Before Shirone arrived from underground, Fugaku opened the stone tablet's secret chamber.
Not all of it.
Four passages on the final layer related to Black Zetsu's alterations were projected separately onto chakra-free paper.
The Dōjutsu structures that only the Mangekyo and Rinnegan could read remained sealed.
Clan members' names, bloodline records, and ritual details were also excluded from public disclosure.
Fugaku did not use the external threat to demand that all opponents fall silent.
The clan meeting first recorded three positions.
The first rejected any disclosure.
The stone tablet belonged to the Uchiha, and the Five Nations might well use the investigation into Black Zetsu to study the Sharingan.
The second advocated full disclosure.
Only by handing over everything could the clan prove it had not concealed Kaguya's plan.
The third supported limited disclosure but demanded that outside parties also submit their own altered materials.
Fugaku chose the third.
Not because it carried no risk.
But because it allowed the evidence to be verified without handing every boundary of the clan over to others at once.
The decision and the reasons for opposing it were archived together.
If limited disclosure still led to the Dōjutsu being leaked later, no one could pretend the meeting had failed to foresee it.
Fugaku personally took responsibility for opening the original.
If the disclosure exceeded its agreed scope, the clan meeting could question him again.
If refusing full disclosure left key evidence missing, outside parties could also identify the specific gaps.
Limited disclosure did not mean stopping forever wherever the clan leader said to stop.
It required fresh justification for every subsequent expansion.
Itachi stood before the stone tablet and activated his Three Tomoe Sharingan.
He did not have the Mangekyo.
He could not see the highest layer's Dōjutsu content.
What he could observe