Uchiha Mei had lost one of his Sharingan, and his strength had significantly declined. A few months ago, when Uchiha Yin awakened her three-tomoe Sharingan, her strength had already caught up to Mei's—let alone Uchiha Yuan and Uchiha Cai.
In the Uchiha clan, strength reigned supreme. Within the Third Division, two were stronger than Mei, and two or three were on par. There was no way he could keep his position as Division Captain.
Even if those within the division had no objections, the higher-ups of the Uchiha clan would still pressure him to step down.
So Mei had long been considering stepping aside and letting someone more qualified take over.
His first choice, naturally, had been Uchiha Cai.
But Cai had no interest in the position and kept deflecting responsibility.
Today, she had outright pushed Uchiha Yuan into the spotlight.
Reminded by Cai, Mei began to see that Yuan was actually very well suited to lead the Third Division.
The only issue was Yuan's age and lack of seniority.
But again—the Uchiha valued power above all. In the face of absolute strength, age and status meant little.
At just 13 years old, Yuan's strength already ranked in the top five of the entire Uchiha clan. He was more than qualified to be the Third Division's captain.
The next day, Mei personally brought Yuan to request leave from Orochimaru.
When Orochimaru learned that Yuan would be returning to the village in Mei's place, he was visibly surprised.
As the Third Hokage's disciple, Orochimaru was well aware of how power was structured within the Uchiha clan.
Mei was the captain of the Third Division. If the Uchiha were about to deliberate the matter of Obito's Sharingan, Mei absolutely needed to return.
Now that he had assigned Yuan to return in his stead, it clearly meant he had chosen Yuan as his successor.
Orochimaru studied Yuan with interest for a moment before approving Mei's leave request.
After bidding farewell to Hyuga Asana and Yamanaka Kagetsu, Uchiha Yuan left the Konoha camp in the Land of Bears.
Once he had walked some distance, he formed hand seals and summoned Lightning.
Over the past six months, Lightning had fully absorbed the energy of the Dragon Vein.
Its wingspan had grown to nearly two meters, and its feathers had completely transformed into a silvery-gray hue.
Its current size was more than enough to carry an adult through the skies.
Yuan leapt onto Lightning's back, and the bird took flight with stable, powerful flaps.
Besides flying, Lightning had also become proficient in using Wind Blades and could now cast some minor Wind Release jutsu without hand signs, like Great Breakthrough and Consecutive Great Breakthroughs.
Additionally, it had learned to use Lightning Release chakra. While it couldn't cast full Lightning Release jutsu yet, it could use the chakra to stimulate its cells and fly faster—or coat its claws with it for enhanced attack and paralysis.
Lightning was now a very capable flying-type summoning beast.
Flying was definitely faster than running—especially with the speed boost from Lightning Release.
Thanks to that, Yuan reached the outskirts of the village in just a few hours.
However, he didn't return immediately. He had Lightning land outside the village.
Yuan had recently discovered that Lightning's intelligence was on par with that of a human. Since becoming a summoning beast, it had learned to mimic human syllables—though it still couldn't speak fluently.
Yuan had tried to teach it how to talk, but Lightning clearly wasn't interested in that.
It preferred to train its ninjutsu rather than learn human speech.
Still, Yuan wanted to take advantage of these two days to teach it Lightning Release Chakra Mode, which was well suited to Lightning.
If possible, he also wanted to get Lightning to start speaking. Communication would become far easier once that happened.
As Yuan expected, Lightning was very interested in Lightning Chakra Mode.
Yuan struck a deal: if Lightning wanted to learn the technique, it had to first learn some human language.
For the sake of learning the chakra mode, Lightning reluctantly began mimicking Yuan's speech.
After two days, it could already say some broken, disjointed phrases.
Yuan was quite satisfied with the progress—language wasn't something that could be mastered overnight.
Then, as promised, he began teaching Lightning the Lightning Chakra Mode.
It was a jutsu that would take a long time to master.
Since he couldn't always stay to supervise, Yuan gave Lightning a detailed explanation of how to train the technique, then returned to the village.
When he lined up to enter, Yuan immediately noticed something was off.
Villagers nearby were giving strange looks when they saw members of the Uchiha clan in line.
"I heard Kakashi transplanted a Uchiha Sharingan. Is that why so many Uchiha are here recently?" a villager whispered behind Yuan.
"Probably! Kakashi's in big trouble now."
"Well, if he did take a Sharingan, the Uchiha clan has every right to return and deal with it, right?"
"But Kakashi is a hero from the Kannabi Bridge Battle. Forcibly taking his Sharingan might seem a bit much…"
"Exactly. Besides, I heard Obito gave it to Kakashi willingly."
As the villagers murmured, one of the Uchiha gate guards shouted loudly:
"What nonsense are you spouting?! The Sharingan is our Uchiha clan's Kekkei Genkai. There's no way we would allow it to be passed outside the clan!"
The villagers went silent immediately.
Yuan frowned. Now he understood why the villagers had been giving them strange looks.
Clearly, the village leadership had already started a public opinion campaign.
And the Uchiha clan had failed to respond effectively—instead choosing to violently silence dissent.
That would only alienate the neutral villagers who might otherwise have supported the Uchiha.
"What the hell is that idiot Uchiha Fugaku doing?" Yuan cursed inwardly.
At that very moment, Fugaku was in the Uchiha compound, discussing the ownership of Obito's Sharingan with the clan's three elders.
(To Be Continued...)