After the clan meeting ended, the Uchiha left in visibly high spirits.
Even on their way home, many of them looked eager to do something.
But they all remembered Fugaku’s warning.
Everything that had happened during tonight’s meeting was to be forgotten.
Not a single word was to leave the clan.
Even those who had never awakened the Sharingan kept their mouths firmly shut.
Success depended on secrecy.
Failure began with loose lips.
Most shinobi might not be particularly well educated, but even they understood something that simple.
Now, all the Uchiha needed to do was wait for the right opportunity.
Shisui, who walked at the very back of the group, looked deeply troubled.
He had no idea where the Uchiha clan was heading.
Because his mind was completely occupied by that concern, he never noticed anything unusual about Shinya or Fugaku before leaving.
Shinya Uchiha had departed together with the clan head.
They were probably discussing the details of a coup.
Shisui knew that if things continued like this, nothing good would come of it.
The Uchiha might be powerful, but they were absolutely no match for the entirety of Konoha.
Shisui clenched his fists tightly.
After thinking it over again and again, he ultimately decided to report everything that had happened at tonight’s clan meeting to Lord Third.
Surely Hiruzen would have some way to stop the Uchiha from walking toward the brink of destruction.
…
After awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan, Shinya’s confidence had risen enormously.
Before this, he had needed schemes.
He had needed preparation.
He had even needed Fugaku to stand in front of him as a shield.
But now that he possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan, Shinya firmly believed there were only a handful of people in the entire shinobi world who could truly threaten him.
The abilities contained within his left and right eyes were also absurdly powerful.
So if he acted a little more arrogantly from now on, that was perfectly understandable.
At this moment, Shinya finally understood why Sasuke had become so unbearably cocky after awakening his Mangekyō.
Once you gained power like this, everyone around you really did start looking as though they were waiting to be cut down.
Shinya’s current mentality wasn’t much different.
Apparently, this sort of thing was simply engraved into the Uchiha bloodline.
Once the Mangekyō awakened, there was no fixing it.
The Mangekyō Sharingan was simply too absurdly powerful.
It granted strength that ordinary people could spend their entire lives training and still never surpass.
If the situation had been more appropriate, Shinya might have immediately thrown his head back and performed another classic Uchiha mad laugh.
Still, he knew the shinobi world remained an extremely dangerous place.
There were hidden forces capable of killing him.
Putting aside Black Zetsu, who had manipulated generations of Indra and Asura reincarnations from the shadows, there were also even more dangerous members of the Ōtsutsuki clan who were likely hiding somewhere in the world.
Because Shinya knew that, his arrogance lasted only briefly.
He soon returned to his usual calm and caution.
Shinya followed Fugaku into the office of the commander of the Konoha Military Police Force.
Once inside, Fugaku sat behind his desk and stared coldly at the young man standing before him.
There was no third person present.
The secret of the Mangekyō Sharingan was known only to successive Uchiha clan heads and those who had personally awakened it.
Even the clan elders who had noticed blood running from Shinya’s eye earlier simply assumed that his ocular power had increased because of emotional stimulation.
None of them had connected it to the legendary Mangekyō Sharingan once awakened by their ancestor, Madara Uchiha.
In truth, awakening the Mangekyō had never been entirely about talent.
Obito had been near the bottom of his class at the Ninja Academy.
Even after reaching the battlefield, he had hardly been an exceptional shinobi.
Yet after witnessing the death of the person he loved most, he had gone directly from the two-tomoe Sharingan to the Mangekyō Sharingan.
As long as an Uchiha experienced sufficiently intense emotions—whether love or hatred—the Sharingan could awaken and evolve rapidly.
The shinobi’s natural talent actually had surprisingly little to do with it.
By now, Shinya had also roughly figured out what had happened to him.
Perhaps it hadn’t been the system’s Yin Release Chakra after all.
Maybe that speech had simply been so convincing that even he had genuinely believed every word he said.
The thought made his expression turn slightly strange.
He almost wanted to laugh.
So deep down, I really do sincerely want to change this world.
After entering the office, Shinya casually sat down opposite Fugaku.
Without asking permission, he picked up the teapot on the desk and poured himself a cup.
For an old-fashioned man like Fugaku, such behavior was unquestionably disrespectful.
But after realizing that Shinya might have awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, Fugaku forcibly suppressed his irritation.
For the Uchiha clan in its current situation, a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan represented enough combat power to change the entire balance of power.
Even as clan head, Fugaku had to show someone like that sufficient respect.
That was one of the few things Shinya genuinely liked about the Uchiha clan.
There was almost no obsession with seniority.
If you were strong enough, everyone—from top to bottom—would respect you.
Even so, Fugaku still found it difficult to believe what he was seeing.
Shinya sat there so casually that he seemed to have forgotten Fugaku was even the clan head.
Every Fugaku Uchiha knew of who had awakened the Mangekyō had first experienced mountains of corpses and seas of blood on the battlefield.
They had lost the people closest to them, endured unbearable pain, and only after that kind of devastation had their eyes evolved.
Of course, Shinya had also been to war.
Fugaku would never deny his strength or his contributions to the clan.
But…
He had awakened the Mangekyō during an impassioned speech at a clan meeting?
Wasn’t that a little ridiculous?
What were all those ancestors supposed to think—the ones who had lost everything and suffered unimaginable hardship before awakening theirs?
Fugaku steadied himself.
Eventually, he could no longer suppress his curiosity and asked the most important question first.
“What exactly are you trying to do?”
“Why did you deliberately stir up the clan’s emotions?”
That was exactly how Fugaku viewed Shinya’s behavior during the meeting.
Incitement.
And it was extremely dangerous.
The Uchiha were already a warlike and easily angered clan.
Their pride also meant that their relationship with Konoha’s ordinary civilians had never been particularly good.
It wouldn’t even be an exaggeration to say that the Uchiha were isolated within Konoha.
Under those circumstances, deliberately provoking the clan’s already sensitive emotions could create a situation that even a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan might not be able to control.
Shinya took a sip of tea.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t particularly fond of tea and couldn’t tell whether it was truly high quality.
All he knew was that it left a pleasant fragrance in his mouth.
Probably good tea.
He set down the cup and looked seriously at Fugaku.
“Clan Head, before we start discussing that, I want to ask you a question.”
Fugaku stared at him without speaking.
Shinya continued anyway.
“You fought in the Third Shinobi World War too.”
“So let me ask you this.”
“Why do wars break out?”
“Or let me phrase it differently.”
“Why did all four of the other Great Shinobi Villages eventually choose to invade the Land of Fire?”
The question wasn’t difficult.
Fugaku answered immediately.
“Because the Land of Fire has the richest and most fertile territory.”
“The other four Great Shinobi Villages all covet its land.”
The only major power that arguably had little interest in directly annexing Land of Fire territory was the Land of Water, where Kirigakure was located.
Kirigakure lay overseas and enjoyed a naturally defensible geographical position.
Even if it launched an amphibious assault and seized part of the Land of Fire, there was almost no chance it could hold that territory for long.
But Kirigakure still had its own interests.
While Konoha was busy putting out fires on every front, Kirigakure simply wanted to rush in and tear off a large piece of meat for itself.
So in essence—
all four of the other Great Shinobi Villages had entered the war for the same reason.
Resources and territory.