The Clan Head's Decision

Only half the candle remained.

The wick struggled in the melted wax, the flame flickering, stretching the shadows in the hall long and short by turns, like a pack of ghosts baring their claws and fangs.

The air was so thick it was suffocating.

Uchiha Fugaku still stood there.

He held that posture—back slightly bent, both hands braced on his knees, his knuckles white from gripping too hard. Sweat slid down his stern jaw and dripped to the floor, spreading into dark, damp stains.

He was trembling.

Not from fear, but because two utterly different forces were locked in battle inside him.

One was the reason of a clan head, telling him this was a madman's gamble. If they lost, the Uchiha would not even have the right to go to the Pure Land.

The other was the despair of a father. The image of Itachi bringing the blade down and cutting off his head was branded onto his retinas like a hot iron, scalding his soul until it shuddered.

"Mad... this is sheer madness..."

An aged voice broke the deathly silence.

An elder seated in the third row on the left raised his hand shakily. His name was Uchiha Setsuna. He had once been a representative of the hawks, yet now he was curled into himself, the wrinkles on his face filled with terror.

"Gamble the souls of the entire clan? Have our souls scattered to nothing?"

Elder Setsuna's voice was shrill and grating. "Xuan Shi, do you know what you're saying? We haven't lost yet! As long as we go to confess to Lord Hokage now, as long as we hand over the authority of the police force... even hand over a few scapegoats..."

His cloudy eyes moved, looking toward Fugaku as if he had grabbed hold of the last straw.

"Clan Head! The Third Hokage has always been merciful! If we take the initiative to abandon the coup, and... and hand over the radicals who proposed it, perhaps we can still preserve a spark! Even if we're driven to the edge of the village, even if we're put under surveillance, at least we can live!"

Those words were like a pebble tossed into dead water.

Around him, several high-ranking members who had still been wavering suddenly had a faint light of hope rise in their eyes.

"Yes... Lord Third might show mercy."

"After all, we were among the village's founders..."

"As long as we don't stage a coup, there's still room to maneuver, right?"

That was the human instinct to survive.

Faced with unknown death and certain humiliation, most people would instinctively choose the latter.

Better to live like a dog than die well.

Xuan Shi stood in the center of the hall, coldly watching this group of old men who had been shouting about kidnapping the Hokage moments ago, yet now were thinking of kneeling and begging for mercy.

This was the upper echelon of the Uchiha.

A pack of paper tigers, fierce in appearance but weak within.

"Mercy?"

Xuan Shi let out a soft laugh.

The laughter echoed through the empty hall, carrying a bone-piercing chill.

He walked up to Elder Setsuna, crouched down, and met his eyes at the same level.

"Elder, your memory seems rather poor."

Xuan Shi raised a hand and pointed at his own right eye.

"Have you forgotten how Shisui died?"

Elder Setsuna's pupils shrank, and he subconsciously shrank back.

"Shisui was the descendant of Senior Kagami, the Uchiha most trusted by the Third Hokage, the so-called inheritor of the Will of Fire."

Xuan Shi's voice was very light, yet it scraped across everyone's eardrums like a knife.

"He didn't want a coup. He wanted to use Kotoamatsukami to stop us. He was even willing to sacrifice the clan's interests for the village."

"And what happened?"

Xuan Shi abruptly withdrew his smile, his gaze turning sinister.

"Danzo dug out his right eye and forced him to jump into the river and kill himself."

"They didn't even spare someone like Shisui, a man whose heart was wholly turned toward the village. What makes you think that handing over power and handing over your dignity will buy you a way to live?"

Elder Setsuna opened his mouth. A clucking sound came from his throat, but he could not say a single word.

"In Danzo's eyes, in the eyes of Konoha's upper echelon."

Xuan Shi stood up and swept his gaze around.

"As long as your surname is Uchiha, as long as those Sharingan are still in your eye sockets, you are sinners. You are tumors that must be cut out."

"Surrender?"

Xuan Shi gave a scornful laugh and kicked over the low table before him.

Crash!

Teacups shattered, fragments flying.

"That's stretching out your neck and offering it up for someone to chop!"

"When the time comes, your eyes will be dug out and soaked in formalin, and your corpses will be thrown into the incinerator, becoming part of Konoha's fertilizer."

"Is that the 'way to live' you want?"

The hall fell into dead silence once more.

Heavier than before, more hopeless than before.

The road to surrender had been blocked.

Their fantasies had been torn apart.

Only naked reality remained—fight, or die.

"Enough!"

A furious shout rang out.

Uchiha Fugaku suddenly straightened.

The clan head's robe on his body moved without wind, and a vast surge of chakra erupted from within him, shaking the surrounding candle flames until they swayed madly. Several lanterns went out on the spot.

Fugaku strode to the center of the hall.

He shoved Yashiro, who was blocking the way, aside and stood at the focus of everyone's gaze.

"How long are you going to keep arguing?"

Fugaku's eyes were bloodred, the three tomoe spinning wildly, almost about to connect into one.

He pointed at his own chest. His voice was hoarse, yet carried a ruthless resolve.

"Just now, in that genjutsu, I died."

"I was stabbed through the heart by the son I raised with my own hands."

Fugaku's chest heaved violently, as if that blade were still stuck there even now.

"That feeling... that feeling of watching your own kin turn into an executioner is ten thousand times more painful than death!"

He turned his head and looked at Elder Setsuna, then at the other high-ranking members.

"You want to surrender? You want to scrape by?"

"You think that as long as you kneel low enough, the butcher's blade won't fall?"

"Stop dreaming!"

Fugaku's spit sprayed onto the elders' faces.

"Itachi's choice has already explained everything. The village doesn't need obedient Uchiha at all. They only need dead Uchiha!"

"We have no way back."

Fugaku took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then opened them again. The confusion and weakness in his eyes had vanished without a trace.

All that remained was a coldness like mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

"A coup means death. Surrender means death. Sitting and waiting to be killed also means death."

"Since we're dead either way."

He suddenly turned and looked at Xuan Shi.

"Then why not gamble once?"

"Why not try going to that 'past' and flip this damned chessboard over to start again?"

Fugaku took a step forward, closing in on Xuan Shi.

There was less than a foot between them.

Their breathing could be heard.

"Xuan Shi."

Fugaku stared fixedly into the young man's eyes. "I, Uchiha Fugaku, have been indecisive all my life, wavering between the village and the clan. I wanted to be a good man, yet I led the entire clan into a ditch."

"But today."

"I don't want to be a good man anymore. I can't be a good man anymore."

"I would rather gamble my soul, even if in the end it scatters to nothing and I never reincarnate..."

Fugaku gritted his teeth, every word seeming to burst out from the cracks between his bones.

"I will never be slaughtered in my sleep like a pig or a dog!"

Boom!

The atmosphere in the hall was completely detonated by those words.

Those gazes that had originally been fearful and lost were gradually replaced by a madness called risking everything on one throw.

The fierceness buried in the Uchiha Clan's bones had finally awakened after being forced into a dead end.

"The Clan Head is right!"

Yashiro climbed up from the floor, wiped the bitter fluid from the corner of his mouth, and a fierce light flashed in his eyes. "If we die, we die on the charge! I'm not afraid of my soul scattering to nothing, I'm afraid of dying like a coward!"

"I'm in!" Inabi slammed a fist into a pillar. "At worst, it's just death. Eighteen years later, I'll be a good man again!"

"Fight them!"

Even Elder Setsuna, who had advocated surrender a moment ago, was now trembling as he stood, a resolute look surging in his cloudy old eyes.

"These old bones of mine... don't want to be taken by Danzo for experiments either!"

Their hearts were united.

Or rather, the wolf pack forced to the edge of a cliff had finally bared its fangs.

Fugaku looked at his excited clansmen, and the stifled gloom in his chest finally dispersed.

He turned his head and looked at Xuan Shi again.

At this moment, there was no longer the arrogance of a clan head in his eyes, nor the scrutiny of an elder.

There was only a solemnity of equality, even of entrustment.

"Xuan Shi."

Fugaku's voice sank.

"That 'Group Regression'... how much confidence do you have?"

This was an unavoidable question.

Everyone's eyes focused on Xuan Shi once again.

Xuan Shi did not evade it.

He met Fugaku's gaze, his expression calm as still water.

He did not rush to answer. Instead, he stretched out one hand and raised a single finger.

"If you are still like now, a plate of scattered sand, each harboring your own schemes."

Xuan Shi shook his head. "Zero."

The atmosphere in the hall froze.

"But if..."

Xuan Shi's finger pointed at Fugaku, then swept over every person present.

"If the entire clan is of one mind."

"If you are willing to hand your chakra, your lives, and your souls over to me without holding anything back."

"If you dare to follow me and jump into that unknown vortex."

Xuan Shi withdrew his hand, clenched it into a fist, and placed it against his chest.

"One hundred percent."

No hesitation.

No humility.

That absolute confidence was like a pillar that stilled the sea, driving hard into the restless depths of everyone's heart.

Fugaku stared at Xuan Shi for a full three seconds.

Then.

He made a move that shocked everyone present.

This clan head of the Uchiha Clan, the highest officer of the Hidden Leaf Police Force.

Actually took half a step back, pressed both hands to the seams of his trousers, and bowed deeply to Xuan Shi.

Ninety degrees.

This was not just a salute.

This was the handover of authority.

This was the entrustment of fate.

"Then I leave it to you."

Fugaku remained bowed, his muffled voice carrying over.

"From this moment on, you are the overall commander of this operation."

"Including me, all three hundred and sixty-two members of the Uchiha Clan are at your command."

"If anyone disobeys..."

Fugaku straightened, killing intent fully revealed in his eyes.

"I will personally cut him down!"

The hall was so silent that not even a crow or sparrow could be heard.

The elders looked at one another, then lowered their heads one after another and cupped their hands in salute to Xuan Shi.

"Follow orders!"

"Follow orders!"

Their voices gathered into a wave, echoing through the ancient shrine.

Xuan Shi looked at the clansmen before him, all with their heads lowered.

In his previous life, they had been lambs waiting for slaughter, arrogant fools.

In this life, they had finally become the blade in his hand.

Though this blade was not sharp enough yet, and was even covered in rust.

But as long as it was honed, it could still kill.

"Good."

Xuan Shi nodded. Without ceremony, he directly took hold of the blade's hilt.

"Since everyone has entrusted their lives to me, then I will lead you all... to survive."

He turned and walked toward the shrine at the very front of the main hall.

There, the ancestors of the Uchiha Clan through the generations were enshrined.

"Pass down my orders."

Xuan Shi's voice became cold and mechanical, like a system issuing a mission.

"First, immediately initiate level-one combat readiness. Seal off the area within five kilometers of Naka Shrine. Any non-Uchiha who approaches is to be killed without exception."

"Yes!" Yashiro roared, then turned and ran outside to make the arrangements.

"Second, cut off all contact between the clan compound and the outside world. Telephone lines, carrier pigeons, summoning beasts—cut them all off. Anyone who attempts to pass information outside, no matter who it is, even if it is your own son or blood brother..."

Xuan Shi looked back at everyone.

"Kill without mercy."

This was to guard against Root's spies, and also against Itachi, who was still watching from the shadows.

"Yes!" Inabi accepted the order and rushed out with several jonin.

"Third."

Xuan Shi looked at Fugaku.

"Clan head, we need a place large enough to hold every member of the clan, and capable of isolating us from outside perception."

"The underground chamber beneath Naka Shrine."

Fugaku answered without hesitation. "There is a barrier left behind by our ancestors there. The space is large enough to accommodate the entire clan."

"Very good."

Xuan Shi nodded. "Before sunset, I want every clan member, regardless of gender or age, even newborn infants, gathered in the underground chamber."

"Tell them this is the highest-level evacuation drill. Those who refuse to come are to be tied up and brought there."

"Group Regression requires the chakra resonance of every Uchiha. Missing even one person will increase the risk of failure."

Fugaku nodded and was just about to turn and make arrangements.

Suddenly, as if he had remembered something, his steps came to an abrupt halt.

His back stiffened.

The atmosphere in the main hall also turned subtle.

Everyone realized one problem.

A massive loophole that could not be avoided.

"The whole clan..."

Fugaku slowly turned around. His face was somewhat pale, and his voice carried a trace of trembling.

"You mean... including Itachi?"

Itachi Uchiha.

The clan head's eldest son.

An Anbu squad captain.

At the same time, he was also the executioner who, in Xuan Shi's "prophecy," had personally slaughtered the entire clan.

If they called him back, it would be no different from inviting a wolf into the house.

If they did not call him back, he possessed the purest Uchiha bloodline and powerful ocular power. Without him, the regression might fail.

Even more terrifying was this: if Itachi noticed something unusual within the clan, what if he acted ahead of time?

This was a dead knot.

Everyone looked at Xuan Shi, waiting for his answer.

Xuan Shi did not answer immediately.

He raised his head and looked at the black plaque above the shrine.

Four large characters were written on it: [In the Name of Fire].

A cold glint flashed through his eyes.

In his previous life, the blade that had pierced his heart still throbbed faintly.

"Yes."

Xuan Shi lowered his head and looked at Fugaku, the corner of his mouth curving into a smile without the slightest warmth.

"Including Itachi."

"He is the genius of the Uchiha, and he possesses the Mangekyo Sharingan. His chakra is the most critical fuel for activating the regression."

"But..." Fugaku wanted to speak, then stopped.

"I know what you are worried about."

Xuan Shi cut him off.

"He is the greatest variable in this plan, and also the sharpest double-edged sword."

"If used poorly, it will cut us."

"But if used well..."

Xuan Shi narrowed his eyes. Deep within his pupils, black gears slowly turned.

"He will be the key we use to tear open the barrier of time."

"Go call him, clan head."

"Tell him... tonight is the final family gathering. No matter which side he has chosen, he must come back for a meal."

"I will prepare a... special gift for him."