Moral support is fragile.
What is truly reliable is having a stake in someone’s interests.
That was the key to Kei’s victory over the Third Hokage.
As for the moral prestige that had allowed Hiruzen to preach morality his entire life, he had merely profited from the dividends of morality.
It was almost as though the more good people there were in the world, the more benefits Konoha could reap.
But when you traced everything back to its source, it still came down to interests.
If good people had refused to let Hiruzen take advantage of them, perhaps Hiruzen would never have preached morality in the first place.
Ever since Konoha had been dealt with, Kei had suddenly found himself in an exceptionally good mood.
His life had finally returned to normal, and he had once again recovered his usual lazy disposition.
Life really could be gentle and radiant.
If only these few troublesome matters weren’t weighing on his mind, things would have been perfect.
The first problem was that three thousand Uchiha, together with two thousand shinobi students from the Academy, and later another thousand Konoha Uchiha, had surrounded the Sarutobi clan.
The Sarutobi clan had fewer than three thousand shinobi left, along with nearly ten thousand civilians.
Yet despite the overwhelming numbers, a great many of them had still managed to escape.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, Sarutobi Shinnosuke, Sarutobi Yasukuni, Sarutobi Zashikoya, Sarutobi Tanaka, Sarutobi Aoyama, Sarutobi Tsukiji Hongan, and the other important members of the Sarutobi clan had all been killed.
But even so, Kei had failed to completely wipe out the Sarutobi clan.
Even though those who remained posed little threat to Uchiha Kei, that fact only made him more depressed.
"Damn it, I just can’t figure it out. Six thousand shinobi couldn’t even wipe out a single clan. So how the hell did Itachi Uchiha manage to slaughter his entire clan by himself?!"
Kei understood why he had been unable to completely eradicate the Sarutobi clan.
It was perfectly normal.
Even in modern warfare, with missiles flying everywhere, completely annihilating an enemy force without leaving a single survivor was extremely difficult.
Statistics showed that an army capable of suffering casualties exceeding seventeen percent without collapsing was already considered a strong military force.
And completely annihilating a defeated army was practically a pipe dream.
The instinct to survive meant that there would always be plenty of people who managed to flee.
So it was only natural that a thousand or so Sarutobi shinobi, along with some of their clansmen, had escaped.
But that only made the future Uchiha massacre even more mysterious.
"More than twenty elite Uchiha who aren’t weaker than Itachi couldn’t do it, yet Itachi Uchiha managed to wipe out his entire clan without making a sound."
"That’s not normal!"
"Add Obito, Danzō, and even Madara into the equation. None of that makes sense!"
"There’s something going on here!"
Kei had a feeling that an even greater conspiracy was waiting for him in the future.
The second thing that annoyed Uchiha Kei was that Jūbei was going to marry Yakushi Nonō .
Yes, that’s right.
A man with crippled limbs was going to marry a woman who had weathered countless hardships.
Kei didn’t discriminate against Nonō because of her former identity as a "shrine maiden."
But it was like your son suddenly brought a woman home.
The woman might have excellent character, great abilities, beautiful looks, and be completely devoted to your son.
But if you knew that she had once worked as a dancer, could you really say you wouldn’t mind?
Even a poor family that couldn’t find a wife would have reservations about something like that, let alone Uchiha Kei.
However, Nonō’s performance after the war had been simply too good.
The Uchiha purge of Konoha had also been highly targeted.
They had only gone after the Sarutobi clan and the civilian and shinobi holdouts who continued to resist—the die-hard loyalists of the Third Hokage.
They did not pursue the shinobi who had already been defeated.
After all, it had been five thousand against thirty thousand.
If Konoha had truly been pushed into a corner and fought to the death, it would have been enough to make Uchiha Kei pay a heavy price.
War was merely a continuation of politics.
The Uchiha’s political objective had been to overthrow the Third Hokage’s regime.
That objective had been accomplished.
Everything else was secondary.
Unfortunately, the Uchiha couldn’t simply have their fun, pat themselves on the backside, and walk away.
Someone had to explain what was going to happen to Konoha.
And Kei, as the person who had caused all of this, had to give everyone an explanation as well.
Konoha wasn’t made up entirely of enemies.
It had allies too.
The shinobi clans, forced to unite together, watched the Uchiha clan warily.
The Uchiha still possessed a force of more than ten thousand.
If things weren’t handled carefully, the entire matter could drag on for a very long time.
And at that moment, Nonō appeared at exactly the right time.
She had spent years caring for the orphans of Konoha.
Her prestige among the poor, together with the recognition she had earned from the shinobi clans for everything she had done over the years, gave her considerable influence.
People believed what she said.
And by "people," this did not mean Konoha’s senior leaders and clan heads.
It meant the people at the bottom.
Nonō had a strong reputation among them.
Thus, when Nonō confronted Sarutobi Yasukuni and the others face-to-face, the remaining people of Konoha learned the truth behind what had happened to their village.
Everything that had happened today had ultimately stemmed from the arrogance of the Sarutobi clan.
They had attempted to lay claim to the private assets of the Uchiha clan, and that had brought about their own destruction.
That became the official conclusion.
The people now had someone to blame.
Give ignorant people a reason they can accept, and they can deceive themselves into putting the past behind them and getting on with their lives.
And this was also how Jūbei and Nonō’s paths crossed.
One was protected by the spirit of Taira no Masakado.
The other had attracted the attention of the deity Myōken.
One had grown up as an orphan and therefore possessed a natural affection for great women.
The other had endured countless hardships and simply wanted to find a dependable man she could rely on.
And so the two of them eventually came before Kei.
Looking down at the unlikely pair before him, Uchiha Kei didn’t know what to say.
Both of them had made great contributions to the Uchiha.
Could he really play the villain and break them apart?
"Fine."
"If the two of you truly love each other, then naturally I have no reason to object."
"I only hope that your life together will be smooth and peaceful, without storms or hardship."
"When darkness falls, may there always be a lamp."
"When it rains, may there always be an umbrella."
Kei finally gave them his blessing.
"Thank you, my lord!"
Having received Kei’s blessing, the two of them were delighted.
And the seventh child of the Yakushi family became Uchiha Nanakase as well.
That troublesome matter at least came with a little compensation.
The final thing that annoyed Kei was the division of the spoils.
The spoils in question were the political power of Konoha.
This time, Uchiha Kei had sacrificed more than a hundred Red-Eyed Uchiha shinobi, yet the reward he had received was merely the overthrow of the Third Hokage’s regime.
Kei still couldn’t integrate himself into Konoha’s political circle.
Nor did he want to.
I already have a promising enterprise with enormous potential and rapid growth.
Why would I take on a bad asset?
In Kei’s eyes, the title of Hokage wasn’t worth much.
Konoha itself was a bad asset.
He didn’t want to carry that burden.
The cost and the return simply didn’t match.
The surviving Konoha clans didn’t want themselves saddled with an overly powerful boss either.
Thus, the two sides reached an understanding.
Konoha would continue running Konoha’s affairs.
Uchiha Kei would continue living his own life.
Unfortunately, Uchiha Fugaku was the one who got the short end of the stick.
He had been sitting safely at home, only to have the title of Hokage suddenly fall into his lap.
After Uchiha Kei led everyone out of Konoha, the remaining shinobi clans rapidly reassembled the Konoha Jōnin Council.
After receiving the daimyō’s approval and passing the confidence vote of the Jōnin Council, the Fourth Hokage of Konoha was chosen without even requiring Fugaku to make a statement of his own.
This left Kei somewhat baffled.
Were people’s established ways of thinking really that difficult to change?
Things had already reached this point.
Why did the people of Konoha still believe that the Hokage needed the daimyō’s approval?
Forget it.
It had nothing to do with him anyway.
And just like that, the Uchiha finally produced a Hokage of their own.
Everyone in Konoha believed Fugaku would serve as the bridge between Konoha and Kei.
With Fugaku there, surely Kei wouldn’t purge Konoha a second time.
Fugaku’s personality was also acceptable to the people of Konoha.
At the very least, compared with Kei, everyone could accept Fugaku as Hokage.
The daimyō also swiftly approved Konoha’s request.
The very same daimyō who had supported Konoha’s destruction of the Uchiha one moment was begging the Uchiha to govern Konoha the next.
The Land of Fire was now plagued by warfare on all sides.
The daimyō desperately needed a stable Konoha to restore order.
Who became Hokage didn’t matter.
As long as they could settle the chaos, anyone would do.
Even the Uchiha, who had once gone so far as to attempt to overthrow the daimyō’s regime, were acceptable.
At this point, the Land of Fire’s government didn’t even need the Uchiha to overthrow it anymore.
The daimyō of the Land of Fire was now willing to give Konoha whatever it wanted—money if it wanted money, manpower if it wanted manpower.
He practically wished he could send his own daughter to the bed of Konoha’s new Hokage.
Thus, Fugaku’s election was the choice everyone wanted.
The Konoha Uchiha, Hyūga, Kurama, Akimichi, Nara, Yamanaka, Aburame, and countless other clans all genuinely supported Fugaku’s rise.
Only with him could Konoha, the daimyō, and those people outside the village who were no longer even sure whether they should still be called Uchiha find a peaceful and mutually beneficial path forward.
The final matter to resolve was the future of Orochimaru, Danzō, and Nonō.
These allies needed to receive their share of the benefits now.
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