Madara Uchiha and his father, Tajima Uchiha, realized something was wrong.
Back then, when they found the bodies of Myoko, Togakushi, and Kurohi, they had indeed found a Senju corpse nearby as well.
What was going on?
Could it be that the Senju corpse from back then had been killed by them after they traveled through time and space?
"No."
Tajima Uchiha crouched down to examine the remains of the Senju ninja Madara Uchiha had crushed with a Susanoo arm.
"The Senju ninja who died here back then was this same man. His name was Tsuchi Senju. But his cause of death wasn't having every bone and organ in his body crushed by an outside force like this. He was killed by a single ninja blade thrust to the heart."
That brought another painful memory back to Madara Uchiha.
He had been thirteen then, when he found the bodies of Togakushi and Kurohi covered in cuts. Togakushi's body had been soaked in water, and by the time they found him, it was swollen and deathly pale. He no longer looked anything like the younger brother who used to chase after him and train so hard.
Kurohi's body had not been subjected to water torture, but his wounds were many and deep. It was obvious what he had gone through before he died.
But Myoko had suffered the worst fate.
Madara still remembered that Myoko was only one year younger than Izuna. Personality-wise, he had a boldness rarely seen among the Uchiha, yet he stayed calm when things happened. He was clever, and in some ways, even a little sly.
Their father had placed high hopes on him as well.
He had probably been the first among the brothers to awaken his eyes.
When they found Myoko's body back then, besides injuries even worse than Togakushi's and Kurohi's, both of his eyes were gone.
To be precise, Myoko had destroyed his own eyes before he died.
That meant Myoko had awakened the Sharingan before his death. That adult Senju ninja most likely never expected Myoko to awaken his eyes at a moment like that, and in a moment of carelessness, he was killed in return.
With no chance of surviving, Myoko had no time to share the joy of awakening his eyes with him or Izuna. He destroyed his own eyes, terrified that the enemy might take his body back and study the secrets of the Sharingan.
That was the clan's rule. If the body could not be recovered after death, then before dying, one had to destroy one's own eyes or a comrade's eyes.
Madara had only been thirteen at the time. When he returned from a war mission and saw the bodies of his three younger brothers, he could not imagine how that younger brother, the one even a year younger than Izuna, had awakened the Sharingan while alone, helpless, and gravely injured. He could not imagine what state of mind Myoko had been in after killing the enemy, when he drove a ninja blade into his own eye sockets.
Madara Uchiha's already terrifying expression darkened further, the air around him turning heavy and oppressive.
After a long while, he finally said in a low voice, "We still haven't found the bodies. Keep looking."
...
Of course, they would never find the bodies, because at that very moment, Madara Uchiha's three younger brothers were being "escorted" by Team Minato and Team Kakashi toward the Uchiha Clan's secret base in Hidden Mountain.
According to the original plan, Myoko was supposed to deliver the supplies sealed inside the scroll to this place. Since the matter involved the war between the Uchiha and the Senju, Myoko Uchiha had made a daring gamble.
Earlier, he had thought that Obito Uchiha awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan at thirteen might threaten his older brother's position as young Clan Head. But during their conversation, he had already learned that these people came from an incredible world. They had only come here to handle certain matters, and once they were finished, they would leave soon.
Since there was no reason not to make use of such powerful clan members while they were here, he wanted to rely on their escort to deliver the supplies in the scroll to their destination. At the same time, he also wanted to introduce these clan members to the people in his family. Maybe the secret behind how they awakened their eyes would become important in the Uchiha's future war against the Senju.
In other words, he was a clever little thing.
When they reached the foot of an ordinary-looking mountain, two black-haired men who were clearly ninjas appeared.
From their gazes, Minato Namikaze could tell they knew the three Uchiha children. And when they looked at his group, their eyes were filled with obvious wariness.
He smiled helplessly, privately sighing that children from the Warring States Period really were not easy to deal with.
Naruto and Sasuke also noticed something was off. Even though they had saved the three of them, they had ended up falling for a simple bait and following them all the way here.
Seeing the surprise on Naruto's and Young Obito's faces, Adult Kakashi said lazily, "You should've figured it out by now, right? Other than ninjas, who would build a place to live on a mountain? And somewhere you can't see from either the top or the bottom, at that. Getting in and out would definitely be inconvenient. Only ninjas would build a place like that just to keep it hidden from other people."
"Who are you?" the two young ninjas asked warily, both radiating killing intent.
Myoko quickly waved his hands. "Hikaku, they're the ones who saved us! One of them has three tomoe, and one has the Mangekyō Sharingan!"
"What?!!"
Hikaku Uchiha was startled, then looked suspiciously at Minato Namikaze and Adult Kakashi.
"I've never seen a silver-haired or blond Uchiha!"
The reason he skipped over Sasuke and Obito Uchiha, who both had black hair and black eyes, was simply that Hikaku Uchiha, who currently only had three tomoe himself, never imagined that the ones with three tomoe and the Mangekyō Sharingan were two children only two or three years older than Myoko.
Even more unimaginable was the fact that Myoko had misunderstood. Both Sasuke Uchiha and Obito Uchiha had the Mangekyō Sharingan.
Minato: "..."
Kakashi: "..."
Seeing Minato's subtle expression and his silence, Hikaku Uchiha directly told them to show their Sharingan. He was probably suspecting that the three youths from his clan had been tricked by this group.
Behind his mask, Kakashi hesitated for half a second.
If he really used his Sharingan, this would probably become even harder to resolve.
"Minato-sensei?" Obito looked questioningly at Minato Namikaze, asking with his eyes what they should do next.
Minato nodded once. "Do as they say. Lord First and Second Hokage will return to their respective clans soon. There are many things we won't be able to hide even if we try."
As soon as he finished speaking, Sasuke and Obito revealed their Sharingan to Hikaku Uchiha and the young man beside him.
One tomoe, two tomoe, three tomoe.
Then, right as Hikaku Uchiha stared at them in shock with his three-tomoe Sharingan, Sasuke and Obito pushed their Dōjutsu straight to the level of the Mangekyō Sharingan!
Obito even deliberately turned around to let them see the fan emblem on the backs of his and Sasuke's clothes.
"!!!"
"It's the Uchiha clan emblem!! It's the Sharingan! The Mangekyō Sharingan! Those two boys both have the Mangekyō Sharingan!!!"
The young man beside Hikaku could hardly believe it. Hikaku had three tomoe, and he himself currently had two tomoe in each eye, yet the two children across from them were actually...
That special pattern!
It was the Mangekyō Sharingan!
How was that possible?!
No one could use Genjutsu to fool an Uchiha's Sharingan, unless that person possessed a higher-level Sharingan and used it to cast Genjutsu on them.
In other words, there was no doubt about it. The two boys standing across from them...
They were genuine Mangekyō Sharingan users!
But...
Even the young Clan Head had not awakened the Sharingan, so why did these two children have the Mangekyō Sharingan?!
This truly shocked them.
It practically overturned their entire worldview!
Myoko had previously thought only Obito had the Mangekyō Sharingan. Who would have thought both Sasuke and Obito were Mangekyō Sharingan users? Could the Mangekyō really be that common in the world Naruto and the others spoke of?!
Then how many tomoe did Naruto, his father, and the man he called his sensei have? Or did all of them have the Mangekyō Sharingan?!
Kakashi and Minato Namikaze felt just as helpless. They had originally planned to find a village to stay in for the time being, then wait until Lord First and Second Hokage remembered them before making further arrangements. In the end, however, they had come to the Uchiha side first.
Still, perhaps saving these three boys had been fate's arrangement all along.
At least, Minato believed this was also part of the mission scroll's arrangement. That was why he had naturally saved the three boys, naturally followed their wishes to this hideout, and naturally allowed Sasuke and Obito to reveal their Sharingan.
He said to Hikaku Uchiha, "We don't want to get too deeply involved in the war between the Uchiha and the Senju or any other ninja clans. We simply saw three badly injured children on the road and helped them. Now that we've brought them here, we should be leaving."
He smiled at Myoko Uchiha. "Can you tell us the village's real direction now?"
Myoko Uchiha had thought that, after using these people, they might curse him as despicable once they learned the truth. They might even think they should never have saved him, Kurohi, and Togakushi. Yet to his surprise, the other party still smiled gently, as if he had seen through everything from the start.
It left Myoko Uchiha deeply embarrassed.
In the heat of the moment, he asked Hikaku if these people could stay temporarily at the Uchiha's secret hideout.
After all, Hikaku and the other Uchiha youth were much older than Myoko, Togakushi, and Kurohi. Naturally, they could tell that aside from Obito and Sasuke, the others were not members of the Uchiha Clan.
They did not understand why there were clan members they had never seen before, why these thirteen- or fourteen-year-olds could open the Mangekyō Sharingan, or why they were standing together with outsiders.
But no matter what, they knew one thing: these two clan members who had opened the Mangekyō Sharingan had to stay.
"Though the chances are low, I'll ask anyway."
Hikaku Uchiha fixed his eyes on the clothes of Minato Namikaze, Kakashi Hatake, and Naruto Uzumaki, his gaze gradually turning cold.
"You three. What is your relationship with the red-haired Uzumaki Clan?"
That's right! Naruto's clothes, as well as the backs of Minato and Kakashi's Jōnin vests, all bore the Uzumaki Clan's family crest!!
Hikaku said, "Members of the Uchiha Clan may naturally enter the Uchiha's secret grounds, but outsiders should leave this place at once!"
For the Uchiha, this was already a relatively polite way of driving away outsiders who had saved their clansmen.
He had asked whether they were connected to the Uzumaki, but had not pressed them for an answer. That meant he had already judged them to be connected to the Uzumaki Clan and the Senju Clan. Letting them leave was Hikaku's assessment that these people were indeed, as they claimed, unlikely to take part in the war between the Uchiha and the other clans. Also, considering the present situation, never mind which side these two clan members with the Mangekyō Sharingan would choose, even if everyone inside the secret grounds came out, they might not be a match for that blond man and silver-haired man.
Ninjas of the Warring States era were tempered day and night in blood and war, giving them a natural instinct for danger and powerful opponents.
Hikaku and the Uchiha youth beside him could both tell that those two adults would be extremely difficult to deal with.
Especially the blond man who was always smiling.
The sharpness hidden in his eyes belonged to the sort of ruthless figure who could instantly kill fifty or sixty clansmen who had not opened their Sharingan.
Even clansmen who had opened their Sharingan would stand no chance against that man without strong enough battlefield reflexes.
Obito and Sasuke themselves had never planned to get too involved with this world's Uchiha Clan. But of the two young men in front of them, one was someone they had never met, while the other was Hikaku Uchiha, who had taken good care of them back when they had traveled together to the parallel world of Konoha's founding era.
Obito, being naturally friendly, greeted Hikaku and said that he, Sasuke, Minato-sensei, and the others could just stay in a nearby village for now. "If you need anything, you can come find us in the village nearby!"
"Why should members of the Uchiha Clan live outside? You two should stay with the clan!"
"Huh? Why should we?!"
"Have you forgotten the honor of the Uchiha Clan?! Why are you following outsiders around?!"
"Minato-sensei is our teacher, so of course we're staying by his side."
Amid the noise, a young boy's voice suddenly came from behind them.
"Hikaku! Have the supplies for the front lines arrived yet?!!"
The two children, Kurohi and Togakushi, immediately jumped out when they heard that voice.
"Big Brother!!"
"Madara-nii-san!"