Ch. 20 Patriarch

Jumping off of the wagon, Chiba gave Kakashi a goodbye before they seperated, as Chiba started walking to the Uchiha compound.

Because the Uchiha clan is responsible for the Military police force, they are also responsible for guarding the prison that held dozens of superhumans with magical abilities.

In order for quick response time, it was decided that the Uchiha clan had to move next to the prison for safety reason, this wouldn't matter if the prison wasn't on the very outskirts if the village, which affectively isolating the clan from the other clans and civilians.

Forced to live on the outskirts of the village, the Uchiha were tired of having to walk halfway across the village in order to buy the bare essentials, so they just decided on creating their own shops and stores within their compound.

When walking down the streets of Konoha, you could easily see the clan symbols from all of the dozens of different clans, except for the Uchiha. They rarely left the clan compound except for schooling or missions, this greatly increased the distrust amongst the village civilians.

Walking through the village, Chiba turned his observation Haki on to only 2 feet from him, not only to help his chakra regenerated faster but also because he hated sensing the emotions of despair and sadness from the villagers.

The cost of food and living increase significantly as their taxes only seemed to get higher and higher, all of their money was going into supply's for the war, and the majority of them had family or friends that were ninja and died.

Walking past through the listless village, Chiba ariving at the Uchiha compound. Checking the time, he realized that Koizumi should still be in the academy, so he entered their house and cleaned himself up in the bathroom.

Turning on the shower/tub hybrid, Chiba started taking his clothes off as he felt his heart racing and cold sweat begim pouring off of him as he looked at the running water.

Getting a bowl, Chiba splashed himself with water as he barely felt a different, the affect was so little that Chiba didn't know if he was imagining it.

Stepping into the shower, Chiba instantly felt like someone had shackled 50lb weights to his limbs as the curse took affect.

While a feeling of weakness did overcome him, the running shower was just enough water to barely activate the curse. If Chiba had to guess, he assumed he was at 85-90% strength.

Plugging the drain up, Chiba sat down in the tub and let the water fill up. As the water filled up the tub and submerged Chiba up to his chest in water, Chiba felt like he was at 10-15% strength. If he was to fight at this level of weakness, he felt like could barely defeat a genin at the moment.

Getting out of the water, Chiba activated his gravity fruit on himself as all of the water rolled off of him and onto the ground, immediately returning his strength to him and a determined glare appear on his face.

'I can't let such a glaring weakness exist, I need to take precautions against this! I'll start by ordering an umbrella sword to switch out my cane sword, I'll have the blacksmith add a metal tip so it can still be used as a cane. Not only will it protect me from the rain but I can use it as a shield when I gain Armament Haki. I'll learn earth jutsu to counteract the water, then I'll buy a thick raincoat to put o-' Chiba immediately created plans to mitigate the affects.

The good thing about being in Naruto, was that Chiba didn't fear drowning in lakes or in a bath because of water walking, but their is also the fact that 1/4 of his enemies will be able to wield the power of water.

After taking a shower and putting on clean clothes, Chiba left and went towards Itachi's house, even though Itachi should be stationed in the war.

Arriving at the doorstep of the house, Chiba already sensed multiple sets of eyes watching him, but he just calmly knocked on the door.

*Knock Knock Knock*

After a few seconds, a beautiful black haired woman in her early thirty's opened the door, she wearily looked at the blind boy who wore the Uchiha symbol.

"My name is Chiba Uchiha, friend of Itachi's. I was once asked by Fugaku to come by and speak with him but life got in the way, is now a good time to speak?" The moment Chiba introduced himself, a smile appeared in the woman's face.

"Ah so your Chiba! My name is Mikoto Uchiha, Itachi's mother. Itachi speaks highly of you, come on in." Mikoto beckoned Chiba into her house, nearly dragging the boy in.

Mikoto was protective of her child, knowing that Itachi would be a target as the patriarchs son, so she always had an Uchiha ninja following her son around. She knew that Itachi only had two friends, Shisui Uchiha and Chiba Uchiha.

From what she learned, Shisui was pro village and kept telling Itachi pro village ideals while Chiba kept teaching Itachi about the negatives of the village. From how Itachi talked about it, Shisui blatantly tells Itachi why the village is the most important while Chiba only teaches and let's Itachi figure it out on his own.

As he entered the house, Chiba noticed that it was extremely big for the small family. This wasn't them flaunting their wealth or being vain, it was because the house of the clan Patriarch was the gathering place for the clan in case of emergencies or meetings.

Taking off his shoes and putting on slippers, Chiba was lead through the large house until they came to a sliding door.

"My husband is usually busy because of the war, but I think he'd make time for you." She cheerful said as she opened the door to his office as Fugaku looked up.

He was about ask she entered his office until he saw the blind child wearing the Uchiha fan symbol next to her, immediately understand what was happening.

As Chiba entered the room, Mikoto immediately left to prepare some tea for them as a good host.

"Sit child" Fugaku's authoritative voice commanded as Chiba's Patriarch, pointing at the chair infront if him.

The moment he sat down, the door opened, as Mikoto walked in with two cups of steaming green tea.

"Thank you honey"

"Thank you ma'am", both Chiba and Fugaku thanked her in unison.

Despite knowing that Chiba couldn't see it, Mikoto still smiled at Chiba politefulness.

Seeing her smile, Chiba gave a faint smile and nod aswell to his friend's mother, freezing Mikoto for a moment as Fugaku looked intrugued.

It was one thing to use chakra sensing to know where people were located, it was another thing entire to still be able to 'see' expressions on people's face.

Recovering from her slight shock, Mikoto started walking towards the door.

"I'll get going honey, I don't want to make her wait on me" Mikoto said as Fugaku nodded in understanding, leaving the two alone in the room.

They sat in silence for over ten seconds as Chiba felt the akwardness overcome him as he held himself back from cringing. With the akward silence engulfing him, Chiba had to speak in order to alleviate it.

"Clan Patriarch, i-" "Don't be so formal, you can call me Fugaku in private." Fugaku said cutting Chiba off and sipping his tea.

"...Fugaku-sama, may I ask why you wished to see me?" Chiba said as he tried to calm his nerves.

Chiba knew that right now, Fugaku is probably one of the top ten strongest humans alive. Although this was an amazing accomplishment, this time period was low on powerful Shinobi as even the Sannin hadn't learned their signature jutsu's yet.

Fugaku had the strength of an elite Jonin and gained the titled of wicked eye Fugaku before he had awakened his mangekyou sharingan! After gaining the mangekyou, his strength lept into the middle to high kage range because of his two powerful new dojutsu abilities and a Susanoo.

Hearing Chiba call him by his first name, Fugaku's stern face shifted slightly into a smile.

"No reason in particular, it's just that Itachi kept going on about how amazing you are, so I naturally wanted to meet you."

To be honest, Fugaku actually felt guilty about Chiba. As the patriarch of the Uchiha clan, he has the responsibility and obligation to protect every member of the clan, but failed Chiba.

After the second Shinobi war, Fugaku had become the clans Patriarch and had become engrossed in the political ongoing of the clan and the village. He put off the majority of the domestic issues within his clan and focused on trying to elevate his clans position within the village.

By the time he felt like he'd reach a stable enough position, he finally looked his own clan and had read the reports on Chiba, the blind genin that had dragged the clans reputation down. At first, Fugaku also had a distaste for the blind boy as he did damage the clans pride, but that was before he read the child's report

He read about how older Uchiha children bullied and beat up the blind child for a year before the blind boy suddenly fought back, sending the older and stronger children into the hospital.

Chiba had awakened the Template system from the very first day he was born, but he was physically too weak to perfom the daily mission and only had the memories of Fugaku.

When he was two years old, he was finally physically strong enought to started swinging a small practice sword and completed his first daily mission, unlocking his first ability, swordmanship.

This had meant nothing at the time as the boy was still completely blind without observation Haki, leaving him completely vulnerable to the academy student who constantly tormented and beat him up.

His bullying went on for about a year until he finally reached the max level of Fujitora's swordsmanship and unlocked his next ability, Observation Haki!

With the ability to sea faint outlines of people with his beginner level Observation Haki, Chiba waited until his bully returned before he unleashed the world's greatest swordmanship and promptly slammed his wooden sword into the balls of his attackers. At three years old, Chiba was physically too weak to harm his bullies who were multiple years older than him without targeting their weak points.

"Patr-Fugaku-sama, I'm nothing special. I'm just working with the cards that I was dealth and have been blessed to have a friend like Itachi" Chiba said in earnest.

The first time Chiba met Itachi was when Itachi tried to stop his bullys from beating him up, only for Chiba to prevent him and refuse his help. With his system, Chiba knew he would eventually be able handle it himself and the constant bullying gave him the motivation to train harder.

"Itachi is great to have friends like you.....Itachi once asked me what one of your sayings meant." Chiba felt his anxiety rise when he heard this.

While he was doing it to prevent Itachi from murdering everybody that he loves and ruining his future, Chiba still was subtly manipulating Itachi.

"You once said 'when the roots of a tree are rotten, it doesn't matter how big it grows or how often it's pruned, the tree is destined to die.' I like that saying. " Fugaku peered at Chiba as his eyes turned bloody red, three black tomoe around his pupil.

If Chiba had eyes, he'd be incredibly worried that he was put under a Genjutsu at the moment, but he didn't have eyes. This was one of the reason that Chiba never wanted eyesight, he already had Master level Observation Haki that could see even the facial expressions of others, having eyes would only add another weakness.

"Thank you for the compliment, that was just an observation that I made due to my.....circumstances. I mere wanted my best friend to be as knowledgeable as I." Fugaku was using the sharingan to look at Chiba, seeing if he could spot a lie on his face but found none.

Fugaku had a slightly relaxed expression after verifying that Chiba was actually telling the truth and wasnt trying to manipulate his child to do his biddings.

"I see....So, what is your opinion about the relationship between Uchiha and Konoha?" Fugaku still kept his sharingan on as he looked at the boy.

This should not be a question that the head of a clan should ask a six year old, however the Uchiha Patriarch sensed wisdom beyond his years from Chiba

"....I truly believe that Konoha and Uchiha can get along.....But not as it currently stands." Chiba said, wanting to convey some of his knowledge of the future.

"Oh? Why do you say that?" Fugaku wanted to know what an Uchiha child thought about the relationship between the village and the clan.

"Anybody with a brain know that the problems for the Uchiha arose because of Tobirama's law making. He was frightened by the possibility of another Madara appearing from the Uchiha, as he didn't feel confident in defeated them like his brother, Hashirama." Fugaku nodded along, agreeing with the majority of what he was saying.

"So he made us the policing force, worsening our relations with the village incredibly. Not only does it force us on the outskirts of the village, it makes our interaction with the villagers purely negative interactions, as we are only ever seen arresting the villagers friends and family." Every Uchiha would agree with what Chiba said.

"When he was going to die, would Tobiram choose a Ninja that would be soft hearted on the Uchiha? Of course not... He chose Hiruzen because they had atleast somewhat similar ideals about the way Konoha should be ran... But despite this, Hiruzen isn't out real enemy." For the first time, Fugaku stopped nodding and looked at Chiba intently.

"The true enemy of the Uchiha...Is Danzo Shimura!"

(I keep getting comments from people that don't know how Devil fruits work and are confidently writing about how I'm wrong and spouting wrong information. Oda stated in an official Q and A, that all water affects devil fruit users and not just salt and sea water.

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I have no problem replying and explains things to you guys who genuinely have a question, but I'm constantly having people commenting that I'm wrong without even doing a ten seconds Google search to realize that they are incorrect)