“No need for the trouble, brother,” Kain interrupted expressionlessly without breaking his stride, his tone completely devoid of warmth.
“I still have things to do, so I won’t intrude.” With that said, he walked straight across the courtyard and left without looking back.
In the living room, Fugaku’s gaze toward Itachi became increasingly complex and difficult to read.
How could he not know the relationship between these two children?
In earlier years, Kain had repeatedly torn down Konoha’s hypocritical rhetoric of peace right in front of Itachi, trying to pull back this nephew who was almost blindly devoted to the Hokage.
But every attempt had ended in a bitter falling out.
In Itachi’s eyes, Kain was an out-and-out radical, the root cause of the rift between the Uchiha and Konoha.
Let alone sitting down for a meal together, they wouldn’t even exchange a single unnecessary word when they crossed paths on a normal day.
Now, Itachi, who had just returned from the Hokage Building, bumped into him and Kain together, and suddenly wanted to invite Kain to stay for dinner?
Having been the Uchiha clan head for so many years, if he lacked even this bit of situational awareness, the village would have swallowed him whole long ago, leaving not even bones behind.
“Father, recently the clan…
seems to be selling off a lot of properties?” Itachi spoke first, breaking the silence in the living room.
“The clan’s population has dwindled over the years.
The number of registered ninja is not even thirty percent of what it was at our peak.” Fugaku withdrew his gaze, picked up his teacup, and took a sip, his tone so calm that no emotion could be discerned.
“Selling off some useless idle properties to exchange for resources and fill the gaps in the children’s training is nothing inappropriate.” Itachi nodded and didn’t press further, but suddenly changed the subject.
“Father, I just remembered I have some business with Kain.
I’ll be heading out for a bit.” “Itachi.” Fugaku suddenly raised his voice, slamming the scroll in his hand onto the table.
He looked up at him, his expression instantly turning cold, his eyes churning with disappointment and warning.
But Itachi just stood quietly in place, looking back at him without the slightest ripple of emotion on his face, his gaze not wavering in the least.
Fugaku’s heart sank bit by bit, as if plunged into an icy lake in the dead of winter.
Ultimately, it dissolved into a powerless sigh.
He waved his hand and said no more.
Itachi gave a slight nod, turned, and walked out of the living room, his brisk footsteps trailing in the direction Kain had left.
On the bluestone-paved street, as Kain was walking toward his own compound, a familiar wisp of chakra drifted in the wind, carrying the cold, sharp aura unique to the Anbu.
He paused his steps and turned around.
Uchiha Itachi stood not far behind him, his gaze as cold as tempered ice, fixed dead upon him.
“These earth-shattering movements in the clan recently, you’re the one who stirred them up, aren’t you?” Itachi spoke first, his tone carrying undisguised interrogation.
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” Kain twitched the corner of his mouth, his tone as plain as if he were discussing the weather.
These words seemed to light a fuse.
A scarlet hue instantly surged in the depths of Itachi’s eyes, three tomoe faintly visible, and even the chakra surrounding him carried a trace of undisguised killing intent.
“Uchiha Kain, I’m warning you.” His voice was kept very low, every word laced with a chilling frost.
“If I find out you dare to incite conflict between the clan and the village, I will kill you myself.” “I’ll say it again, I don’t understand what nonsense you’re spouting.” Kain met his murderous gaze without a shred of fear on his face, his tone turning even colder.
“I am merely a lowly Chunin.
The clan’s major affairs are naturally decided by the clan head and the elders.
It’s not my place to dictate anything.” For the past two years, he had never stopped investigating the cause of his parents’ deaths.
His parents had been executing a top-secret S-rank mission.
Aside from Fugaku, only the few higher-ups of the Hokage’s administration knew the route and details.
In the end, the mission failed, and his parents couldn’t even be returned to the clan compound with intact corpses.
Other than that rat in the gutter, Shimura Danzo, who else could have done it?
Yet the Uchiha Itachi standing before him, who constantly preached about protecting the village and the clan, had turned around and thrown his lot in with the Konoha higher-ups.
He had become their sharpest blade, turning against his own clansmen.
In Kain’s eyes, he was an ungrateful wretch, no different from the Konoha leadership.
He had long since kept a tally of this blood debt owed to his parents.
Sooner or later, he would collect it, with interest, from the Konoha higher-ups and this so-called brother of his.
One day, he would make all of Konoha taste the despair of falling into a boundless hell.
Seeing the dark, ruthless hostility churning in Kain’s eyes, Itachi narrowed his gaze slightly, the killing intent around him intensifying.
But right at that moment, the Uchiha Military Police Force members patrolling both sides of the street, as well as passing clansmen, noticed the explosive tension between them and cast inquiring glances their way.
Itachi abruptly retracted his chakra, the scarlet in his eyes fading instantly.
He gave Kain one last cold look and, without saying another word, turned and left the street.
Kain watched his retreating back with an expressionless face, merely letting out a scoff before turning to continue toward his own compound.
There was still a mountain of things to oversee: the progress of the sealing formations, the inventory of supplies, the preparation of the portal at Naka Shrine.
Every single task was imminent.
He had no time to play cat and mouse here with this brainwashed Konoha fool.
Konoha Year 54, late autumn.
Exactly one full month had passed since the day Kain laid his cards on the table with Fugaku.
The maple leaves in the Uchiha compound were dyed a brilliant red, painting half the sky.
The wind swept fallen leaves onto the bluestone paths, making everything look no different from usual.
The street-side pharmacies and ninja tool shops opened as normal, and patrolling clansmen still walked their fixed routes.
But only those on the inside knew that this seemingly peaceful compound was already like a giant bow drawn taut, just waiting for the moment the string was released.
Over this past month, the assets the Uchiha had built up in the Land of Fire over more than fifty years had been thoroughly liquidated.
From the vast mines and fertile fields on the borders of the Land of Fire, to the restaurants and shops in the capital, down to the street-front stores, herbal medicine shops, and even the ninja tool forging workshops exclusively supplying shinobi within Konoha Village.
All properties that could be converted into cash had been secretly brokered by Fugaku through the hidden channels of the Ninja Cats.
They connected with the Fire Daimyo’s exclusive merchants and signed transfer contracts for everything at thirty percent below market value.
The only exception was a strict stipulation added to the contracts—all properties would officially complete their transfer of ownership and personnel replacement one month later.
Until then, the Uchiha would retain daily operational rights.
It was precisely this clause that completely kept the eyes and ears of the Konoha higher-ups in the dark.
On the surface, all the shops were open for business as usual, with cash flow moving in and out just like any other day.
No one would ever suspect that these Uchiha properties, passed down through generations, had already changed hands.