Chapter 603: The Approaching War

Chapter 603: Chapter 603: The Approaching War

Chapter 603: The Approaching War

"Fugaku, are you sure it’s really all right to let that ancestor keep training Sasuke?"

Mikoto looked at her husband with obvious concern.

"I’ve noticed that every time Sasuke comes home lately, he looks completely exhausted. And the injuries on his body are getting a little..."

Fugaku’s expression immediately became awkward.

He wanted to say something.

But whenever he thought about Madara, he found himself unable to say anything at all.

After all, the first thing Madara had said to him was:

"So you’re the guy who managed to get the Uchiha Clan wiped out?"

That single sentence had completely destroyed Fugaku’s confidence.

He had stood there feeling embarrassed and aggrieved, unable to offer any meaningful reply.

And even setting Madara’s seniority aside, there was still the issue of strength.

Madara was terrifyingly powerful.

Whenever Fugaku faced him, he felt less like the former head of the Uchiha Clan and more like a student who had only just entered the Ninja Academy.

Actually, that comparison might still have been too flattering.

An Academy student could at least exchange a few moves with a teacher.

Against Madara, Fugaku could barely survive two or three exchanges before being completely suppressed and pinned down without any ability to resist.

That left Fugaku with absolutely no confidence in front of him.

So even though he watched Madara torment Sasuke almost every day, Fugaku had no real way to interfere.

Especially because this arrangement had been personally requested by Kenichi.

If Madara suppressed Fugaku through status and overwhelming strength, then Kenichi left him with even less room to object.

After all, the reason Fugaku and Mikoto were alive again was because of Kenichi.

Kenichi had resurrected both of them.

His strength was also unimaginably high, and his position within Konoha had become almost transcendent.

With a single sentence from him, the Uchiha Clan could live normally in Konoha again.

To Fugaku, that was almost absurd.

He had spent years trying to secure an ordinary place for the Uchiha within the village.

At one point, there had actually been hope.

Minato had never held much hostility toward the Uchiha Clan.

With Minato as the Fourth Hokage, Fugaku had believed there was a path toward restoring the clan’s position within Konoha.

Unfortunately, Minato had died far too early.

Many of the policies he intended to continue were never fully implemented.

In the end, the Uchiha Clan had slowly been pushed into a dead end.

"Ahem."

Fugaku coughed awkwardly.

"This was arranged by Lord Kenichi."

"Since it was his decision, I’m sure there’s a reason behind it."

"So... we probably don’t need to worry too much."

Mikoto fell silent at the mention of Kenichi.

Of course she knew who he was.

She also understood just how powerful he was.

More importantly, she knew Sasuke had a very good relationship with him.

After thinking about it, Mikoto finally stopped arguing.

The training was undoubtedly brutal.

But Sasuke’s improvement was also visible to the naked eye.

"Mom, Dad... I’m home."

Just as they were discussing him, Sasuke returned.

Mikoto and Fugaku exchanged glances.

Then both of them quickly went outside.

Today, Sasuke had fewer visible injuries than the day before.

But somehow, he looked even more exhausted.

Mikoto immediately felt her heart ache.

Sasuke was her youngest son.

Naturally, she cared about him deeply.

"Sasuke, are you all right?"

Mikoto hurried toward him.

"Do you need medicine?"

"Or should I treat your injuries first?"

Her eyes were already beginning to redden.

Fugaku stood nearby without saying anything.

Training like this was not particularly unusual by old Uchiha standards.

Still...

Madara’s methods were undeniably brutal.

They resembled the kind of training used during the Warring States Period.

Then Fugaku suddenly remembered something.

Of course they did.

Madara himself had grown up during that era.

Thinking about it that way, everything suddenly made sense.

Still, when Fugaku looked at Sasuke, a trace of conflict appeared in his eyes.

He still did not completely understand why Kenichi had once said that Sasuke would eventually become one of the two strongest people in the entire Shinobi World.

Right now, Sasuke seemed to be around the level of a special jonin.

And that was already after undergoing Madara’s brutal training.

Even so, Fugaku was happy with how quickly his son was improving.

The speed of Sasuke’s growth was undeniable.

But whenever he considered the price Sasuke was paying for that progress, Fugaku could not help feeling conflicted.

Was remaining silent really the right thing to do?

Was this training truly good for Sasuke?

Fugaku did not know.

Unfortunately, he had no better option.

Sasuke’s training had already been completely handed over to Madara.

And as brutal as Madara’s methods were, the results were equally astonishing.

Sasuke seemed to improve every single day.

The rate of growth was so fast that even Fugaku found it alarming.

If this continued...

He suspected that before long, he might no longer be able to defeat his own son.

"Sasuke."

Mikoto suddenly smiled.

"Have you met any girls you like lately?"

Sasuke’s face immediately collapsed into despair.

He genuinely did not understand why his mother had become so eager to find him a future partner.

Wasn’t this far too early?

He no longer spent all his time thinking about revenge.

And now that his family had been restored and the misunderstanding surrounding Itachi had largely been resolved, Sasuke did occasionally think about his future.

But he had not made any decisions about romance or marriage.

Besides...

Watching Naruto and Hinata act sweet with each other every day already made Sasuke uncomfortable.

He genuinely struggled to imagine himself behaving like that in the future.

The thought alone made him instinctively resistant.

And compared with thinking about relationships, Sasuke would much rather continue becoming stronger.

That way, he could better fulfill the expectations Kenichi had placed on him.

Sasuke respected Kenichi enormously.

If not for him, Fugaku and Mikoto would never have been resurrected.

And Itachi...

His brother would have continued suffering from that terminal illness.

He might even have died right in front of Sasuke.

The thought sent a chill through him.

"Mikoto, that’s enough."

Fugaku noticed the desperate look Sasuke sent him and immediately stepped in.

"Sasuke is still young."

"This really isn’t the time to be discussing marriage."

"Even if you want to talk about something like that, at least wait until he’s older."

Fugaku genuinely agreed with his son.

Discussing Sasuke’s future marriage partner now was far too early.

Besides...

The Shinobi World was not exactly peaceful at the moment.

Thinking about Isshiki made Fugaku’s heart tighten.

That was an enemy powerful enough that the entire Shinobi World had united against him.

No one knew what the coming battle would look like.

Who would win?

If they lost, what would happen?

And even if they won...

How many people would die?

...

"The war is getting close, isn’t it?"

Kushina asked quietly while eating.

Her voice carried obvious worry.

Minato paused.

Then he mentally calculated the time.

She was right.

According to the schedule Kenichi had established, there was not much time left.

Soon, the Shinobi World would launch its attack against Isshiki.

That battle would determine the future order and structure of the entire Shinobi World.

Even Minato could not help feeling nervous.

But this was not something they could avoid forever.

So he reached out and gently touched Kushina’s nose.

Then he gave her a reassuring smile.

"Don’t worry."

"I’m here."

Seeing his expression, Kushina also smiled faintly.

"By the way."

Minato looked at her.

"How is the sealing jutsu Kenichi asked you to research?"

"Any progress?"

Kushina immediately gave him a smug smile.

The moment Minato saw that expression, he already knew the answer.

They had been married long enough for him to recognize all of her little habits.

They even had Naruto together.

He knew exactly what that look meant.

"There’s been some progress."

Kushina grinned.

"But if I want it to meet Lord Kenichi’s requirements, I still need to improve it further."

"Still, I can keep working on it."

"I’ve already got the general idea."

"Now I just need to test it a few more times."

She playfully stuck out her tongue.

Minato smiled.

Then he turned his head and looked out the window.

Konoha was lively.

People moved through the streets.

Everything looked peaceful.

But a trace of worry still remained in his heart.

War.

And not an ordinary war.

A war against an enemy powerful enough to threaten the entire Shinobi World.

Minato had no idea what the result would be this time.

...

"So, as things stand now, these are the only components we still can’t dismantle properly."

Amado stood beside the laboratory table and looked at the mechanical parts scattered across its surface.

Kenichi nodded.

At this point, almost everything inside the time machine had been dismantled and studied.

Some components were extremely advanced.

But at least Kenichi and Amado could still understand the underlying principles.

Only two things remained completely beyond them.

And those two were precisely the most troublesome parts.

There was an old saying that humans could not truly imagine something they had never encountered before.

Right now, Kenichi finally understood that feeling.

He stared at the two components in front of him.

He could not understand where they had come from.

He could not understand how they had been manufactured.

He could barely even understand why they worked.

Just looking at them made his scalp tingle.

Kenichi found himself genuinely conflicted about how to proceed.

The internal structure of one of the components was unbelievably complicated.

From the outside, it looked simple.

But internally...

It contained hundreds of smaller pieces.

And somehow, all of those pieces were embedded within one another.

Kenichi could not understand how such a thing had even been assembled in the first place.

The second problem was the energy structure of the time machine.

Kenichi still had no idea where its energy came from.

Worse, he did not understand the nature of the energy itself.

It behaved in ways that seemed almost impossible.

"This energy makes no sense."

Amado grabbed his head with both hands.

"It clearly looks solid."

"But it behaves like a fluid."

"And even calling it a fluid feels wrong."

"It’s also unbelievably light."

He carefully held a small amount in his hands.

"It almost feels like I’m holding nothing."

"Like I just scooped up a handful of air."

Amado stared at it.

"What exactly is this thing?"

For the first time in a long while, his entire worldview felt as though it had been violently shaken.

Much of the scientific knowledge he had accumulated over the years seemed almost useless in front of this material.

Kenichi rubbed his brow without answering.

Personally, he did not find it that strange.

The Otsutsuki Clan’s technological level was already absurdly advanced.

It was perfectly reasonable for them to possess materials and technologies that he could not immediately understand.

That was not the problem.

The problem was figuring out how to crack it.

Reverse engineering the rest of the machine was already possible.

Kenichi could even construct something that looked almost identical to the original time machine.

But these two components remained unavoidable.

One was the extraordinarily complex composite component.

The other was the mysterious energy system.

If he could solve both problems...

Then Kenichi would truly be able to say that he had successfully reverse engineered the time machine.

And from there, he might even gain access to technologies far more advanced than anything currently available in the Shinobi World.

Unfortunately...

This final step was also the hardest.

"I think we should start with this component."

Amado pointed at the complex mechanical piece.

"This is an experiment, after all."

"If we never dismantle it completely, we’ll never understand how it was assembled."

"As for the energy structure, we can study that afterward."

Kenichi thought about it.

Then he nodded.

Amado’s suggestion made sense.

The energy was a more complicated problem.

They still needed to analyze its composition, properties, and behavior.

But this component was different.

If they completely dismantled it and examined exactly how all its parts fit together, perhaps they would discover something new.

"Fine."

Kenichi took a deep breath.

"I’ll dismantle it."

His Rinnegan activated.

The component’s internal structure immediately unfolded before his vision.

Layers.

Connections.

Materials.

Every tiny piece became visible under his analysis.

Then, in the next instant...

The entire component disassembled.

More than a hundred individual parts scattered across the laboratory table.

....

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