Chapter 575: Kenichi Amamiya: Maybe I Should Switch Careers and Become a Psychologist
"Aaaah!"
Sasuke roared in fury.
Kenichi glanced at him.
Sasuke was breathing heavily, his gaze darting wildly across his surroundings. The three tomoe in his Sharingan spun rapidly, but in the end, his eyes still failed to evolve into the Mangekyo Sharingan.
Kenichi sighed.
He had expected this emotional shock to directly awaken Sasuke's Mangekyo.
Unexpectedly, Sasuke remained stuck at the three-tomoe stage.
It seemed that if Kenichi wanted him to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan, he would need to provide even stronger emotional stimulation.
But before worrying about that, Kenichi felt it would be better to calm Sasuke down first.
The boy was far too agitated right now.
His eyes were bloodshot, his breathing was ragged, and he looked as though even he had no idea what he might do next.
"What are you planning to do?"
Kenichi calmly looked at Sasuke.
Hearing his voice, Sasuke finally seemed to realize that he was no longer trapped inside the genjutsu.
The next moment, he rushed toward Kenichi and stared directly at him.
"Kenichi-sensei, what you showed me just now... was it real or fake?!"
His bloodshot eyes were filled with urgency.
Kenichi did not answer immediately.
Instead, he stood and carefully examined Sasuke's three-tomoe Sharingan.
The Mangekyo had not awakened.
Still, Kenichi was not worried.
According to his plans, getting Sasuke to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan was not the real problem.
The truly difficult part would be getting Sasuke to obtain the Rinnegan.
Only a Sasuke who possessed the Rinnegan would have enough strength to reach the level Kenichi wanted.
But that process could not be rushed too much.
Pushing too hard too quickly could easily create problems.
Kenichi calmly patted Sasuke on the shoulder.
"What do you think?"
A faint smile appeared on his face.
In truth, Kenichi had not fabricated anything particularly complicated.
He had simply shown Sasuke the future he remembered and the reasons behind Itachi's actions.
It was essentially a short play constructed from the Naruto anime stored in Kenichi's memories.
Of course, reality might differ in certain details.
But the overall truth should not be far off.
Kenichi had even asked Hiruzen about the matter beforehand, and Hiruzen's reaction had effectively confirmed it.
"..."
Sasuke slowly collapsed onto the ground.
His eyes became empty.
He stared at the sky, then at the Hokage Rock beneath him.
It felt as though everything familiar had suddenly become distant and strange.
A loud buzzing filled his ears.
Sasuke's body swayed.
Then he simply lay flat on the ground and stared blankly into the sky.
Kenichi shook his head.
Earlier, he had deliberately given Naruto some money and told him to take Hinata out for something to eat.
Kenichi had remained behind specifically to watch over Sasuke.
There was no need for anyone else to see him in this condition.
Still, Sasuke's reaction was completely within Kenichi's expectations.
From the moment Kenichi decided to reveal the truth, he had known Sasuke would probably suffer an emotional breakdown.
That outcome had been almost inevitable.
Ever since the night of the Uchiha Clan Massacre, Sasuke's heart had been filled with hatred for Itachi.
He had lived alone as an avenger.
Everything he did revolved around the goal of killing his older brother.
And now Kenichi had shown him that the man Sasuke had hated since that terrible night had actually sacrificed himself to protect him.
The destruction of the Uchiha Clan had involved many different causes.
Itachi had taken all the blame upon himself largely so that Sasuke could survive.
The emotional contrast was enormous.
Honestly, it would not have been strange if Sasuke had awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan immediately.
However, Sasuke's body was still relatively weak.
His physical condition had not yet reached a particularly high level.
So the current result was understandable.
Kenichi was in no hurry.
He had plenty of his own matters to deal with anyway.
Waiting a little longer for Sasuke's Mangekyo to awaken was not a problem.
"Kenichi-sensei..."
After a long silence, Sasuke slowly sat up.
"Was there really no other path the Uchiha Clan could have taken?"
Confusion filled his eyes.
Kenichi scratched his head.
That was actually a very interesting question.
Had the Uchiha Clan possessed another path?
Of course they had.
But by the time the night of the massacre arrived, almost every alternative had already disappeared.
At that point, the Uchiha Clan had essentially become food placed on the table.
If they wanted to avoid that fate, they would have needed to begin changing things years earlier.
First, they would have needed to deal with the prejudice Tobirama, the Second Hokage, held toward the Uchiha.
Then perhaps they should have refused responsibility for the Konoha Military Police Force.
Or they could have accepted it while deliberately reshaping the Uchiha Clan's public image among the villagers.
There were countless things they might have done differently.
But all of them needed to happen much earlier.
"Under the circumstances at the time, even if the Uchiha Clan had wanted to leave Konoha, it probably wouldn't have been possible."
Kenichi rested his chin on one hand as he looked at Sasuke.
By the time Kenichi arrived in this timeline, the massacre had already happened.
There was nothing he could do to reverse it.
Sasuke clutched his head.
After a while, he slowly lifted it again.
Hatred flashed through his eyes.
He had found a new target.
Danzo Shimura.
That man had played an enormous role in everything that happened.
He had repeatedly pushed the Uchiha Clan toward destruction.
"Oh, right."
Kenichi suddenly remembered something.
"Danzo is already dead."
Sasuke froze.
Kenichi casually recalled how Danzo had tried to negotiate with him before being killed almost instantly.
That old man had not possessed much ability compared with Kenichi, but he had certainly been good at talking nonsense.
Kenichi had not felt like wasting his breath on him.
So he had simply killed him.
Sasuke scratched his head.
Now what was he supposed to do?
Take revenge on the Third Hokage?
But Hiruzen had not directly carried out the massacre.
At most, he had tacitly allowed events to proceed.
The actual executioner had been Itachi.
And the forces monitoring and participating from the shadows had belonged to Root.
But Danzo, the greatest target of Sasuke's hatred after learning the truth, was already dead.
For a moment, Sasuke felt completely lost.
He no longer knew what he was supposed to do.
Even his hatred toward Itachi had faded dramatically.
Kenichi patted him on the shoulder.
"Sasuke, if you really want to restore the Uchiha Clan, then your first priority should be growing up, becoming stronger, getting married, and having plenty of children."
Kenichi looked at him meaningfully.
"A clan is supposed to be a clan. How can one person alone count as an entire clan?"
Sasuke blinked.
He still looked confused.
Kenichi did not continue explaining.
Sasuke needed to think through some things on his own.
Still, Kenichi did not want him walking down the same lonely path he had followed in the original story.
Besides, Sasuke's married life had become a surprisingly controversial topic during Boruto.
The main reason was simple.
His marriage had been bizarre.
Kenichi vaguely remembered browsing discussions about it on some forum in his previous life.
There had been hundreds of answers arguing over the subject.
Those discussions were actually one reason Kenichi remembered certain pieces of Boruto's later plot.
Only after using genjutsu to dig through his own buried memories had he recovered them.
Kenichi glanced at Sasuke.
Sasuke's attitude toward Sakura had always been extremely cold.
Even after they had a daughter together, Sasuke had apparently never taken a proper family photograph with Sakura.
The only image of the two together had been something Sakura assembled herself using an old photo of Sasuke with someone else.
With a married life that strange, it was hardly surprising that people questioned whether Sasuke truly had romantic feelings for Sakura.
"It probably has a lot to do with the path Sasuke walked."
Kenichi looked at the dejected boy.
In his opinion, Sasuke's future personality was closely tied to the life he had experienced.
That path had made him increasingly cold and less willing to express what he truly felt.
Revenge had given Sasuke the motivation to continue growing stronger.
But the years that followed had gradually distorted his mindset.
Eventually, he had traveled so far down that road that he nearly reached a point of no return.
Even his eventual relationship with Sakura sometimes seemed less like an ordinary marriage and more like something forced into place simply so the Uchiha bloodline could continue.
"What a pain."
Kenichi sighed.
"Now I have to give this brat psychological counseling too."
"At this rate, I might as well switch careers and become a psychologist."
He looked helplessly at Sasuke.
There were basically two possibilities.
Either Sasuke would genuinely let go of the past and redirect himself toward a new goal.
Or he would fail to move on and simply transfer his desire for revenge onto another target.
Given the current situation, Konoha itself could easily become the next object of his hatred.
The human heart was strange.
What remained after revenge was complete?
Emptiness?
Confusion?
Something else?
Most people could only speculate.
But Kenichi knew that in the original future, Sasuke had not felt truly satisfied even after completing one stage of his revenge.
He had simply found another target almost immediately and continued moving toward a new goal.
That alone showed that revenge had never truly filled the emptiness inside him.
Perhaps killing Danzo personally had given him satisfaction for a moment.
But afterward?
What then?
"Kenichi-sensei."
Just as Kenichi was considering how to comfort him further, Sasuke suddenly raised his head.
Kenichi lifted an eyebrow.
Had the brat already finished thinking?
"I want to become stronger!"
Sasuke's expression was serious.
Kenichi studied him with interest.
He was curious what conclusion Sasuke had reached.
"What do you plan to do?"
Sasuke hesitated.
His gaze shifted slightly.
Then he clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.
"I want to become stronger."
"Much stronger."
"I want to become the strongest ninja in this world."
Sasuke tightened his fists further.
"If I become strong enough, then my clan will never have to suffer something like this again."
Kenichi's mouth twitched.
He had clearly noticed Sasuke's evasive gaze.
The brat definitely had other thoughts he had chosen not to say aloud.
But Kenichi did not particularly care.
Once he finished studying this timeline's Isshiki and learned everything useful from the upcoming battle, Sasuke's hidden thoughts would not matter much to Kenichi anyway.
"Fine."
Kenichi smiled.
"But your physical condition still isn't good enough."
"Keep training."
He patted Sasuke on the shoulder and immediately arranged a new training plan for him.
Once Sasuke began his exercises, Kenichi finally left.
He returned to his laboratory in Konoha.
Kenichi intended to resume studying the time machine.
He currently possessed two of them.
But to avoid an accident, the one he planned to experiment on was the machine Hagoromo had given him in this timeline.
The time machine that originally brought Kenichi here contained the coordinates of his own timeline.
The second machine did not.
Kenichi absolutely did not want to accidentally break his only guaranteed route home.
Otherwise, he would have to research a completely independent method of returning by himself.
That would be far too troublesome.
Soon, Kenichi arrived at the laboratory that had once belonged to Root.
Now, it belonged entirely to him.
The moment he entered, he stopped.
There was someone floating inside.
A familiar figure.
The Sage of Six Paths.
Kenichi frowned slightly.
What was Hagoromo doing here?
Shouldn't the old man be dealing with Black Zetsu?
"Six Paths Sage?"
Kenichi looked at him.
"What are you doing here?"
Shouldn't this old man be monitoring Black Zetsu right now?
How had he suddenly ended up inside Kenichi's laboratory?
Hagoromo opened his eyes.
"You are not from our world, are you?"
His gaze carefully examined Kenichi.
Previously, Hagoromo had not noticed much about him.
After all, he spent most of his existence within the Pure Land and did not constantly observe every event occurring among the living.
But not long ago, he had sensed one soul leave the living world while another entered it.
Normally, such a thing would not have been enough to attract his attention.
However, by coincidence, Kenichi had prepared an Edo Tensei vessel nearby.
Because of that connection, Hagoromo had overheard some of what Kenichi said and learned about Isshiki Otsutsuki.
That information had immediately made it impossible for Hagoromo to remain uninvolved.
So the Sage of Six Paths had appeared.
Afterward, he had begun sensing several unusual things about Kenichi.
And now Hagoromo was almost certain.
Kenichi did not belong to this world.
"Yes."
Kenichi shrugged.
"I'm from another world."
"But I was accidentally sent into your timeline by this machine."
Hagoromo's previously calm expression became strange.
He looked at Kenichi with obvious curiosity and surprise.
Then his gaze moved toward the turtle-shaped object Kenichi had previously requested from him.
The very machine that Hagoromo himself had never managed to understand.
"A time... machine?"
Hagoromo looked at Kenichi in astonishment.
"This object allows people to travel through time?"
He genuinely had not expected such an answer.
The concept itself was extraordinary.
"Yes."
Kenichi nodded casually.
"It allows time travel."
"That's how I ended up here."
Then he spoke even more directly.
"To be clear, I already have one of these machines myself."
"But I need one for research, so I'm using yours."
Kenichi saw no reason to hide the truth.
Time travel was certainly an incredible and powerful ability.
But Hagoromo was not in a position to turn against him over it.
The Sage of Six Paths still needed Kenichi's help to deal with Isshiki.
"..."
Hagoromo fell silent.
He stared at Kenichi.
Then at the turtle-shaped machine.
Confusion gradually appeared in his eyes.
There was one thing he could not understand.
Why could Kenichi activate this machine...
When Hagoromo himself had never been able to make it work?
....
https://discord.gg/KvMN2CFsMR
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03].