Xin waved his finger dismissively. "I can assure you, the Hokage won't approve it. He'll just keep it on file."
"So, you won't actually become a civilian?" Minato's eyes brightened.
He'd been worried all day, fearing that Xin would really quit being a ninja and live as a civilian.
"Wait, if the Hokage won't approve it, why bother writing the resignation in the first place?"
If you're going to make a stand, just make a stand-why go through the trouble of submitting paperwork?
You really don't get it, do you? Xin rolled his eyes at him. No wonder, even as the Fourth Hokage, Minato had ended up as little more than the Third Hokage's puppet, with no real power of his own.
"I'm just making my stance clear," Xin said, stretching lazily on the couch. "I want them to know that I'm tired of being messed around with. I'm done with all these ridiculous games."
It was frustrating enough when people kept testing your patience, but the worst part was, the more you ignored them, the more they pushed.
It was as if they thought you'd never push back, that you'd always tolerate it.
And that only made them more brazen, pushing you further and further until you were standing at the edge of a cliff, with nowhere to go but down.
The Uchiha clan was a perfect example. In the original timeline, if they'd resisted sooner, would the Third Hokage and Danzō have been so bold?
The Uchiha had hundreds of ninja, dozens of whom were Jōnin, making up a tenth of Konoha's elite.
And their Jōnin were strong-each of them capable of taking on two regular Jōnin in battle without breaking a sweat.
Then there were Uchiha Fugaku and Uchiha Shisui, both possessing the Mangekyō sharingan.
If the Uchiha had truly revolted, the ones in trouble would have been the Third Hokage and his faction.
But unfortunately, with someone as weak-willed as Fugaku leading them, the Uchiha were doomed from the start.
Xin's situation was similar to the Uchiha's.
The difference was, while the Uchiha couldn't agree on a course of action, Xin was just tired of dealing with the nonsense.
The result was the same-people took advantage of the situation, constantly pushing boundaries.
Well, if that's how they want to play, I'm done playing along. From now on, everything's strictly business. No more games.
"But won't this upset the Hokage?" Mikoto asked, worried. As an Uchiha, she knew all too well how the village targeted her clan.
If they used the same tactics on Xin, things could get bad.