A hush, thick enough to be carved with a kunai, had fallen over the main hall of the Uchiha compound.
Uchiha Tajima stood at the forefront, his gaze sweeping over the sea of faces, each one adorned with the same infamous, perpetually serious Uchiha resting face.
He saw in their dark eyes a tumultuous cocktail of emotions—respect, apprehension, a flicker of excitement, and the profound, soul-deep drama that only an Uchiha could truly cultivate and appreciate.
A wry, almost imperceptible smile tugged at his lips. Typical family members, he thought.
"Well, would you look at that," Tajima began, his voice cutting through the solemn silence. "It seems everyone is here. I see you, I see all of you, and I see the same complicated emotional maelstrom in your eyes that I feel in my own heart."
He paused, letting the dramatic tension build for a beat longer. These people appreciated a good performance.
"As everyone is no doubt aware," he continued, his tone shifting to one of formal announcement, "today marks the day I, Uchiha Tajima, voluntarily step down from my position as your patriarch. And stepping up, ready to lead you into a glorious era she deems fit, is my daughter, Azula."
A ripple went through the crowd, though it was the Uchiha version of a riot—a few synchronized blinks and the slightest straightening of postures.
That's right. After a full sixteen years of steering this clan of magnificent, emotionally complicated prodigies, Tajima was hanging up his hat.
And he was doing it with the unseemly haste of a man who'd just discovered his retirement fund was fully vested.
Why? Because his daughter, Azula, had officially unlocked the Three Tomoe Sharingan. In Uchiha terms, this was the equivalent of getting her managerial license.
Was she a woman? Yes. Did anyone in the room, behind their carefully neutral masks, give a single damn? Absolutely not.
In the world of shinobi, and especially among the Uchiha, philosophical debates on gender were swiftly resolved by the simple, universal question: "Can they throw the Third Raikage flying with a punch?"
The answer, in Azula's case, was a resounding, earth-shattering yes.
Sure, some of the older guard thought Tajima, who was still in his prime and could probably wrestle a tailed beast to a draw before breakfast, was stepping down a tad early.
But you try telling a man who has spent sixteen years mediating arguments over who looked at whose Sharingan wrong that he 'should stay longer.' It was a one-way ticket to an Amaterasu enema.
They couldn't force him to stay, and frankly, they didn't want to. The man deserved a break, preferably on a beach far, far away from any and all clan drama.
Plus, Azula's résumé was… terrifyingly impressive. It wasn't just whispered in hushed tones within Konoha's intelligence division; it was practically being sung by traveling bards.
She had used the Third Raikage as a projectile. She had taken on the Tsuchikage and the Kazekage in a two-on-one dance of death and walked away with the Kazekage injured by her.
If you stopped a random civilian on the streets of Konoha—the guy selling dango, the old woman watering her ferns—and asked, "Who is Azula Uchiha?" they wouldn't just know her name.
They'd likely give you a five-minute reenactment, complete with sound effects. So, no, there was no one stepping forward to object.
The younger Uchihas saw her as a rock star; the older ones saw a walking, talking strategic deterrent who hadn't even unlocked her final form yet.
The collective clan thought process was simple: once she gets the Mangekyō, and then takes her father's eyes for the Eternal version… she'll be a god.
Why would we poke a future goddess with a stick over a leadership change that's as inevitable as taxes and bad weather?
Stepping forward, Azula felt none of the stage fright that might plague a lesser soul.
Between royal intrigues in a past life and navigating the egos of the Uchiha in this one, this gathering felt about as intimidating as a tea party. A very, very stab-happy tea party, but still.
Her voice rang out, clear and commanding, devoid of unnecessary flair. Uchihas weren't politicians; they were warriors who appreciated a good, solid, intimidating soundbite. And she had borrowed a particularly effective one.
"I, Azula Uchiha," she declared, her Sharingan spinning, "swear on the Uchiha name to lead this clan to glory."
She paused, letting the silence hang for a moment before delivering the punchline. "We will make Uchiha great again!"
It was simple. It was arrogant. It was perfect.
A beat of stunned silence was followed by an eruption that nearly took the roof off the compound.
"MAKE UCHIHA GREAT AGAIN!"
"MAKE UCHIHA GREAT AGAIN!"
"MAKE UCHIHA GREAT AGAIN!"
The chant, a deep, guttural roar from hundreds of powerful shinobi, didn't just resonate within the Uchiha compound. It vibrated through the very foundations of Konoha, causing teacups to rattle in the Hokage's office and sending a flock of sparrows into a panic.
Across the village, people stopped, looked toward the Uchiha district, and shuddered. The Uchihas were up to something. Again.
In a serene, traditionally furnished room far from the cacophony, an elderly Hyuga man with pupil-less, pearl-white eyes slowly sipped his tea.
"I had expected the Uchiha would undergo a new change after Azula's reputation expanded," he mused, his voice like dry leaves rustling. "But I didn't expect it to be so early. It seems they can no longer wait to unleash their… enthusiasm upon the world."
Across from him, his son, Hisoto Hyuga, nodded gravely. "Indeed, Father. The Uchiha have gradually changed over the years, becoming more… unified. Now, it seems they are about to enter a new, and undoubtedly louder, era."
Deep down, however, Hisoto was battling a feeling as green and venomous as a snake. It was envy. Pure, unadulterated envy.
He looked at Tajima, a man who had somehow managed to produce a daughter who was a one-woman army and a political tsunami rolled into one, and he felt a profound sense of unfairness.
He glanced toward the nursery where his own newborn twins, Hiashi and Hizashi, lay sleeping. He silently begged the universe: let one of them be a prodigy who can at least throw a Kage without dislocating a shoulder. Let them restore the Hyuga to their rightful place, rivaling these flashy, fireball-hurling drama kings!
The elder Hyuga, Hisoka, seemed to read his son's thoughts—a common Hyuga trait that made family dinners incredibly passive-tame. He set his teacup down with a soft click.
"The future of our clan now rests on your shoulders, my son," Hisoka said, his words layered with meaning like the rings of an ancient tree. "You will have to bear many things. The village, for all its talk of unity, was founded on the backs of the Senju and the Uchiha."
Hisoto understood perfectly. They were latecomers to the party.
The best seats—the Hokage's seat, the seats of foundational power—were already taken, their place cards permanently engraved with 'Uchiha' and 'Senju.'
For clans like the Hyuga, and the others who sat just below that top tier, their situation was one of steady, quiet endurance. They wouldn't foolishly fight for power they couldn't win. Their strategy was simpler: offend no one, build strength in silence, and wait.
They were buying time, betting on the most patient and ancient of strategies: the hope for an unparalleled genius.
They had watched the Senju produce Hashirama and Tobirama, and now a Tsunade and a Nawaki. They had watched the Uchiha spawn Madara and Izuna, then a Tajima, and now an Azula and a promising brother named Fugaku.
Hisoto looked again toward the nursery, his resolve hardening. 'Surely,' he thought, 'we noble Hyuga, we who possess the sacred Byakugan, we who are every bit their equal… surely we are due for a genius of our own? It's only fair, right?'
The universe, notoriously bad at responding to rhetorical questions, offered only silence, broken once more by a distant, fading Uchiha chant.
...
...
...
Becoming the official head of the Uchiha clan wasn't just a political promotion for Azula; it was the first cunning move in her grand master plan.
Her ultimate goal was to consolidate every scrap of usable power on the planet into something capable of throwing a wrench—or preferably, a very large, very fiery fireball—into the gears of the Otsutsuki, should those celestial party-crashers ever decide to show up.
But, as is always the case with world-domination-adjacent scheming, the universe loves to hand you a to-do list longer than a summoning scroll.
Before she could even think about preparing for intergalactic deities, she had to deal with the more immediate, and infinitely more irritating, problem of mortal politics.
And the current political storm brewing had a very distinct, violently red hue to it: the Uzumaki crisis.
Azula lounged in her chair, tapping a finely manicured nail against the armrest (an invention of her own hand, by the way).
She pondered the historical records. In the original version of events, did the Uzumaki clan only have to fend off Kiri and Kumo? Or was it even less? A paltry skirmish? A diplomatic spat?
This time, however, was different. This time, Konoha—her Konoha, strengthened by her own brilliant influence—had grown too powerful, too fast.
The village was now so strong it had essentially become a walking, talking argument for world unification, whether the world wanted to be unified or not.
"If I were sitting in some dusty Kage office in Iwa or Kiri, watching Konoha's shadow stretch across the map," Azula mused with a smirk that didn't quite reach her cold, calculating eyes, "the first thing I'd do is look for a way to clip the Hidden Leaf's wings without getting my own hands dirty."
And what better, more tempting target than Konoha's closest ally, the Uzumaki? They were the perfect pressure point: incredibly valuable for their unique talents, yet geographically isolated. A masterstroke of indirect warfare.
The logic for the Four Nations would be sickeningly simple: if all four great villages united to swat the Uzumaki gnat, what could Konoha's Hokage do?
A smart, pragmatic leader—a coward, in Azula's more honest vocabulary—would grit his teeth, offer some weak diplomatic protests, and let it happen. He would deem it a tragic but necessary sacrifice to avoid a full-scale, five-front world war.
This exact scenario was why she and Mito had spent many an afternoon over tea that was as sharp and bitter as their strategies.
They had already mapped out this most likely, most spineless possibility from the Hokage. They wouldn't rely on a man who valued stability over strength.
Their counterplan was simple. Azula would command the Uchiha's power. Tsunade would be positioned to rally the Senju. And Mito herself would be ready to lead her people when the critical moment arrived and they had lost trust in their current patriarch.
To be perfectly clear, Azula wasn't mounting this defense out of the goodness of her heart; her motivation was far more practical—and far more her: sealing techniques.
In her professional opinion, fūinjutsu was the most terrifying, versatile, and downright cheaty art in the entire shinobi world.
It could bind gods, teleport armies, create pocket dimensions, and probably make a decent cup of tea if you were creative enough.
It was, in essence, a way to tell the very laws of physics to sit down and be quiet. And who had pioneered 95% of all sealing knowledge? The Uzumaki.
Letting that walking, talking library of reality-hacking secrets be wiped off the map would be an act of cosmic stupidity.
With the Uzumaki's genius and her own... let's call it "visionary guidance," there was no limit to what they could achieve.
She could give them ideas—concepts from a world and a mind far more advanced than their own—and they could forge them into tools. Tools that would, coincidentally of course, fit perfectly into Azula's own long-term plans.
It wasn't help; it was a strategic investment with a potentially infinite return. And Azula always, always collected on her investments.
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
It can be considered the end of the first volume (?) and the start of the Uzumaki Arc and the Second Ninja War volume.