Chapter 72.5- One Thousand Hands

We walked down the road to the shrine. This was one of the places in the Uchiha district that I had never been to. Izuku avoided it like the plague. I hadn’t been religious either so what was the need for me to push on visiting it. I knew it had relevance in canon, but what did that matter here. The second Black Zetsu turned up or showed his face in my village, I would cut him to pieces and scatter Kaguya’s will to the wind like sand in the desert. There would be no Obito. Not on my watch.

We walked into the shrine. I had kept my byakugan inactive out of respect to the Clan and its inhabitants but the second we stepped into the room, my eyes sharpened into focus. I looked at the tatami mats, able to see with my byakugan the inscription beneath the seventh tatami may, but nothing beyond it. So their seal blocked even the byakugan…interesting.

“So what did you want to pray about?” I asked her as I moved to light a candle. I wasn’t religious but Mother was. Before she’d fully gone insane, she took me to pray with her on more than one occasion. They weren’t very enjoyable at the time— on account of the oncoming insanity, you know? But now the memories stood out as one of the few things I’d done with a parent in this life.

Uzume scoffed and proved my suspicions correct, dragging me straight to the seventh tatami mat. She weaved seals faster than most could follow, but I took note of the sequence either way. The mat slid out of he way, revealing a stone with a sharingan carved into it. That folded inwards, revealing a set of stairs.

“Whoa. Secret hideout?” I asked, trying my best to act surprised. Thankfully, I was actually surprised. I never anticipated fume bringing me here, or showing this to me.

She dragged me down and we made short work of the surprisingly long stairway. Someone had buried this place, and buried it deep. It made me wonder how Granduncle hadn’t noticed it being built. His natural suspicion of the Uchiha should have meant that he’d be watching them like a hawk while they were building. Impressive that they managed to make this without his knowledge. And it was definitely without his knowledge. If he’d known the Uchiha had a secret meeting place like this one, he would have either prevented it entirely or taken steps to warn me about it.

The stairs led to a hall. While not massive, it was about the size of the shrine itself— so easily enough to contain hundreds. No wonder they’d been comfortable planning a coup here. My byakugan couldn’t even see out of here. The walls just darkened and blocked everything out. Without a man on the inside, there would have been no chance for Hiruzen or his bum boy to know just what was happening here. While I looked around the hall, Uzume’s eyes were fixed on the tablet.