Uchiha Gathering

The spring breeze of Konoha in 1955 had not yet fully swept across the entire Shinobi World, and just a few months after Kato Osamu completed Sage Mode and returned to the Hidden Spirit Village, immersing himself in analyzing and absorbing the Truth-Seeking Orb, something happened in Konoha that was neither big nor small...

The Uchiha Clan's greatest genius, known as Body Flicker Shisui Uchiha, is dead...

Following an investigation by the Anbu, Shisui Uchiha's cause of death was determined to be suicide, even though his two Mangekyō Sharingan had disappeared...

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! How could Shisui commit suicide!" It was already close to evening, but the Uchiha Clan's Naka Shrine was still bustling with activity. Apart from those who stayed behind, all the adult males of the Uchiha Clan who had awakened their Sharingan had gathered here.

Fugaku Uchiha sat quietly in the head seat, while an old man appeared to his left. Both of them frowned slightly as they listened to the noise of the crowd below.

"Yashiro, you went with the Anbu to investigate. What exactly happened?" The death of a genius from the Uchiha Clan necessitates the involvement of the Uchiha Clan members in the investigation. What puzzled Fugaku Uchiha was that, even so, the village still ruled Shisui's death a suicide...

Upon hearing Fugaku Uchiha speak, everyone fell silent, their gazes fixed on the Yashiro Uchiha. They didn't have detailed information; they were simply shocked to hear of Shisui's suicide...

"Clan Chief Fugaku Uchiha, Elder Setsuna, I accompanied the Anbu to the scene of Shisui's disappearance. There was no Shisui there, only some belongings. Along the river, we discovered pieces of a mangled, unrecognizable body..."

Recalling that scene, Yashiro Uchiha's eyes turned bloodshot, his hands clenching slightly. The Uchiha Clan members behind him, hearing Yashiro's words, were also stunned for a moment. Then, in the dim light of the day, clusters of crimson eyes lit up, and an unquenchable rage rose in their hearts...

"Continue..." Fugaku Uchiha frowned. His clansmen's bloodshot eyes were fixed on him and the Yashiro, but their anger was directed at the village. If a proper solution wasn't reached tonight, he feared he would struggle to suppress this rage that threatened to consume Konoha ...

"Yes... Under these circumstances, Shisui definitely did not commit suicide. The Anbu present and I all know that the scattered remains were dismembered by a sharp weapon... and it wasn't until we found Shisui's head..."

"Shisui's eyes... have disappeared..."

"Under these circumstances, how could the village possibly classify Shisui's death as suicide?!" Setsuna Uchiha slammed his hand on the armrest. As a representative of the Uchiha Clan's hawkish faction, he seemed to have reached his breaking point...

"It's because later, after the Anbu extracted the remaining tissue from Shisui's eye socket, they discovered traces of Shisui's two fingers, and among Shisui's belongings, there was a suicide note written by Shisui... After examination, it was confirmed to Shisui's handwriting..."

"His last words clearly stated... Shisui had grown weary of the ninja life... so he chose suicide..."

The initially furious Uchiha Clan members became increasingly confused as they listened. What was going on?

"So, Shisui personally removed his own eyes? And even wrote a will?"

"Then why was his body damaged by someone else? It couldn't have been Shisui who did it, could it?"

What exactly happened?

Fugaku Uchiha frowned deeply. How could there be such a strange way of dying? For a moment, he was also unsure what to do.

"First of all, Shisui definitely did not commit suicide. Secondly, if he wrote the suicide note and removed his eyes himself, then either he was being controlled by someone, or he was trying to cover something up..." Setsuna Uchiha, as expected of a ninja from the same era as the Third Hokage, understood something after only a little thought.

"Being dismembered... this person must have deeply hated Shisui, otherwise they wouldn't have done such a thing... that almost completely eliminates the possibility that the murderer killed randomly..."

"The remaining possibilities are nothing more than a few: either a deep-seated hatred stemming from the murder of one's father or the theft of one's wife; or greed leading to murder for money; or concealing a secret and silencing witnesses..."

"If it were a deep-seated hatred, years of war would naturally have created countless enemies, but most of them would be from other villages. If people from other villages suddenly arrived, the village wouldn't be so peaceful..."

"And the only possibility for Shisui's missing eyes is..."

As Setsuna Uchiha spoke, Fugaku Uchiha's eyes seemed to flash, as if he vaguely recalled a piece of information he had received earlier: Kakashi Hatake had been inexplicably beaten and seriously injured and had been unconscious for a week, and the culprit was still a mystery. Seeing that his clansmen seemed to be captivated by Setsuna Uchiha's speculation, Fugaku Uchiha coughed lightly, interrupting Setsuna.

"Elder Setsuna, I received news that last year, after the peace treaty was signed with Kumogakure, Kakashi Hatake was severely injured by someone from another village, and this person seems to remain a mystery to this day... Moreover, quite a few people know about this..."

"You mean, the Shisui incident was the work of someone from another village?" Setsuna Uchiha turned to look at Fugaku Uchiha, a cold glint in his eyes.

As a hawkish elder, he led the Uchiha Clan rebellion and was imprisoned by Tobirama Senju. Later, the Third released him to ease tensions with the Uchiha Clan, but Setsuna Uchiha still harbored resentment about reclaiming the right to Hokage from the Senju faction...

He had always looked down on doves like Fugaku Uchiha, but unfortunately, his strength was greatly diminished after his release from prison, and his prestige within the clan was no longer what Fugaku Uchiha had cultivated over many years...

"At least there's that possibility..."

"But how do we explain Shisui's loss of both eyes?"

"Elder Setsuna also said that Shisui most likely voluntarily removed his own eyes. Would a member of the Uchiha Clan personally give away his Sharingan to someone from another village?"

Perhaps from the very beginning, Fugaku Uchiha's attitude towards Konoha was weak, and he never seemed to have considered a military coup. From Orochimaru to Minato Namikaze, he consistently strived to cultivate good relations with the Hokage faction, hoping to improve the Uchiha Clan's political environment in Konoha. Even his temporary displays of strength were merely attempts to appease his clansmen...

Setsuna Uchiha had already seen through Fugaku Uchiha's methods, but unfortunately, he was only an elder, not the clan head...

"Hmph, Fugaku Uchiha, you should understand how devastating this is for the Uchiha Clan... No one knows better than you, the clan head, what Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan represents..."

"I understand, no need for Elder Setsuna to remind me, so the most urgent task now is to find Shisui's Sharingan..."

"What a joke! If you don't even know who your opponent is, where do you even begin?" Seeing the clan leader and elders clashing again, the Uchiha Clan members seemed to take it all in stride, remaining silent.

The anger sparked by Shisui's death seemed to gradually dissipate amidst this pointless bickering. As dusk fell and night descended, the burning passion had completely cooled, and a sudden gust of chilly wind sent a shiver down everyone's spine...

"Yashiro, continue investigating Shisui's death..."

"Inabi, Tekka, you two will join the investigation with Yashiro. Leave the Konoha Military Police Force detail to Yakumi..."

"Yes!"

"Until the truth comes out, no clansmen are allowed to act rashly..." Seeing that the most difficult moment had passed, Fugaku Uchiha breathed a slight sigh of relief. He glanced coldly at Setsuna Uchiha, then led his loyal clansmen away slowly. The remaining Uchiha Clan clansmen also gradually left the Naka Shrine in twos and threes...

As he faced the pitch-black night and gazed at the starry sky, a shadow of gloom crept into Fugaku Uchiha's heart. With his house, its lights on, now almost within reach, Fugaku Uchiha hesitated, even reluctant to push open the gate and face the child he had watched grow up.

'Itachi... did you... do that?'

It wasn't that he didn't want to believe Itachi, but Itachi's behavior had become increasingly strange lately, and even... since joining the Anbu, he had rarely attended clan gatherings, and his gaze towards his clansmen had grown increasingly cold...

Fortunately, Itachi doesn't seem to be back tonight...

"Elder... what should we do next..." Many clan members trusted Fugaku Uchiha as their clan leader, but even more hawkish clan members agreed with Setsuna Uchiha. Although they wouldn't openly disagree with Fugaku Uchiha, after the gathering, when the clan members left, they returned to Setsuna Uchiha's residence.

"The murderer who killed Shisui must be someone from the village... I don't even need to verify it; I already have the answer in my heart..."

"But our current strength is too weak. Only by integrating the power of the entire Uchiha Clan can we have a chance to fight back..."

"What a pity... Fugaku Uchiha, that fool..."

"His ideas will eventually bring destruction to the Uchiha Clan..." In his own residence, Setsuna Uchiha no longer held back, speaking frankly. Having lived through the time of the Second Tobirama, Tobirama, he naturally understood the Uchiha Clan's position in the eyes of Konoha High Command —a malignant tumor that would be eliminated sooner or later. Only a clan head like Fugaku Uchiha, numbed by the Third Hokage's rhetoric, would believe that Konoha could tolerate the Uchiha Clan, and that the Uchiha Clan could one day coexist harmoniously with the Konoha...

"Unless the entire Konoha High Command, with the Third Hokage at its core, is wiped out..."

"Fugaku Uchiha, you're too naive..." The political struggles in Konoha have always been a matter of life and death. Setsuna Uchiha never believed any politician's promises; he only believed in the power he held in his own hands.

Unfortunately, he doesn't have enough power right now...