world—were all struck by the same thought at once.
Right. If you really thought about it...
Where had Konoha's wariness toward the Uchiha started?
It started with Madara Uchiha. He had brought the Nine-Tails to try to destroy Konoha.
And then six years ago, right up to the Fourth Hokage's death...
The Uchiha kept insisting Konoha had framed them.
But what was the reality?
Reality slammed them in the face, didn't it? The one who did all of it was a Uchiha—Obito Uchiha.
The Uchiha hadn't known any of this before. But now that they did, could we… could you… still blame everything on fate, still insist it was everyone else's injustice and persecution that forced the Uchiha into a dead end?
[Orochimaru: "Second Hokage, you're the one who drove the Uchiha into a dead end. Your policies isolated them. Creating the Uchiha Police Force was your mistake."]
What did any of this have to do with the Second Hokage's policies?
Weren't Obito Uchiha and Madara Uchiha the ones who wanted to destroy the world, to hang all of humanity from trees and trap them in an endless dream?
And people from other villages had their own story: that it was Konoha's Hokage being soft and indecisive that allowed the future ninja world to be devastated like this. Konoha should take responsibility and compensate every village for its losses.
[Orochimaru: "People who punish criminals are easily hated. And when someone holds power, it's easy for them to go blind. Using 'monitoring criminals' as an excuse, you put the Uchiha Police Force right next to the prison, shoved the Uchiha clan into the village's corner, and that's exactly what planted the hidden danger and fed the Uchiha's arrogance."]
Third Hokage: "No. That was on me and Danzō. We believed the Uchiha were the primary suspects in the Nine-Tails incident, so we pushed them to the village's outskirts and kept them under surveillance."
Only some people in Konoha knew that part of the truth. Across the wider ninja world, there weren't many, but there were still those who let Orochimaru's words steer them.
They genuinely believed the future conflict between the Uchiha and Konoha was pushed forward by the Second Hokage's policies.
They didn't really understand it, either. How did "political criminals" and "helping the village maintain public order" turn into something people hated? Shouldn't that have improved the Uchiha's image in the villagers' eyes?
But if Orochimaru—one of the Sannin—said it, then it had to be true, right? Forcing the Uchiha to the village's edge and keeping them watched must be the Hokage's fault, right?
Ordinary ninja and ordinary people in the ninja world might think like that…
Your identity and your position decide what you can see.
And what you can see shapes the size of your world.
The higher-ups of the great villages understood this perfectly. They held real authority, and with it came responsibility. Their perspective and judgment were nothing like those of ordinary ninja or civilians.
If anything, they believed the Second Hokage and the Third Hokage were at fault for not carrying things through. Madara Uchiha and his followers should have been wiped out long ago. If that had happened, the Fourth Shinobi World War wouldn't have demanded such horrific sacrifices.
But they still underestimated what the God of Shinobi was thinking…
["Tobirama! How many times do I have to tell you? You can't look down on the Uchiha clan!"]
Maybe… because the God of Shinobi stood higher than everyone else?
["What's wrong with giving them work only they can do? That way, when the next Madara Uchiha appears, we can respond immediately, isn't that right?"]
["Big brother, you understand too, don't you? The Uchiha clan…"]
["…is a clan possessed by 'evil'!"]
In the midst of all this, Fourth Shinobi World War Minato suddenly realized something. The Second Hokage had guarded against it for so long, but in the end…
Wasn't Sasuke the reincarnation of Madara?
Back then, Itachi and the others probably never could have imagined it—Sasuke and Madara were both reincarnations of Indra.
[Orochimaru: "Madara is like a psychological shadow to you. Is he really that terrifying?"]
[Tobirama Senju: "That's because you don't understand the Uchiha at all. The Uchiha clan and our Senju clan fought each other for a very long time. The world says the Senju uphold 'great love' as their creed, but in truth, the Uchiha are the clan of love. Their love is so vast that it reaches the point where it has to be sealed away."]
What?!
Konoha's people were stunned. The Uchiha were the clan of love?
Sealing love?
What was that even supposed to mean?
[Tobirama Senju: "Once someone of the Uchiha clan understands what love is, the emotions that have been sealed all this time will suddenly be released. And that power will awaken."]
That power awakens…
Many Uchiha who had awakened their eyes finally realized something. For most of them, the moment their Sharingan first opened, they'd been driven by the same urgent desire—
To protect.
To protect the things they wanted to keep safe.
Sasuke remembered that when his eyes first awakened, all he wanted was to protect Naruto and Sakura.
Obito remembered wanting to protect Kakashi, and save Rin.
Itachi remembered that back then, he'd wanted to protect Tenma and the others too… even if he hadn't been able to.
But if that was the case, wasn't it all the more strange? Why was it that every Uchiha they ever saw ended up so extreme?
Right then, Suigetsu happened to ask the exact same question.
[Second Hokage: "The Uchiha are intense by nature. Their thoughts run to extremes, and they're prone to getting stuck in their own heads. So once they lose what they love… all that love turns into hatred. Their whole personality shifts. The more someone loved this world, the more they'll end up hating it!"]
Those words hit like a blade.
Adult Obito was yanked back to the moment Rin died, the agony of it squeezing his chest until he could barely breathe.
Akatsuki Itachi remembered the instant Shisui, drowning in despair, shoved his last hope into Itachi's hands… and then chose death.
Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke remembered the bone-deep torment of killing his brother, and the truth that followed.
And the elderly people who'd once been helped by Obito Uchiha found themselves thinking of the Obito from their childhood… only to remember the "enemy of the world" they had seen in that earlier illusion.
...
I wonder what little Obito went through…
That kid even came by a few days ago, saying he'd once given up on his dream of becoming Hokage, but now he regretted it.
Before he could pay for everything he'd done wrong, every day was its own kind of torment.
["The Sharingan and Mangekyo Sharingan you know of are the result of a Uchiha losing someone they deeply love. Under that overwhelming pain, the brain secretes a special kind of chakra, and when it acts on the optic nerves, the eyes change."]
["The Senju clan's strength is physical. The Uchiha are different—their power leans toward the spiritual. As they use the Sharingan and Mangekyo Sharingan to grow stronger, the hatred and loneliness inside them also intensify, clinging to them the whole time."]
The Uchiha listening were thrown off. Just like Sasuke Uchiha had once felt, they'd always believed the Second Hokage was simply targeting them for no reason.
But hearing it explained so plainly, they realized something unsettling.
Their own understanding of the clan's power wasn't even as clear as the Second Hokage's—the man who had been wary of the Uchiha all along.
And having it laid out like this, the reason the Uchiha were called a clan possessed by a curse suddenly felt sickeningly real, leaving a bitter knot in their chests that was hard to blame on anything but fate.
["Most Uchiha are sensitive and perceptive. And in a world like this, anyone who awakens powerful emotions is almost always swallowed by darkness and falls onto a twisted path. The more extreme and malicious their thoughts become, the stronger their abilities grow—and the harder they are to control, just like Madara Uchiha!"]
["Madara Uchiha once had a younger brother. The care he had for him might have been even deeper than the love your brother had for you…"]
As he remembered Izuna Uchiha, Hashirama Senju could only sigh, helpless.
[Tobirama: "My original intent was to integrate and guide the Uchiha's power. I didn't want them to be ruled by that power and lose themselves. The Uchiha Police Force was also meant to help them better blend into Konoha. But it seems things didn't go the way anyone hoped."]
["But…" Tobirama Senju's tone shifted. "Since your clan has already reached the point of self-destruction, there was no avoiding it. That only proves they either had intentions like Madara Uchiha once did—or they'd already done something that severely harmed the village!"]
["Tobirama!"]