"Naruto: My Ninja Skills"Chapter 174: Come Out and Duel! (Part 1)
Anger is the Uchiha's stabilizer.
Under normal circumstances, the angrier a person becomes, the more likely they are to lose their rationality, and their behavioral patterns become extremely unstable.
But the Uchiha are different—an extremely unstable Uchiha is actually the most stable Uchiha.
So the more unstable an Uchiha becomes, the more stable they actually are.
At this moment, Madara Uchiha's heart overflowed with fury and boundless hatred, but unexpectedly, even he couldn't determine exactly who his rage was directed toward.
The clansmen who chose surrender?
The enemies from the Senju?
Or his own incompetence?
"Clan Leader, there's something wrong with this letter."
"Right, no matter how you look at it, this wasn't written by one of our people."
After glimpsing the letter's contents, the other ninja immediately voiced objections. They instinctively sensed something amiss—the emotions contained within were sharp but lacked despair, unlike something penned by someone at the end of their rope.
See that? In moments of extreme agitation, these people's brains actually started functioning.
"But regardless, the fact that our clansmen have vanished is right before us."
Madara's anger subsided slightly, and for once his eyes carried a trace of bewilderment. Looking at the handful of followers still with him—their utterly disheveled clothing, their exceptionally stubborn expressions—he suddenly felt that perhaps he'd failed as a clan leader...
The current problem wasn't that the other Uchiha clansmen had disappeared, but that they'd vanished without any resistance. Therefore, at minimum, the "surrender" mentioned in this letter was very likely true.
The Uchiha could be annihilated, but they couldn't possibly be silently wiped out.
Now, a question lingered in the hearts of the Uchiha ninja still in the village, though they subconsciously suppressed it.
That question was: exactly who had betrayed the Uchiha Clan?
The majority of clansmen who surrendered?
It couldn't possibly be those of them still fighting the enemy, right?
"Clan Leader, our people were very likely captured... What should we do next?"
The Uchiha Clan's emotional fluctuations in such a short time—well, those who understand, understand. The angry emotions came quickly and departed just as fast. Now only confusion and a certain sense of grievance remained.
"What should we do? Of course we fight them to the bitter end and rescue our clansmen!"
While some began feeling lost, others naturally saw their condition worsen.
"Rescue? How do we rescue them with our current forces?"
"You... At a time like this, we should naturally trust in the Clan Leader's strength."
Then, just as the Uchiha prepared to launch into their second round of group fervor, someone spoke up weakly:
"Assuming our clansmen are now under Senju Clan control, if... I mean if we continue resisting, how will the Senju treat our people? Aren't they essentially hostages?"
"..."
Everyone's gaze silently shifted to Madara Uchiha's face.
"Hashirama Senju wouldn't stoop so low..."
Madara Uchiha's voice cut off abruptly. Yes, Hashirama Senju wouldn't be so despicable, but what about Tobirama Senju?
At this point, Madara finally understood that in this ninja clan war, the one truly holding a blade to the Uchiha's throat wasn't Hashirama Senju, but Tobirama Senju.
Of course, Madara still hadn't thought deeper. If he considered it further, he'd realize that he perceived Hashirama as less threatening than Tobirama because Hashirama played by rules and indulged him, while Tobirama employed every possible means and had no intention of coddling him whatsoever.
Heh, the farce of "Genius Ninja Clan Wars: Uchiha Princess Wants Me to Confess" was finally ending.
"Clan Leader, what should we do?"
Madara hadn't answered this question moments ago, and he still couldn't answer it now.
...
The Uchiha's surrender seemed like a clear signal. Using this event as a catalyst, the internal strife within the Land of Fire suddenly moved toward cessation.
When even the most ruthless ringleader had knelt, what could the remaining small fry say? Time to surrender.
This didn't mean the Land of Fire had achieved peace from then on. In fact, the Senju alliance's combat frequency remained high for some time afterward.
However, their enemies had shifted from ninja clans to scattered individual ninja... It's not that everyone would submit just because you're strong—there are always those who prefer stubbornness and maintain that stubborn tendency right until death arrives.
These ninja who still chose resistance weren't essentially fighting to maintain so-called clan honor, nor did they enjoy the chaotic, bloodthirsty environment. In reality, they simply couldn't accept the era's dramatic changes.
Well, to put it romantically...
They were all remnants of the old era, and the new era had no ship to carry them.
Coincidentally, during the Land of Fire's clan conflict period, the Senju's main enemy was Madara Uchiha. Now the Senju's enemies had become insignificant stragglers, yet the representative figure of these stragglers remained Madara Uchiha...
Is there a possibility that Madara became increasingly marginalized the longer he lived?
On the "Konoha Village" side, ninja clans belonging to the alliance had begun large-scale relocation here. Day after day, the place visibly prospered.
In the village hospital, within a laboratory—
At this moment, the ninja named Uzumaki Mito was transferring a dopey-looking fat-headed fish from one water tank to another.
"Lord Yūshin, I'm going to attempt unsealing now."
"Go ahead."
Yūshin remained on the sidelines as an observer.
Next, Uzumaki Mito rapidly formed hand seals, then gently pressed his right palm against the fish's forehead.
Following his movement, the dazed fish suddenly regained vitality, splashing about in the basin.
"It shows swallowing and evasive behaviors, proving that after the seal was released, its consciousness continued across time."
Yūshin chuckled. Hey, what kind of checkpoint-resume technology is this?
"The first stage experimental results are quite good. Next we can move to lab rats," he said.
"Lab rats? That makes sense—mammalian brain capacity and cognitive complexity far exceed that of fish."
Uzumaki Mito didn't even have red hair tips. As essentially a civilian Uzumaki, he'd very likely never participated in war, so he only understood Yūshin's words literally.
Or rather, Yūshin's casual way of presenting such cruel truths exceeded Uzumaki Mito's comprehension.
"Mammals? Right, that's correct... Lab rats are primates, after all."
"Pri-primates?"
Yūshin's "lab rats" naturally referred to ninja. During the Land of Fire's internal war phase, quite a few enemies had been captured—they were quality resources. You couldn't just keep them around producing waste.
Honestly, these prisoners' ultimate fate was fairly predictable—they'd most likely be consumed by Tobirama Senju.
Speaking of Tobirama, he appeared at Yūshin's side just then—truly worthy of a ninja who'd mastered the Flying Thunder God Technique.
"Working on ninjutsu development?"
Tobirama observed Yūshin studying fish, his gaze carrying some investigative curiosity.
He'd only come to the new village after basically handling the Uchiha situation. Though he had no intention of breaking his word and indeed counted the surrendered Uchiha ninja as "battlefield defectors," he wasn't about to bring unstable Uchiha ninja into their core areas at this stage.
"It's not ninjutsu development—it's medical development, for healing and saving lives."
Yūshin thought: why did you come straight to the hospital upon arriving? Are you beyond saving?
"Medical development is also a type of ninjutsu development... Speaking of ninjutsu development, I recently had a development concept for Earth Release ninjutsu."
Earth Release? Yūshin paused momentarily, then quickly reacted. Heh, the underworld is also "earth," right?
Calculating carefully, how much trouble had Tobirama's Edo Tensei brought to the ninja world? Without him creating that wretched jutsu, Madara Uchiha would have had virtually no way to return from the Pure Land to the present world.
But Yūshin had no reason to stop Tobirama. He'd certainly be prepared in the future and wouldn't let anyone easily manipulate souls.
As for Tobirama himself...
Should the originator be left without descendants?
Tobirama gestured for Yūshin to walk with him. After Yūshin bid farewell to Uzumaki Mito, he followed Tobirama away from there.
The two left the hospital, crossed the busy construction site, and finally arrived at the clifftop—only here offered the best panoramic view.
"Yūshin, once this village is completed, it should have a scale of around thirty thousand people."
Tobirama gazed down at the building complex below, his tone filled with pride.
Yūshin glanced at him. Thirty thousand and you're this excited? Future Konoha could expand roughly tenfold.
"For ninja, this is indeed an unprecedentedly large village."
What could Yūshin say? He could only continue along Tobirama's line of thought.
"Scale is one aspect—the new ninja village's extremely complex personnel composition is another... One can imagine how headache-inducing managing such a village will be."
Tobirama certainly wasn't blindly optimistic—otherwise he worried Yūshin might roast him again.
"This is the power structure I've designed for the new ninja village. Please help examine whether there are any problems."
Yūshin accepted the scroll Tobirama handed over. Upon unrolling it, he discovered Tobirama had established a five-tier power structure for the new ninja village:
Leader — Advisory Council — Clan Leaders' Assembly — Jōnin Council — General Ninja Assembly
Theoretically, the lower levels held greater power, since only all ninja together truly qualified to determine their own destiny. However, in reality, power would only concentrate in the leader's—the "Hokage's"—hands.
This was quite normal. The ninja world was ultimately about strength supremacy—everything else besides power was illusory.
Such a power structure appeared reasonable on the surface, but Yūshin immediately spotted the inherent problem.
How could there be a "Clan Leaders' Assembly"? Had Tobirama Senju compromised, or couldn't his vision escape the ninja clan framework?
This was actually quite normal. After all, Tobirama came from Senju Clan origins, and since he wasn't currently the ninja village leader, he naturally hoped to secure benefits for ninja clans.
But in reality, ninja villages and their constituent ninja clans possessed natural opposition. Simply put, ninja villages hoped all ninja would unite under the leader's will, but ninja clans hoped to wedge themselves between villages and ninja, hoping to "profit as middlemen."
Ninja obey clans, clans obey villages—isn't this quite reasonable?
But ninja villages didn't need this intermediate link at all. They certainly needed middle management layers and various functional departments, but how could this intermediate layer be maintained through blood ties?
If Yūshin were the leader designing the power structure, he'd never directly grant ninja clans political status. At minimum, he'd change the "Clan Leaders' Assembly" to a "Department Heads and Clan Leaders' Assembly."
Initially, you certainly couldn't completely sideline clan leaders, but you could gradually push them aside. The focus of a "Department Heads and Clan Leaders' Assembly" would naturally be department heads rather than clan leaders, for the simple reason that department heads were appointed by the Hokage, while clan leaders' selection process basically had no Hokage involvement.
Yūshin saw this problem but didn't plan to remind Tobirama. The reason was simple—Yūshin wasn't the Hokage, and how could someone betray their own class?
If they were to establish a "Clan Leaders' Assembly," wouldn't this assembly be filled with Fireflies people? Even if it wasn't one clan per seat, with major clans occupying multiple seats—so what?
This power tier could easily become the Fireflies' private domain... No wait, how could it be described this way? The Fireflies with administrative functions had clearly already disbanded.
"My design approach borrowed from the five-tier ninja system you implemented within the Fireflies. What do you think?"
Yūshin rolled up the scroll and returned it to Tobirama.
"I think it's quite good, no major problems, but don't focus solely on fairness while forgetting centralization."
"Mm, I understand."
Yūshin was essentially speaking correct platitudes. His conversation partner was Tobirama Senju—how could Tobirama possibly forget about centralization?
Once he became "Deputy Hokage," he'd definitely notice the Clan Leaders' Assembly problem. Then it would depend on how he chose to reform it.
"By the way, Yūshin, with the new ninja village's establishment imminent, what do you plan to do afterward?"
With war nearly concluded and the ninja village about to be founded, Tobirama felt it was time to divide the spoils. Some matters were best clarified in advance to avoid future conflicts of interest.
"Me? You needn't consider me. After the war ends, I'm planning to retire... I never want to think about fighting and killing again."
These words left Tobirama stunned. He could tell Yūshin spoke truthfully, but... how could Yūshin retire?
It wasn't that Yūshin retiring at just twenty was problematic, but rather that after the new ninja village's establishment, during the vigorous development and "enfeoffment and appointment" period, how could such an influential ninja be allowed to retire?
If they really did this, how would others view the Senju brothers?
When cunning rabbits die, hunting dogs are cooked; when high-flying birds are exhausted, good bows are stored away...
If Yūshin then performed a mysterious death, well, that would complete the picture.
"Yūshin, you can't do this. You must consider the bigger picture... At minimum, you must become big brother's deputy, otherwise how do we explain this to other ninja?"
Tobirama's first reaction was that Yūshin intended to cause him trouble.
"Forget it. I just want to lie flat and slack off. What explanations? I don't need to explain anything to other ninja."
Tobirama: "..."
Who said anything about how you'd explain to other ninja? I'm talking about how we two brothers would explain to other ninja.
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