Chapter 38 Harvest
Sarutobi Hiruzen did not yet realize that the thief who had infiltrated Konoha's forbidden archives was only six years old this year—a child still studying at the Ninja Academy.
However, none of that concerned Uchiha Shin.
The young Uchiha had just parted ways with Hyūga Neji, quietly reminding him not to reveal any strange behavior in front of others. After that, Uchiha Shin returned straight to the Uchiha compound, moving with deliberate calm.
The main clan members had not yet come back from the village council meeting, and the ANBU under Hiruzen's direct command were currently positioned near the Hokage Residence.
This was the perfect time for him to check the results of his daring infiltration.
Uchiha Shin opened the inner dimension of the Yata Mirror—a space sealed with his chakra and filled with distorted reflections of light.
He began sorting through his acquisitions one by one.
One scroll, two scrolls, then three. Most were aged documents, their covers yellowed and coated with fine layers of dust, untouched for many years.
When he opened one of the tomes, he found it dealt with the fundamentals of fūinjutsu—the art of sealing.
Useful, he thought.
His attention shifted to the next group of scrolls.
The Four Symbols Seal, a formation used to contain tailed beasts or other monstrous chakra. It was the same principle the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, had applied when preparing the Eight Trigrams Seal for the Nine-Tails' imprisonment.
The Eight Trigrams Seal—two Four Symbols Seals interlocked, forming a balance between suppression and channeling.
The Dead Demon Consuming Seal—Hiruzen Sarutobi's ultimate sealing technique, in which the Shinigami devours both the target's soul and that of the caster.
Contract Seals, Five-Element Seals, Five-Element Unseals, Adamantine Sealing Chains, and even the Gate of the Great God, a technique once used by the Uzumaki clan to restrain bijū-level chakra.
Almost everything here revolved around sealing arts.
Not a single record contained the curse mark techniques connected to the Hyūga clan's Caged Bird Seal. Uchiha Shin frowned slightly.
Still, the results were valuable. After all, one of his long-term goals involved the Nine-Tails sealed within Uzumaki Naruto.
If he could master these sealing techniques, he might one day pull the beast from its host without alerting Konoha.
He pushed aside the stacks of sealing scrolls and turned to the massive tome at the center—the Book of Seals itself.
To his surprise, it opened easily under his chakra.
The first technique listed within was the Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu. It was said that Uzumaki Naruto later used this very technique to revolutionize his training, creating thousands of clones simultaneously.
Because it consumes enormous chakra, it's forbidden—ordinary shinobi risk death upon attempting it.
Uchiha Shin nodded with quiet admiration.
As expected of the Book of Seals—the first entry alone was legendary.
If he could summon hundreds or even thousands of shadow clones, his combat efficiency and training speed would multiply beyond measure.
He turned the next page.
Rasengan—a jutsu created by the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, after observing the Tailed Beast Ball. Though incomplete, it was a high-level technique that condensed chakra into a rotating sphere without any hand seals.
A seal-less jutsu—this immediately caught Uchiha Shin's attention.
In the shinobi world, speed was survival. The difference of a single seal could determine victory or death. He had spent countless hours training his hand-sign dexterity to improve his jutsu release time.
But if a technique could bypass seals entirely, that would break the very foundation of traditional combat.
It made him wonder: if ninjutsu no longer required hand signs, what would become of the entire shinobi system?
The thought was too deep and vast for now. He brushed it aside and continued reading.
The next technique made his pulse quicken—Flying Thunder God Jutsu, the space-time ninjutsu of the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, later perfected by Minato.
An S-rank technique capable of instantaneous teleportation by marking a target with a chakra formula. The caster could move freely between any marked locations.
Uchiha Shin's eyes gleamed.
If he could combine the Yata Mirror's spatial properties with the Flying Thunder God, he could achieve something even Orochimaru had failed to replicate—a complete mastery over space itself.
Uchiha Shin was genuinely excited. He had already mastered the Body Flicker Technique personally taught to him by Uchiha Shisui, the famed "Shisui of the Body Flicker," and now he possessed notes on the Flying Thunder God Technique created by Second Hokage Tobirama Senju. If he could successfully learn both, he might one day become the fastest shinobi in the entire ninja world.
Uchiha Shin immediately coughed and spat inwardly.
"Bah, bah, bah! Fastest man in the world? No, that sounds weird… maybe the fastest this year."
Even thinking about it felt strange. Forget it—he wasn't the type to dwell on details like that.
He continued unrolling the Book of Seals, but after a few more pages, his expression stiffened. The rest of the parchment was completely blank.
"Did I steal a fake Book of Seals?"
Uchiha Shin frowned in disbelief. Still, the possibility didn't surprise him. Something as vital as the Hokage's forbidden scroll could hardly be left lying around in its original form.
If a copy had been made and placed in the library, that would make sense. After all, he had just proven it could be stolen.
But why make a fake version at all?
And with only three jutsu recorded—Multi Shadow Clone, Rasengan, and Flying Thunder God—it seemed too deliberate to be random.
"The Hokage's thinking really is impossible to read," he muttered as he spread the final pages completely open.
There, written in firm brushstrokes at the bottom, were a few words: "To Uzumaki Naruto."
Could it be that this copy was prepared specifically for Naruto?
The handwriting style—steady, aged, and powerful—immediately reminded him of Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage.
So, this old man even wrote with grace, Shin thought with a smirk.
But why would Hiruzen personally prepare a replica of the Book of Seals for Naruto Uzumaki?
Unless… Naruto had another identity beyond being the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki.
Still, Hiruzen's behavior seemed full of contradictions. He neither stopped the villagers from ostracizing Naruto nor treated the boy as someone precious, yet he secretly left behind something like this—perhaps a final form of atonement for the child whose father, Minato Namikaze, once saved the village.
A coincidence, maybe, but a fortunate one. Even if the sealing information was incomplete, the knowledge within was still valuable—and mastering sealing techniques was one of Shin's key goals.
He intended to spend the coming weeks refining his power.
If Shisui Uchiha remained alive and unharmed, Danzo Shimura would think twice before plotting against the clan again—unless he was prepared to face Shisui's Kotoamatsukami, the most fearsome genjutsu in existence.
Still, Danzo was not the type to give up easily. He might continue scheming in secret, operating through Root, his hidden ANBU faction. But even Root's elite could not easily match Shisui's speed or genjutsu prowess.
Wait—Shin suddenly remembered—he should go to the hospital to check on Shisui's condition.
He needed to know whether Shisui had been injured during the latest confrontation.
Though many of Danzo's Root operatives had been eliminated, the aftermath was unclear. What action would Sarutobi Hiruzen take now—against Danzo and his covert forces?
That was something Uchiha Shin had not yet thought through. Meanwhile, tensions between the Uchiha clan and Konoha's leadership had reached a direct standoff.
For now, nothing critical had erupted into open conflict. Hiruzen and the other elders were likely still deliberating what stance to take toward the Uchiha.
The old Hokage was probably racking his brain at this very moment, wondering where the thief who stole the scrolls could possibly be hiding.
Uchiha Shin couldn't help but grin. No one would ever imagine that the one who had taken the village's secret materials was a boy carrying both the Uchiha bloodline and the Will of Fire in his eyes.
Still, if he truly wished to reform the Uchiha clan and change their destiny, he knew one truth clearly—he had to keep growing stronger.