"I love reading."
"I love studying."
"If I go even one day without reading or studying, I feel awful all over..."
Those few bold lines might as well have been floating above Roy's head. Hiruzen Sarutobi looked up and saw the boy blinking at him with a perfectly innocent expression, putting on the face of a diligent student. Then he recalled what Roy had once told him—
that his hobby was "studying in dreams"...
Hiruzen took a puff from his pipe and looked at the boy deeply.
"Give me a reason."
"A reason to allow you to read the Scroll of Seals..."
The Scroll of Seals was not something just anyone could study.
Even elite jōnin who had rendered outstanding service to the village would find it extremely difficult to so much as glance at it.
Because it was not an ordinary ninjutsu scroll.
It was a forbidden scroll sealed by the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, and passed down through successive Hokage. Inside it was a concentrated record of the finest techniques developed by past Hokage and top jōnin—a collection of forbidden jutsu, including but not limited to techniques that carried extreme risk to the user or others, violated ethics, or possessed overwhelming destructive power.
Among the best known were Impure World Reincarnation, the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique, and the Tandem Paper Bombs—
forbidden arts capable of changing the tide of battle or dramatically increasing a ninja's strength.
"Didn't I already say?" Roy replied flatly. "Mental anguish compensation."
"No one likes being peeped on. I assume the Hokage understands that."
Hiruzen silently watched Roy without saying a word.
He slowly exhaled another puff of smoke through his teeth, but before it even reached Roy, the smoke was caught by a gentle swirl of wind an inch in front of the boy and blown right back.
A gleam flashed in Hiruzen's eyes.
Wind Release?
Judging from how effortlessly he controlled it, the boy's mastery of Wind Release was clearly no joke either...
Hiruzen's face drifted in and out of the smoke. After a long pause, he slowly shook his head.
"Ren, you know that isn't enough."
The old man looked at him quietly.
"I don't know where you heard about the Scroll of Seals. But if you know about it, then you must also understand... it's not an ordinary jutsu archive."
The meaning was obvious.
That wasn't enough. He needed a better offer.
Roy did not look surprised in the slightest. A trace of mockery touched his mouth.
"What about the Severed Limb Regeneration Technique?"
"Don't tell me, Lord Hokage, that something capable of solving the problem of wartime amputations and greatly restoring the village's combat strength... still isn't worth enough."
Hiruzen fell silent.
He was not a Hokage who only knew how to talk about war on paper. Back in the day, he had fought through the Second Great Ninja War alongside Senju Tobirama. He was a true veteran.
How could he not understand the enormous strategic value of a technique that could restore lost arms and legs and let crippled shinobi walk the ninja's path again?
The problem was—
the boy was an Uchiha.
An Uchiha—the clan Tobirama had once judged "born evil."
Even though Hiruzen had done his best not to look at the Uchiha through colored lenses, it was still difficult for him to view them the same way he viewed the Hyūga, Akimichi, Nara, Yamanaka, Inuzuka, and the other great clans of Konoha.
The reason was simple.
That clan had a long and not exactly glorious history.
So if for no other reason than the four words balance and stability, Hiruzen had no choice but to stay on guard. He had tacitly approved the suppression plans Danzo, Homura, and Koharu had formulated in secret.
And he believed that no matter who sat in the Hokage's seat in the future, they would do the same.
Perhaps even worse than he had.
Time slipped away between their fingers.
Silence filled the Hokage's office.
Outside, the red sun had fully risen, flooding the world with light. It streamed through the great curved windows of the office and fell across Hiruzen's face, leaving half of it buried in light and shadow as he stood there thinking.
A minute passed.
Maybe two.
At last, the old man set down his pipe and rose to his feet. With his back to Ren, he faced Hokage Rock, where the faces of Hashirama, Tobirama, and himself sat clearly carved into the mountain, bathed in sunlight as they gazed over Konoha.
Finally, Hiruzen spoke.
"Roy, you're right. I have to admit it. The Severed Limb Regeneration Technique is of tremendous significance to the village."
"In fact... based on my understanding of war and what the future holds, severed limb regeneration may matter even more than either you or I imagined. So—"
Hiruzen slowly turned back and looked at Roy seriously.
"In fairness and in reason, I should agree to your request."
"But before that, there is one thing I need to understand."
The Hokage's ceremonial robe shifted in the wind. In that moment he seemed less like the village's supreme leader and more like an ordinary old man.
He asked slowly,
"Are you asking me as an Uchiha..."
"...or as a member of Konoha?"
The words Roy had once thrown at him, back when an outrageous fire technique had blown apart the academy wall—
now came spinning back like a boomerang and struck Roy instead.
Roy froze slightly.
Meeting Hiruzen's deep, piercing gaze, he had to admit something:
for the Uchiha, as Indra's reincarnated bloodline, power only truly bloomed through madness, distortion, and darkness. Only through pain could they grow and become stronger.
And that madness, distortion, and darkness was exactly what Hiruzen did not want to see.
Exactly what Konoha could not accept.
In fact, it was beyond what any normal person could understand.
After all, no one wanted to abandon a peaceful life just to play around with a group of people who might explode into terrorists at any moment.
But just as flowers needed green leaves, and light required darkness to define it—
the world itself, whether in Hunter x Hunter, Demon Slayer, Naruto, Bleach, or even the ordinary world Roy had lived in before death, a world without Nen or chakra or any supernatural energy at all—
was never a simple binary switch.
It was something closer to Yin and Yang in balance, entropy rising and falling, contradictions existing in opposition yet unity, cycling endlessly through a multidimensional world.
So—
"Why does the Hokage insist on drawing the line so cleanly?"
The boy's dark hair stirred in the wind. His clear, bright eyes met Hiruzen's without fear, without humility, and without retreat. He rose as well, walked to the window, and stood beside the old man, gazing into the distance with him as sunlight blazed across Hokage Rock in brilliant red-gold.
With Hiruzen's sharp gaze fixed tightly on him, Roy spoke softly.
"To be honest, Lord Hokage, a great man once told me: let all things beneath heaven strive in freedom."
"To struggle against heaven is a joy without end. To struggle against earth is a joy without end. To struggle against men is a joy without end."
"As long as something is alive, it has to face endless struggle. It doesn't stop until death. So—"
"Why not think about this, Lord Hokage? Even if the Uchiha disappeared tomorrow, would Konoha really become peaceful forever? Would conflict inside the village truly never happen again?"
Hiruzen's mouth opened slightly.
He stared at Roy, stunned, unable to get out a single word.
He just looked at the boy while memories began flipping through his mind—
the First Great Ninja War, the Second, and now the Third...
killing without end, injury without end, pain without end, fear without end—
from the moment he had first gained awareness as a child, he had never once seen any of it stop.
It was as if Roy had struck directly at the weakest place in his heart, laying bare the truth of his life—and the lives of countless others—spent in endless struggle.
After a long while, Hiruzen finally seemed able to form words again. In a hoarse voice, he asked,
"Who was that?"
"Who was that great man? Another teacher you met in your dreams?"
Roy laughed and shook his head, almost embarrassed.
"I wish I could have been his student. Unfortunately... I wasn't worthy."
The boy straightened and slowly let out a breath.
"Didn't you want an answer, Lord Hokage?"
"I can give you one right now."
Roy looked out at Hokage Rock towering over the best vantage point in Konoha and said calmly,
"I can belong to Konoha. I can belong to the Uchiha. And I can also belong to neither Konoha nor the Uchiha."
"What do you mean?" Hiruzen asked, frowning.
Then he saw the boy blink at him and smile with a hint of mischief.
"It's simple. If Konoha turns against me, then I'm Uchiha. If the Uchiha turn against me, then I'm Konoha. I'm me. I can belong to anyone, or to no one at all. Lord Hokage... do you understand now?"
"You..."
Hiruzen's eyes widened. He pointed at Roy, then slowly lowered his hand and laughed despite himself.
"Well played, kid. Your principles are certainly flexible."
Roy shrugged, neither denying nor arguing it. He admitted it openly.
"What I want is more freedom to choose. I may never use it—but I refuse to be without it."
Rarely, Hiruzen nodded.
He said nothing else.
Instead, he turned away from Roy, went back to his desk, sat down, and picked up the battle report lying there. Without even looking up, he said,
"I understand."
"The door is right there. I don't need to point it out. Get out."
Roy asked at once, "And the Scroll of Seals?"
Hiruzen shot him an annoyed sideways look.
"I'll be working from home tomorrow. Come by then."
Roy smiled.
"Thanks."
Then he dissolved into light. His figure flickered, slipping toward the door through Light Release—
and just as he was about to leave, after the door that Danzo had slammed shut earlier creaked open again, Hiruzen suddenly called out:
"Can I frame that quote and hang it in the office?"
Roy stopped and looked back at him with a smile.
"Do as you please, Lord Hokage. I'm sure if he knew, he wouldn't mind."
Hiruzen nodded.
"Thank him for me."
"I'm sure he must have been an extraordinary man."
"Of course," Roy said, his expression turning solemn and full of respect. "Believe me—he was even greater than you imagine."
Then he gently closed the door behind him, turned into a streak of light, and vanished from Hiruzen's sight.
The old man was left alone at his desk.
After a while, he lit his pipe again, took a puff, and suddenly chuckled to himself.
"I wonder if he smoked."
Another smoke ring drifted out, swelling with the wind before gradually dispersing into nothing.
Dong—
At that moment, it was nine in the morning.
As the wall clock in the living room struck the hour, Roy, having left the Hokage Tower, broke through the limits of space with Light Release, covering a thousand meters in a single step. In barely ten steps, in less than a few breaths, he was back home again.
Apparently he had been gone too long at the Hokage's office.
By the time Roy stepped out into the living room and revealed himself, Tsunade and Shizune were already gone.
All that remained in the small, warm room was Fugaku, Itachi, and a prepared breakfast sitting there covered on a tray, clearly waiting for him.
"I'm back..."
A faint smile hung on Roy's handsome face.
He walked over to Itachi, folded his legs, sat down beside him, and immediately picked up the breakfast from the floor and started eating, all while Fugaku said,
"Lady Tsunade left."
"Did she say anything?"
"No. She only said she'd send someone with a new table in a bit."
"No need to go to the trouble. Chairs with two legs are hard to find, but tables with four legs are everywhere."
Roy finished breakfast in a few bites, took the napkin Itachi handed him and wiped his mouth, then reached out and tapped the empty floor.
At a thought, his aura split into two streams—water and earth.
In the next blink they merged completely, no longer distinguishable, and formed Wood Release, slowly shaping itself into a square tatami table right in front of Fugaku and Itachi.
Both of them glanced at Roy.
It had not even been that long since "this child" / "Nii-san" had first made a teacup.
And now he could already make a tatami table this smoothly.
Fugaku silently watched the table settle onto the floor. Then he tossed out a single line—
"Don't forget training."
With that, he stood, pulled on his jōnin flak jacket, and headed out the door.
Roy heard it open and turned toward the entryway.
"Father, aren't you going to ask where I just went? Who I saw? What we talked about?"
Fugaku had already opened the door and put on his shoes. Without turning back, he answered,
"There's no need. Whether I ask or not, you're still my son. No need to waste the effort."
Before Roy could say anything more, the man shut the door and left for his shift with his Konoha forehead protector tied on.
Roy's clear eyes followed him straight through the door, tracing the retreating back that was not especially broad.
And for one instant—
it overlapped with Silva.
Roy stood there in a daze for a long, long time, until—
Itachi tugged at his sleeve.
"Nii-san... let's go train too. It's already past nine. Shisui-niisan is probably getting impatient..."
Roy finally withdrew his gaze, smiled, and rubbed Itachi's forehead.
"All right."
Then, after calling out a quick goodbye to Mikoto, he left the Uchiha compound with Itachi and headed for the southern forest.
At the familiar training ground, they found Uchiha Shisui already there, practicing with his sword alone.
"Nii-san, someone is targeting you!"
~~~
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