“Cough!
Cough!”
Hearing Shinya reach this point, Fugaku finally snapped back to his senses and coughed several times in quick succession.
If he didn’t step in now, there was a very real chance Shinya Uchiha was going to completely sideline him as clan head.
Shinya glanced at Fugaku, whose eyes had suddenly sharpened.
He paused for only a moment before continuing.
“And the man who has already appeared is none other than our clan head—Fugaku Uchiha!”
“I believe he will take action and lead the Uchiha clan to reclaim the glory that rightfully belongs to us!”
The instant those words left his mouth, the entire shrine erupted.
Applause and cheering thundered from every direction.
After Shinya’s impassioned speech, nearly everyone present turned their burning gazes toward Fugaku.
At that moment, almost the entire clan came to the same conclusion.
Shinya was obviously acting on Fugaku’s behalf.
There were certain things Fugaku couldn’t conveniently say himself, so he had arranged for a young, powerful Uchiha to say them for him!
Even Shisui thought so.
Shisui stared anxiously at Fugaku on the raised platform, suddenly feeling that he had badly underestimated this clan head who had always seemed so quiet and restrained.
Clan Head…
Was everything before this just an act?
Why are you suddenly showing your fangs now?
Shisui thought about the ability contained within his Mangekyō Sharingan.
For the first time, he began seriously wondering whether he needed to use Kotoamatsukami to alter Fugaku’s will.
If things continued like this, Shisui could already see the future—
an Uchiha coup.
Fugaku, meanwhile, stared at Shinya with a face like iron.
If he still couldn’t tell that he had been maneuvered into a trap, then he might as well resign as clan head immediately.
What he never could have imagined was that Shinya would suddenly declare, at the very last moment, that he was the great leader the Uchiha had been waiting for.
Even someone as emotionally restrained as Fugaku had felt a flicker of pride just now.
But he quickly came back to his senses.
Everything that had happened tonight had obviously been planned in advance.
Fortunately, Fugaku naturally possessed a stern, long-faced expression.
Even though his complexion had turned ugly, everyone else simply interpreted it as the dignified seriousness of a powerful clan head.
The crowd was still cheering.
At this moment, the entire Uchiha clan seemed united as one.
If Fugaku raised his arm and gave the order, they looked ready to charge straight into the Hokage Building, kick Hiruzen Sarutobi out of his seat, put the Hokage robes on Fugaku, and then send formal notice to the daimyō afterward.
And once Fugaku became Hokage?
The first thing they’d do would be to sacrifice Danzō Shimura to mark the occasion.
Fugaku raised both hands and slowly pressed them downward.
Sure enough, the roaring noise inside the Naka Shrine gradually died away along with the motion of his hands.
To be perfectly honest…
It felt pretty damn good.
At previous clan meetings, Fugaku had mostly served as a decorative mascot while the hardliners and moderates argued endlessly.
Tonight, for once, he finally experienced what it felt like to possess the authority of a true clan head.
Fugaku gave a deliberately solemn cough before addressing the gathered Uchiha.
“Everything discussed at tonight’s clan meeting is strictly confidential.”
“No one is permitted to leak a single word.”
“When you return home, forget everything you saw and heard here tonight.”
Far from being disappointed, the Uchiha became even more excited.
Strict confidentiality?
The clan head was clearly planning something enormous!
Only Shisui looked even more worried.
The thought that had appeared in his mind earlier grew stronger.
The Uchiha were already reaching the point where they could barely restrain themselves.
Shisui had no idea what he was supposed to do.
I wonder if Lord Third has any good solution…
…
As it happened, Fugaku’s suspicions were entirely correct.
Everything Shinya had done tonight had been deliberately orchestrated.
His goal from the beginning had been to drag Fugaku into the spotlight.
Shinya understood Fugaku’s personality far too well.
Weak.
Indecisive.
Always willing to compromise.
Under his leadership, the Uchiha would only be cut apart one slice at a time until they were finally pushed over the cliff toward extermination.
In Shinya’s view, Fugaku deserved at least half the blame for the Uchiha massacre in the original story.
Even if Fugaku had chosen to resist only at the very last moment, the Uchiha clan probably wouldn’t have been reduced to a single surviving child.
At the very least, some of the clan could have escaped and preserved their bloodline.
But Fugaku never had any conviction of his own.
Whenever something happened, his first instinct was always compromise.
Hiruzen Sarutobi and the others understood Fugaku’s weakness perfectly.
That was precisely why they kept applying pressure and repeatedly probing the Uchiha clan’s limits.
But Hiruzen and the others had overlooked one very important fact.
If they could exploit Fugaku’s personality…
Then so could someone else.
Shinya was still far from fully grown.
Right now, he urgently needed someone standing in front of him to draw attention and absorb the pressure.
Especially with Shisui around.
Permanent Kotoamatsukami might only be usable once every ten years, but its effect was simply too sinister.
Permanently rewriting someone’s thoughts?
How was that fundamentally different from erasing the original personality entirely?
Shisui wasn’t as extreme as Itachi, but his loyalties still leaned toward Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Shinya couldn’t afford to ignore that.
It was precisely because Shisui existed that Shinya had to make sure that whenever he started causing trouble, he remained outside everyone’s main field of vision.
At the very least, someone else needed to stand in front and attract the fire.
As for the system mission, Shinya had no real desire to become clan head.
He only needed prestige that surpassed the clan head’s.
Fugaku made an excellent target.
More importantly, his personality made him easy to manipulate.
Shinya could practically guess what Fugaku was thinking before the man even opened his mouth.
“Shinya, you—”
After calming the crowd, Fugaku frowned deeply and turned toward him.
He had just been about to scold Shinya for acting on his own.
But the instant Shinya turned his head—
Fugaku’s words died in his throat.
Shinya’s Sharingan was still active.
The three tomoe in his crimson eyes were still spinning at an insane speed.
Under that rapid rotation, the three tomoe were beginning to merge together.
A thin trail of blood even started running from the corner of Shinya’s eye.
This kind of phenomenon wasn’t particularly rare among the Uchiha.
When someone first awakened the Sharingan, or when powerful emotional stimulation caused their ocular power to increase and another tomoe to emerge, bleeding from the eyes could happen.
But Fugaku clearly remembered that Shinya had only awakened the three-tomoe Sharingan recently.
And if those eyes evolved any further…
Realizing what was happening, Fugaku couldn’t help taking a deep breath.
“…Come to my office after the clan meeting.”
In the end, that was all he said.
Fortunately, Shinya was facing the platform, while almost everyone else’s attention was focused on Fugaku.
Aside from Fugaku and several of the elders, almost no one noticed the abnormal change in Shinya’s eyes.
Shinya calmly wiped the blood from the corner of his eye.
The tomoe slowly disappeared.
He wasn’t sure whether he had become so immersed in his own speech that even he had started believing it…
Or whether the emotional surge had simply allowed him to completely absorb the Yin Release Chakra from the Starter Gift Pack.
Whatever the reason—
Just moments ago, in the middle of that emotional frenzy, Shinya had pushed the Sharingan beyond the three-tomoe stage.
He had awakened its higher form.
The Mangekyō Sharingan.