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Outside Naka Shrine.
Dense footsteps moved through the forest.
The moment Fugaku Uchiha learned that something was amiss at Naka Shrine, he rushed over with his elite subordinates.
But by the time he arrived, all he saw was Naka Shrine's main gate, completely torn away.
Across the open ground, blackened lightning scars spread like twisting tree roots.
The lights in the shrine's main hall had long since been completely snuffed out.
In the darkness, he could only vaguely make out Setsuna Uchiha sitting alone in his wheelchair, head lowered in silence.
"What happened?!"
Fugaku asked.
After several moments of silence, Setsuna Uchiha slowly spoke.
"He has returned."
"He?!"
Fugaku did not understand. Just as he was about to press further, his pupils suddenly constricted.
Whoosh—!
The Police Force elites relit the oil lamps in Naka Shrine's main hall.
The dim light was enough to reveal everything within the shrine—and Setsuna Uchiha's expression.
Complicated, guilty, wary...
But those were merely surface appearances. What truly sent a chill down Fugaku's spine was that, for the first time, he saw fear on Setsuna Uchiha's face.
A genuine fear, born from the depths of his soul!
As the current Patriarch of the Uchiha, Fugaku had been born long after Setsuna Uchiha was imprisoned in the death cell.
Thus, the two had never met before.
But that did not prevent Fugaku from deeply understanding what kind of person Setsuna Uchiha was.
Arrogant, wild, utterly self-important...
Even when facing Konoha's Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, he had shown no fear whatsoever. He had even led the Uchiha of that era to establish their foothold in Konoha.
Yet a man like that was now so terrified that both hands trembled uncontrollably!
"Uchiha... Madara!"
Only that name—only that man—could make someone like Setsuna Uchiha show such