You ninja are all capable of reshaping the landscape with magic and making us think we're stuck in hell as ducks, but somehow it all becomes unbelievable when somebody else does it. I don't know what kind of trait that is, but it's not a survival one.
All that chakra must be going to your heads. "
I wasn't entirely joking. Since chakra reincarnates, wouldn't that actually happen? There had to be a reason why some people advanced fast enough to become elite murderers by age five.
It's not like accelerated maturation was a regular phenomenon or anything.
Oh well. I looked at the ninja.
"Thanks for the lift. "
Shisui waved, and then I blinked and realized it was already just an afterimage. Of course.
Way to enforce the stereotype.
I stowed my cart in the shed and set about checking my home over. I hadn't stopped to look after the accident, so I couldn't tell if someone had been through the mess in the basement.
I did check the wall though. The holes were there, but all the nails seemed to have just… slipped out.
Despite that some of them were very rusted. Which didn't make sense.
Unless it ate right through and literally severed the things, rust just made nails stick harder. There's no way a bump from a strip of a boy would have done this.
A setup? The thought chilled me, as if I wasn't in limbo already. But why? And for who? Me or Naruto? But then why didn't they act when it happened? Or at any other point?
Come to think of it, how would… whoever it was even know it would happen that way? Were they there, watching the whole time? Could they see the future? Or maybe that wasn't all they did. Was the Anbu an undercover Root? Did the Hokage know? How far did the rabbit hole go? Was there a rabbit hole at all? Disquieted, I walked around my workshop, tugging on all the other shelf racks I had, which were also nailed to the wall.
They all held firm.
This makes zero sense.
Too disturbed to sleep, I went over my entire house. I didn't find any seals in the obvious places, or in the not so obvious places I could get to without turning the entire place upside down.
It would have been nice to think that meant there weren't any surveillance bugs, but ninja could have rearranged all my furniture and put it back well before I even got to the hospital, never mind the time since. There was an ear seal or whatever it's called in every single joint my bed had, for all I knew.
I hate it when I can't tell paranoia from common sense.
I couldn't sleep, so I just stayed at my desk for a while, gun in one hand and papers in front of me. I collected and arranged the big one.
Stacked all the excerpts and references in a neat pile. I could only assume the ninja who retrieved my funeral urns and cart had done only that.
If they'd searched my place properly, I doubt any of this would still be here. Or me, even.
The title was kind of damning.
The Breakdown of Konoha-Uchiha Relations: Sabotage or Malice?
I once thought I'd have to come clean about my reincarnation to someone and hope for the best. Then I did an academic-level article for the newspaper on a whim – the first of its kind in this world, there were people outright citing my pen name these days, I was the father of academic rigor – and I was thoroughly baffled at how much data just… floated in the public consciousness.
And public records. It made the censored stuff like the continuity of Kyuubi jinchuriki and Naruto's parentage stand out like his orange jumpsuit.
Which Naruto didn't have yet, incidentally.
I pondered my talk with Shisui. Wondered if he had finished reporting it to the Third yet.
I wasn't lying, I'm not the minority thinking like that, even without the whole snakes and mind control thing. It's why I have any confidence at all in… well, this thing that might see me executed by tomorrow evening.
Tobirama's 'boon' to the Uchiha was a white elephant. When your clan is the only one enforcing the law, that means that everyone hates you for every mistake ever made by law enforcement.
Moreover, it means constant, simmering resentment because who would actually bother to contest any perceived police injustice after the third dismissal, when the same people committing them are the ones handling the appeals? 'We have examined our actions and deemed them to be righteous' was the vastly prevailing perspective, regardless of how true. The Konoha citizenry was unified in its mistrust and resentment of the Uchiha.
And everyone who disagreed was quickly ostracised out of fear of retaliation. Quietly, but effectively.
My neighbours would ruin me if they knew what I talked to Shisui about. If I didn't use a pen name on my articles, I'd long have been vilified for stirring the pot.
And while there were a fair few who might express dislike to this part of Konoha culture, they all blamed the Uchiha for that too.
And all the while, the other shinobi clans watched all of it happen and passed judgment.
The thing that pissed me off most is that the solution was so simple.
But since when did those in power ever do the simple thing? It was like finding bigfoot. In both of my lives.
I still couldn't sleep, so I went back down to my workshop to clean up. I didn't rush, I did things good and thoroughly and even nailed the shelf rack back to the wall again.
But it wasn't morning when I finished. Curse my efficiency.
I sat at my worktable, looking at the broken picture frames and Naruto's clumsy attempt to fix them. The nin hadn't done anything to this for some reason.
I hope that didn't mean the Hokage intended for Naruto to come and try again. He couldn't be, right? I haven't offended that badly, or at least I hadn't when he ordered this.