"Itachi, what kind of person is your teacher?"
Uchiha Mikoto had just given birth to Uchiha Sasuke, and both mother and child needed to rest. As expected, Uchiha Fugaku had gently—but firmly—sent Itachi out of the room. The boy had been hovering too much, already far too attached to his newborn brother.
So, with nothing else to do, Itachi followed Uchiha Shisui into the woods for some quiet training.
But Itachi's mind wasn't in it. His gaze drifted. His movements slowed. Shisui, having failed to draw him into sparring, tried another route—conversation.
Truth be told, Shisui was genuinely curious.
He'd heard rumors of this "genius" Uchiha—Kai whose name had come up more and more often over the past year. A former war hero from the Third Shinobi World War, Kai's name was whispered with awe even among jōnin. He was said to have achieved the impossible on the battlefield—and since returning to the clan, had risen rapidly, now second only to Fugaku in influence.
What fascinated Shisui more was that the Uchiha elders seemed afraid of Kai.
He once casually mentioned Kai's name in front of the Third Elder, but the air immediately grew heavy. The elder's face tightened. There was no praise, no elaboration—only a clipped change of subject.
Yet outside the clan, it was the opposite.
Shisui had overheard academy students speak highly of Kai. Even civilians who normally distrusted the Uchiha showed respect. A rare thing.
What kind of man made the elders nervous but earned the people's admiration?
He recalled something Itachi had once said: that his father had urged him to train under Uchiha Kai. And recently, he'd even seen Itachi visit the Security Department—where Kai now served as a captain under Fugaku.
"Teacher…" Itachi murmured, snapping out of his trance. "He hasn't officially recognized me yet. But he's... formidable. And his vision is broad."
Itachi's voice dimmed slightly. The last time he spoke with Kai, his heart had felt so full after Sasuke's birth, but Kai's cold, perceptive words had shaken him. His father had agreed with those words too.
Kai had challenged him not on strength—but on ideology.
"It's not enough to be talented," Kai had said. "Every Uchiha child is a so-called genius. What matters is whether you can see beyond yourself, beyond our clan."
Kai had told him that understanding the structure of the world—the invisible forces that shaped war, politics, and peace—was the path to becoming someone who could change it. Just like the conflict that started the Third Great Ninja War: a war triggered not by personal hatred, but by the political collapse of Wind Country after their Kazekage vanished.
Itachi, who had thought everything was black and white, began to realize the world was layers upon layers of gray.
"But why hasn't he accepted you?" Shisui asked, baffled. "You're a genius. Surely—"
"Because he said talent isn't rare," Itachi replied quietly. "And vision... vision is where I'm still lacking."
Shisui fell silent. He didn't fully understand—but he could feel the weight of those words.
He looked at Itachi again, sensing the immense respect the boy had for Kai perhaps more than for Fugaku himself.
"Wait, this is where you live?"
Uchiha Kai followed Imai Kenta through a quieter section of the village, a residential district occupied mostly by civilians and lower-ranked ninja. But what surprised Kai wasn't the location—it was the subtle presence of the Senju.
This area was technically patrolled by the Konoha Security Force, but the presence of hidden Senju descendants had gone unnoticed.
"Yeah, unexpected, huh?" Kenta said with a light chuckle, waving to a passing shinobi. The ninja nodded, eyes flickering toward Kai in recognition but not hostility.
Kai's gaze narrowed. "I suppose no one looked too closely. Or... no one wanted to see. The best places to hide are often in plain sight."
"And maybe there was no 'malice' to detect," Kenta added quietly.
Kai said nothing.
They eventually reached a modest wooden house that stood out for its old-fashioned design—weathered but dignified. Kai recognized the hidden Senju emblem etched into the patterns.
A person nostalgic for the past... or burdened by it.
Inside the house, Senju Shoma sat alone, reading a worn notebook filled with Tobirama Senju's thoughts on statecraft and governance.
For Shoma, Tobirama was a visionary—the one who had founded the Guard Department to protect the village's order and counterbalance the powerful clans.
But over time, that system had been twisted. Under Hiruzen, the Uchiha were scapegoated, the Guard turned into a tool of marginalization. And the Senju? Forgotten. Assimilated. Scattered.
He hated Hiruzen for that.
He also hated the Uchiha—for everything Madara had done, for the clan's arrogance.
Yet... there were anomalies.
Minato Namikaze, Hiruzen's successor, had not followed in his teacher's shadow. He'd cultivated trust with the Uchiha—especially with Kai. And Uchiha Kai, young as he was, had quickly become a symbol of internal reform within the Uchiha.
Shoma had initially admired this, especially when Kai exposed Orochimaru's crimes, helping the Senju uncover the truth. But that didn't erase centuries of bitterness.
KNOCK KNOCK.
The door creaked open. Kenta Imai stepped inside.
Shoma's expression darkened—until he saw who followed behind.
Uchiha Kai.
The boy who'd disrupted the clan system. The genius from the war. The Uchiha with the Fourth Hokage's ear.
"You've come in person, Captain?" Shoma said coldly. "I'm honored."
"Drop the formality," Kai replied. "We both know that's not how you feel."
Shoma's eyes flicked to Kenta.
"I assume this was your doing?"
"I asked him to come," Kenta said calmly. "Because it's time we stopped dancing around each other."
Kai stepped forward. "You're not wrong to be wary, Shoma. But you're clinging to a name that no longer commands power. The Senju clan is not what it was."
"Neither is the Uchiha," Shoma snapped.
"But we still exist," Kai countered smoothly. "We still hold power. You? You're hiding among civilians."
Shoma clenched his fists.
"We offered you an olive branch," Kai said, his voice like steel. "And you spit on it. You think this is still the era of Madara and Hashirama. But that war ended. We're not those men."
Shoma said nothing. His silence was bitter, but his anger was tempered by the truth.
"You have one chance," Kai continued. "Work with us. Or fade into irrelevance."