Moke lifted his teacup and waited in silence until Itachi and Shisui had steadied themselves. When both finally looked up, he set the cup down.
"Well? How does that parallel future sit with you?"
"Not well… but it feels true," Shisui answered first, voice rough. He turned to Itachi, whose cheeks still bore faint streaks of blood.
"Itachi, I'm sorry. I let you carry too much."
"You speak too strongly, Shisui. You've always been gentle. Hesitation is natural." Itachi's face was calm as ever, but the three tomoe turning in his eyes said he was no longer the same boy. "Besides, those were my choices. If Lord Moke hadn't forced me to re-examine myself, the Uchiha, and Konoha, then even if you had lived, I might have walked the same road. I was already weary of the clan's endless bickering."
He remembered the day his father pushed him into ANBU as a spy, and the distaste he hid in shadow. He had been tired for a long time. Slaughter was easier than salvation, but killing could not solve everything.
Shisui had asked him to protect Konoha and the name of Uchiha. Yet if the village's rot remained, Sasuke's life would never match the future Itachi had imagined.
He folded those thoughts away and faced Moke. "If it were you, you would settle the rift between village and clan. Please instruct us."
Moke chuckled, refilled their cups, blew theatrically across the rim, took a sip… and spat out a stray leaf. Good. At least department-chief energy.
"What's there to instruct? It's simple. Shisui, you're already the strongest in Konoha. Cut down the Third and make yourself Hokage."
Both blinked.
"Th..this…?"
Shisui wondered if that could be called a plan. Itachi, meanwhile, actually weighed the feasibility. Moke laughed.
"Don't. Even if the Third's faction is foolish, the Uchiha are the worst candidates for Hokage."
"Because of temperament?" Itachi asked.
"Not only. The Raikage is famously hot-headed; Kumogakure still stands. Your problem is size. You're the village's largest great clan. The Third's 'de-clanification' of the Hokage seat is, in essence, correct.
"Konoha's families knot together in a thousand ties. Put a great-clan head in the robes and—even if he is fair for one generation sooner or later you get one who isn't. A Hokage who goes off the rails and still has a mighty lineage at his back is a nightmare."
Itachi and Shisui both grew thoughtful. Moke smiled. In this world, doctrine is spoon-fed as commandments do this, don't do that never the why. Fine ideas curdle by the next generation. That is why the ninja world breeds such crooked notions. Time for Teacher Moke to set a few bones.
"Let commoners or those from small houses be Hokage, and the Hokage line and the clans counter-balance each other. That keeps Konoha on the rails.
"As for following the First and Second by smashing clans apart that's no cure either. Villages were built on bloodline houses. You two know better than anyone how fragile commoner shinobi are before a true lineage.
"In fifty years of history, how many top-tier commoners has Konoha produced? One: Minato Namikaze."
Moke's thoughts flicked to Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Dan Kato. Jiraiya's Mount Myoboku pact wasn't reverse-engineered heroics it was a family pass. Orochimaru's Ryuchi Cave? Unclear on paper, but hardly public property. Dan's Spirit Transformation died with him. In these stories, blood outruns effort.
The "nobody" hero always turns out to be somebody's hidden heir. Naruto, Ichigo, Luffy none of them truly ordinary. A daimyo's son remains a daimyo; a gate guard's boy keeps the gate. That's the cultural backbone, and it leaks straight into the page.
"Splitting clans to pieces is self-amputation. Take the Senju: dissolved into the village until the blood thinned. What did that bring Konoha? Fewer strong heirs, not more. 'Share secret techniques with the masses'? You don't need to destroy clans to do that and even when you do, without bloodlines those techniques are dead letters.
"Now you, Itachi. If you really did what the elders wanted erased the Uchiha what would Konoha gain? In peacetime, fewer thorns. The façade grows smoother. But will wars cease? Did the Uchiha ever drag the village down in war?
"Without the Uchiha, when the Fourth or Fifth Great Ninja War comes, will fewer die… or more?
"To Danzo, casualties are ledger lines. Numbers. To you who truly guards this village would that really save lives?"
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