[Doujin Artist]: “Any price,” huh?!
[Riku-sama] [Group Owner]: I don’t buy it.
Not unless Aizen-bro makes her put on black stockings and dance for us right now!
[Doujin Artist]: You pervert!
Is there anything in your brain besides black stockings?!
[Riku-sama] [Group Owner]: Boobs bigger than my head.
[Doujin Artist]: …
Eriri was speechless.
Completely and utterly speechless.
[Deathwish Count]: So that is the kind of woman our group owner prefers?
I may know someone who fits the description.
Eriri immediately became alert.
[Doujin Artist]: ?
[Riku-sama] [Group Owner]: Holy shit, send a picture!
Let me see!
[Deathwish Count]: [Image]
[Doujin Artist]: Pfft!
[Riku-sama] [Group Owner]: Bro, what the hell is THAT?!
[Deathwish Count]: If she appeals to you, I can arrange an introduction.
[Riku-sama] [Group Owner]: Thanks, but no thanks!
You can keep a treasure like that all to yourself!
This was ridiculous.
The woman in Alucard’s picture had to weigh well over six hundred pounds.
With proportions like that, her head really was the smallest part of her body.
[Doujin Artist]: Hahahahaha!
Still interested?
[Riku-sama] [Group Owner]: Moving on.
Let’s talk about Tsunayashiro Seri instead.
The fact that she was willing to approach Aizen-bro alone already proves she’s no ordinary girl.
[Doujin Artist]: Why are you changing the subject, Mr.
Group Owner?
How strange.
[Riku-sama] [Group Owner]: That’s enough out of you.
I strongly advise you to watch yourself before you push your luck.
[Doujin Artist]: Is that a threat?
[Riku-sama] [Group Owner]: Eriri-chan, you wouldn’t want all of Japan seeing you pull a Kobe stunt from the top of Kyoto Tower, would you?
Man!
[Doujin Artist]: WHAT THE HELL?!
What kind of deranged threat is that?!
[Deathwish Count]: The Tsunayashiro Clan seems to produce quite a few unusual people.
[I’m Not a Hair-Gel Guy]: Not all of them.
Some are utterly worthless.
[Deathwish Count]: The ones you killed earlier?
[Doujin Artist]: Taking out members of a great noble house should’ve earned you a lot of Merit Points, right?
[I’m Not a Hair-Gel Guy]: Current Merit Points: 230.
[Doujin Artist]: Whoa!
It’s only been a few days and you’re already back in the positive?!
[Riku-sama] [Group Owner]: Damn!
As expected of the man known as the Hair-Gel Guy.
Aizen did not waste time.
“Well, if it isn’t Young Master Itachi.” Riku raised an eyebrow and walked over with a smile.
“Did Mikoto send you to call me over for dinner?
Tell her I’ll pass tonight.
I’m eating out.”
“Father says you’re banned from entering our house for the next six months,” Uchiha Itachi replied calmly.
“Mother argued with him over it, and afterward they decided to sleep in separate rooms.”
“Ah…”
Riku awkwardly scratched his cheek.
“But that isn’t why I came to see you.”
Itachi fell silent for a moment before looking up at him.
“Uncle…
do you think the Uchiha clan can still be saved?”
Riku’s expression softened.
He took Itachi by the hand as they started walking.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Ever since the Nine-Tails’ attack, the village leadership has distrusted us.
Elder Setsuna keeps encouraging the clan to oppose the village, and Father can’t calm either side down.” Itachi lowered his voice.
“If this continues, I think something terrible is going to happen.”
“Impressive.
You really do think like a Hokage.”
Riku stopped at a roadside stall, bought a skewer of dango, and handed it to him.
Itachi accepted it with the ease of long practice.
Then he looked up expectantly.
“You have a solution, don’t you, Uncle?”
It was not desperation that made him ask.
Itachi genuinely trusted him.
Ever since he was little, he had sensed that there was something unusual about his uncle.
Riku seemed capable of predicting almost every major event before it happened, and problems that left everyone else helpless somehow became simple once they reached him.
Many people, including Uchiha Fugaku, criticized Riku’s lack of combat ability and privately regarded him as an embarrassment to the Uchiha clan.
Only today had Itachi learned the truth.
His uncle had been hiding his strength all along.
That revelation only strengthened Itachi’s belief that Riku possessed an extraordinary mind and an equally extraordinary degree of patience.
If anyone could find a way out of the Uchiha clan’s crisis, it had to be him.
“Of course there’s a solution,” Riku said casually.
“Remove one side from the equation.”
“Remove…?”
Shock spread across Itachi’s young face.
“Sure.
If two sides are locked in conflict, then eliminating one of them ends the conflict.”
“B-But…”
“You want to ask whether there’s a gentler solution?”
Itachi quickly nodded.
“Yes!”
“There isn’t.
At least, not while everyone stays inside Konoha.”
Riku spread his hands, making no attempt to soften the answer.
“You were wrong about one thing earlier.
The Nine-Tails’ attack isn’t the root of the village leadership’s problem with the Uchiha.
It was only one of the things that made the situation worse.”
“Most Uchiha are naturally proud, stubborn, and terrible at backing down once they’ve made up their minds.
Combine that with a dōjutsu that tends to awaken through extreme emotional trauma, and the clan is practically designed to produce unstable people.”
Itachi hesitated.
“That’s…”
“And unstable people are difficult to control,” Riku continued.
“The Third Hokage and his advisers, meanwhile, want a village they can keep firmly under their control.
So tell me, Itachi—how do you reconcile those two things?”
Itachi fell silent.
For a long time, he simply stared ahead.
Eventually, he spoke in a hoarse voice.
“So…
does that mean the two sides can only end up killing each other?”
“If you don’t want to fight, then there’s only one alternative.”
Riku smiled gently.
“Leave Konoha.”
Itachi’s eyes widened.
“Abandon the village?”
“Why call it abandoning anything?
Think of it as leaving temporarily to build something of your own for ten or twenty years.”
Riku lifted his gaze toward the sky, a faint smile forming on his lips.
“By the time you return, you’ll be the new Hokage.”
“M-Me?”
“Itachi, one thing about you genuinely makes me proud.
You can look at this problem without blindly siding with either the village or the clan.”
Riku’s expression became more serious.
“But your perspective is still trapped inside those two choices.
Konoha or the Uchiha.
You haven’t learned to step outside the argument itself.”
“Step outside it?”
“Exactly.”
Riku looked down at his nephew.
“As far as I’m concerned, both the Third Hokage and his advisers on one side, and your father and Elder Setsuna on the other, have already become hopelessly consumed by the systems they represent.
They talk endlessly about the Will of Fire or the pride of the Uchiha, but when everything is stripped away, what they care about most is preserving their own authority and interests.”
Itachi’s eyes shifted.
“Then…
if we removed all of them, would that solve the problem?”
‘Good lord.
There it is.’
Riku stared at the boy who was already showing terrifying promise as Konoha’s future model of filial devotion, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“It would help a little, but not nearly enough.
As long as a system allows people to place themselves above everyone else, the same conflicts will keep coming back.”
Itachi drew a slow breath.
“Then what should we do?”
“Like I said—leave Konoha.”
Riku met his nephew’s eyes, and this time his smile was completely sincere.
“Build a new country where no clan, family, or office is born with the right to stand above everyone else.”
He held out his hand.
“Want to come with me?”