Rasa carefully pulled Shuang Uchiha into his embrace.
He could feel the fine, subtle tremors finally leaving her gorgeous, mature body.
Under his patient, possessive comforting, she slowly began to steady herself.
His hand traced slow, rhythmic patterns over the smooth, porcelain-white skin of her back.
His gaze drifted, becoming hazy as he stared out the window at the sinking crimson sun.
That Evil God of the Land of Hot Water—a creature that could make a woman pregnant out of thin air...
What kind of beast was it, truly?
Rasa felt a powerful surge of intuition.
He sensed that once he successfully hunted down and captured the "essence" of this so-called deity.
He might finally grasp the fundamental truths of the Ninja World.
Even if there was no ultimate revelation.
Subjugating such a creature would undoubtedly catapult his mastery of divine power to a terrifying new level.
"Jiraiya... have you truly made up your mind to leave?"
"Everyone in the Leaf needs you now more than ever..."
The dying embers of the twilight sun cast a long, slanted shadow across the Hokage's office.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, looked weary. He had just finished a grueling day of paperwork.
He gripped his tobacco pipe, taking a heavy, lung-scorching drag before exhaling a thick plume of gray smoke.
Standing before the desk was a tall man with wild, snow-white hair and a boisterous presence.
Jiraiya gave his own head a light, self-deprecating pat.
His face wore a casual grin, but his eyes were filled with a grim, unwavering seriousness.
"Old Man, I only came back because I heard the war was about to tear the world apart."
"I rushed back to lend a hand, hoping to keep this place from burning down."
Jiraiya let out a short, somewhat relieved chuckle.
"But I didn't expect our ally, Sunagakure, to be so damn efficient."
"Rasa ended the entire war in a single month. It was breathtaking."
"I should have gone back to my travels the moment the ink dried on the treaty. Staying an extra six months is already a miracle for someone as restless as me."
Seeing Hiruzen open his mouth to protest, Jiraiya cut him off quickly.
"Besides, there's Orochimaru. That bastard actually did it... those horrific experiments... and then he ran."
Jiraiya's smile vanished, and his hands clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists.
"I'm going out there to find him. I need to look him in the eye and ask him why. I need to know what was going through his twisted head."
Hiruzen looked down, trying to hide the profound sadness in his aging eyes.
He knew, deep down, that he couldn't hold the Toad Sage here any longer.
After a few beats of silence, Hiruzen tried one last, desperate plea.
"At least stay until after the New Year."
"In a month and a half, your student, Minato, will take the throne as the Fourth Hokage."
"Do you really plan to miss his inauguration ceremony?"
Jiraiya's eyes flickered with a sudden, painful internal struggle.
But before the light of hope could return to Hiruzen's face.
The struggle died out, replaced by a long, heavy sigh.
Jiraiya shook his head slowly.
"Sigh. I'll try to make it back in time. But if I don't... Minato will understand."
"He's always been a kind, gentle kid. He knows what's at stake."
Minutes later.
Watching the door close behind Jiraiya, the Third Hokage looked smaller than before—a fragile, lonely silhouette in a darkening room.
He slumped back into his chair, his hands trembling as he picked up and set down the pipe he had used for years.
He smoked one bowl after another in rapid succession.
The acrid white mist expanded around the desk, eventually swallowing his figure completely, as if he were trying to disappear from the world.
Half an hour later.
"Heh. So that fool Jiraiya is leaving the village too?"
"It seems the heavens themselves are favoring us!"
In a hidden, damp cellar deep within the Uchiha compound, over fifty clansmen were gathered.
Unlike previous meetings dominated by hot-headed youths.
The crowd had grown by twenty members, and it now included a dozen battle-hardened, middle-aged faces.
The air was thick with the scent of sweat and anticipation.
Suddenly, a cold, authoritative voice cut through the chatter like a thunderclap.
The fire of excitement in the room was snuffed out instantly.
"Don't get cocky. Even with Jiraiya gone, our odds of success have only increased by five percent."
Sitting at the head of the long table was a man in his early thirties.
He was short but powerfully built, his arms crossed over his chest as he observed the room with a predatory stillness.
His eyes held a glimmer of ambition, but his face remained a mask of icy composure.
This was Fugaku Uchiha—the man who had quietly seized control of the clan's younger generation.
As the silence grew awkward, a weathered middle-aged man spoke up, trying to smooth things over.
"Fugaku is right. Even without Jiraiya, we don't yet have the overwhelming force needed for a lightning-fast coup."
The youth sitting to the man's left looked hesitant.
"Then what do we do? Even if we count the One-Tomoe clansmen who aren't allowed in here, we only have about a hundred fighters."
"If we keep recruiting, the Clan Leader will notice, even with Fugaku and the elders covering for us."
Fugaku Uchiha shook his head slowly, a faint trace of grief touching his eyes as he spoke softly.
"My uncle's body is failing him more every day. The old wounds from his youth are finally catching up."
"He's been coughing blood for five days straight. By my estimate, he won't survive the next month..."
The room didn't react with sorrow. Instead, a wave of dark joy rippled through the gathered Uchiha.
Fugaku suppressed his feigned sadness, his lips curling into a shallow, sharp smile.
"So, in one month—two at the most—I will officially succeed him as the Uchiha Clan Leader."
"Once I have the title, I'll spend a few days purging the stubborn, pro-Konoha relics from the clan."
"Then, with the full weight of a unified clan behind us, we'll strike while the village is off-balance. A total surprise attack!"
The breathing in the room became heavy and ragged.
The Uchiha were a clan of fire and passion; the prospect of absolute dominance made their blood boil.
The middle-aged "ordinary" elders were especially ecstatic.
The "relics" Fugaku spoke of were the core elders who had been broken by fear decades ago.
The ones who bowed and scraped before the Hokage, preaching submission and peace.
Once they were "liquidated."
The seats on the Core Council would be vacant.
And they—the ones who had been suppressed for years—would finally ascend.
The Uchiha clan was massive.
While they couldn't match the Hyuga's hundred-percent activation rate of the Byakugan.
Dozens of Uchiha awakened their Sharingan every year.
Over decades of relative peace, the number of Three-Tomoe veterans had swollen to over a hundred.
It was an immense pool of power.
But naturally, not everyone could be an elder.
Positions were given to the elite—the ones with the most tenure and prestige.
Due to the clan's bloody history, a tier above the regular elders existed: the Core Elders.
These men—aside from Shuang Uchiha, who was accepted early due to her freakish talent as the strongest of her generation.
Were all old men who had survived the era of Madara Uchiha.
They were the survivors of the Great Purge, and they guarded their seats like hoarders.
There were only so many "holes for the radishes."
The ordinary elders had to wait for the old men to die or go senile to move up.
But the elder system had no term limits.
A man could sit in that seat for twenty or thirty years until his heart simply stopped beating.
They were sick of waiting.
They were sick of being told to play nice with the Leaf while the village treated them like suspicious outsiders.
The seeds of resentment had long since blossomed into a forest of hatred.
This was why, six months ago, when Mikoto Uchiha and Fugaku had their public brawl.
The ordinary elders had stood in the shadows, watching with clinical detachment instead of intervening.
In the original timeline, the Third War had lasted for years.
The Core Elders had all been slaughtered on the front lines, and even Shuang Uchiha hadn't survived the meat grinder.
That vacuum was what allowed the ambitious younger generation to take over.
Now, history had been diverted. But under Rasa's subtle, invisible influence.
The "peace" was a facade.
The Uchiha were moving toward open rebellion over a decade earlier than they were supposed to.
The Land of Earth, Iwagakure.
It was 8:00 PM.
In the traditional agrarian rhythm of the Ninja World.
This was the time for civilians and off-duty ninjas to be home, eating a warm meal and preparing for sleep.
But a few miles outside the Stone Village.
The night was a screaming, chaotic mess of forced labor.
Thousands of torches turned the darkness into a flickering, artificial day.
The light illuminated the gaunt, deathly pale faces of the civilian men.
They had been working like this for a week—sleeping only seven or eight hours during the day before being dragged back into the pits for another night of back-breaking toil.
The Stone ninjas overseeing them didn't look much better.
Their eyes were rimmed with dark circles from their shattered biological clocks, but they stared intensely at the workers.
Compared to the day shift, which was grueling but followed a natural rhythm.
The night crews were living in a hellish, exhausted daze.
Inside the Tsuchikage's building, Obito stood by the window, staring out at the distant, fire-lit construction sites.
A bizarre creature with skin as black as charcoal merged out of the floorboards.
Black Zetsu's raspy, haunting voice filled the room.
"Hehe. The resentment is festering beautifully. The whispers of rebellion are getting louder every hour."
"It won't be long before we get to enjoy a truly spectacular performance."
Madara Uchiha had passed away only a month ago.
Black Zetsu, having prepared for this for centuries, had perfectly staged a drama that left Obito completely brainwashed and focused on his dark mission.
Obito crossed his arms, shaking his head slowly.
"It's not enough. Not even close."
"In a few days, I'll have Onoki perform unannounced inspections every other night."
"He'll find the oversight ninjas who are 'slacking' and punish them brutally in front of everyone."
"Once I do that a few times, the overseers won't dare to be lenient. They'll whip the civilians harder and harder to save their own skins. The hatred will explode!"
Obito's single exposed eye turned into a cold, murderous void.
"Then, I'll have Onoki issue a new decree."
"Any public or private questioning of the village's decisions will be treated as treason."
"Any complaint is a lack of patriotism. Any grumbling is a betrayal of the Stone."
"We'll accuse them of being paid by Konoha or the Sand. We'll arrest them for espionage and incitement!"
Black Zetsu's face twisted into a look of feigned awe, and he began to clap his hands rhythmically.
"Clap, clap! Brilliant! Truly exquisite malice!"
"But... what if they protect each other? What if they keep their mouths shut to hide their peers?"
Obito's voice remained flat and emotionless.
"Then you'll just pick a few random civilians who did say something and drag them out for public execution. Do it often enough, and they'll start suspecting their own neighbors. Paranoia is the best cage."
Zetsu looked ecstatic, about to offer more praise.
"CRITICAL INTELLIGENCE!"
Suddenly, a high-pitched, feminine voice interrupted them. A White Zetsu clone sprouted from the floor.
Black Zetsu's lip twitched as he swallowed his half-formed compliment.
White Zetsu looked at the heavy atmosphere in the room, his pale face splitting into a creepy grin.
"Did I interrupt something intimate?"
"Anyway, the Uchiha in Konoha are making their move. It looks like they're planning a full-scale strike in two months."
Six months ago, one of the White Zetsu clones—a Wood Style user—had gone missing in the Leaf.
That clone was currently a decorative corpse in Rasa's Kamui space.
Because of that "glitch," Madara had ordered a massive increase in surveillance on both the Uchiha and the Leaf leadership.
Despite Rasa's extreme caution over the last half-year.
Even after Madara had been dead for a month.
The Zetsus in Konoha had failed to find anything concrete about Rasa's personal interference.
But they had stumbled upon Fugaku Uchiha's secret meetings.
They had been watching the coup plan unfold like a front-row audience.
Obito's eye widened in genuine surprise, but he eventually gave a slow, measured nod.
"He has more backbone than I gave him credit for. I underestimated him."
"However, he has the Mangekyō. It would be a headache to move against him directly right now."
"We'll let them tear each other apart. Once the Uchiha and the Leaf are both bloody and broken... I'll step in and harvest the wreckage for myself!"