Uchiha Madara’s voice carried absolute confidence.
Uchiha Makoto simply stood before him, silently watching Madara’s display of confidence while already anticipating the day when reality would brutally prove him wrong.
When that day came, Makoto would have to ask Uchiha Madara:
“Lord Madara, you failed to become the Second Hokage.
Why didn’t you look for the problem within yourself?”
“Answer me!”
“Look into my eyes!”
“Tell me why?”
“Why is that?”
The confident smile on Uchiha Madara’s face grew even wider.
At this moment, he felt that Uchiha Makoto’s well-intentioned advice was nothing more than alarmist nonsense.
Advice given to him privately could be regarded as a warning.
But openly challenging him like this could be interpreted as a challenge to Uchiha Madara’s personal authority.
Madara, however, didn’t care about that in the slightest.
It was a demonstration of his trust in Senju Hashirama, as well as his confidence in his own strength.
He was the proudest of the Uchiha.
In the entire shinobi world, Senju Hashirama was the only person worthy of his attention.
As long as Hashirama supported him…
Once the two of them established a shinobi village and joined forces, they would certainly be able to realize the dream they had made together as children.
But…
The workings of fate were truly impossible to put into words.
People always idealized their ‘first love —the person they idealized above everyone else.
Once Konoha was established…
Senju Hashirama would change his mind!
Uchiha Madara would remain the same Madara as before, but Senju Hashirama would have become the First Hokage.
He firmly believed that protecting the village was equivalent to protecting its people, protecting its shinobi, and protecting its children.
Therefore, in the eyes of the First Hokage, whether it was so-called fatherly affection or brotherly affection, if it threatened Konoha’s future, it had to be eliminated!
Just as Senju Hashirama had said:
“Whether it’s my friends, my brothers, or even my own children, if they dare to stand against the village, I will never let them off!”
“Since Lord Madara has made up his mind, then there’s nothing more I can say.”
“I will respect Lord Madara’s wishes and no longer seek revenge against the Senju clan.
But I will not establish a shinobi village together with the Senju either.”
“I choose to leave the Uchiha clan.”
Uchiha Makoto was already too tired to continue arguing with Madara about the Senju.
Some lessons couldn’t be taught by words.
Experience taught them far better.
Once Madara experienced betrayal firsthand and discovered that none of his clansmen were willing to follow him, he would understand just how farsighted Makoto’s words today had been.
“So that’s what you intend to do…
I understand.”
Uchiha Madara nodded.
He didn’t say anything more about Makoto’s decision.
The hatred accumulated between the Uchiha and Senju over a thousand years was simply too vast to count.
And it wasn’t just the Senju and Uchiha.
The other shinobi clans were the same.
During the Warring States Period, an unspoken rule had even emerged among shinobi: when traveling outside the clan’s territory, one absolutely could not reveal one’s surname.
Otherwise, there was always a chance of running into a shinobi from a hostile clan.
The fate of such an unfortunate person went without saying.
Training a shinobi was not cheap.
As the saying went, “Rather than strengthen yourself, weaken your enemy.”
A shinobi from a rival clan presented an excellent opportunity to strike!
“If you want to leave the Uchiha clan, I can give you some traveling expenses and let you go.”
Uchiha Madara had seen how determined Makoto was and didn’t try to stop him.
He even offered to give Makoto some money to leave the clan.
After all, wandering through the shinobi world alone was extremely dangerous.
If you didn’t even have money on you, you could easily find yourself in a situation where even a capable man was helpless because he couldn’t afford anything.
But on this point…
Uchiha Madara had underestimated Uchiha Makoto somewhat.
Hmm…
No.
It would be more accurate to say that Madara had overestimated Makoto’s moral bottom line.
Every country had its laws, and every trade had its rules.
The Uchiha clan had existed in the shinobi world for a thousand years.
The Uchiha name had been passed down for generations and was famous throughout the shinobi world.
They were a renowned shinobi clan.
Therefore, Uchiha Madara himself—and indeed the entire Uchiha clan—was actually quite strict about following the rules.
When purchasing kunai, shuriken, medicinal supplies for training, or everyday necessities for the clan, they always paid in full.
They simply weren’t the sort to bully merchants into selling goods or shamelessly take things for free.
The proud Uchiha truly cared about their reputation!
But Uchiha Makoto was different.
He was leaving home to start a business.
He wanted to establish a shinobi village of his own, just like Orochimaru would eventually do.
The Uchiha clan had long since passed through the stage of primitive capital accumulation.
Makoto was about to experience that difficult, sinful, and bloody stage himself.
Seriously, which major company didn’t get its start by dipping its toes into a little gray—or even outright black—business?
There was even one particularly audacious company that dared to issue tokens designed to function like currency, with a one-to-one exchange rate.
It was eventually crushed by the authorities, but that didn’t stop it from becoming an internet giant!
As long as you could clean things up and go legitimate later, that was all that mattered.
Uchiha Makoto didn’t mind using his strength to handle a little dirty business.
Of course…
He wasn’t going to imitate Kakuzu and foolishly make money by taking bounty missions.
A shinobi who doesn’t think things through will only end up as a pawn.
If you wanted to make serious money, you had to be strategic.
Colluding with officials and buying low to sell high were merely standard operating procedures.
According to Uchiha Makoto’s grand plan…
First, he needed to earn his initial capital.
Then he would establish a company and invest in an industry.
After that…
He would use his military strength to establish a monopoly and collect enormous monopoly profits.
Then he would establish a bank, attract deposits from ordinary people, and use the company to borrow money from the bank.
He would expand the company’s scale, generate even more profits, and ultimately feed those profits back into the bank.
Then repeat the cycle…
Take advantage of every opportunity and rise to the top!
This strategy did carry a little risk.
After all, for any company, expanding production was essentially a massive gamble.
And there was certainly no shortage of business owners who lost that gamble.
But Uchiha Makoto had a solution.
If something went wrong midway and the company suffered a cash-flow crisis, he would immediately liquidate it.
Either sell all those worthless assets and bad debts to some unlucky sucker…
Or simply declare bankruptcy, dump the bad debts, take the money, and run!
Sure, this approach was a little…
unscrupulous.
But it would definitely make money!
In this treacherous shinobi world, a shinobi might wrestle with guilt, but poverty was a far more immediate and unforgiving threat !
Otherwise, what was the point of becoming a shinobi?
Those shinobi clans really didn’t understand how business worked.
A thousand years had passed, and they were still making money by taking missions!
Even Senju Hashirama, who could be considered one of the more progressive people of his era, established the strongest shinobi village in the world, yet all he did was rationalize the ranking of missions.
He wanted missions to be assigned according to a shinobi’s abilities and strength.
But he didn’t fundamentally change the underlying economic model of shinobi society:
Shinobi accepted missions to survive.
And sooner or later, they would all die somewhere in the shinobi world.
Uchiha Makoto had a far greater ambition.
If he was going to establish a shinobi village, he would make it the biggest one!
And if he was going to make money, he would make the most money possible with the least amount of effort!
Uchiha Madara was willing to give him some money to leave the Uchiha clan.
Makoto was happy about that.
But just giving him some money?
Uchiha Makoto wasn’t satisfied.
Whether in the modern era or in the shinobi villages…
What was the most expensive thing?
Without a doubt!
Talent!
Talent was hard to come by…
If he wanted to establish a shinobi village, money was very important.
Hmm…
Extremely important.
Extremely, extremely important.
Even the God of Shinobi, Senju Hashirama, had to go around seeking financial support because of the village’s funding needs.
But for a shinobi village…
The most important thing was still a group of shinobi who could actually fight.
Uchiha Makoto understood this better than anyone.
After all, what was a shinobi village?
A village where shinobi gathered!
But training shinobi from scratch was simply too expensive and time-consuming.
It was far more cost-effective to recruit people who were already trained.
Although the Uchiha had been beaten into retreat by the Senju, the Senju’s current top combatant, Senju Hashirama, was simply an absurdly overpowered anomaly.
He couldn’t be judged by normal standards.
There was nothing anyone could do about that.
Against the Senju, the Uchiha were at a disadvantage.
But if you excluded Senju Hashirama from the equation…
The Uchiha could keep fighting the Senju for another thousand years.
And against the other clans of the shinobi world?
“Hmph.
Have you ever seen the Sharingan of the Uchiha clan?
If you don’t kneel and surrender right now, I’ll send you flying!”
Therefore…
Compared with money, Uchiha Makoto wanted people!
Even cannon-fodder-level genin…
Even Uchiha who hadn’t awakened the Sharingan…
He wanted them all!
“Lord Madara, I believe I’m not the only one in the clan who thinks this way!”
“If they also want to leave with me…”
Uchiha Makoto began his dangerous probing.
If one wanted to make an issue of it, Uchiha Madara could completely characterize Makoto’s actions as an attempt to split the Uchiha clan.
His intentions are treacherous!
But considering Madara’s usual behavior and the series of questionable decisions he would make in the future…
Whether as a clan head or as the leader of an organization, his decisions were barely distinguishable from those of an NPC.
The Uchiha had been part of Konoha for only a few years before Madara lost control of his own clan.
When he eventually defected from Konoha, not a single Uchiha was willing to follow him.
Later, he became the mastermind behind the scenes, manipulating events throughout the shinobi world.
And the people working under him?
They were all rebels and traitors!
Therefore, Uchiha Makoto believed he could take a gamble.
Uchiha Madara simply didn’t look like the sort of person destined to rule.
Perhaps he would be arrogant enough to see through Makoto’s intentions…
But not care about them in the slightest!
“Hmph…
Is that really how it is?”
“I don’t think so!”
Uchiha Madara glanced at Uchiha Makoto.
In his eyes, Makoto was still just a wet-behind-the-ears kid, trapped in the thousand-year hatred between the Uchiha and Senju and unable to break free.
Madara, on the other hand, had already seen the future!
“My eyes are superior to yours!”
“I can see a road far farther than the one you can see!”
As Madara spoke, thick and oppressive chakra erupted from his body.
His Mangekyō Sharingan opened almost involuntarily!
“Everyone, I am the head of the Uchiha clan and the strongest shinobi of the Uchiha!”
“My eyes have seen the future!”
“I will end the generations-long hatred between the Uchiha and Senju alongside Senju Hashirama!”
“I will establish an unprecedented village together with Senju Hashirama!”
“I will bring an end to the wars alongside Senju Hashirama!”
“In the village that Hashirama and I establish, the children of both the Senju and Uchiha clans will never again have to march onto the battlefield!”
Uchiha Madara’s voice echoed throughout the entire room.
As the head of the Uchiha clan, there was no need to explain the authority he commanded.
One passionate speech promising a glorious future was enough to fill the surviving Uchiha with hope.
The surviving Uchiha didn’t possess Makoto’s omniscient perspective.
They couldn’t see the miserable future awaiting their clan…
Madara being marginalized until he ultimately defected.
The Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama, establishing the foundation that would prevent the Uchiha from ever reaching the core of Konoha’s political power.
Step by step…
The Uchiha would eventually descend into the abyss of annihilation.
“So, will you follow me toward a bright new future?”
“Or will you leave the clan and wander the shinobi world with Uchiha Makoto?”
Uchiha Madara arrogantly gave Makoto exactly what he wanted.
Unfortunately…
There was a tiny problem.
You naturally troublesome Uchiha Madara!
Who told you to give this speech while keeping your Mangekyō Sharingan activated and pointed at your own clansmen?!
Don’t you know that the Mangekyō Sharingan has a special effect on Uchiha?!
Uchiha Makoto cursed Madara over and over in his heart.
“With you, we’re heading toward a bright new future.”
“With me, we’re wandering the shinobi world together.”
Hmph!
The wheel of fortune, thirty years west of the river.
Never underestimate someone’s potential!
One day, Uchiha Madara…
You will definitely regret this!
Bang…
The door to everyone’s hearts had been kicked wide open!
The Uchiha present couldn’t help imagining the future Madara had described.
The strongest warrior of the Uchiha joining forces with the strongest warrior of the Senju…
Madara’s hundreds-of-meters-tall Susanoo and Hashirama’s hundreds-of-meters-tall Wood Golem were still vividly etched into their memories.
With the two of them joining forces, was there anything in this shinobi world they couldn’t accomplish?
No!
“Uchiha Madara…
Uchiha Madara…
Uchiha Madara…”
Before long…
The Uchiha present began calling out Madara’s name almost involuntarily.
Madara spread his arms wide, enjoying the cheers of his clansmen.
Uchiha Makoto stood there all alone…
For a moment, he looked like nothing more than a pathetic sidekick.
I never imagined that I’d experience the same feeling Uchiha Madara will one day experience…
And I’ll experience it before he does.