"Then what I hate are just those few who laid hands on my relatives, not the Senju clan as a whole. What forced us into hostility was not each other. It was the so - called situation created by the nobles and our own actions of making enemies when we first settled in the Land of Fire to establish a foothold."
Ling smiled faintly and raised his hand to grope upwards. Finally, he touched his younger brother's soft hair and gently ruffled it. "Besides, my eyes are doomed not to recover. Think about it. If the future clan head of the Uchiha clan can't even read documents, won't he be easily deceived?
How could such a clan head gain the trust of the clan members? So, for the stability of the Uchiha clan, we must inform the clan members about this in advance and select a new heir in a timely manner. Now we're just advancing what was supposed to be done a little."
"But—"
"What's wrong?" Ling withdrew his hand, still wearing a gentle smile on his lips. "Does Madara think losing my eyes will have any impact on me? For me, it's just the beginning of an endless spiritual practice. I'll adapt soon."
Madara's attitude finally began to soften. His tense shoulders slowly relaxed. "...Really?"
"Yes, of course. Have I ever lied to you, Madara?" Ling smiled. "So, Madara, can you be patient for a while and give me some time? I promise you, I'll regain my strength soon and make all those people shut up."
Madara pursed his lips and nodded rather reluctantly. "...Yes."
"Good lad~" Ling couldn't help but reach out and ruffle his younger brother's hair again. "How about I take you to eat fried tofu sushi after I recover?"
Madara puffed out his cheeks but didn't dodge, allowing Ling to mess up his hair. "Really! Onii - san! I'm not a child anymore!"
"Yes, yes~" Ling smiled and withdrew his hand. "After all, even though you're only seven now, with your growth rate, you'll soon be a qualified heir of the Uchiha clan. I have to be more careful about my actions—"
"Onii - san!" Madara fluffed up his hair again. "Really, you've been chatting with me like this. I forgot I came here to change your dressing! Stop laughing! Lie down quickly!"
"Hahaha—" Ling laughed out loud, but gasped in pain as he tugged at his wound. Still, he didn't forget to tease his younger brother. "Sure enough, Madara's personality is so cute—"
"Onii - san!!!"
Although Ling said something cool during the conversation with his younger brother—like it's just the beginning of an endless spiritual practice—he still lacked confidence in himself.
What he said was essentially to relieve his family members' uneasiness, even though he was equally uneasy himself.
[It's so inconvenient even if most of my physical injuries have healed if I can't see.]
Ling walked barefoot in the room, feeling his way along the wall. At the same time, he kept memorizing the route he had taken in his mind. *Relying solely on physical senses makes it difficult to clearly perceive everything around... Maybe I should consider using sensory ninjutsu—Ouch!*
Ling squatted down and hugged his knee, massaging the bruised area to relieve the pain. *It seems that I can't be distracted when walking until I'm completely used to the darkness... I need to train my chakra and sensory ninjutsu well.*
After the pain subsided, Ling took another step forward. This time, he didn't let his mind wander but focused all his attention on his senses. After walking around the room a few times and feeling that he had memorized the furnishings inside, he finally stopped holding onto the wall and strode around the room.
But things weren't as simple as he thought. After experiencing a series of accidents such as falling, stubbing his toe, and hitting his forehead, Ling reached out again to feel the wall and sat down. He rubbed his forehead. *Sure enough, it was too naive to rely on memory alone without expending chakra... Maybe I should consider finding a summoned beast?*
However, it seems that in the clan, one has to pass the other party's test alone to find a summoned beast... So, should I first overcome the hindrance of not having vision? After all, the fluctuations of sensory ninjutsu are too obvious, and it's difficult to maintain the chakra for a long time. What if I'm in a battle...
Ling was still pondering how to overcome the vision problem in the room, but in another room of a mansion, Madara Uchiha was also lost in thought.
However, Madara's thoughts were different from Ling's. He was thinking about what had happened to him at the clan school yesterday.
After yesterday's clan school class, when he was about to practice on his own, he heard some of his peers gathering to slander Ling, and the more they talked, the worse it got.
Just then, Madara just couldn't help it and beat the rumor - monger to tears. That guy tried to get revenge and brought his older brother, who was two or three years older than them, to fight back.
Madara was not the least bit afraid. He bravely fought against the two of them alone. At the cost of a black eye on his left eye, he beat the two of them back again - and he was even more ruthless than the first time.
Then, these two brothers who failed to get revenge found someone else to help them. They blocked Madara outside the clan school this morning. Just when Madara thought he was going to fight against three people, the person brought by the two brothers didn't attack immediately. Instead, he seriously asked Madara about the cause of the incident.
Madara knew this person. He was the son of a pro - war Uchiha elder, named Uchiha Akihiko. He was one of the strong contenders for the position of heir who had competed with Ling back then. Incidentally, the Uchiha clan chiefs are elected from the same generation according to the age of the chief's son; if the chief's son cannot outperform his peers, the heir position will go to the strongest person in the same generation.
Originally, after Ling's incident, Uchiha Akihiko should have directly become the heir. However, all of their peers chose to give up. Coupled with Ling's successful destruction of the Senju's supply line, the heir selection started again, and Madara was also able to participate.
Although he felt that the visitors were ill-intentioned, Madara still told the whole story without concealment. Then he saw the originally smiling young man, about the same age as Ling, backhandedly give each of the two guys who had been smugly making faces at him from behind a whack on the head.
[You bad - mouthed someone and got beaten by the guy's little brother, and you still have the gall to ask me to get even for you?! How shameless! Aren't you ashamed of yourselves?! And you're still glaring at me! If you two weren't my own brothers, this wouldn't be settled with just two slaps, you know? Apologize to him right now!]
You know, even Madara himself couldn't deny that the Uchiha clan sometimes engaged in almost mindless acts of protecting their own. So when he saw that Uchiha Akihiko actually had the patience to listen to him and then turned around to scold his own brothers, Madara was utterly shocked.
But that wasn't all. After forcing his two brothers to apologize, Uchiha Akihiko secretly pulled Madara aside and, looking a bit awkward, started speaking.
[Ahem... Madara, you know, your elder brother has encountered a lot of things recently. My Father is a hawkish person. Suddenly receiving an order to hold the position, he can't help but complain a bit when he gets home. My younger brother is just a mimic. In fact, he doesn't know what's going on at all. So don't blame him too much...]
Madara just looked up at him, looking utterly confused.
[Ahem... Anyway, tell Brother Ling that no matter what the clan members say, we peers are still on his side. Tell him to recuperate well. We're all waiting for him to come back - but don't mention the thing about my brother slandering him. I'll definitely teach him a lesson when I get home. Please, consider it a favor I owe you.]
Madara: … Why?
But Uchiha Akihiko didn't intend to explain further to Madara. He grabbed one brother with each hand and walked away quickly while scolding. It seemed that he would definitely teach his brothers a lesson when he got home.
After hearing all this, Madara looked extremely confused. He always felt that he might have discovered some side of his elder brother that he had never shown in front of his family.
Just when Madara was thinking about what Ling had been hiding, the crisp "tapping" sound from outside the door interrupted his train of thought.
Madara opened the door with a puzzled look. What he saw was a Dangō staggering in while hugging a branch that was twice as long as his own body and had been hacked up badly. That crisp "tapping" sound was the sound of the branch hitting the wall.
Madara quickly stepped forward to hold the stick that was hitting everywhere as the Dangō walked. "Izuna, what are you doing? Do you have something you want to do? Big brother can help you."
The Dangō looked up, showing a gap - toothed smile. "I want to go find big brother and give Korega to him!"
"Going to find big brother?" Madara tilted his head and smiled as he took his younger brother's hand. "Let's go together. It's almost time to change big brother's dressing anyway. But... why do you want to give a branch to big brother?"
"I heard Father and the elders talking today. They said Aniki's eyes won't recover... But don't stories always mention blind swordsmen and such? They all have walking sticks to find their way, so I wanted to make one for Aniki too! I searched the forest for a long time!"
Madara was slightly stunned, then showed a helpless smile and pulled Izuna outside. "Our Izuna is so considerate. But this branch can't be used as a blind stick right now. Let's process it and then give it to our big brother, okay?"
"Yeah! I'll listen to you, brother!" Izuna smiled. "Once Aniki has the blind stick, he'll surely be as powerful as the blind swordsmen in the storybooks in no time! Then we can train and go on missions with Aniki!"
Madara's hand holding the branch tightened suddenly. The smile on his lips faded a lot, and a hint of worry flashed in his eyes. But his voice remained gentle. "Yes, Izuna is right. Big brother will surely cheer up soon."
Izuna Uchiha, in the original work, didn't have many appearances. He wasn't as young as I've written here. At this time, he had already started going to the battlefield.