Fugaku was not good at talking about pressure.
After dinner the next day, he called Itachi into his study, but the few sentences he had prepared remained unspoken for a long time.
There were no mission scrolls on the desk.
Nor were there any training records.
Itachi sat perfectly straight, as though waiting for a formal interrogation.
Looking at his posture, Fugaku suddenly realized that his son had grown used to having to provide answers every time they spoke alone.
"Relax," he said.
There was no noticeable change in Itachi's shoulders.
Fugaku had to try a more direct question.
"What worries you most lately?"
Itachi raised his eyes, uncertainty appearing in his expression for the first time.
He could analyze intelligence from the border.
He could assess Root's rhetoric.
He could identify what was missing from a report.
But "what worries you most" had no standard answer.
The silence lasted a long time.
Only then did Itachi say quietly, "If my judgment is wrong, someone might die."
Fugaku had meant to say that all shinobi had to bear the consequences of their judgments.
But as the words reached his lips, he remembered Gen's reminder and swallowed them.
"What else?"
Itachi's fingers tightened slightly.
"If the village and the clan come into conflict again, I might still be unable to find a solution both sides can accept."
This was what he had been carrying all along.
The Night of the Nine-Tails had not become the starting point of a slaughter, and the Uchiha had, for the time being, avoided isolation.
But Itachi still feared that day would return.
He took part in every review not merely because he was good at observing.
It was also because he wanted to seal every potential crack before it opened.
A child was trying to