Izumi Uchiha's Resolve

[The scene on the Canopy Screen shifted.]

[Deep beneath Naka Shrine, Izumi Uchiha carried a dim oil lamp down the Spiral Stone Steps, where few people ever ventured.]

[Following vague directions in an ancient text, she found a hidden door behind a massive relief of the Uchiha Gunbai.]

[Complex Sealing Technique formulas covered the door, but the Runes that should have glowed with Chakra were dull. In places, they were even broken, as though something had corroded them.]

[Izumi's heart sank. A terrible premonition rose within her.]

[She took a deep breath and gave the stone door a gentle push. With a low creak, it slowly opened a crack.]

[The space beyond had been sealed for years, and the air reeked of decay.]

[Suppressing her discomfort, Izumi raised the lamp and squeezed through sideways.]

[Before her lay a small, circular Stone Chamber. A heap of fragments lay scattered at its center.]

[Among them were pink, crystalline shards that glimmered with an ominous light.]

[The seal had been broken!]

[It had not collapsed completely, but it had cracked. More importantly, the Demon called Naraka in the ancient text was clearly no longer inside!]

[He had escaped!]

[A chill shot from the soles of Izumi's feet to the top of her head. Her limbs went cold.]

[The words of the ancient text exploded through her mind like thunder: "If conflict suddenly erupts within the clan without cause, inspect the seal at once. Prevent him from breaking free and bewitching their minds!"]

[It all fit!]

[The clan's inexplicably worsening disputes, the clan members' increasingly uncontrollable emotions, those malicious rumors, Itachi's unbearably heavy gaze, and Brother Shisui's covert actions!]

[Naraka was behind it. He was the one pulling the strings!]

[Terror seized her. She wanted to rush out and tell the clan leader—tell anyone who might still listen!]

[But another thought came even faster: Where's the proof?]

[She looked around the site of the broken seal. Apart from the stone glowing pink, she had no concrete evidence that Naraka existed or had done any of this.]

[Who would believe a legend written on an ancient scroll?]

[With the clan on edge and everyone suspicious of one another, speaking up might only get her branded a lunatic spreading panic. The Radical Faction might even call her a traitor undermining morale.]

[Besides, Itachi and Brother Shisui were clearly dealing with something grave. Did they already know?]

[Had Itachi's haste that day had something to do with this? She could not recklessly disrupt their plans or add to their burden.]

[The lamplight trembled in her hand, illuminating her pale face as resolve slowly took hold.]

[The fear remained, but her sense of responsibility to her clan and the people she cared about outweighed it.]

[She slowly clenched her fist.]

[Someone has to do this.]

[If I can't speak openly, I'll investigate in secret.]

[She needed to learn where Naraka had gone, what form he had taken, and what he was plotting.]

[She picked up the stone, carefully withdrew from the Stone Chamber, and closed the hidden door.]

[Standing at the foot of the dim staircase, she no longer looked like the gentle, slightly timid girl she had been. Her eyes held the sharpness and determination of an investigator.]

The scene on the Canopy Screen ended there.

Sasuke Uchiha stood frozen, his dark eyes fixed on the gentle yet resolute Uchiha woman on the screen—Izumi Uchiha.

Confusion washed over him like icy water, dousing the hatred that normally burned within him and leaving his thoughts at a standstill.

Sasuke's memories of Izumi Uchiha were vague. She seemed to have been an older girl from a branch family, quiet, always interrupting his conversations with Itachi. She had been very kind to him, too.

That was all Sasuke Uchiha remembered of her.

Was she my brother's lover? What happened to her in the end? Did her investigation also vanish beneath that man's cold blade?

A seal? A Demon? Naraka? The words struck at everything he thought he knew.

As far as he knew, Uchiha history was a tale of glory and power, ending in blood and tears when that man betrayed them.

What Demon? What seal? Something like that was hidden beneath the clan grounds? Why had no one ever told me? Father, Mother—even that man had never mentioned it!

If... if this Naraka really existed?

If the clan's madness hadn't come entirely from resentment toward the village and a hunger for power?

What if an outside evil had deliberately magnified and steered it?

Then who was to blame for the tragedy?

Itachi Uchiha, who carried out the massacre? Shimura Danzō, who plotted it? The Demon called Naraka? Or the Konoha Leadership, who noticed nothing and might even have made matters worse?

All of it had suddenly made his path to revenge far less clear.

The next day, the Canopy Screen began playing again on schedule.

[The scene showed a secluded, dim side hall of Naka Shrine, where four Uchiha elders were holding a secret meeting.]

["Fugaku has disappointed us!" First Elder Setsuna Uchiha spoke first, his aged voice thick with barely contained anger.]

[He drove his cane against the floor with a heavy thud. "Clan meeting after clan meeting, our people have grown fired up. We're poised to act."]

["Yet he keeps fobbing them off with 'stay calm' and 'consider the long term'! What is he waiting for? For the Konoha Leadership to offer us peace on a silver platter?"]

[Second Elder's face darkened. His fingertips tapped absently on the table. Tap. Tap. "More likely, we'll be met by Shimura Danzō's sharpened butcher's blade!"]

["The isolation after the Nine-Tails Incident, the Military Police Force's reduced authority, the recent string of 'accidents'—the Konoha Leadership's hostility could not be clearer!"]

["Fugaku's indecision isn't protecting the clan. It's pushing us deeper into the Abyss! Can't he see what's happening?!"]

[Third Elder frowned deeply, his tone somewhat calmer. "Fugaku has always been steady by nature, not one for rash action. Wasn't that why we chose him as clan leader?"]

["Perhaps he really is looking for a way out without bloodshed. After all, communicating with the leadership takes time..."]

["Time?" Fourth Elder cut him off with a sharp sneer. "Time is what we lack most! Third Elder, can't you feel it? We can barely hold the clan's young people back!"]

["Every time a Konoha Ninja provokes them, every time they see those Root thugs swaggering outside our clan grounds, their anger burns hotter! To the young, Fugaku's 'steadiness' looks like cowardice and incompetence!"]