"Have you ever met Hinata, Naruto...?"
Hiruzen asked curiously.
"No!" Naruto shook his head. "I'm not interested in girls..."
"Your parents already agreed to it. What are you going to do, pull an Uzumaki Yanran and break off the engagement?" Sasuke said disdainfully.
Clearly, young Sasuke was a devoted reader of Shinobi Battle Through the Heavens.
Naruto was just about to fire back...
"There she is. Take a look..."
Hiruzen flicked Naruto's cheek and pointed nearby.
Hinata, dressed like a little princess, was curiously watching Naruto from a distance. Her eyes curved into a smile as she waved to him in greeting...
The Hyūga were a prestigious clan with a thousand-year history, and they were also responsible for Konoha's dealings with the nobility, so the family was quite wealthy...
At that moment, her guard Tokuma stood behind her carrying bags and boxes full of gifts, grinning cheerfully.
Naruto stared blankly for a moment.
'She's really pretty...'
'And her family looks really rich!'
"Come on, Naruto. I'll take you to break off the engagement right now..."
Hiruzen chuckled. "In the name of the Hokage."
"No, no, no! Third-ojiichan, I was wrong..."
Naruto hurriedly grabbed Hiruzen's sleeve and pleaded pitifully.
"I was being immature. I should hold myself strictly to shinobi standards and gather enough intelligence before making a decision..."
Sasuke immediately sneered from beside him. "Look at you. Disgusting!"
Hiruzen burst out laughing.
He could feel new bonds forming within Konoha...
When they reached Ichiraku Ramen, Hiruzen had the two mischievous boys sit down, then used a towel to wipe the grime from their faces.
"Eat first!"
"One of your families has guests, and something might be happening at the other's..."
Sasuke and Naruto looked utterly confused.
He was referring to Fugaku, Tobirama, and Itachi on one side, and the alternate-timeline Naruto and Obito on the other...
"Ichiraku-san, it's been a while."
Hiruzen smiled at the Sage of Six Paths.
"That new dish you made last time was delicious. Give each of us a few bowls..."
The Sage of Six Paths nodded with a beaming smile.
What could be better than cooking for his disciple and his two sons?
Toneri and Yuren kept their heads down as they wiped the tables in silence.
As he pulled noodles, the Sage of Six Paths casually chatted with Hiruzen.
"Hokage-sama, why do you think the shinobi world remained embroiled in conflict for so long? Ninshū existed a thousand years ago, yet the one-country, one-village system only emerged within the past century..."
"And why has it only truly begun to bear fruit over the last decade?"
At that moment, Kaguya, inside Hiruzen's body, looked at the ramen chef with mild surprise...
She seemed to sense a familiar presence...
But it vanished in an instant.
Kaguya frowned.
However, only a wisp of her chakra existed inside Hiruzen, primarily carrying her consciousness, so she couldn't draw on enough power to investigate properly...
Just as the Sage of Six Paths couldn't properly examine Hiruzen.
"The Sage of Six Paths proposed Ninshū and the ideal of mutual understanding a thousand years ago. Perhaps it was somewhat idealistic, but for someone with his power to genuinely desire peace is already enough to earn anyone's respect..."
Hiruzen didn't think much of the question. There was nothing unusual about enjoying discussions like this.
"For the next several centuries, shinobi failed to follow Ninshū's ideals. That's unfortunate, but from a broader perspective, it was also a necessary process of competing ideas and gradual development..."
"The shinobi world had no road forward at first. But as more and more people walked ahead, a path gradually took shape..."
"It's like eating ramen."
Hiruzen spoke softly. "You can't eat five bowls, finally get full, and then claim the first four bowls were useless, can you?"
"We can't look only at the moment when accumulated changes finally produce a fundamental transformation and ignore all the exploration and sacrifice that came before it."
The Sage of Six Paths' eyes lit up.
Exactly!
That was precisely what he wanted to hear!
Ninshū might not have been perfect, but over the course of a thousand years, it had still laid the foundation for the Will of Fire...
As expected of his successor!
The Sage of Six Paths turned and glanced at Yuren.
His expression practically said: 'You hear that, kid?!'
Yuren's mind was a complete mess.
Somehow, what Hiruzen said seemed to make sense?
"Ichiraku-san, you've certainly been reading a lot..."
Hiruzen smiled. "Good. Paying attention to history is a good thing! But don't forget to apply for your tax rebate this year. Running a business isn't easy..."
Konoha's finances were extremely comfortable now.
So what Hiruzen needed to consider these days wasn't how to collect more money, but how to find ways to give it back.
He needed to keep money circulating through the hands of shinobi and civilians...
"Subsidies and tax rebates too!"
"My, my..." The Sage of Six Paths laughed from the bottom of his heart. "The Will of Fire really is wonderful!"
Money itself naturally meant nothing to the Sage of Six Paths.
But when that money represented care for shinobi and ordinary people, its meaning became entirely different.
This was a first in the shinobi world!
"Sasuke, fighting with Naruto again?"
The Sage of Six Paths affectionately pinched Sasuke's nose, added several extra thick slices of chāshū to his bowl, then patted Naruto on the head.
"You eat plenty too, Naruto..."
"Ichiraku-ojisan, why didn't you give me extra chāshū?" Naruto asked with a pout.
"All right, all right. You get some too!"
But clearly not as much as Sasuke.
Sasuke grinned in satisfaction. "Woohoo! Ichiraku-ojisan is the best!"
Naruto rolled his eyes. "Childish..."
"You're the childish one! Who was whining about breaking off his engagement just now?" Sasuke immediately shot back.
The Sage of Six Paths smiled as he watched the two bicker.
It was true that he favored Sasuke a little more, but that was purely to make things fair by compensating Indra.
It absolutely wasn't because he'd happened to encounter an unusually adorable reincarnation in Sasuke...
"Ichiraku-san, who are those two?"
Hiruzen curiously looked toward Toneri and Yuren in the distance.
With the Sage of Six Paths concealing them, their chakra signatures weren't particularly noticeable. Only the pale color of their eyes stood out somewhat.
"Distant relatives of mine..."
"Ah, they insist they have Hyūga blood, so they asked me to bring them here and help them find their family..."
The Sage of Six Paths looked troubled.
As for arranging identification papers for the two of them, that was easy enough. The Sage had plenty of ways to turn them into natives of the Land of Fire.
"They really do look the part..."
Hiruzen nodded.
"Just go see Hizashi. If they really do have Hyūga blood, the village has corresponding naturalization policies. They can simply follow the proper procedure..."
What the Hokage didn't know was that after the Uchiha Clan had gained the genius "Seisui," whom Hiruzen had personally shaped...
The Sage of Six Paths was about to create one for the Hyūga Clan as well...
Toneri, I choose you!
After Hiruzen left, the Sage of Six Paths communicated with Yuren through a private transmission.
{Kid, I know you want to question the world created by the Sage of Six Paths. Good. There's an organization in the shinobi world for people like that. It's called the Crimson Organization...}
{I've already told you where to find them. Go join them! I'll give you the right to question things.}
{But your son stays with me. That's fair, isn't it?}
Yuren's expression became indescribably strained.
'Fair?'
Somehow...
It actually did seem fairly fair.
After all, the eyeless Toneri now had a pair of eyes, and this mysterious ramen shop owner hadn't taken his life...
He had even found a knowledgeable man to answer Yuren's questions.
He had actually given him the opportunity to continue opposing everything!
"Thank you..."
Yuren lowered his head, then quietly said to Toneri, "Stay here and behave. Your father had a misunderstanding with this uncle earlier. He's actually a good man..."
Toneri nodded blankly. "Okay!"
Toneri could sense an aura from the Sage of Six Paths similar to his own...
And the Sage had given him a pair of eyes.
How could he possibly be a bad person?
'This uncle is probably one of my ancestors, right? Maybe around my great-grandfather's generation or something...'
Young Toneri had never particularly approved of the clansmen on the moon slaughtering each other in the first place.
And now that he had eyes, the very first thing he had seen was Konoha.
That only reinforced his feelings.
Toneri decided that he would study hard here. He couldn't let his father keep going further and further down the wrong path...
If his father Yuren stubbornly continued down that path, Toneri even felt that he would seal his own father if that was what it took to stop him!
'Toneri...'
'Converted to the way people age in the shinobi world, this kid is probably around twelve or thirteen, physically and mentally?'
The Sage of Six Paths pondered the matter.
Joining the Hyūga Clan was one thing. After that, as Toneri's guardian, he would have to put the boy in the Ninja Academy and make sure he studied properly...
Let him experience the influence of the Will of Fire!
A few years earlier, Hiruzen had sent a "Seisui" who looked around twelve or thirteen into the Ninja Academy, putting pressure even on Minato as his jōnin instructor...
Now the Sage of Six Paths was going to send Toneri in too!
History was repeating itself.
Except this time, the jōnin instructor would be Obito, and it would be the Sage of Six Paths rather than Hiruzen guiding Toneri.
Toneri's teammates wouldn't be Asuma and the others, but Itachi, Kabuto, and Yamato...
Naruto and Sasuke ate their ramen, glared at each other, then began slurping it down as quickly as possible as though they were competing...
But over at the Uchiha Clan, the atmosphere was nowhere near as warm and domestic.
Fugaku and Tobirama sat on opposite sides of a tea table.
Directly in front of them stood a bewildered Itachi.
Fugaku let out a long sigh.
"To tell you the truth, I genuinely can't understand why the other Itachi would do something like that..."
"I've racked my brain and still can't understand it! Why would he slaughter the entire clan?!"
Itachi looked frightened.
'Did Father's Magnet Release mess up his brain again?'
But to Fugaku's surprise...
Tobirama spoke in an eerie tone.
"What's so hard to understand about that? You still don't understand the Uchiha well enough, Fugaku..."
"I'll tell you exactly what he was thinking!"
A crimson gleam flashed through Senju Tobirama's eyes.
No one... understood the Uchiha better than he did!
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