Itachi read the vague advisory three times.
Monitor whether Shisui continued to put the village first.
On its face, this was not an order.
Nor a threat.
It did not even seem malicious.
But precisely because it read so much like a reminder, it was all the more dangerous.
If Itachi had accepted those words at the time, he would have begun assessing Shisui on his own.
He would have watched every moment of Shisui's hesitation.
Every silence.
Every pause as he stood between the clan meeting and the village.
Then he would have believed those judgments were entirely his own.
Gen looked at the advisory and said, "They wanted more than his eyes."
Shisui looked up.
"They also wanted to take away the witness."
"Exactly."
Gen placed the advisory in the center of the table.
"If something happened to Shisui, and Itachi was the only person who had been steered into observing him beforehand, every subsequent judgment would revolve around Itachi."
Itachi's expression darkened.
That meant Root did not even need to make him act directly.
They only needed to make him the sole witness, the only person who could explain the changes in Shisui, and the entire Evidence Chain would be narrowed down to him.
Then the theft of Shisui's eyes might be recorded as a mission accident.
Shisui's sacrifice might be recorded as a personal choice.
And Itachi's silence would become the sole, incomplete testimony supporting those accounts.
This was crueler than taking his eyes.
Taking his eyes meant taking his power.
Taking away the witness meant taking away the possibility of proving what had happened.
After hearing this, Fugaku immediately demanded that the old records related to the Shisui incident be included in the parallel review.
Inside the Hokage Building, Danzo finally began to fight back.