Uchiha Yoru's popularity wasn't accidental. It was the result of years of deliberate effort.
During his time in the Military Police Force, he had always worked differently from other shinobi. Instead of acting purely as an enforcer, he handled things like someone responsible for a neighborhood. In just three months, he became familiar with every household in his patrol area—names, ages, birthdays, jobs, habits, even the small details people usually ignored. More importantly, he understood their problems.
And whenever he could, he helped.
As a genin, his strength and finances were limited, but sincerity often mattered more than anything else.
In his previous life, Yoru had spent twenty years doing community policing. Handling small disputes, resolving everyday issues, dealing with all kinds of trivial matters. That experience taught him one thing—helping people wasn't just about solving problems, but about how you solved them. You had to consider their pride, their situation, and their dignity. Help them without making them feel inferior.
At first, he did it for evaluations. Back then, catching thieves meant merit, promotions, and bonuses. But later, things changed. Crime decreased, cash disappeared, and evaluations became tied to job security. Even a so-called stable job stopped being stable.
So he adapted.
He learned how people lived, understood their pressure, and found the exact point where help would matter most. That way, with the least effort, he could achieve the best result.
For elderly people who struggled with daily life, he helped carry things, ran errands, and occasionally sat down to talk, easing their loneliness. For middle-aged people living in hardship, he never gave money directly. He knew their pride wouldn't allow it. Instead, he helped them find work or dealt with the complicated procedures needed to start small businesses.
Over time, what started as necessity became habit.
He was nothing like Uchiha Obito. That fool also tried to help people, but his "good deeds" existed only in his own imagination, often creating even more trouble. Yoru had cleaned up after him more than once, dealing with the mess left behind by Obito's actions, and it annoyed him to no end.
And when he thought about the future—about how that idiot would kill Minato Namikaze, cut off the Uchiha clan's last hope, and later join forces with Uchiha Itachi to destroy the clan—his hands itched.
He really wanted to kill him in advance.
But after thinking it through, he held back.
Right now, Obito wasn't Madara's only option. Killing him too early might only make the future more unpredictable and the coming crisis harder to deal with.
Obito had to die.
Just not yet.
The people of Konoha had never experienced this kind of treatment before. At first, they were surprised. Then shocked. Then wary. Then they accepted it. In the end, almost everyone came to see him as one of their own.
Not just the Uchiha.
Other clans. Ordinary villagers.
Everyone.
Just as his former captain had said, the reputation of the Uchiha clan and the Military Police Force had improved greatly because of him.
So when Uchiha Yoru was suddenly expelled, the backlash was immediate.
The villagers' logic was simple.
Uchiha Yoru was a good person.
A very good person.
Anyone who made things difficult for a good person was a bad person.
And if even someone like him couldn't stay, then the Military Police Force must be full of bad people.
Simple. Direct.
Uchiha Setsuna, however, was blind in both eye and heart. He firmly believed that expelling Yoru was the right decision, that he had preserved the dignity and purity of the Uchiha.
As for what others thought—
It didn't matter.
His attitude had always been the same.
It didn't matter what others thought.
Only what he thought mattered.
And that was the biggest problem within the Uchiha clan.
The people in power—the elders, the so-called geniuses—were often more dangerous than Danzo Shimura.
In the past, thinking about them only brought frustration, helplessness, and anger. Some held real authority. Some were powerful jonin. Some had both power and strength. Even knowing they were the root of the problem, Yoru couldn't do anything about them.
All he could do was watch as they dragged the clan toward destruction.
But today—
Things were different.
As he walked through the busiest street of the clan district, his heart felt light.
Calm.
Even… excited.
He had taken the first real step forward.
That meant the future was no longer fixed.
He finally had the power to change it.
And with that—
All those negative emotions disappeared.
In their place—
Was the desire to fight back.
Then suddenly—
His heartbeat changed.
A strange rhythm.
Uneasy.
His expression shifted slightly.
What is this…?
In the darkness, masked figures watched the Uchiha district as part of their routine surveillance.
Another masked shinobi appeared and exchanged signals.
"So this is Uchiha Yoru?"
"That's right."
"He's strange. Doesn't feel like an Uchiha. More like a regular Konoha shinobi."
"Not even that. Look at him—no forehead protector. More like an ordinary villager."
"An Uchiha with no threat?"
"No threat… do you believe that?"
"We don't know if he's awakened the Sharingan. There's no record of him ever using it."
"If he hasn't, then maybe he's harmless. But if he has… then he's hiding it well. A calm madman is the most dangerous kind."
"Test him?"
"Yes."
"He just completed a B-rank mission without a scratch. That's not chunin-level."
"Did Lord Danzo give orders?"
"He wouldn't care about someone like this. We can act on our own."
That was Root's style.
The moment they sensed danger, they acted.
No rules.
No hesitation.
No concern for identity.
"Understood."
At the ramen stall, Uchiha Yoru paused for a brief moment before continuing to eat.
…A B-rank mission, and now I'm marked for death?
Root's "tests" were simple.
If you survived, you were dangerous.
If you didn't—
You were just dead.
In their eyes, the best Uchiha was a dead one.
As for attacking a fellow Konoha shinobi?
That meant nothing.
They were Root.
They only needed to fabricate evidence and call it an enemy attack.
And if he survived—
Then it would prove he had hidden his strength.
Danzo would step in personally, accuse him of being a spy, and order a memory search.
Memory probing was dangerous.
At best, it caused brain damage.
At worst—
Death.
And for Yoru…
That was unacceptable.
Because his memories—
Were his reverse scale.
Touch it—
And you die.
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