Persuasion, Kyōka Suigetsu

The air suddenly solidified.

Hatake Sakumo's eyes narrowed slightly, his sharp gaze turning as cold as a blade's edge.

"A foolish thing?" He repeated the words, his tone devoid of emotion. "What foolish thing do you think I am doing?"

Liuyu did not shy away from his gaze.

"You want to commit suicide," he said bluntly.

"Using that White Fang short blade to end your own life. Because you believe that this will atone for your sins, appease public opinion, and provide an explanation to the village."

Hatake Sakumo fell silent.

A few seconds later, he suddenly laughed.

The smile was bitter, like swallowing a mouthful of coptis.

"Atonement... hah." He lowered his head, looking at the short blade before him. "Perhaps. But more than that... I am tired."

He reached out, his fingers gently stroking the blade.

"I have been a ninja for thirty years. I have executed seventeen S-rank missions and one hundred and four A-rank missions; I cannot even remember how many ninjas I have killed." White Fang's voice was calm, terrifyingly so.

"I have never doubted my choices before. A mission is a mission, and rules are rules. A ninja can sacrifice everything to complete a mission, including their own life."

His fingers stopped at the edge of the blade.

"But this time... I chose my comrades."

He raised his head and looked at Liuyu: "Do you know why?"

Liuyu shook his head.

"Because one of those comrades was a student I raised with my own hands," Sakumo said.

"Three years ago, when he went on his first mission, I told him: as long as you are my subordinate, I will never abandon you."

He paused, his voice dropping lower: "I broke my word. Three years ago, I failed to protect his younger sister, and she died during a mission. This time, if I were to watch him die again..."

Hatake Sakumo did not continue.

But Liuyu understood.

It was guilt that had changed him.

"So you saved them," Liuyu said.

"I saved them, and the mission failed." Sakumo pulled at the corners of his mouth. "The trade agreement between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind was delayed, and the village suffered heavy losses. The people I saved are now blaming me as well... saying I shouldn't have saved them, that I made them sinners in the eyes of the village."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Do you know, kid? The most terrifying thing is not the enemy's blade, but the people you protect turning around to stab you with their own."

The dojo fell into silence once more.

The light from the oil lamp seemed to dim further.

Liuyu looked at the man before him.

He could feel the "will to die" on Sakumo growing thicker and thicker.

"Lord Sakumo," Liuyu spoke, his voice very calm, "do you believe you were wrong?"

Sakumo opened his eyes and looked at him.

"Wrong?" He smiled bitterly. "Does right or wrong even have meaning anymore? The result is that I caused the village to suffer losses, caused my comrades to bear the weight of insults, and made things difficult for the Hokage... Perhaps from the very beginning, I shouldn't have made that choice."

"Then if you could do it all over again," Liuyu asked, "would you watch them die?"

Sakumo was silent.

For a long time.

So long that the wick of the oil lamp was nearly burnt out, the light flickering violently.

"I don't know," he finally said. "Perhaps... I would still save them."

He lowered his head, looking at his own hands: "But this time, immediately after saving them, I would use this blade to end myself. At least that way, things wouldn't have turned out like this."

Liuyu understood.

Hatake Sakumo did not regret saving his comrades.

He regretted... not being able to shoulder the responsibility with his own death immediately after saving them.

How pathetic, and yet how perfectly in line with the logic of a ninja.

"Lord Sakumo." Uchiha Ryūha took a step forward.

Hatake Sakumo looked up instantly, his gaze icy.

"I didn't come here to lecture you," he said. "I just wanted to tell you one thing."

"What thing?"

"Kakashi is still outside."

Once those words were spoken, the dojo fell into a long silence.

Soon, the candle burned out.

The dojo plunged into darkness.

It lasted for about ten seconds.

Then, Hatake Sakumo slowly stood up.

The oil lamp had been extinguished, and only moonlight filtered through the paper door, casting flickering shadows across his face.

"Little brat of the Uchiha," Hatake Sakumo began, his voice still hoarse, but now carrying a hint of something else. "Are you here to watch me make a fool of myself? Or..."

He paused, his lips curling into a bitter arc. "Did the village send you to dispose of a 'sinner' like me?"

Uchiha Ryūha stood where he was, offering no reply.

He could feel that the "will to die" on Hatake Sakumo had not fully dissipated; it had merely been suppressed for the time being.

The exhaustion and despair in those eyes remained thick and impossible to dissolve.

"For the sake of those people's criticism, for the sake of so-called rules," Uchiha Ryūha repeated his earlier question, "you are going to abandon your son?"

Hatake Sakumo closed his eyes.

"I have tarnished the honor of the Hatake clan," he whispered, each word squeezed out from between his teeth.

"Living will only bring shame upon Kakashi.

Dying... at least preserves the last shred of dignity."

"Dignity?" Uchiha Ryūha laughed, and the sound was cold.

"For the sake of so-called dignity, you would let a six-year-old son lose his father, leaving him to live forever in the shadow of 'my father was a failure'—is that your understanding of dignity?"

Hatake Sakumo snapped his eyes open.

Under the moonlight, a flash of anger crossed those eyes, but there was far more pain.

"What do you know?!" he growled. "How old are you? Have you ever been to the battlefield?

Do you know what it feels like to live while carrying the weight of 'disgrace'?!"

"I don't," Uchiha Ryūha said calmly. "But I do know that when Kakashi was surrounded at the training ground tonight and called a 'worthless son' by others, he didn't cry, and he didn't run. He just stood there."

He looked at Hatake Sakumo. "He is waiting for you.

Waiting for an explanation, waiting for an answer.

Waiting for his father to tell him."

Hatake Sakumo's breathing grew heavy.

"And the answer you are giving him," Uchiha Ryūha said, enunciating every word, "is a cold corpse and a blade stained with his father's blood."

"Shut up!"

Hatake Sakumo's hand pressed onto the hilt of his sword.

The aura of a Kage-level powerhouse was like a towering mountain.

However, there was no killing intent directed at Uchiha Ryūha, but rather an outpouring of emotion suppressed to the extreme, on the verge of collapse.

That aura permeated the dojo like a physical force; the air grew viscous, and the temperature plummeted.

If this were an ordinary genin, they would likely have collapsed to the floor by now.

But Uchiha Ryūha merely adjusted his glasses.

The eyes behind the lenses were as calm as a deep pool.

"Reasoning is useless, isn't it?" he said softly. "Then let me show you with your own eyes what kind of future your 'honor' will bring to Kakashi."

The moment his voice fell—

Uchiha Ryūha's hand pressed onto the hilt of the sword at his waist.

His drawing motion triggered a pre-set "switch."

"Shatter, Kyōka Suigetsu."

The silent release command echoed in the depths of his heart.

It had not just begun now; it had... already begun long ago.

From the very moment Uchiha Ryūha stepped into the Hatake residence, the Shikai of Kyōka Suigetsu had already enveloped the area.

The previous conversation and the standoff had all taken place within this "domain."

And now, what Uchiha Ryūha had to do was not to "activate" the illusion.

It was to "display" the illusion.

Hatake Sakumo moved the instant Uchiha Ryūha drew his blade.

The White Fang short blade left its sheath!

Just how fast was the speed of a Kage-level powerhouse?

Uchiha Ryūha's retinas could not even capture the complete trajectory of the movement; he only saw a flash of snow-white blade light tearing through the darkness, thrusting straight for his throat!

That was a lethal strike, condensed from thirty years of slaughter and tempered through countless brushes with death.

But—

The blade light stopped three inches from Uchiha Ryūha's throat.

It was not that Hatake Sakumo had held back.

It was that his "perception" had stopped.

In Hatake Sakumo's eyes, the scene before him began to distort.

The walls of the dojo vanished as if melting, and the floor turned into flowing liquid.

The moonlight shattered into fragments of light.

Uchiha Ryūha's figure blurred, elongated, and reorganized...

And then, he "saw"—