Clan Head, Please Get Up

As for whether Fugaku would still carry on as he had before after using it...

Hayato had absolute confidence that he wouldn't, because he had just influenced Fugaku.

Even a butterfly flapping its wings could cause a storm on the other side of the ocean. Fugaku was now the perfect target for Sin Retrospection.

Sin Retrospection: Use. Target: Uchiha Fugaku.

Without hesitation, Hayato made his choice.

By the Naka River, beneath the old cherry tree in the courtyard, Fugaku stood with his brows tightly furrowed.

The scroll Hayato had brought lay in front of him.

The next instant—

BOOM—!

Fugaku's pupils suddenly contracted, and his mental world was swallowed by blood-red darkness!

The faces of countless Uchiha boys whose deaths had been arranged to look like accidents, the screams from the operating table, the Sharingan torn from their eyes, the cold scalpels...

Scene after scene crashed into his mind.

"Gah—!!"

Fugaku clutched his head and fell to his knees. The Mangekyo in his eyes had appeared, spinning wildly as excruciating pain shot through his mind.

He thought someone had cast a genjutsu on him, but with the Mangekyo, he should have noticed any trace of one.

The faces of his clansmen, all of them dead in agony, questioned him:

"Clan head, why didn't you save us?"

"You could have stopped it. Why did you just watch us die?"

One accusation after another, one face after another, surged toward him. There was nowhere to run!

Cold sweat soaked through his clothes. This was where Fugaku usually stayed by himself, and the guards around the place had long since been withdrawn.

In the courtyard, Fugaku stood frozen, as if a thousand ghosts were devouring his heart.

And this was only the beginning.

The next moment, an even deeper crimson swept over him.

Night fell. In the distance, red light flickered, staining the entire sky a dark crimson.

Fugaku saw a figure standing directly ahead. The person raised an arm, a faint glint of cold light reflecting off the blade.

The blade fell.

His body pitched forward. From the corner of his eye, he saw only the tip of the blade as a streak of red dripped from its edge, one drop at a time, onto the floor.

Screams rang out around him, while the faint warmth in his hand slowly faded.

It felt as if he were holding someone else's hand.

No...

It was Minako's hand!

The blade vanished, leaving only two bodies on the ground, along with a lurid crimson and soundless tears falling to the floor.

From far away came the distant voice of a young child.

"Dad! Mom!"

Sasuke's voice? It was a little different from the voice of the baby Sasuke now, but Fugaku somehow knew at once that it was Sasuke.

At the sound of that voice, Fugaku seemed able to lift his head and look at the person who had cut him down.

Itachi...?!

The figure was blurry, but the face was startlingly clear to Fugaku. A pattern like shuriken was etched in the person's eyes.

Mangekyo...

Then Fugaku's soul seemed to be lifted by some enormous hand, rising toward the sky.

He passed through the house, and the Uchiha Clan's compound and buildings came into view.

Blood. It was everywhere.

Amid the flames, countless bodies lay on the ground, and a small figure was running toward them.

"Sasuke! Don't come over!"

Fugaku opened his mouth and shouted, but no sound came out.

Then he saw countless Anbu in masks land beside the fallen clansmen, raise their blades, and cut into their eye sockets to remove the eyes of those who had died with their eyes open.

Anbu? No, Root!

How dare you!

Fugaku's eyes nearly burst with rage, but he couldn't move at all.

Then voices rang out all around him. The souls of countless clansmen rose from the compound and came toward him, their faces twisted like demons.

Fugaku noticed only one of them: Hayato, whom he had just seen.

"Clan head, is this the promise you made?"

"Is this what you call an explanation? Rin is already dead, and you let her mother and her sister meet the same fate! You let your son slaughter the clan!"

"As clan head, you failed to protect your people! You dragged the entire clan into a dead end that led to its destruction!"

BOOM—!!!

Each accusation struck Fugaku's mind like a heavy hammer.

The countless voices faded away, and all the blood-red color receded, but it did not truly disappear from Fugaku's mind.

Instead, it burrowed deep into his mind, like a festering thorn.

"Hah—!"

Fugaku's body seemed to lose control and toppled toward the ground.

His vision blurred, then became veiled in an intense crimson.

Drip. Blood slid from his eyes and hit the ground, splattering on impact.

His gaze swept over the pool of blood, where he could just make out a reflected face.

Was this... a warning from the Mangekyo?

That was the only thought in Fugaku's mind... His Mangekyo could show him brief fragments of the future.

Far away in the medical room, Hayato clicked his tongue in amazement. This Experience Card was pretty amazing. He had just watched the whole thing as if from God's perspective.

At the end, he had even used the Experience Card to say those things to Fugaku himself.

Hayato opened his eyes and sat up, refusing the medical ninja beside him when they moved to examine him.

Now they just had to see whether their clan head would change after seeing the future ahead of time.

[Bitter Fruit Entry System]

Target detected: Uchiha Fugaku

Bitter Fruit type triggered: Regret Bitter Fruit

Content: Use Sin Retrospection to deepen Fugaku's regret.

Harvesting...

[Harvest successful!]

[Uchiha Fugaku's Regret Bitter Fruit]

[Extractable entry reward: Chakra Capacity Doubled]

Hayato blinked. Was there only one reward because he had used the Experience Card?

He made no hesitation and clicked to accept it.

There was no passive doubling effect, but that didn't matter. His chakra capacity was already much higher than before, which would give him more options in future battles.

Inside the compound.

Fugaku stood at the very edge of the Uchiha Compound, gazing at the distant lights. For the first time, Konoha's prosperity and the Uchiha's silence seemed so utterly at odds.

He had been standing there for a long time. When he had just returned home, he had seen Sasuke, Mikoto, and Itachi.

But he hadn't shown any of the emotions he should have. One thought had simply grown stronger and stronger in his mind.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the flames rising inside the compound, the helpless cries, Sasuke's grown-up face, and those hollow eyes.

Enough.

This couldn't go on.

Fugaku opened his eyes. The Naka River still flowed on. He turned around and saw three figures approaching in the distance.

He had summoned the three clan elders.

The two hardline elders exchanged glances, unsure what their clan head was planning, though their eyes were full of wariness.

"Elders."

Fugaku's gaze passed over each of their faces. He straightened up, then bowed to them. "I have wronged you all in the past."

"Clan head, please get up."

The three elders' expressions changed drastically as they immediately helped Fugaku up. One of them even said reproachfully, "Fugaku! What are you doing? You're the clan head of the Uchiha Clan. You can't just do something like this!"