Chương 397: CH_10.31 (397)

"A traitor? Like Orochimaru?" Takuma asked with concern because while he agreed with everything she had said, he couldn't see how a tumour like Orochimaru would help the village. Even if there were some upside, it would be drowned out by the downside.

"Orochimaru? Why did he come up?" Momoe frowned in confusion. Ah, because I bought up Jiraya? My bad. No, I'm not talking about that kind of traitor. We need a class traitor."

"A class traitor?"

"Someone from a clan who recognises the problem and is willing to do something to change it. Working from outside will take a long time, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it, but it'll probably be faster if someone with power on the inside is willing to join the cause." Takuma nodded because it made sense. As Momoe had described, clans had created a gated community for themselves. People like Momoe, who were being pursued for their potential, could get inside, but she would always be treated like a guest.

They needed a native with free access to take the full advantage of the influence the clans hoarded.

"And who might that be?" he asked.

"No idea," she sighed.

"The problem is that even if we find someone like that, it won't matter if they aren't in a position of power, high enough that it would be difficult for the clans to overrule them."

"Good intentions aren't enough; we need someone with real sway," he commented.

"Couldn't have put it any better," Momoe said with pursed lips. He could see her dilemma. She wanted more power for civilian-born shinobi, who made up the majority of Leaf shinobi, but doing so required help from someone within the clans, who gatekept the majority of the resources for themselves. It wasn't a good feeling knowing that they needed help from the "enemy camp" to change things.

"That's going to be... difficult. How about finding someone willing to help and pushing them into a position of power? Perhaps someone like Izumi," Takuma suggested. Izumi wasn't only a Uchiha, but also extremely talented, as she was promoted at the same time as Momoe, but also had activated her sharingan. Not to mention, she had a great personality, and he could see her sympathising with Momoe.

"Izumi won't work." Momoe confidently shook her head.

"Why?"

"In my opinion, we need someone dedicated. While Izumi would be sympathetic, I don't think she would want to make it one of her major goals. And there's nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of problems in the world, and we can express our support for them, but there's a limit to how many of those problems someone can be involved with. I don't think she's in the right time of her life to think of things like this."

"And you are?" he asked. If Izumi wasn't in the right time of her life, then what about Momoe? Both of them were in the same chapters of their lives and had similar future trajectories. He also noticed how she said that Izumi "would be" sympathetic rather than "is", which meant she hadn't discussed this with her best friend. He could understand that. She probably feared how Izumi would take it. She was blaming the clans, and Uchiha Izumi could take that as a personal attack.

While he didn't think Izumi would react like that, it was different because he wasn't close to her. Momoe risked ruining a close friendship, which probably came with immense doubt and fear, causing her to hesitate. If Izumi did indeed react like that, Momoe probably wouldn't want to be friends with her, but that was logic talking, which rarely matters when deep emotional matters were involved.

"Because this personally involves me," she replied.

"I wonder if it's the guilt."

"From what?"

"For having it easier than others." She had spoken at length until now, so the short response made it clear that it was a difficult topic for her.

"... I envy you," Takuma said without looking at her.

"You have everything I wish I had in myself. Great talent, excellent opportunities right from the beginning, an impressive deal of self-confidence..." If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. She also had a happy and supportive family; there wasn't a day that he didn't think about his family. She was also blessed with ignorance, whereas he was cursed with knowledge.

If he didn't know anything about Naruto and the future, he probably would be living a happier life, even if it meant not being prepared. Before he knew about the mess in his mind, he was happily ignorant of the problem, but now, he had a whole new load of stress that made him feel awful daily.

"... I won't deny it. I felt I was dealt an unfair hand while you got everything." If nothing else, he at least wanted his fair chance at testing for a jōnin team. Being denied that had stung for a while. It still stung from time to time.

"Ah, I see." Momoe hung her head with a bitter smile.

"But why the fuck would you have to care about what I feel? It doesn't make sense that you have to feel sorry for any of it or feel like you have to compensate somehow to balance the scales. Everything you got only matters because it was utilised well by hard work and smart decisions."

While he thought that he had burned a bridge with the Police Force and the Uchiha clan by rejecting their offers, she had not only rejected the Sarutobi clan, but was also playing with several clans and receiving resources with no intention of ever joining them. That was a smart hustle he could respect and get behind. Even if her skill with B-rank jutsu two years back was shoddy, she wouldn't have been able to do it at such a young age without putting in effort and hard work.

"If I were in your position, I would have taken the full advantage of everything within my reach without ever thinking about others who didn't get the same opportunities. Most people would be the same, and you know what, they would've become detached from reality and claim that everything they got was the sole result of their hard work and deny any privilege. At least, you're recognising that your situation played a huge part in where you are today."

If Takuma knew himself, he knew he would fold in the face of greed. He came from a world where capitalism had degraded life and society for decades, and the importance of wealth in one's life had become twisted. If he weren't constantly stressed about survival, his relationship with money would've shaped his shinobi career into a constant effort to earn more.

"The only right thing to do is not to let anything go to waste. Acknowledge that you were luckier than others and move on. By doing things like helping Nenro, you're already better than the next person because you're pulling up people while rising yourself," he said, thinking about how few times he had helped someone from the goodness of his heart. He connected Izumi with Mikoto, but that was among the very sparse examples. His words made her feel better because the grim look lifted from her face.

"Right, I will do so," she straightened her back and nodded firmly.

"You're right. We will need some dedicated individuals invested in the cause. The moment the clans realise that someone is planning to wrestle away their influence from them, they would do everything in their power to oppose it," said Takuma. Uchiha and Hyūga, two of the Leaf's biggest clans, didn't get along by any measure, having maintained a rivalry from before the village's inception because of their status as dōjutsu clans.

But they had put their difference aside to come together to bring Shimura Danzo, accused of bloodline theft and murder of Uchiha Shisui. They saw that as a grave infraction and an attack against their reputation and influence. Going against someone like Danzo was unadvisable because things always got ugly. The old vulture had the uncanny ability to make the other party face some level of loss, even if he was on the losing side—there was no clean winning with Shimura Danzo, which made him so scary.

But the two clans had to respond because the alternative was to suffer a political loss; they couldn't let others think they were a toothless tiger. Not to mention, many others, big and small, had joined them in support—not because they wanted to curry favour with the two biggest clans in the village, but because if Danzo felt like he could get away with bloodline theft against Uchiha, he definitely would feel confident in getting away after doing much worse to those with less influence.

It was perhaps the biggest show of unity of clans outside a state of emergency, like the Shinobi World Wars and the Nine-Tails Incident, when everyone came together. Whoever would go against the clans needed to feel an ownership towards the goal. Otherwise, there wasn't enough riches in the world to convince someone to go against the combined political might of the shinobi clans. It could only be done by someone who believed in the value of the cause.

Takuma rested his chin on the back of his hand and stared at the pond, thinking about who would be suitable for bringing about drastic change. It was a serious undertaking for an insider to go against and dismantle all the systems that were there to serve and help them.

"Someone who can objectively see the problem... has a good head on their head... with significant influence... and is willing to go against the clans." A blurry image formed in his head and slowly cleared as he listed the points to himself. He saw someone young with long black hair pulled back in a low ponytail that framed a young handsome face with pronounced tear-troughs, surprisingly dressed in a strange mix of ANBU gear with the Akatsuki cloak over it.

Takuma gulped when he saw the onyx eyes turn red as the three-tomoe sharingan pattern smoothly spun in the iris before again shifting into three spiralling curves around the pupil.

"Wow, that's scary," he muttered while rubbing his arms as a shiver went down his spine.

"What is?"

"A guy who makes people deepth—swallow crows, feathers, bones, and all."

"What the hell? That's gross!"

"Agreed..."