The near-complete annihilation of the Uchiha clan and the defection of a small number of Uchiha clan members from Konoha Village became the hottest topic in the ninja world. This was far more explosive than the news of the Yuki and Kaguya clans betraying the Land of Water back then.
Although the Yuki and Kaguya were also kekkei genkai clans, they were far inferior compared to the Uchiha clan. The Uchiha clan had the famous Uchiha Madara - one of the two strongest in the ninja world back then.
One was Konoha Village's First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, and the other was the Uchiha clan's leader at the time, Uchiha Madara.
The Uchiha clan itself was very famous in the ninja world. A kekkei genkai like the Sharingan was something almost every major village wanted to possess.
Unlike those physical kekkei genkai that had almost no possibility of being obtained, eye-type kekkei genkai like the Byakugan and Sharingan could be transplanted.
The risk wasn't even as high as other kekkei genkai transplants, just that the chakra consumption after transplantation might be relatively large.
But to obtain such a cheat-like thing, who would care about that bit of extra chakra consumption?
There were far more ninjas with more chakra than average people than there were kekkei genkai holders, especially with the temptation of the Sharingan cheat.
Otherwise, Cloud ninja wouldn't have taken the risk to kidnap the Hyuga clan's young lady Hinata back then.
Think about it - just the temptation of the Byakugan was enough to make these people take risks, let alone the all-purpose Sharingan.
So information about the remaining defected Uchiha clan members from Konoha Village was very scarce in the ninja world. All forces were watching closely - as long as there was even a hint, greedy ninjas from major villages would swarm in.
Whether they were hiding too well or for some other reason, the defected Uchiha clan members still hadn't been caught by ninjas from other countries.
However, quite a few bounty hunters and village ANBU who had obtained information about the Uchiha clan had mysteriously disappeared.
Of course, all this was done by Meruem. Meruem was just worried about having no one to send him experience, and unexpectedly, just by slightly leaking some information, large numbers of ninjas came.
Although some were chunin-level small fries, there were also quite a few elites from major ninja villages. While not as strong as the energy brought by those Konoha ANBU during the Uchiha massacre night, even mosquito legs were still meat, right?
Meruem eliminated all comers without discrimination.
Without Meruem secretly protecting the Uchiha while accompanying Ruiko, these guys would have probably been captured and dissected by ambitious people from various villages who came upon hearing the news.
Now Meruem was getting a bit annoyed - should he just feed the remaining Uchiha clan members to Taotie?
But in the end, he decided against it. Wouldn't working hard for nothing be even more frustrating?
Even so, less than twenty Uchiha remained now. Although the others had broken through Konoha's border defenses during the massacre night, they also left behind dozens of corpses.
The surviving Uchiha clan members now all harbored deep hatred toward Konoha.
This wasn't the key point. The key point was that among the remaining Uchiha clan members, Meruem had discovered a child with extremely strong potential, about the same age as Sasuke, originally from the Uchiha branch family.
However, during that massacre night, he had awakened his eyes - left eye with two tomoe, and the right eye actually had three tomoe.
You have to know he was only nine years old with three tomoe. What kind of concept was this? Even Itachi back then didn't have this aptitude.
What was better about the Uchiha clan compared to other families was that they had almost no concept of branch and main families. As long as you awakened your eyes, you were a clan member.
If you hadn't awakened, even if you were the clan leader's son, they wouldn't acknowledge you.
This little guy had become the hope of the remaining Uchiha clan members. Incidentally, this child's name was Uchiha Musashi.
Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamoto Musashi - two legendary grand masters of the sword way in Japanese culture.
Meruem naturally controlled him, but this time Meruem didn't plan to directly overdraft and develop his potential. However, to avoid trouble and for safety's sake, Musashi's brain was still eaten by the Golden Silkworm Gu.
But this time, Meruem planned to properly train this guy called Uchiha Musashi. For this purpose, the Golden Silkworm Gu Meruem placed in Musashi's brain was a super elite formed by fusing two Golden Silkworm Gu together.
The goal was to cultivate a perfect puppet, somewhat similar to an external incarnation, just not as miraculous.
Although Konoha publicly claimed that Uchiha Itachi, along with these defected clan members, had annihilated the entire Uchiha family, this only fooled civilian ninjas and the populace.
The true high-ranking members of major families had heard some rumors. Although Konoha covered it up well, how many clan leaders were truly foolish? Unfortunately, unlike the original story where the entire Uchiha was wiped out overnight with only Itachi knowing the truth and taking the blame, this time was different.
Many of Konoha's major families fell into a strange state of calm. The Uchiha clan, Konoha's greatest family at its founding, had been annihilated.
Then what about these smaller families that were inferior to the Uchiha clan?
Especially since Konoha's higher-ups were involved in this massacre case - this couldn't help but make them panic.
So just appeasing these family clan leaders was enough to give Konoha a headache, with no time to deal with those defected Uchiha remnants.
The following year, Uchiha Sasaki died. The reason was that Sasaki's body had reached its limit. His Mangekyou Sharingan fell into Musashi's hands.
After the Uchiha clan's massacre, the entire ninja world fell into a strangely peaceful situation. But this was all on the surface - in the shadows, various forces were all undercurrents surging.
———————Konoha———————
Near the edge of Konoha Village, a boy with spiky blonde hair and whisker-like marks on both sides of his cheeks was slowly dragging a plastic bag toward a civilian house not far away.
For his young self, the contents of the plastic bag were too heavy.
Inside were his week's worth of food - several bottles of milk that were about to expire or already expired, plus instant ramen.
As he walked, he constantly attracted the sideways glances of surrounding Konoha residents.
"Look, it's that monster."
"Be careful, who knows if he'll turn into that thing and eat us."
"The Third Hokage really... why doesn't he kill this demo... monster? Isn't this constantly threatening our lives? And making us live near him."
"Exactly, making us nervous every day."
As the whiskered boy passed by, some villagers even spat in his direction.
If not for the Third's explicit prohibition, some might have even thrown stones at him.
Never mind helping him carry things - they were verbally abusive, just short of physical assault.
The whiskered boy, naturally having much better senses than normal people, lowered his head even more after hearing the villagers' discussions.
Dragging the plastic bag, he ran toward that small wooden house called home. Unlike other people's homes, his house had nothing.
No relatives, no friends, not even a living thing besides himself.
This whiskered boy was none other than the son of the Fourth Hokage who had saved Konoha Village - Uzumaki Naruto.
What an ironic fact. He who should have become a hero was now treated like a monster.
The person who caused all this was the current Hokage of Konoha - the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen.
Also the person who appeared in Uzumaki Naruto's home.
A person who had been cowardly and afraid of death back then, hypocritical to the extreme, without half a heart of remorse.
Admittedly, he had already stepped down back then, but ridiculously, when the Nine-Tails attacked Konoha, neither he nor Konoha's Root leader Danzo had appeared.
The Fourth Hokage gave up his young life for Konoha, and even more ridiculously, several years later he would die at the hands of his prized student Orochimaru.
Only then would he use the Reaper Death Seal that he hadn't had the courage to use back then.
The Fourth's dying wish was hoping Naruto could become Konoha's hero, but immediately after the Fourth's death, the Third ordered everyone to prohibit revealing Naruto's identity.
Under the pretext of protection.
Then the question arose - those who should know about Naruto being the Nine-Tails jinchuriki already knew anyway. So being the Fourth's son and becoming Konoha's hero weren't mutually exclusive, right?
Precisely because he was the hero's son, in terms of public opinion and openly, Danzo wouldn't dare act, right?
Making villagers hate Naruto - if it were someone else, their psyche would have already twisted and become perverted.
Or was this the Third's real purpose? This way he could legitimately eliminate him?
Really didn't know if he felt even half remorseful when facing Naruto each time.
Speaking of which, the Fourth lived truly pitifully. After sacrificing his life for Konoha, his student - Kakashi - hadn't visited his orphan even once in over ten years.
His only son, Uzumaki Naruto.
His subordinates, or rather confidants Shiranui Genma and Namiashi Raido, hadn't looked after his orphan either.
Konoha's hero's son eating instant ramen? Drinking expired milk? His sensitive self constantly having to endure those strange looks from villagers.
What ugly humans.
Even his master's master Sarutobi Hiruzen now wanted to destroy his son.
Yes, you heard right. Sarutobi Hiruzen came to Naruto's residence today with precisely this intention. He just ultimately hadn't made up his mind. Was it because of guilt? Perhaps.
With a childish roar of "Where are my parents?" from Naruto, Sarutobi Hiruzen left this small, old house.
"Wuu..." Only Naruto remained alone in the house, crouched in the corner, curled up and crying. Who understood his pain? Who understood him who had been looked down upon since childhood, treated as different, treated as a monster?
"Good evening, little brat. Want to know your origins? Beg me, and I'll tell you!" At this moment, a whisper rang in Naruto's ear as a pale green figure appeared in this small, old home.
Perhaps this was a whisper from a demon, a whisper from the depths of hell.
(End of Chapter)
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