Takehito gave a slow nod.
At this point, Fugaku's changed demeanor no longer felt unnatural to him.
If anything, after everything that had happened, it made sense.
Something like that should change a person.
He just found himself increasingly curious about what his son had concluded.
Privately, another thought had begun creeping in too.
Perhaps he really should visit the Naka Shrine later.
And bow properly this time.
Because whatever deity, ancestor, or absurd stroke of fortune had decided to intervene in his family's life had been unexpectedly generous.
Three days ago, Takehito had feared losing his only son.
Now Fugaku sat in front of him, apparently healthy, mentally sharper than before, calmer, more mature, and carrying a power no Uchiha had awakened in decades.
A Mangekyō.
Their own Kage-level fighter.
Perhaps already stronger than Takehito himself.
The thought was almost funny.
For years, Takehito had prepared Fugaku to eventually succeed him.
Now he was beginning to wonder whether succession might become less about Fugaku growing into his father's position and more about Takehito making sure he did not stand in the way of what his son could become.
Whatever Fugaku said next, Takehito intended to listen seriously.
Not merely because he was his father.
Not even because Fugaku had already surprised him several times today.
But because the balance between them might have changed overnight.
Takehito knew better than most what the Mangekyō represented.
How rare it was.
How much potential sat behind those eyes.
And Fugaku was only sixteen.
For the first time in years, Takehito allowed himself to imagine something more ambitious than simply preserving the Uchiha's position.
Perhaps under Fugaku, the clan could rise again.
Fugaku, meanwhile, began from the beginning.
"To understand where we are now, I think we need to go back to Konoha's founding."
Takehito listened without interrupting.
"At that time, Madara lost to Hashirama. Objectively."
Fugaku did not bother dressing it up.
"The Uchiha lost to the Senju too."
"But these two strongest shinobi clans on the planet actually unexpectedly joined and created the most prosperous, original nation, and Konoha."
"This was still the most optimal decision for us back then. Better than continuing until both clans destroyed each other, with us getting the worst end."
Hashirama's willingness to accept the defeated Uchiha had given them a future.
That much Fugaku would not deny.
"But we made another mistake afterward."
Takehito's eyes narrowed.
"We ignored Madara completely."
Fugaku paused.
"Not that we should have followed him into another war against Hashirama that he ended up losing again. But when he warned the clan about Tobirama, the man's mind and actions, about what would happen once Hashirama was no longer there to restrain him, we should have taken those warnings more seriously."
Madara had seen something the rest of the clan had preferred not to.
Institutions mattered.
Succession mattered.
Who controlled appointments mattered.
Who wrote the rules mattered.
A generous founder could protect you for a while.
That protection meant much less once someone else inherited the system.
"We should have started preparing ever since then," Fugaku said.
Takehito's expression hardened slightly.
"We didn't."
"No."
Fugaku continued.
"But it still isn't too late."
That got his father's attention.
"The reason Konoha keeps trying to contain us isn't complicated."
Fugaku looked at him directly.
"We're too strong."
Takehito said nothing.
"Too strong, too proud, too independent."
And the Sharingan made the problem worse.
Not merely because Uchiha were emotionally volatile, as Tobirama whitewashed himself.
That explanation was too shallow.
The real danger was what emotion could produce.
A clan whose bloodline became stronger under extreme stress.
A clan capable of occasionally producing monsters like Madara because someone suffered enough.
From the perspective of any ruler, that was terrifying.
"Imagine you're Hokage," Fugaku said. "Would you really be comfortable with a clan inside your village that can produce another Madara every few generations if the wrong person suffers the wrong loss?"
Takehito's expression changed.
Fugaku continued.
"Would you want them controlling their own institution? Their own armed manpower? Their own internal hierarchy?"
A pause.
"Or would you slowly reduce how much independent power they possess?"
That was the real issue.
Not morality.
Not friendship.
Power.
"Every ruler prefers more control," Fugaku said. "Hiruzen isn't special in that."
Takehito remained silent.
"So we have two choices."
Fugaku raised one finger.
"We submit."
His mouth twisted slightly.
"Become like the Hyūga. Accept every restriction. Every humiliation. Every narrowing of authority. Keep our heads down and hope obedience buys safety."
A second finger.
"Or become like the Senju."
Takehito's eyes narrowed.
"Give up the clan as a political force. Assimilate into the village. Let the bloodline disperse until the name barely matters."
Fugaku shrugged slightly.
"Maybe downsize ourselves into something like the Nara instead. Small enough, useful enough, loyal enough that the Hokage faction no longer considers us dangerous."
His expression cooled.
"And even then, I'm not convinced they'd ever fully trust the Sharingan."
Takehito's face had become grim.
Fugaku leaned forward slightly.
"The only other option is the opposite."
"Which is?"
"Become too powerful to contain."
Silence.
"Not preserve our current position."
"Take control of the position above it."
Takehito stared at him.
Fugaku continued calmly.
"Because this middle road doesn't work."
A little resistance.
A little compromise.
A little more authority lost every decade.
Enough pride to irritate the village, not enough power to stop it.
"That only ends one way."
Slow decline.
Isolation.
Paralysis.
Then eventually, when the balance becomes favorable enough, the butcher's knife. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
Takehito's eyes widened slightly.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he muttered,
"...Tobirama."
Fugaku waited.
Takehito's expression shifted as pieces he had spent years treating separately began fitting together.
The Senju had dissolved into Konoha.
Their own ruling clan.
Their own bloodline.
Their own political identity.
If Tobirama had ultimately accepted that happening to the Senju themselves...
Takehito looked up sharply.
"Why would he preserve us?"
Fugaku said nothing.
He did not need to.
Takehito leaned back slowly.
His face had gone darker.
That realization seemed to bother him.
"They were absorbed deliberately."
"At least encouraged."
Takehito's jaw tightened.
"And the Hyūga..."
"Survive because they submit."
Takehito exhaled slowly.
For years, he had looked at both clans with a certain Uchiha pride.
The Senju had allowed themselves to disappear.
The Hyūga bowed too easily.
The Uchiha, by comparison, had preserved themselves.
Their name.
Their institution.
Their independence.
Now that pride felt less comfortable.
Perhaps the Uchiha had not outsmarted anyone.
Perhaps they had simply chosen the slower trap.
Takehito looked at Fugaku again.
For the first time, there was something close to unease in his eyes.
Fugaku watched the realization settle over his father's face.
"You understand now?"
Takehito looked at him.
"Why the Police Force was such a perfect box to put us in at that time."
Fugaku continued before he could answer.
"And why the village keeps finding reasons to keep Uchiha away from even the most ordinary missions."
Takehito's expression tightened.
"Think about what I just said men like Tobirama feared the most."
Fugaku tapped beneath one eye.
"Our clan has the inconvenient habit of turning emotional trauma into power."
His mouth twitched.
"A rather unhealthy growth mechanism."
'Some would define it as a 'cheat code'...'
Takehito almost gave him a look, but Fugaku continued.
"I'm the perfect example."
Mangekyō Sharingan.
That killed whatever humor remained.
"And it isn't only the Mangekyō. The ordinary Sharingan works on the same principle, just with a smaller input and output."
"Shock. Loss. Extreme emotion. Pressure."
Fugaku leaned back slightly.
"So ask yourself something."
Takehito already seemed to know where this was going.
"Why has nobody awakened the Mangekyō for so many decades?"
Silence.
"And why does every generation seem to produce fewer ordinary Sharingan than the clan did during the Warring States era?"
Takehito's hand came down against his thigh.
Once.
Hard.
He had noticed that decline before.
His own father was.
They had simply treated it as an unfortunate consequence of peace and their new kind of occupation.
Transition from mercenaries to policemen.
Fewer wars.
Fewer desperate battles.
Fewer awakenings.
Natural.
Now the same facts looked very different.
Fugaku saw it in his face.
"You always thought nobody planned for that."
Takehito's jaw tightened.
"Yes."
"But what if someone did?"
Another silence.
"And Kagami?" Fugaku asked.
Takehito looked up.
"Kagami Uchiha."
One of the names moderates inside the clan still loved invoking.
Proof that Tobirama had not truly opposed the Uchiha.
Proof that an Uchiha could earn trust at the highest level.
Kagami had served directly under the Second Hokage and fought alongside his personal elite strike team during the First Shinobi World War, acquiring great merit in the process, but dying soon enough.
Fugaku shook his head.
"I think we've been reading him backward."
Takehito frowned.
"He wasn't proof that the clan was slowly being integrated."
Fugaku's expression turned dry.
"He was the sedative."
That landed harder.
"One exceptional Uchiha accepted into Tobirama's inner circle. One example everyone else could point toward whenever the clan complained."
See?
The door was open.
You simply had to be loyal enough.
Useful enough.
Patient enough.
"Then what happened after Kagami?" Fugaku asked.
Takehito said nothing.
"Where is the next one?"
No answer.
"The next Uchiha placed near the Hokage?"
Still nothing.
"The next one given comparable influence outside the Police?"
Nothing.
Fugaku spread one hand.
"There isn't one."
Because by then, perhaps the village no longer needed one.
Konoha had grown stronger.
The Uchiha had become more accustomed to their assigned role.
"The balance gets worse every year," Fugaku said.
Takehito's eyes narrowed.
"The best balance we had was yesterday."
That made him look at Fugaku strangely.
Fugaku explained.
"Every day Konoha's institutions grow stronger."
The Academy improved.
Civilian families produced more trained shinobi every generation.
Techniques developed and spread outside the old clans accumulated instead of disappearing with one bloodline.
Research advanced.
Village income increased.
Population grew.
More talented civilians entered the system.
ANBU expanded.
Root expanded.
The Hokage gained more specialists, more records, more intelligence, more manpower, more resources, more ways to replace any one clan.
"And us?"
Fugaku's expression hardened.
"We're producing fewer Sharingan."
Takehito struck his thigh again.
"Damn it."
The word came out quietly.
He finally understood why Kagami bothered him now.
Why the example had never repeated itself.
Why, during the First Shinobi World War, the explanation had once again been so flattering.
Konoha needed the Uchiha inside the village.
The Police were too important.
Internal security could not be neglected.
The village trusted them.
Takehito knew the numbers better than Fugaku did.
He was patriarch.
Perhaps only ten or twenty percent of the clan had participated meaningfully in that war.
Even today, only a minority regularly performed any official outside missions.
For decades, they had treated that as the cost of carrying the Police.
Now it looked like something else entirely.
A clan famous for awakening power through danger had been systematically given less danger.
A warrior clan had been professionalized into policemen.
Not disarmed.
Something subtler.
Dulled.
Takehito's face changed.
For years, even some of the harder voices inside the Uchiha had focused mostly on Danzō.
Danzō hated them.
Danzō interfered.
Danzō expanded Root.
Danzō wanted their authority reduced.
That explanation was comforting in its own way.
One enemy.
One man.
Remove him, and perhaps the relationship with Konoha could recover.
But Danzō could not have built this alone.
Not for so long.
Not beneath multiple village institutions.
Not while the Hokage remained ignorant.
Takehito thought of Hiruzen.
Then Tobirama.
Then the clan heads who had tied their fortunes increasingly closely to the Hokage's government currently.
The Hyuga.
Nara.
Akimichi.
Yamanaka.
Sarutobi.
Hiruzen's old associates now in important positions.
Others.
Were they all personally plotting the Uchiha's destruction?
Probably not.
That almost did not matter.
If their power depended on the Hokage's system, and the Uchiha increasingly stood outside that system, then when the day came to choose...
Why would they choose the Uchiha?
Takehito suddenly saw a future he had never allowed himself to picture clearly.
Another ten years.
Twenty.
A weaker Police.
Fewer Sharingan.
A larger village.
A more isolated clan.
Then one sufficiently convincing crisis.
One justification.
One moment when the village could say the Uchiha had finally gone too far.
And perhaps by then, there would be nothing left to stop what followed.
His chest tightened.
If Fugaku had not said any of this today...
Takehito looked at his son.
The thought came unpleasantly easily.
"I might have failed them."
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
But slowly.
Respectably.
While believing he was preserving the clan.
And the person who would have inherited the consequences was sitting directly in front of him.
Takehito stared at Fugaku for several seconds.
Sixteen.
Mangekyō.
And somehow seeing farther than men twice his age.
Takehito felt something stronger than relief.
Gratitude.
Not merely that his son had survived.
That he had awakened before Takehito handed him a problem already too far gone to solve.
"The hidden village system ultimately benefits one position more than anyone else," Fugaku said.
"The Kage."
Takehito remained silent.
"Every institution grows around that office. Every clan gives up a little autonomy for stability. Every generation, the center becomes stronger while everyone outside it becomes more dependent."
Fugaku's eyes hardened.
"So if we want to survive, preserving what we have isn't enough."
"We have to push back."
"With strength."
"With leverage."
"With enough force that taking from us becomes more expensive than leaving us alone."
He paused.
"Every day the Uchiha are not growing stronger, Konoha is."
Fugaku looked directly at his father.
"And every day that gap widens, our deadline gets closer."