What had Uchiha Fugaku endured for his entire life?
For the clan's survival, he had willingly endured the village leadership's suspicion and his clansmen's misunderstanding.
He had forcibly suppressed the Hawk Faction's radicalism, trying to find a fragile line of balance between Konoha and the Uchiha.
Uchiha Fugaku had even placed unrealistic hopes for peace on his own son, Uchiha Itachi.
And what was the result?
In Uchiha Yao's eyes, everything he had done was nothing more than cowardice leading to Clan Annihilation.
And reality seemed to be proving exactly that.
Uchiha Fugaku closed the door to his study.
Alone, he walked into the ancestral hall at the deepest part of the estate.
The memorial tablets of generations of Uchiha Clan ancestors were enshrined here.
Wisps of smoke curled through the dim ancestral hall, lending the names on each tablet a solemn, dignified air.
"Ancestors..."
"I, Uchiha Fugaku, have led the Uchiha Clan. Perhaps I was indecisive; perhaps I missed the right opportunities."
"But I have never, not even for a moment, harbored any intention of betraying the clan."
"Perhaps Yao is right."
"Power is everything."
"Without power enough to make the world fear us, all peace and dignity are merely mirror flowers and water moons."
Three days later, the clan assembly.
Step down voluntarily?
No.
That was not Uchiha Fugaku's dignity.
He would stand before all his clansmen and meet his end in the manner of a clan head.
Even if it meant dying in battle.
Uchiha Yao emerged from Fugaku's estate and bathed in the afternoon sunlight.
He could sense that Uchiha Fugaku would not surrender without a fight.
Yao had expected that much long ago.
After all, he was a man known as the Fierce Eye.
And a man capable of awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan could