Jin's face held no malice, only a profound, mocking pity. He had no intention of hiding his plans from Shisui.
As a strategist, Jin preferred the 'Overt Scheme'—a tactical maneuver executed in plain sight, where the opponent's knowledge of the trap does not help them escape it. He knew that human nature was stubbornly inflexible. Even with the truth laid bare, Shisui would likely walk right into his own execution.
"Impossible," Shisui denied, shaking his head vehemently. His eyes were wide with desperate conviction. "Lord Hokage is a compassionate leader. He would never orchestrate the murder of his own shinobi. You will not succeed, Jin!"
Shisui forcefully suppressed the memories of his recent, highly sterilized meetings with the Hokage. He clung to his idealism, convinced that only Hiruzen Sarutobi could peacefully integrate the Uchiha into the village.
The Elders surrounding the table sighed collectively.
While the Uchiha were notoriously hot-headed, the older veterans could distinguish between a flawed strategy and a death sentence. Before Jin proved his strength, they wouldn't have listened to him either. But Jin had delivered results. Shisui, however, possessed the Mangekyo Sharingan. The biological prerequisite for awakening those eyes was experiencing a psychological trauma so extreme that it permanently altered the brain's chakra flow. That same emotional extremity made Shisui tragically obsessive in his loyalties. He was beyond rational persuasion.
Jin remained entirely unfazed by Shisui's outburst.
"Shisui, do you understand the concept of an 'Overt Scheme'?" Jin asked softly. "It means that no matter what choice you make, my strategic objective is fulfilled."
Jin laid out the grim reality. "If my words cause you to suspect the Third Hokage, you survive. The Uchiha retain a Mangekyo-level combatant, and our military strength increases. I win. Conversely, if you refuse to change and blindly trust the Hokage, Danzo will assassinate you. I will use your corpse as undeniable proof of the administration's corruption to rally the other clans. I win."
Jin smiled thinly. "Unlike a hidden conspiracy, an overt scheme cannot be broken by mere awareness."
Shisui froze. The airtight logic left him with no counterargument. The Elders stared at Jin with a mixture of reverence and terror. To lay out a trap so perfectly that the victim's only choices both resulted in Jin's victory was a level of strategic dominance the Uchiha had never possessed.
Unable to bear the suffocating atmosphere any longer, Shisui turned and fled the courtyard, his mind in turmoil.
Jin watched him leave, his expression returning to a cold neutral. He turned back to the Elders. "Fugaku's decision to surrender his authority simplifies our command structure. We will proceed with the operational plan immediately."
The Elders blinked, visibly confused.
Elder Setsuna furrowed his brow. "Wait. Do you mean the initial plan—infiltrating the Police Force and raiding Root? Or the plan you just told Shisui—waiting for him to be assassinated?"
Elder Yashiro chimed in, equally lost. "Were you just lying to Shisui to manipulate him?"
Jin paused, staring at his commanders in disbelief.
'They truly possess no capacity for multi-layered thinking,' Jin realized with a mental sigh. He rubbed his temples, adjusting his expectations for his subordinates.
"We execute both plans concurrently," Jin explained patiently. "I did not lie to Shisui. I fully believe the Hokage's faction intends to murder him, and I fully intend to weaponize his death. However, waiting for an assassination is a passive variable. We do not halt our active operations while we wait."
Jin clarified his stance. "I promised Shisui I wouldn't lie to him. I never promised to tell him my 'entire' operational layout."
A collective wave of realization—and embarrassment—washed over the Elders.
While Jin's methods bordered on malicious misdirection, they couldn't find a flaw in the logic. Looking at their new leader, the Elders felt a profound sense of security. Having a commander this ruthlessly cunning meant that if the Hokage wanted to trap the Uchiha, the village would have to bleed for it.
***
Meanwhile, Shisui wandered blindly through the Uchiha compound.
His mind was a battlefield. He knew he shouldn't let Jin's venomous words affect him, but Shisui was an elite Anbu operative—his survival relied on his ability to read people and detect subtle threats. And his instincts were screaming that Jin was right.
'The Hokage...' Shisui analyzed his recent interactions. 'Ever since I reported the awakening of my Kotoamatsukami, Lord Third has never met me alone. There are always at least two elite Anbu guards flanking him. And... he never makes direct eye contact with me anymore.'
Before today, Shisui had rationalized this as standard security protocol for the Hokage. But illuminated by Jin's brutal logic, it looked exactly like what it was: the behavior of an old man terrified of being mind-controlled. The realization of that distrust felt like a physical knife in Shisui's gut.
As he walked, the low murmurs of his fellow clansmen broke his concentration.
"Did you hear Elder Jin's speech?"
"Yeah. I never thought the Third Hokage could be that ruthless. He always looks so kind..."
"You think Jin is exaggerating?"
"Maybe, but there are too many 'coincidences.' We need to watch our backs."
Shisui frowned. The classified information Jin had discussed in the courtyard was already spreading through the clan.
Wanting to understand the extent of the damage, Shisui quickly slipped into an empty alley, formed a hand seal, and used the Transformation Jutsu to disguise himself as a generic Uchiha civilian. He blended into a gathering crowd near the market.
There, he listened to the full breakdown of Jin's historical analysis.
He heard about the suspiciously convenient explosive tag that killed Nawaki Senju. He heard about the Uzumaki clan's extermination while Konoha reinforcements 'lagged.' He heard about Orochimaru's illicit funding, and Minato's suspiciously timed death.
But what paralyzed Shisui was the analysis of Sakumo Hatake—the White Fang.
'An S-Rank mission failure was leaked to the civilian public in less than twenty-four hours,' Shisui thought, his Anbu training tearing the official narrative apart. 'That requires breaching the highest echelon of Konoha's intelligence cipher division. It is physically impossible for a random rumor to bypass that security. It had to be intentionally declassified and spread by the administration. And they never launched an investigation to find the mole.'
A cold sweat broke out across Shisui's back. One incident could be a tragedy. Two could be a coincidence. But a fifty-year pattern of every political rival dying under highly convenient circumstances?
Shisui looked toward the Hokage Monument towering over the village. For the first time in his life, his absolute faith cracked.
'Lord Hokage... can I truly trust you?'