"Naruto?"
The moment he heard that loud, familiar voice, Sasuke's brows knit together in instant annoyance.
Naruto's sudden arrival had completely disrupted his careful plans.
Sasuke couldn't fathom why Makoto had brought the idiot here.
Wasn't this just giving him a massive headache?
Once he fully recovered, his next assigned mission was to systematically assassinate the Konoha Elders.
With Naruto's self-righteous, bleeding-heart personality, would the blonde really just stand by and let him commit murder in broad daylight?
So what was supposed to happen then?
Were they going to fight again? Sasuke felt deeply stifled by Naruto's mere presence.
Naruto, on the other hand, felt completely different.
The moment he saw Sasuke's bandaged, weakened condition, he hurried over and started fussing over him with overbearing concern.
Sasuke coldly—well, tsunderely—shook Naruto off, followed the sound of Makoto's voice, and marched over to him.
"Why did you bring that idiot Naruto here? You know exactly what my mission is, don't you?"
"Did you forget what I told you before about the biological progression of your eyes? What comes next?" Makoto smiled, shooting back a cryptic question.
"..."
Sasuke froze for a moment, then immediately understood the terrifying implication.
Of course he remembered Makoto's lecture by heart.
He had just never expected his ocular advancement to happen this quickly.
He had already achieved the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
So the next step toward the mythical Rinnegan... wasn't it just... drinking milk?
A faint trace of deep embarrassment flashed across Sasuke's pale face.
No wonder Makoto had brought Naruto!
Compared to the mundane mission of killing two stubborn old fossils, awakening the Rinnegan was obviously the absolute top priority.
And for the sake of awakening the Rinnegan, he and Naruto were going to have to get very close—closer than real brothers.
At that point, there would no longer be any physical or chakra distinction between "you" and "me," so trying to hide this assassination mission from Naruto would only create unnecessary friction between them.
It was far better to lay everything out in the open.
"Thank you," Sasuke muttered, finally understanding Makoto's profound intent.
"Mm." Makoto patted Sasuke on the shoulder, then turned to the blonde. "Naruto, take good care of Sasuke. Since you think of him as your closest friend, your sworn brother, then whatever he asks of you, you need to consider it from his perspective and do your best to satisfy his needs."
"Otherwise, if he runs off again and you have to desperately chase after him, then you can just wait until you're crying your eyes out in the rain. Acting tough feels good in the moment, but chasing someone back is a living hell."
With that incredibly loaded advice delivered, Makoto took Kushina and teleported directly back to the Hidden Rain.
"Sasuke, in a few more days, you should be able to take those bandages off. Now that Naruto is here to look after you, I'll head back to the Land of Waves. There is still plenty of infrastructure work over there that needs my attention."
Itachi was also tactful enough to prepare to leave, giving Naruto and Sasuke the necessary, isolated space to be alone together.
Itachi had already heard that the specific "favor" Orochimaru had once promised Sasuke had been successfully accomplished.
After all, Itachi himself had been present in the lab at the time.
In short, the Uchiha Clan now officially had descendants!
There was no longer any need to worry that the Uchiha would go extinct just because Sasuke and Naruto got a little too entangled with each other.
And even taking ten thousand steps back, even if Sarada didn't exist, there was still Uchiha Hikari, wasn't there?
If someone wanted the Uchiha to die out completely now, they still had a very long way to go!
"Huh? Nii-san, you're leaving too?" Sasuke was taken aback.
But after a second thought, his older brother staying here really was a bit inappropriate.
It was far too easy for Itachi to turn into a glaring "third wheel."
If his brother stayed here watching them, Sasuke would definitely feel way too embarrassed to... drink milk.
Him leaving was for the best.
"Mm. Uzumaki Naruto, I'm entrusting my little brother to you," Itachi said solemnly.
"Leave it to me!" Naruto grinned, giving a thumbs up.
Everyone left, leaving only Naruto and Sasuke behind in the quiet hideout.
"Sasuke, what's up with your eyes?" Naruto was the first to break the heavy silence.
With uncharacteristic patience, Sasuke sat down and explained his entire surgical situation from beginning to end.
....
Several days passed peacefully.
During those days, Naruto used a small army of Shadow Clones to take care of the blinded Sasuke perfectly, handling the cooking, cleaning, and changing of bandages.
However, while cleaning the room one afternoon, Naruto accidentally found a tattered mission scroll left casually on a desk.
It was the specific scroll with the highly censored bath picture of Koharu Utatane stamped onto it—the one Sasuke had previously torn up in disgust.
What Naruto had picked up outside the village days ago had been the torn-off picture of Koharu itself.
Now that Naruto saw the original scroll—matching the material and the torn scraps along the edge—he recognized the connection immediately.
Then, he read the assassination orders written on it.
Naruto immediately marched over and found Sasuke, who was just in the middle of unwrapping the final layers of his bandages.
"Sasuke, you can't do this."
"So you finally saw it." Sasuke pulled the last bandage away and turned his new Eternal Mangekyō toward Naruto with a highly complicated expression.
'Is this idiot a pig or what?!' Sasuke screamed internally.
'I deliberately placed that classified scroll in the most obvious spot possible just so he would find it, and yet it somehow took him three whole days to notice it!'
"Sasuke, you can't do this," Naruto repeated, his face dead serious.
"Naruto, I know you care deeply about Konoha and want to become Hokage. I do too! Make Konoha Great again is my—ahem, Konoha is my hometown," Sasuke awkwardly corrected himself in a hurried cough.
That blasted propaganda song from the Hidden Rain's New Year talent show—the one Itachi had forced him to listen to through a genjutsu loop—was just too absurdly catchy, he had almost sung the lyric out loud!
"But Naruto, you need to understand that being Hokage takes more than just hot-blooded passion," Sasuke continued smoothly, dropping his voice into a dramatic register.
"Look at Konoha now. It's developing so quickly. I dare say that the current Konoha is the happiest Konoha in all of its history. And that is all thanks to necessary change. But change always requires bloodshed. Either the blood spilled is your own side's, or it is the enemy's."
"Do you really think the Daimyō of the Land of Fire was actually blown up by some mysterious, unknown demolition genius from the Stone Village? If that were true, then why is Konoha still maintaining its alliance with the Stone without the slightest crack in their political relationship? The people I'm going to kill now are the exact same. Their very existence is an antiquated obstacle blocking the people's path toward a better, happier future!"
Sasuke patiently, passionately explained the entire geopolitical landscape to Naruto.
Though mixed into his speech was some heavy personal spin of his own.
For example, the Konoha Elders currently weren't actually doing anything to obstruct Makoto's reforms at all.
The elders were cowards, very good at reading the room and staying out of the way.
For them to actually become an obstacle, the prerequisite would be for a weak, easily manipulated Hokage to take office.
"Sasuke, what the hell are you rambling on about?!" Naruto frowned, scratching his head. "What I mean is, this Koharu Utatane is Kakashi-sensei's fiancée! If you kill her, then Kakashi-sensei won't ever come back!"
"...Who?"
Sasuke blinked, his Sharingan spinning to a dead halt.
He felt like maybe he had overused his new Mangekyō and had started hallucinating!
"Kakashi-sensei!"
"I mean, who the hell is Kakashi's fiancée?!"
"Koharu Utatane!"
"..."
In an instant, Sasuke's pristine mind violently replayed the cursed image he had once seen with his Mangekyō's photographic memory.
He involuntarily imagined his cool, aloof teacher Kakashi tangled together with the decrepit, wrinkly Koharu Utatane, and instantly felt as though his very soul was being contaminated all over again.
He genuinely wanted to throw up!
"Are you serious?! And where exactly did you hear that from?!" Sasuke took a deep, shuddering breath and aggressively questioned the blonde.
"Uh, actually, it's fake," Naruto rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.
"You idiot, i knew it! Naruto, are you messing with me on purpose?!" Sasuke was utterly speechless.
"No, no, no! Sasuke, listen, it's like this!" Naruto hurriedly explained in alarm, waving his hands.
"Kakashi-sensei thinks women are like fine wine—the older they are, the better they become—so he willingly let Granny Chiyo from the Sand Village kidnap him so they could have children!"
"I wanted to bring Kakashi-sensei back to Konoha, so I was going to give him this bath picture of Koharu, hoping he'd realize that Konoha has true MILF too! If you assassinate this old lady now, then Kakashi-sensei won't have any reason to come back!"