An island built upon the sea, the ruins of the Land of Whirlpools.
"Fugaku!" Mikoto, waiting anxiously, spotted Fugaku and the others arriving. She rushed forward instantly, holding her husband in a tight embrace.
Fugaku gently patted Mikoto's shoulder, a quiet reassurance that he was alright and she needn't worry.
"Thank you, Minato." Fugaku said, turning to acknowledge the one who had brought them back.
However, the distance between him and Naruto had been too great. The Minato clone remained unresponsive, his presence dimmed, offering little reaction to Fugaku's words.
"Where are Itachi and Sasuke?" Mikoto's emotions steadied, her gaze sweeping the group, searching for her sons.
Neither was among those who had returned.
A faint, unsettling dread began to stir within her. 'Could it be that they...?'
"Sasuke is fine, and Itachi is fine too," Fugaku assured her, his hand still resting on her shoulder. Years of marriage meant Mikoto understood the unspoken weight behind his gesture. Though anxiety still gripped her, she held back the questions bubbling up, unwilling to add to her husband's burden.
Fugaku then turned, bowing deeply to the Uchiha gathered before him. "Everyone... I'm sorry."
The surviving Uchiha were taken aback by his gesture, exchanging confused glances.
Taking a deep breath of the salty sea breeze, Fugaku began to recount, slowly and deliberately, everything that had happened that night. He spoke in detail, occasionally weaving in his own thoughts and perspective.
When they heard that the Uchiha clan, men and women, young and old alike, had all been killed, their eyes turned red with grief.
A clan passed down for over thousand year, gone. Just like that.
From over a thousand clansmen, only a hundred or so remained.
Friends, relatives... one day sharing meals and laughter, the next simply gone.
Few could accept such a brutal reality.
At the thought of their crushing loss, several of the hundred-plus Uchiha present activated their Three-Tomoe Sharingan. More than ten awakened the Two-Tomoe.
To Fugaku's disappointment, not a single Mangekyo flared among them.
He supposed it made sense. The Uchiha clan had endured Three Shinobi World Wars, countless dying in battle. Yet, Mangekyo users in their history were few and far between. If awakening it were easy, the Uchiha would have dominated the ninja world long ago.
The Mangekyo wasn't something you could seek out, it was something you stumbled upon, if ever.
A few Three-Tomoe and Two-Tomoe were good enough. It was certainly better than everyone being slaughtered only to awaken a Single-Tomoe.
"Itachi is my child. That he did this... it is because I, as his father, failed to raise him well. I am a failure as a Father and Clan Head"
"It is precisely because of this that this tragedy has occurred."
"From today... I resign as Uchiha Clan Head."
Fugaku's voice held an unprecedented solemnity. Someone had to bear responsibility for the night's events, someone had to pay. As Clan Head, Fugaku couldn't shirk that, especially when one of the primary culprits was his own son.
Faced with his resignation, the Uchiha stood stunned, looking at each other, unsure how to respond.
Indeed, Itachi was Fugaku's son, and Fugaku shared responsibility for the Uchiha's dire state. Yet, if it hadn't been for him, perhaps even this small group wouldn't have survived. They would have truly been annihilated.
From the surviving Uchiha elites, those in the Land of Whirlpools learned of Itachi's strength, of the Masked Man's strength, of the power of the Mangekyo.
No matter how powerful a Three-Tomoe user had been considered within the clan before, they couldn't last more than a few rounds against those two.
In the face of such absolute strength, they were forced to see their own weakness. So, the Three-Tomoe wasn't invincible after all. Their pride, their arrogance all felt hollow.
So, above the Three-Tomoe, there were eyes even more powerful. The Mangekyo, the legendary Mangekyo Sharingan. The official databook even praised the Mangekyo Sharingan as 'the strongest eyes blessed by Sage of Six Paths, being able to see through all illusions, strongest dojutsu.'
Everything they'd known before was like looking at the sky from the bottom of a well.
A coup had been an impossible victory, doomed to failure from the start. Leaving... leaving was the only right choice.
Though not all Uchiha were arrogant and conceited. Most were simply... awkward tsundere. They didn't know what to say in this situation, what words were even appropriate.
Most importantly, all the Uchiha present could be considered Fugaku's confidants and loyal followers, otherwise, they wouldn't have followed him to the Land of Whirlpools.
"Uncle Fugaku... this isn't your fault." Naruto's voice echoed from the sky. He descended like a meteorite, impacting the ground with a *CRASH*, creating a deep pit more than a meter wide. Naruto stood in the center, arms crossed, an almost divine aura radiating from him.
"The fault doesn't lie with you," he said slowly. "It lies with Konoha."
"If it weren't for Konoha's constant oppression... if it weren't for Konoha's repeated persecution... if it weren't for Konoha's unreasonable exclusion..."
"How could the Uchiha have fallen to this point?"
"Throughout the three Shinobi World Wars, the Uchiha gave everything, every time. Every time, the Uchiha suffered the highest casualties."
"The Uchiha have made unparalleled contributions to Konoha, undeniable contributions to its very establishment. But what did you get? Honor? Power? Or the position of leader?"
"You got none of it. All you got was betrayal."
"It was Konoha that gradually pushed the Uchiha to the edge of the village. It was Konoha that induced your clansman, Itachi, to turn against you. It was Konoha that set up this scheme against the Uchiha. You were just innocent victims."
"You are not wrong. The Uchiha are not wrong."
"The root cause of everything that happened tonight... is Konoha."
Naruto's voice was like the whisper of a demon from hell, guiding the Uchiha's thoughts. Though he spoke the truth.
His words stirred many of the Uchiha, prompting them to voice their agreement with Fugaku.
"Yes, Clan Head Fugaku!"
"If it weren't for you... perhaps all of us today would have..."
"Clan Head Fugaku, you can't..."
It wasn't that none of the Uchiha blamed Fugaku, losing friends and relatives overnight left no one untouched by grief or anger. But they were more lost, uncertain about their future, adrift.
The only one they could cling to was Fugaku. While other clansmen had pursued a disastrous coup, Fugaku had rationally chosen to preserve the Uchiha bloodline. And that decision had been proven right.
"But I no longer feel fit to be Clan Head," Fugaku said, shaking his head in dejection.
He made alot of mistakes, the constant possibilities of what else he could have done to prevent tonight's massacre kept repeating in this head, but in the end he was tired and afraid. Tired from trying to maintain balance within and outside the clan and afraid that he might create another Itachi.
It was too much.
Looking towards Izumi, who remained in a coma, Fugaku seemed to reach a silent decision.
'She is our Uchiha's hope. She has the drive, desire and power to rebuild the Uchiha clan.'
If the Uchiha before the massacre had been deeply irrational, internally fractured, with factions harboring their own schemes and calculations, the surviving Uchiha in the Land of Whirlpools were now united as never before.
Reality had delivered a cruel slap, shaking them awake and forcing them to confront the chasm between themselves and the true powerhouses of the ninja world.
Weakness wasn't the greatest original sin. Arrogance was. A powerful enemy wasn't scary, a needlessly stubborn teammate was.
The goals of the surviving Uchiha were now frighteningly consistent: deep blood feuds could only be settled with blood.
Fugaku turned his head, looking towards the distant direction of Konoha.
"We will go back. We will go back. The day we return... will be the day Konoha is destroyed."
At that moment, Naruto turned his head, looking thoughtfully in another direction, towards the Uzumaki Clan Shrine located elsewhere in the Land of Whirlpools.
There lay the greatest secret of the Uzumaki clan. But now was not the time.
"Naruto-kun... Sasuke, he...?" Mikoto asked, looking between Naruto and her husband.
"Don't worry," Naruto said, his expression softening slightly as he met Mikoto's gaze. "Leave Sasuke to me."
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