After Uchiha Shichimi returned to the Uchiha Clan, she temporarily hid in a relatively remote house. Next, she planned to secretly investigate the situation regarding her rescue target, seeking the right opportunity to execute the rescue operation.
Uchiha Shikane would support Shichimi both openly and covertly, helping gather intelligence while doing his best to conceal her whereabouts... No conditions, pure emotion—this was true dedication.
While Uchiha Shikane was furtively observing the surroundings, his attention temporarily away from Shichimi, Yūshin's face emerged from the wall behind her. He spoke softly to Shichimi:
"The ninja receiving you isn't very professional. His little tricks couldn't fool Uchiha Madara—Madara already knows you've returned... But the good news is he's actively helping to conceal your whereabouts."
"I understand." Shichimi nodded almost imperceptibly while speaking quietly.
Yūshin surfaced briefly to synchronize this important information with Shichimi, then concealed himself again and dove back underwater.
Uchiha Madara certainly hadn't realized Shichimi didn't return to the Uchiha Clan alone, much less that his actions were being observed crystal clear by Yūshin hidden in the shadows... No helping it—everyone excels at different things. Madara laughs wildly when he laughs, while Yūshin prefers hiding and chuckling to himself.
After hearing about Uchiha Madara's actions, Shichimi's thoughts involuntarily wandered... Was it really that Shikane's actions couldn't fool Madara? Or was the information Shikane revealed to her actually orchestrated by Madara behind the scenes?
After all, a young person like Uchiha Shikane didn't seem like someone who could stay informed about the clan's internal secrets in a timely manner.
The current Uchiha Madara hadn't started going to extremes yet—he was a standard ambitious youth whose ideas definitely differed from the clan's upper echelons. In short, Madara represented the progressive thinking within the Uchiha Clan, certainly looking down on those outdated, decaying concepts.
Things like controlling, exploiting, and imprisoning clan members—how could the current Uchiha Madara possibly approve? To achieve the clan's prosperity, spread the Uchiha's fame throughout the shinobi world, and emerge from chaos to seize final peace—rely on your own strength to accomplish it.
Uchiha Madara firmly believed he could achieve all this with his own power.
But if due to some extreme circumstances he failed, then dying for noble ideals wouldn't be unacceptable either.
Simply put, Uchiha Madara was in his life stage of aggressive advancement, preparing to live fully as a ninja—he hadn't been assimilated by Black Zetsu yet... After all, he still had two living brothers.
Uchiha Madara wanted to change the Uchiha Clan, but even someone as arrogant as him, being within the situation, had to act with restraint.
No matter what he said or how powerful he currently was, the current Uchiha clan leader was his father. Even if he didn't care about other upper echelons, he still had to submit to paternal authority.
Reasonably speaking, extreme scenes of fatherly kindness and filial piety are basically impossible even among ninjas with extreme personalities... unless that ninja is so extreme that even primates can't understand.
So Uchiha Madara had to try using "external forces."
Uchiha Shichimi was certainly an Uchiha clan member, but due to her poor relationship with the clan's upper echelons, she was indeed isolated from the Uchiha's management system and relationship networks.
But reasonably speaking, Uchiha Madara couldn't play complex conspiracies and schemes—his "strategies" were always just so-so. Even later when acting as the behind-the-scenes boss, he was under Black Zetsu's remote control... He might think himself unfathomably deep, but willingly serving as Black Zetsu's puppet only made him seem more ridiculous.
Look at the Valley of the End battle Uchiha Madara orchestrated—on the surface, it was a century's battle between two top-tier powerhouses, but underneath it was about biting off a chunk of flesh from Senju Hashirama... literally biting off a chunk of flesh.
Fighting desperately just to bite your nemesis—what kind of obsessive behavior is this? One could reasonably suspect Madara might have studied in women's fiction.
Maybe initially Madara's goal was to defeat Hashirama head-on? After discovering he couldn't, he decided to bite? Yet his planned "fake death behavior" showed he anticipated such results.
Interestingly, Senju Hashirama was also willing to cooperate with Madara's actions. After being bitten, what did Hashirama do...
It was "let me pluck your heart and try to slowly melt it."
Hashirama hoped until the end to gain Madara's understanding, but the latter said "I won't, I just won't," so he had no choice but to strike fatally.
If emotional harmony couldn't be achieved, then physically melt Madara's heart. Worthy of being the "God of Shinobi"—when the front path was blocked, he'd switch to the back path, achieving his goal through another method.
Anyway, you need to understand a person's life in stages—different life stages are essentially different people. Anyone can understand this with some thought, yet Yūshin didn't quite get it.
Not because he lacked brains, but because Yūshin simply didn't think in that direction—he wasn't dating Uchiha Madara, so why rack his brains pondering the thoughts of a stranger he'd only met once?
He still thought Uchiha Madara's behavior was just due to a tsundere personality—saying nothing on the surface but secretly harboring unimaginable feelings for his aunt or something.
While Shichimi was busy collecting intelligence, Yūshin hidden in the shadows wasn't idle either.
But the necessary thing he had to do first wasn't directly helping Shichimi, but finding the "surveillance cameras" hidden within the Uchiha Clan... namely, White Zetsu.
Thanks to the additional abilities the previously acquired White Zetsu brought Yūshin, when he transformed into White Zetsu form and used White Zetsu abilities, he could achieve information transparency regarding other White Zetsu... He could sense those White Zetsu's existence, while they couldn't detect him.
Otherwise things would be difficult—forget about the local White Zetsu suddenly discovering an additional member of their kind, but White Zetsu stationed with the Uchiha had the primary task of serving as cameras, executing surveillance missions by simply collecting intelligence properly without needing initiative.
If a White Zetsu showed strong purposeful action at this time, it would definitely indicate problems.
Fortunately, White Zetsu wouldn't become obstacles to Yūshin's actions now—they could even provide certain assistance, since White Zetsu represented valuable wealth to Yūshin.
He just couldn't determine which White Zetsu was most valuable, whether that so-called wealth could actually be realized... Simply put, the White Zetsu here were equivalent to scratch cards—Yūshin had to scratch them first to see what numbers were written inside.
But Yūshin couldn't immediately start scratching, because after circling the Uchiha Clan's village, he discovered the number of White Zetsu here was somewhat abnormal... There were forty to fifty White Zetsu.
That's way too many—what heavenly law did the Uchiha Clan violate?
This "camera" density was comparable to a train station plaza.
Too many White Zetsu, too dense a surveillance network—despite Yūshin's expertise in backstabbing and theft, he had to act cautiously under these circumstances.
To protect Shichimi's intelligence as much as possible and increase his own strength, Yūshin naturally wanted to capture all the White Zetsu here in one sweep.
Who could resist when facing forty to fifty scratch cards? But Yūshin had to be methodical in his actions.
Shichimi returned to the Uchiha Clan because there were traces of external enemy invasion, meaning chaos would definitely occur here.
Let them have their chaos—if White Zetsu came to the chaotic area to investigate, Yūshin could cast his net to catch fish.
Yūshin hadn't yet realized the deeper reason for so many White Zetsu being here—it wasn't because the Uchiha violated heavenly law, but because what was happening within the Uchiha was secretly orchestrated by Black Zetsu and White Zetsu.
Yūshin had a premonition that the surface calm of the Uchiha village wouldn't last long.
His premonition was quite accurate. That very night, a violent explosion suddenly echoed through the Uchiha village, followed by continuous chaos and fighting sounds.
Yūshin transformed into Shichimi's appearance and immediately rushed toward where the sounds came from. Shichimi herself used the night's cover to begin focused investigation of certain heavily guarded places in the village.
After sneaking some distance, Yūshin approached the chaos location and discovered several Uchiha ninja pursuing a black-clothed infiltrator.
About five "White Zetsu scratch cards" were following the battlefield's movement—this was the opportunity Yūshin had been longing for.
Unfortunately, since this was Uchiha Clan territory, the Uchiha ninja with numerical advantage were actually restrained in their actions.
After all, unless absolutely necessary, who would want to release large-scale Fire Release in their own home?
This made Yūshin somewhat anxious—if you don't use large-scale ninjutsu, how can the White Zetsu die reasonably?
Fortunately, that infiltrator had no such concerns. Seeing those Uchiha ninja in hot pursuit, he immediately began using large-scale ninjutsu, both hindering pursuit and creating larger-scale chaos.
Through continuous back-and-forth between both sides, those five White Zetsu's positions became relatively concentrated.
Meanwhile...
Boom! Boom!
Under the infiltrator's large-scale Earth Release ninjutsu, the entire ground trembled.
Great opportunity!
Yūshin, who had been trailing behind the White Zetsu, seized the moment to act. Under the Earth Release's cover, he forcefully pushed a wall—directly in front of this wall was a boulder... The Uchiha village even had landscaping, worthy of a powerful great ninja clan... Between the wall and boulder was another wall.
Inside this middle wall, White Zetsu who had hidden there to avoid the Earth Release, somewhat panicked and concentrated together.
Boom!
Two walls and a boulder crashed together.
Rising steam perfectly hid in the night, and tremendous force turned an entire wall into a flyswatter. Five White Zetsu encountered "two-sided cheese sandwich" and were directly slapped half-dead.
Yūshin used all four limbs—feet planted on two White Zetsu, hands gripping the heads of two others.
Damn, energy packs.
Feeling the chakra from one hand wasn't right, he immediately released it, then in a flash grabbed the only remaining White Zetsu.
Energy pack, energy pack, energy pack, physical enhancement experience pack...
Damn luck! Yūshin cursed silently—why couldn't he get an earth-attribute chakra experience pack?
Facts proved people can't expect to change their lives through lottery winnings.
To extract chakra and gain attributes, Yūshin couldn't directly smash the White Zetsu to death, but the White Zetsu also couldn't activate the Mayfly Technique to escape—under the premise of nearly being smashed to pulp, White Zetsu simply couldn't escape.
Yūshin's harvest was meager. Under the White Zetsu's extremely horrified gazes, they completely became pulp... They weren't horrified because they were about to die, but because they were certain this woman could precisely discover White Zetsu.
If following the principle of "thieves don't leave empty-handed," Yūshin should take these White Zetsu corpses too—even bringing them back for composting would be good—yet he couldn't do this.
If White Zetsu died from ninja area attacks, how could their corpses disappear for no reason? After sensing the loss of five companions' signals, other White Zetsu would definitely frantically start moving toward this area... White Zetsu didn't want their existence exposed to the Uchiha Clan.
Yūshin sensed the White Zetsu's movements and was about to leave the crime scene. He circled around broken walls and ruins, preparing to use the Mayfly Technique to leave, but just because he passed this corner, Uchiha Madara appeared in his field of vision.
Yūshin abruptly stopped, heart pounding wildly.
Then he saw Uchiha Madara also stop, his gaze toward this direction showing slight hesitation.
Yūshin immediately reacted—in the dim night, he pinched his right thumb and index finger together, held them to his mouth making a zipper motion, then pointed toward another direction.
Other White Zetsu had arrived and were frantically helping Yūshin clean up the crime scene.
Uchiha Madara was still hesitating—he didn't quite understand why Shichimi made such a crude gesture, but after thinking, he still stepped toward the direction Shichimi pointed.
The authority of an aunt—terrifying indeed.
"Damn you, Uchiha Madara, scared me to death—why are you everywhere?"
This was somewhat targeted—this was Uchiha Madara's home, where else would he be? But...
Wait, was there an ethical joke in that curse?
Yūshin patted his chest, calmed the trembling, then after leaving the White Zetsu some distance, activated the Mayfly Technique to hide... He had to be extra careful not to expose the fact that two "Shichimis" existed to the White Zetsu.
Even for Yūshin, the psychological pressure of committing crimes in surveillance camera blind spots was enormous.
Yūshin was bold and careful, not minding taking some risks to act, but what about the gains after such dangers?
Uchiha Madara almost discovered his scene of attacking White Zetsu, White Zetsu's existence almost got exposed to the Uchiha Clan...
So what did Yūshin gain?
Besides physical enhancement, what remained was actually only...
Well, thrills.
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