At the residence on the other side of Konoha, Fugaku arrived with his son, Itachi Uchiha.
Fugaku didn’t particularly care why Kei hadn’t come out to receive him as clan head. Itachi, however, was quite displeased that they had been received by an Uchiha he didn’t even know.
It wasn’t that he felt personally looked down upon. Rather, Kei had only recently split away from the main clan, and yet he was already treating the Uchiha Clan with such disregard.
Wasn’t that going a little too far?
A divided clan could never reach a unified consensus in the future. And without a unified position, there was no way for the Uchiha to gain Konoha’s acceptance.
"Where is Kei-kun? Just because you’ve moved out, does that mean you’re no longer Uchiha? How dare you treat the head of the Uchiha Clan with such disrespect?"
Tenzen ignored the child.
Lord Kei had once commented on this child.
He’s a good boy, but he hasn’t grown up in a good environment.
A sensible five-year-old whose values had yet to fully form could easily be influenced by what adults said and did, gradually becoming the person those adults expected him to be.
That was why adults so often liked children who should have been innocent and carefree, yet appeared prematurely mature.
Through verbal encouragement and demands, along with approval of certain behaviors, adults were constantly guiding children toward things they had no business thinking about at such a young age.
And what those adults wanted their children to accomplish was often nothing more than something they themselves had failed to accomplish when they were young.
They simply hoped that the next generation could achieve it in their place.
.
If the father was a dragon, the son was unlikely to be mediocre.
If the father wasn’t, then the son was unlikely to become one either.
Itachi Uchiha was only five years old.
He hadn’t even seen much of the world yet. What kind of insight could he possibly possess?
When someone with little worldly experience tried to contemplate an extremely complicated problem, they could easily arrive at a conclusion they considered absolutely certain, yet which was actually absurd.
The end result was that a good child would rely on his own imagination to fulfill the expectations of adults, eventually becoming something completely distorted.
Itachi was a good child.
He wanted to become the person the adults expected him to be.
Konoha encouraged him to become Hokage. The Uchiha expected him to become Hokage. So he began molding himself according to his own imagined image of what a Hokage should be.
Therefore, his later inhuman ideas couldn’t simply be blamed on the child.
It was his environment that had shaped him into that person.
Praising someone to death really was a disgusting tactic.
So although Tenzen didn’t particularly like this little brat, he didn’t blame him either.
He politely invited Fugaku to take a seat.
He also offered no explanation for why Lord Kei hadn’t come to receive them.
Instead, Tenzen simply activated his Mangekyō Sharingan.
That alone was enough to demonstrate that he was qualified to receive Fugaku.
The slight displeasure Fugaku had developed because of Itachi’s words, and his initial feeling that Kei was being discourteous, immediately vanished.
Fugaku’s pupils widened.
"What? You awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan too! How did you do it?"
In Fugaku’s mind, the young girl Uchiha Oboro had already awakened her Mangekyō Sharingan as well.
What he didn’t know was that Oboro’s Mangekyō had originally been fake.
It had merely become real now.
After saying that, Fugaku sighed and shook his head.
His own question had been even more impolite.
Before Tenzen could answer, Fugaku continued on his own.
"Ah, I was being rude. As someone who has awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan myself, how could I not know that you must have gone through something terrible recently? You’ve had a difficult time... Tenzen-kun."
As he spoke, he bowed to Tenzen.
His gesture simultaneously expressed his sympathy and his gratitude for the contribution Tenzen had made to the Uchiha Clan.
For an Uchiha, awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan was perhaps the greatest contribution one could make to the clan.
Yet every awakening of the Mangekyō Sharingan represented the occurrence of a human tragedy.
Asking someone what misfortune they had suffered was indeed rather impolite.
Fugaku wore an expression of genuine empathy, leaving even Tenzen somewhat embarrassed.
"Lord Fugaku, I’m fine. I haven’t suffered any misfortune. Lord Kei asked me to receive you precisely so that I could tell you the correct method of awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan. Perhaps this can prevent many unnecessary tragedies."
Tenzen was genuinely speechless.
I haven’t even said anything, and you’re already acting as though my entire family has died. This is awkward.
The moment Fugaku heard this, he excitedly grabbed Tenzen’s hand.
Fugaku had been troubled by the supposed curse of the Sharingan for decades. Hearing such news suddenly was almost too unbelievable for him.
"What do you mean? Are you saying that you awakened it without suffering any misfortune?"
This was something significant enough to rewrite the clan’s history.
Fugaku absolutely had to get a clear answer.
Tenzen didn’t answer his question.
Instead, he pulled his hand free and casually asked,
"Lord Fugaku, how did you awaken your Mangekyō Sharingan back then?"
Tenzen’s question made Fugaku somewhat uncomfortable.
Such information was highly confidential and normally shouldn’t be disclosed to outsiders.
After all, battles between shinobi were often battles of intelligence.
When two sides were relatively equal in strength, whoever possessed more information about their opponent would have a greater chance of victory.
But Fugaku had no choice but to answer Tenzen’s question.
If what Tenzen said was true, the Uchiha Clan would undergo a tremendous transformation.
For so many years, how many madmen had destroyed their own families in an attempt to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan?
And yet, none of those attempts had ended well.
If there was now a way to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan while allowing the clan to pay a far smaller price in lives, then nothing else mattered more.
After all, the Uchiha Clan’s population was already dwindling.
No matter what, Fugaku had to learn Tenzen’s method.
However, recalling his own misfortune wasn’t a pleasant experience.
Fugaku’s mood sank.
He reached over and gently stroked Itachi’s head, then looked out at the Uchiha ancestral district, which had once been dilapidated but was now prosperous.
He let out a long breath, seemingly feeling considerably more at peace.
"That year, Itachi was still an infant, and you hadn’t arrived yet. My parents passed away one after another. Before my father died, he held my hand and entrusted the Uchiha Clan to me."
As he spoke, Fugaku casually straightened Itachi’s collar.
It was as though, while Fugaku was speaking about his own elders, those elders were also watching their grandson.
He couldn’t allow his son to be disrespectful in front of them.
"I saw unwillingness and regret in my father’s eyes as he lay on the verge of death. The Uchiha had managed to survive under his leadership, but we had lost the glory we once possessed. My father believed that he hadn’t been a qualified clan head, so he placed all his hopes in me."
At this point, Fugaku clenched his fists.
"I knelt before my father’s spirit tablet. The pain of losing a loved one, combined with the sudden burden that had fallen upon me, made it difficult for me to breathe. I didn’t even dare look into my father’s unwilling eyes. But at the moment he finally departed this world with his regrets, I suddenly felt that I had been far too incompetent. I had failed my father’s expectations."
"Therefore, I swore that I would lead the Uchiha Clan back to glory."
As he spoke, Fugaku activated his Mangekyō Sharingan.
Three tomoe-like markings accompanied by three red dots formed the distinctive pattern of Fugaku’s Mangekyō Sharingan.
"Ōyamatsumi. This is the dōjutsu of my Mangekyō Sharingan."
"But ironically, among all the records the Uchiha possess concerning the Sharingan, this is considered the most useless dōjutsu."
"It has absolutely no combat capability."
"It can only increase the clan’s fertility."
"And the Uchiha don’t have many people of suitable age to have children anymore."
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