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"Ugh... I'm not dead?"
A groan came from the person lying on top of him.
Akio frowned. That voice sounded oddly familiar.
"You're not dead, but this old man nearly got crushed by you!"
"Ah! I'm sorry!"
The person on top of Akio scrambled to stand, then reached out to help him up.
Akio frowned deeper as he got a clear look at the person's face. Uchiha Kagami!
"Are you alright, old man?"
Kagami's eyes were shut tight, his face filled with concern.
Akio took his hand and was pulled to his feet.
"I'm fine, young man. But your eyes...?"
Kagami smiled. "It's nothing."
Akio pressed on. "Did you try to kill yourself because you went blind?"
Kagami shook his head, then carefully walked a short distance away. After forming several hand seals, the ground cracked open to reveal a small box inside the fissure.
He retrieved the box and opened it — inside was a pair of Sharingan, each with three tomoe.
What followed, Akio didn't fully understand. Kagami simply reinserted the eyes into his sockets and regained his sight.
"So you're telling me," Akio muttered with a twitch of his mouth, "the greatest strength of the Sharingan is... that it's removable and re-installable?"
"Old man, you look kind of familiar," Kagami said, eyeing him with curiosity.
Akio waved it off. "Maybe we've met somewhere before... You're an Uchiha? You stashed your eyes away before attempting suicide — why?"
He let out a sigh of relief internally. He had truly been worried that Konoha had fallen into such chaos that someone might've tried to steal Kagami's Sharingan.
"I originally wanted my death to awaken my three friends. But now that you've saved me, perhaps it's fate. I've changed my mind — I don't want to die anymore."
Akio's brows furrowed. That one sentence revealed a lot.
"Three friends… Sarutobi, Danzo, and… Koharu? So those three are currently at odds over the position of Hokage? Kagami's father probably pressured him into vying for the title himself, and he chose death to end the struggle?"
The more Akio thought about it, the more it reminded him of something else.
"In the original timeline, Uchiha Shisui took his own life to entrust Itachi with resolving the Uchiha–Konoha conflict... This feels oddly familiar."
He suddenly chuckled to himself.
"Uchiha Kagami is supposed to be Shisui's ancestor, right? Guess cliff-diving runs in the family."
While he was lost in thought, Kagami spoke again.
"When I return, I'll convince my father. The four of us — Sarutobi, Danzo, Koharu, and I — should unite against our common enemies, not each other!"
"Unite against outsiders? Sarutobi, Shimura, Uchiha, the Ino-Shika-Cho... who's the outsider here — the Senju?"
Akio twitched slightly. He had a bad feeling.
"Young man, I also need to return to Konoha. My legs aren't what they used to be — help me walk, would you?"
Akio's voice trembled slightly as he spoke.
Kagami responded politely, but his guard had already gone back up. Surviving that fall had made him a bit careless, and he'd revealed too much. Now that he was thinking clearly again, the old man's behavior struck him as odd — Akio hadn't been hurt by the impact at all, and only now claimed he had trouble walking?
Kagami supported Akio all the way to Konoha's main gate. The guards saw Kagami leading him and didn't question them further.
"Old man, let me take you to my house to rest," Kagami offered. He planned to bring him to the Uchiha compound — that would make everything easier to manage.
Akio didn't hesitate and nodded with a smile.
"Let's go."
"Infiltrating the Uchiha… exciting!" he thought to himself.
When they arrived at the Uchiha district, Uchiha Izma was pacing nervously at the entrance. Upon seeing them, he called out immediately:
"Kagami! You're finally back! Who are you—"
But before she finished, her expression shifted dramatically. She took a cautious step forward and said,
"Akio-sama? You're still alive!"
Akio's face darkened. Seriously? Kagami hadn't recognized him, but Izma had?
"I'm not even close with him…" Akio sighed inwardly.
Ten minutes later, in a quiet room in the Uchiha compound—
"So the Second Hokage is alive too? That's a relief…"
Izma let out a long breath.
Akio frowned.
"Why do you look so disappointed that I'm alive, yet relieved that Tobirama is too?"
Izma hesitated.
"Well… I guess there's no harm in telling you. If only you had survived, the Hokage seat would've likely gone to that Uzumaki Genkai. But if the Second is still around, it's better than having a clan leader from the Uzumaki take charge of Konoha."
"Genkai?" Akio blinked.
"He gave up being clan head to run for Hokage? And he's actually winning?"
"With the support of your three disciples and Lady Mito… His candidacy has strong backing. Now that you're back, things might change again."
"Hold on, hold on..." Akio raised a hand.
"My three disciples supporting him makes sense — probably because of Nanako — but did you just call Mito 'Lady' Mito?"
That was strange. Izma had only ever referred to two people with that kind of reverence — Hashirama and Madara. Not even Akio himself received such an honorific. But he'd just said it for Mito, and it sounded completely sincere.
Izma gave a wry laugh.
"You might not know, but after you and the Second were ambushed and went missing, the other villages started getting restless. Lady Mito personally went to the battlefield at Sunagakure and singlehandedly routed their forces in a single day. People are calling her the Goddess of Kunoichi now."
Akio was stunned.
"Wait, Mito… She's still pregnant, right? Should be about four months along by now. She fought a war while pregnant, and defeated an entire Suna force in a day? Did they build their army out of paper or something?"
Izma gave another bitter smile.
"I wouldn't have believed it myself, but our returning clansmen described it clearly — she fully mastered the power of the Nine-Tails. Clad in a golden chakra cloak, she crushed every enemy in her path. It only took ten minutes to defeat the Second Kazekage head-on and kill one of their elders."
Akio twitched.
Perfect Nine-Tails control, golden cloak... That's the form Naruto had after mastering the Nine-Tails!
"Right… Half of the Nine-Tails was sealed inside her. With her talent, it's not impossible that she became a perfect jinchūriki."
He hadn't forgotten — when Mito married into the Senju clan, she was only fifteen but already had jōnin-level skill. At the time, she wasn't much weaker than him at forty-nine...
"Let's not talk about the past," he muttered, rubbing his sore shoulder.
"Even now, I'm not confident I could beat her..."
"The Second is fine, but… don't tell me you also support that Uzumaki Genkai for Hokage. If that's the case, I might have to throw myself off a cliff just to make a point..." Izma muttered.
Akio rolled his eyes.
"Ha… jumping off cliffs must run in your bloodline."
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