Shinya nodded, acknowledging Fugaku’s answer.
Then he changed direction and asked another question.
“As everyone knows, the First Hokage created the hidden-village system and distributed the tailed beasts because he ultimately wanted peace.”
“So why don’t we simply cede some territory and resources whenever the other villages invade us?
Wouldn’t that preserve peace for longer?”
A flash of anger appeared in Fugaku’s eyes.
He was clearly displeased by Shinya’s suggestion.
“And what happens after the other villages digest the resources we surrender?”
“They become stronger, then invade the Land of Fire again—only more aggressively than before!”
“Greed is never satisfied.
When that happens, our casualties will only be worse.”
“A peace built entirely on concessions is no peace at all!”
“Are we supposed to believe that once a pack of wolves has eaten its fill, it’ll suddenly stop craving meat?”
Fugaku genuinely seemed to think Shinya was being naïve.
Why would he even suggest something so ridiculous?
Shinya gave a cold laugh.
His voice turned equally cold.
“So you do understand that principle, Clan Head.”
“Today you cede five cities.
Tomorrow, ten more.
In exchange, you gain a single peaceful night.”
“Then morning comes, you look beyond your borders—and the enemy army is already there again.”
“If you understand that, then why do you keep yielding every time Konoha’s leadership tests the Uchiha?”
Shinya pointed toward his own eyes, the meaning behind his words obvious.
“The Uchiha possess the richest ‘land’ in the entire shinobi world.”
“And outside our walls is a pack of tigers and wolves.”
“Yet as clan head, you do nothing.”
“You don’t even have a clear bottom line.”
“All you know how to do is compromise.”
Even a man as accustomed to swallowing his anger as Fugaku bristled at being accused of nothing but cowardly compromise.
“Then what exactly do you expect me to do?”
“Lead the entire Uchiha clan into a war against Konoha?”
“Do you have any idea how much danger that would bring upon the clan?”
“The name Uchiha itself could disappear from the shinobi world!”
Shinya remained completely unmoved by Fugaku’s anger.
“So because of that, you retreat again and again while Konoha’s leadership slices away at the Uchiha piece by piece?”
Fugaku fell silent.
Shinya continued.
“Root and ANBU shinobi are already practically monitoring the perimeter of the Uchiha district in broad daylight.”
“I don’t need to tell you which two people those organizations answer to, do I?”
“And yet somehow, you still naïvely believe Hiruzen Sarutobi is willing to trust the Uchiha.”
“If the people outside our district belonged only to Root, I could at least understand it.”
“Then I could say you were simply deceived by Hiruzen Sarutobi.”
This time, Fugaku had absolutely nothing to say.
There were differences between Root and ANBU shinobi.
Experienced Konoha jōnin could often distinguish them almost at a glance.
No matter how much Fugaku wanted to deceive himself, he couldn’t pretend that every masked shinobi watching the Uchiha district belonged to Root.
In a sense, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzō Shimura were cut from the same cloth.
The only difference was that Hiruzen still cared about appearances and at least maintained a respectable façade.
Danzō didn’t even bother pretending.
He openly deployed Root shinobi to monitor them.
So when Shinya said Fugaku had no bottom line, it wasn’t exactly an unfair accusation.
Fugaku had never clearly decided how far the clan could be pushed before it needed to resist.
At what point should the Uchiha show their fangs?
At what point should they truly rebel?
He had no clear answer to any of it.
He could even tolerate the clan’s kekkei genkai being allowed to leave the Uchiha.
Sometimes Shinya genuinely wondered whether Fugaku had already been hit by Kotoamatsukami.
Take Kakashi’s Sharingan, for example.
If the same thing had happened with the Hyūga main family, it wouldn’t have mattered whether the eye had been entrusted to a close friend as someone’s dying wish.
The Hyūga would have demanded it back.
No matter what.
They might even have been willing to break with Konoha’s leadership over it.
The Hyūga main family might act timidly and remain neutral on many issues, but at least they understood where their bottom line was.
And they made that bottom line perfectly clear to everyone.
Do not covet the Byakugan.
Not even Hiruzen Sarutobi could talk them out of that.
Because once an exception was allowed, there would always be another.
Today Kakashi could be permitted to keep a Sharingan because he had “inherited” it from a fallen comrade.
Tomorrow someone else could conveniently “inherit” another Uchiha’s Sharingan too.
Fugaku took a deep breath.
“You still haven’t told me what you intend to do.”
“I absolutely will not stand by and watch you drag the Uchiha and Konoha into a civil war.”
Shinya shook his head.
Then he said something Fugaku initially couldn’t understand.
“Whether the Uchiha genuinely intends to rebel isn’t important.”
“What matters is making Konoha’s leadership believe that if they push us far enough, the Uchiha really will rebel.”
“And we need to make them understand exactly how much damage that rebellion would inflict on Konoha.”
Fugaku frowned.
He carefully considered Shinya’s words but still couldn’t quite grasp what he meant.
Looking at Fugaku’s wooden expression, Shinya had no choice but to explain further.
“Whether Konoha targets us has very little to do with whether we possess the Mangekyō Sharingan or how powerful our combat strength is.”
“Ever since the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, Konoha’s leadership has repeatedly guarded against the Uchiha.”
“It isn’t because we have too many hardliners.”
“It isn’t because some of our clansmen have made radical statements.”
“They’re afraid that another Madara Uchiha will emerge from our clan.”
“As long as the Sharingan still exists and the Uchiha still produces shinobi, these endless tests, suspicions, and acts of exclusion will never stop.”
“The root of the problem is our surname.”
“It is these eyes.”
Shinya pointed toward his Sharingan.
“Do you understand?”
“No matter what you do, it means nothing to people who were terrified by Madara Uchiha.”
“Because of that single possibility, they are willing to monitor us, isolate us, suppress us…”
“And someday, they may even decide to destroy the entire Uchiha clan!”
Fugaku wasn’t an idiot.
Once Shinya laid everything out so clearly, Fugaku slowly closed his eyes.
When he opened them again—
the Sharingan in his eyes had changed.
A pair of scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan stared back at Shinya.
This was the first time Fugaku had ever revealed his Mangekyō to another person.
Before today, not even his wife, Mikoto Uchiha, knew that he possessed them.
“Do you have a solution?”
Fugaku’s tone had subtly changed.
“You aren’t seriously planning to make the entire Uchiha clan go to war with Konoha, are you?”
Without realizing it, Fugaku was now asking the young man in front of him for advice.
He had to admit it.
Shinya saw farther than he did.
More clearly, too.
At least in this matter, Fugaku found himself inferior to the young Uchiha sitting across from him.
And after finally understanding that nothing he did would ever earn the genuine acceptance of Konoha’s leadership, something long dormant began stirring inside Fugaku.
A desire to change the current situation.
Not only the Uchiha needed to change.
Konoha did too.
Shinya was right.
As long as Konoha remained under the control of those aligned with the Senju faction, the Uchiha clan would never truly have a chance to rise.
And perhaps…
There was no reason the Hokage’s seat couldn’t belong to an Uchiha.