"Cough, cough!"
Hearing this, Fugaku hurriedly came to his senses and coughed several times in succession.
If he did not step forward now, he feared he would be completely sidelined by Uchiha Xuanye.
Xuanye glanced at Fugaku, whose eyes flashed with sharpness. After pausing for a moment, he continued:
"The person who has already appeared is our clan head! Uchiha Fugaku!"
"I believe he will certainly take action and lead the Uchiha Family to reclaim the glory that belongs to us!"
As soon as his words fell, the entire clan grounds erupted.
Applause and cheers came from all directions.
Amid Xuanye's infectious speech, everyone present turned their fervent gazes toward Uchiha Fugaku.
At this moment, nearly everyone present believed Xuanye was Fugaku's mouthpiece. The things Fugaku found inconvenient to say had to be spoken by a young and powerful Uchiha!
Shisui thought the same.
At that moment, Shisui watched Fugaku on the high platform with deep concern, feeling that he had underestimated this taciturn clan head all along.
"Clan head..."
Had your previous appearance all been an act? Why were you revealing your sharp fangs now?
Shisui recalled the abilities of his Mangekyō and began to hesitate. Did he really need to use the power of Kotoamatsukami to alter the clan head's will?
If this continued, he could already see the future of an Uchiha coup.
Fugaku looked at Xuanye with an ashen expression. If he still did not understand that he had been maneuvered into this situation, then he truly did not deserve to be clan head.
But he never would have imagined that Uchiha Xuanye would say at the final moment that he was the great leader of the Uchiha.
Even someone as emotionally composed as Fugaku had felt a trace of pride in that instant.
But he quickly came to his senses. Everything that had happened tonight had clearly been planned long ago.
Fortunately, Fugaku already had a broad, shovel-like face, so even with his expression ashen, the others merely took it as a sign of solemnity.
The entire crowd remained caught up in their cheers, and the whole Uchiha clan had now been twisted into a single rope.
If Fugaku raised his arm and called out, they would charge straight to the Hokage office building, seize Sarutobi Hiruzen's useless position, drape a Hokage robe over Fugaku, and report the matter to the Daimyo.
After becoming Hokage, the first thing they would do was sacrifice Shimura Danzō to rally the troops.
Fugaku raised both hands and slowly pressed them downward.
Sure enough, as his hands descended, the voices within Naka Shrine were suppressed along with them.
To be honest, the feeling was rather satisfying.
Before this, he had merely played the role of a mascot at Clan Assembly meetings, listening to the hawks and doves argue back and forth.
Today, he finally experienced what the dignity of a clan head felt like.
Fugaku pretended to cough and said to all the Uchiha clansmen:
"Keep the contents of today's Clan Assembly confidential. No one is permitted to reveal anything. Once you return home, forget everything you saw and heard just now."
After hearing this, the Uchiha were not disappointed. Instead, their enthusiasm rose even higher.
Strict secrecy? The clan head is clearly planning something major!
Only Shisui became even more worried, and his earlier idea grew stronger.
The Uchiha are almost unable to hold themselves back. What should I do?
I wonder if the Lord Third has any good solution.
Fugaku's guess had not been wrong. Everything just now had been Xuanye's own performance, all to drag Fugaku into the mire.
Xuanye understood Fugaku's personality: weak and without principles.
Under his leadership, the Uchiha would only be cut apart by a blunt knife step by step before heading toward the cliff of clan destruction.
In Xuanye's view, at least half the blame for the Uchiha's extermination in the original story had to be placed on Fugaku.
Even if Fugaku had stood up to resist at the final moment, the Uchiha Family would not have been reduced to a single surviving seedling. At the very least, some embers could have been preserved.
That was because Fugaku had no opinions of his own. All he knew was how to compromise.
Sarutobi Hiruzen and the others knew about Fugaku's weakness, which was why they kept applying pressure and probing the Uchiha's limits step by step.
But Sarutobi Hiruzen and the others had overlooked something extremely important.
The fact that Fugaku's personality could be exploited by them also meant that others could exploit it.
Xuanye had yet to grow strong enough and urgently needed someone to stand in front and draw fire.
Especially Shisui. Although permanent Kotoamatsukami could only be used once every ten years, its effect was simply too insidious.
It directly changed a person's thoughts forever. What difference was there between that and completely erasing the original personality?
Although Shisui's personality was not as extreme as Itachi's, he still stood on Sarutobi Hiruzen's side, so Xuanye could not afford to let his guard down.
Precisely because Shisui existed, Xuanye had to ensure that whenever he stirred up trouble, he remained outside the sight of others.
At the very least, he needed someone to draw the fire.
As for the system mission, he did not truly need to become clan head. He only needed prestige surpassing that of the clan head.
Fugaku was an excellent target, and his personality was also the easiest to control.
Xuanye could easily guess what was going through his mind.
"Xuanye, you..."
After suppressing the entire crowd, Fugaku frowned as he looked at Xuanye, just about to scold him for acting on his own.
But the instant Xuanye turned his head, Fugaku's next words became completely stuck in his throat.
Xuanye's Sharingan had not yet closed, and the three Tomoe in his eyes were still spinning wildly.
Under that high-speed rotation, the three Tomoe actually showed signs of merging into one.
Even a line of bloody tears had begun to trail down from the corners of Xuanye's eyes!
This situation was not particularly rare. When an Uchiha awakened their eyes, or when they experienced stimulation that increased their ocular power and awakened more Tomoe, this phenomenon would also appear.
But Fugaku clearly remembered that Xuanye had only recently awakened his Three-Tomoe. If it evolved any further...
Noticing Xuanye's current state, Fugaku could not help taking a deep breath.
"...When the Clan Assembly ends, come to my office."
In the end, Fugaku merely said this in an understated tone.
Fortunately, Xuanye was facing the high platform, and the clansmen's attention had been almost entirely drawn to Fugaku.
Apart from Fugaku and a few Elders, hardly anyone noticed the abnormality in Xuanye's eyes.
Xuanye calmly wiped away the bloody tears at the corners of his eyes, and the Tomoe in his eyes slowly faded.
He did not know whether it was because, as he continued speaking just now, even Xuanye himself had come to believe it.
Or perhaps it was because his emotions had become so agitated that he had completely absorbed the power of Yin Release.
Just now, in a surge of emotion, Xuanye had directly awakened the Sharingan, this Kekkei Genkai, in its more advanced form beyond the Three-Tomoe—the Mangekyō!