Uchiha, this ancient and proud name, quietly stirred in his heart like an undercurrent in the water.
The soil for the bloody coup and the tragedy of the clan's extermination that shook the Ninja World in the "original work" might be quietly changing under the light of victory.
Without the external pressure of life and death, would the suspicion and resentment accumulated within the Konoha higher-ups and the Uchiha Clan still ferment to the point of resorting to arms?
Would the desire for the pinnacle of power in Fugaku's heart be temporarily smoothed over by the stability brought by victory?
These have all become huge unknowns.
The key point perhaps still lies in those crimson eyes that can reflect all things, the Mangekyo Sharingan.
If Shisui still awakens this forbidden power, and subsequently Uchiha Itachi also opens it, and if his own eyes are added, the Uchiha will possess three portions of legendary power!
When legend shines into reality, can the sense of inflation brought by power truly allow the Uchiha higher-ups to continue to remain calm?
Do they really not have any thoughts about supporting a Hokage who belongs to the Uchiha?
If they truly didn't have a single thought about it, then the coup in the original work would have been impossible!
And did they ever truly understand that Shisui's "Will of Fire," which transcends the clan, almost destined that he would not become a sharp blade in the hands of the coup plotters?
Uchiha Itachi, who was deeply influenced by Shisui, was the same, even to the point of being able to swing the butcher's knife at his own kin!
Takuno could only watch this with a silent gaze.
If Fugaku cannot see this fundamental contradiction under the temptation of power, then the abyss lies ahead, regardless of how the overall environment of Konoha seems to change.
Ultimately, a pool of indifferent clear water rose in his heart.
Whether the Uchiha coup or the clan's extermination happens or not, what does it have to do with him? His bonds with the Uchiha were so thin they could almost be ignored.
The Uchiha's ambition and Konoha's machinations were their own paths; they would ultimately need to walk them through themselves, or step into a dead end.
"Heh, it certainly saves some trouble—"
He whispered, carrying a sense of detachment as if he were an outsider.
The plan unfolded clearly in his mind.
From this perspective, if the Uchiha matters are cast aside, then he will have a long period of free time ahead.
It's not bad; currently, he basically doesn't lack anything, and this kind of free time comes at just the right moment!
After a brief rest, he will take these heavy Eight-Tails spoils of war and return to the bustle of the Konoha camp and the busy post-war reconstruction.
For now, what he needs is to seize this hard-won free time to settle and digest.
Time slipped away like shifting sand, and the smoke of war finally showed signs of dissipating.
After suffering a devastating blow to its top-tier combat power, Kumogakure had to face the cruel reality—they chose to surrender to the Konoha.
As the price of defeat, Kumogakure was forced to promise to compensate Konoha with huge amounts of resources and planned to send official envoys later to sign a comprehensive and binding peace treaty.
This turning point not only marked the collapse of Kumogakure's strategy but also heralded a fundamental shift in the entire war situation.
At the same time, on the battlefield where Iwagakure and Konoha clashed, the situation also came to an abrupt end.
Third Tsuchikage Ōnoki, this ruler known for being shrewd and calculating, let out a heavy sigh the moment he received the news of Kumogakure's defeat and immediately gave the order to withdraw.
In sharp contrast to Kumogakure's tragic losses, the casualties of the Iwagakure troops were extremely limited.
It turned out that as early as the moment Minato personally arrived on the battlefield, the intention to retreat had already been quietly planted in Ōnoki's heart.
—
He had meticulously arranged a conservative tactical plan to ensure that the army could withdraw at any time.
This caution not only preserved the main force for Iwagakure but also kept Konoha's casualties on this battlefield at a relatively low level.
Ōnoki's heart was not without waves.
When he witnessed Minato's figure, a surge of incomprehension and anger once churned in his chest: "Is Minato intentionally going against Iwagakure? Kumogakure was the first to brazenly invade the Land of Fire, yet Minato could actually keep his cool and stay put; but our Iwagakure only tested a little, and he immediately led the army on a personal expedition!"
This series of questions, mixed with the sense of humiliation of being a Kage, made him almost unable to contain himself, which was also the reason why he did not choose to retreat immediately.
However, when the intelligence details of the Kumogakure battlefield reached his ears, Ōnoki's anger was instantly replaced by extreme horror.
The Fourth Raikage, that young leader known for his toughness, was actually on the verge of death on the battlefield!
Even more unbelievable was that Kumogakure's two Jinchuriki had both suffered heavy injuries!
The intelligence repeatedly emphasized: "Konoha's power is actually this terrifying! Although a mysterious the Collector intervened, reputedly having a deal with Konoha, the key variable of this battle was undoubtedly Jiraiya; he used some kind of hidden trump card and nearly killed the Raikage within just a few exchanges."
"This kid was actually hiding such a game-changing killing move?" Ōnoki gasped in shock, a chill running down his spine.
At this moment, his state of mind took a sharp turn: the "unfair treatment" he previously encountered from Minato had instead become a stroke of luck for Iwagakure.
It was precisely this conservative layout that allowed Iwagakure to withdraw completely with minimal losses, essentially avoiding Konoha's true thunderous strike!
Thus, on the Iwagakure front, a hasty but orderly mass retreat began.
The noisy war horn had barely sounded before it stopped abruptly, leaving behind an ironic ending of "a lot of noise but little action."
As the Iwagakure army retreated like a tide, Konoha finally saw the true dawn of peace under the pressure of fighting on two fronts.
With this, the war that affected the entire Ninja World officially came to an end.
Compared to the "original work" in the historical trajectory, this battle not only erupted earlier, but its ending speed far exceeded expectations, and the outcome of this battle also took the opposite path.
A new era full of uncertainty has quietly begun in the embers of the battlefield.
The brief peace brought by the end of the war finally allowed Takuno to withdraw from the battlefield.
After the dust settled, he did not immediately rush to the Land of Snow to continue his research on the Kekkei Genkai as planned, but instead prioritized returning to his familiar old laboratory.
—
In the laboratory, he was focusing intently on modifying that unique instrument, the very device he had developed in his early years to assist in awakening the Sharingan.
Sealing Jutsu formulas were densely packed upon it like precision nerves; at this moment, Takuno was inspecting and strengthening these key symbols one by one to ensure that the next experiment would be completely foolproof.
At the same time, he also carried out an important innovation on the instrument's core mechanism, the "Memory Seal."
The past design was to first seal the original memory and then unseal it all at once after the illusionary realm simulation was completed, allowing the main memory to return to dominance.
However, this process had a hidden danger that was hard to ignore: at the moment of unsealing, the virtual memory constructed by the machine would still briefly dominate the thinking.
Although the original memory would quickly dilute it due to its real weight, the risk of a trace of mental derangement always followed like a shadow.
The key to this modification lay here; he adjusted the setting so that the user would not directly wake up when the illusionary realm ended;
That layer of Memory Seal used for storage would not be released either, but would instead be instantly restructured and applied to that just-experienced, completely fictional "illusionary realm memory."
In this way, when the user completely wakes up, only the pure self-consciousness and the real past will remain in the mind, like a bright mirror with the dust wiped away, while those carefully woven false memories are firmly locked away.
After several hours of meticulous refinement, Takuno gazed at the brand-new and complex incantations on the instrument, a trace of indiscernible satisfaction flashing in his eyes.
Then he did not hesitate; after testing it for a bit, he skillfully formed hand seals, split off a Shadow Clone to guard outside the machine, while his main body steadily stepped into the interior of the instrument.
It had been a long time since the last time this machine was started.
Now, it was time to begin the second crucial attempt.
The guarding Shadow Clone kept its eyes locked on the instrument; with the steady injection of Chakra, the dense sealing symbols on the surface of the casing lit up one after another, their faint glow pulsing like life.
Amidst the low hum of the machine's operation, the Shadow Clone's gaze pierced through the gaps in the device, focusing on the original body, Takuno, inside.
The core template selected this time was 'Obito', an existence nurtured by blood and tears. His soul's experience included awakening the two tomoe immediately and then forcibly breaking through to the Mangekyo realm in an extremely short time.
Could this sample of pain and rapid growth become the key to help Takuno knock on the door of the deeper 'three tomoe' realm?
Time passed quietly as the symbols flickered. When the light finally faded completely and the machine's hum fell into silence, the Shadow Clone held its breath and waited.
However, Takuno's main body did not wake up as expected.
His consciousness seemed to still be submerged deep within his sea of consciousness, sorting through the storm he had just experienced.
A moment later, the machine's gate finally opened, and Takuno stepped out.
In those deep black eyes, a hint of disappointment that could not be completely hidden was clearly reflected.
Without needing verbal communication, the guarding Shadow Clone instantly dissolved into white smoke and vanished, returning all its perceptions to the original body.
Takuno moved silently to a dusty full-length mirror, his face in the reflection carrying a trace of fatigue.
He stared at his own pupils, which were pure ink-black and bottomless.
Immediately afterward, a change occurred quietly!
The pure black quietly receded, blooming into a thrilling blood-red background, where two pitch-black tomoe drifted and circulated like bloodthirsty tadpoles.
Yes, the two tomoe Sharingan appeared clearly, but there was no trace of the expected third tomoe.
"Still... just a little bit short." Takuno's fingertips lightly touched the cold surface of the mirror.
Although he truly felt a significant increase in ocular power and a surging force filling his eyes, and the final barrier to the three tomoe seemed within reach, it stubbornly shut the perfect opportunity out.
A strong and primal impulse instantly welled up in his heart—to lie back into the machine immediately!
He was almost certain that if he did it one more time, he would definitely break through that invisible barrier!
However, this restlessness born of desire lasted only an instant before being completely frozen by the reason rooted in his marrow.
Even if those virtual memories had been carefully sealed as if in the strongest cage, there was no way to ensure that the emotions and influences they bred could be completely isolated.
To maintain the unity of the soul and avoid the nightmare of splitting, every descent into the machine required giving the main body sufficient intervals to settle, digest, and completely smooth out the ripples on the mental level.
A faint sigh dissipated into the quiet air.
Takuno examined the 'two tomoe' drifting in his eyes.
At his current power level, the visual insight brought by this two tomoe realm had become limited in its help for actual combat, even far inferior to his naturally gifted 'Mind's Eye of Kagura'.
Nowadays, it was only summoned as a temporary precision auxiliary tool when finely constructing certain genjutsu.
With a slight shift of thought, the blood-red light receded like a tide, and his eyes returned to a deep, pool-like black.
He turned and paced through this experimental base, which was piled with the traces of time, for the first time in a long while.
His gaze swept across the rows of dusty jars and bottles on the display shelves, the precision petri dishes, and the experimental samples containing rare blood and tissue. A sense of emotion welled up; this place stored all kinds of precious 'materials' he had struggled to collect by almost exhausting everything in his early years.
If it were today, with his current strength being nothing like the past, obtaining them would be as easy as reaching into a bag to grab something.
"In the end... it still comes down to strength," he whispered to himself.
From his initial struggles to the present, this world had already cruelly demonstrated its most fundamental rule countless times: power is the only pass, and the strong are respected.
His footsteps finally stopped in front of that special isolation room door.
The heavy metal door slid open silently, and a majestic but silent energy fluctuation spread out.
What came into view was that 'Gedo Statue severed arm' which had long since lost its arm-like form.
After long years and the careful *Cultiv* and nourishment of special Chakra, it had undergone a startling morphological evolution. Now, it looked more like a 'miniature Ten-Tails' curled up in an energy field, its body covered in mysterious patterns and still in its infancy!
A sharp light flashed through Takuno's eyes as he stared at this sleeping beast embryo. "If I pour all the collected Tailed Beast Chakra into it now... the birth of a true 'small Ten-Tails' is by no means a dream!"
He quickly took stock in his heart: as of now, the Chakra of the Two-Tails, Three-Tails, Eight-Tails, and Nine-Tails were all in his possession; he had actually collected nearly half of the nine Tailed Beasts' portions!
Importantly, except for the Three-Tails Chakra, which was painstakingly separated and grown from naturally dissipated residues—resulting in slightly lower purity and quantity—the Chakra of the Two-Tails, Eight-Tails, and Nine-Tails were all essence fragments he had forcibly 'cut' from their main bodies using absolute strength!
Each portion contained ten to twenty percent of the corresponding Tailed Beast's original power.
This amount of Chakra was already enough to condense a 'small Ten-Tails'!
His thoughts extended clearly: "Ichibi Shukaku is in the wind-blown Hidden Sand Village; Four-Tails Son Goku and Five-Tails Kokuo are entrenched in Iwagakure among the mountains; Six-Tails Saiken is hidden deep within the mist of the Hidden Mist Village; and Seven-Tails Chomei guards the forest treasures of Takigakure."
The strongest combat power in the Hidden Sand Village was only the Fourth Kazekage Rasa, who controlled Gold Dust? Not worth fearing.
Takigakure was even more insignificant. The so-called 'Hero's Water' was nothing more than a powder keg that burned life in exchange for short-lived power, a price too heavy to be worth a gamble;
The 'Earth Grudge Fear' secret technique was a taboo kept on a high shelf, with almost no one able to practice it. Taking the Seven-Tails Chakra would be as easy as turning over my hand.
But the situation in the Hidden Mist Village was extremely tricky.
At this moment, it was essentially under the shadowy control of Obito.
In the past, he could still rely on his foresight and understanding of Kamui to deal with Obito by exploiting his weakness as an inexperienced 'newborn calf'.
However, by now, Obito's power and mind must have become nothing like before, so this method might not work.
Furthermore, the current Fourth Mizukage Yagura Karatachi and the Six-Tails Jinchuriki Utakata were in the same village. Taking it by force would be no different from breaking into a heavily fortified tiger's den.
The best time... might be to wait patiently for the moment Utakata defects from the village.
As for Iwagakure, the Third Tsuchikage Ōnoki—that dwarf-like old man—might not be called the peak of Kage-level in terms of comprehensive combat power, but the Kekkei Tōta 'Dust Release' he possessed had a destructive power enough to look down on the world, even reaching the terrifying 'Super Kage' level!
Unfortunately, the price of power was a relatively slow execution speed. The activation of Dust Release had a clear wind-up, leading to an unsatisfactory actual hit rate.
If not for that, Ōnoki might have been able to become the gatekeeper of the Super Kage level with this technique.
Moreover, those two battle-hardened Jinchuriki in Iwagakure were by no means easy to deal with.
"The time has not yet come." Takuno shook his head gently, having already made a decision in his heart. Currently, his demand for Tailed Beast Chakra was not large.
The advancement of all plans must be built on the foundation of the successful completion of his own 'Chimera Technique'.
Only by tempering this body into an ultimate vessel capable of carrying divine power would the grand blueprint of becoming the 'Ten-Tails Jinchuriki' have a foundation for realization.
Before then, the process of collecting Tailed Beast Chakra could be slowed down.
The tension in his thoughts relaxed slightly, and a wave of fatigue from long-unrested battles quietly washed over him.
He habitually yawned, his fingers unconsciously brushing over the items he carried, and finally, he took out a letter that had been stored for a long time.
The envelope showed clear signs of wear. it had been delivered long ago, but on that blood-soaked battlefield where he slept with his weapons, he had only glanced at it briefly. After judging it wasn't a top-priority matter, he had casually placed it deep in his pack.
Now that the smoke of gunpowder had cleared, time finally began to flow luxuriously.
Takuno held the stationery of this late-read letter, his fingertips brushing over the slightly yellowed paper, preparing to carefully read the information contained within.