Upon Jin Uchiha's command, the clan mobilized with the terrifying precision of a well-oiled machine.
Yashiro and Setsuna took command of two-thirds of the Uchiha's elite Jonin forces. Their objective: the perimeter of Danzo's subterranean Root Headquarters. Thanks to Jin's aggressive intelligence-gathering network, the exact location of the once-classified base was now known. The strike team vanished into the shadows, under strict orders to maintain absolute stealth and await Jin's signal flare before breaching the facility.
Meanwhile, Elder Teyaki took command of the remaining forces—a mixture of Jonin, Chunin, and Genin. Their directive was purely defensive: initiate a total lockdown of the Uchiha Compound. To ensure maximum lethality against any invading force, Jin had armed every defender with two hundred explosive tags. Procuring this massive arsenal had drained two-thirds of the radical faction's treasury, but it guaranteed absolute perimeter supremacy.
Fugaku departed for the Hokage Administration Building alone.
Jin remained at the gates of the Uchiha compound. He would not step into Danzo's ambush in the Forest of Death until Fugaku confirmed the tactical neutralization of Shisui and Itachi.
***
The Ultimatum
Ten minutes later, Fugaku entered the Hokage's office.
Hiruzen Sarutobi sat behind his desk, smoke billowing from his pipe, partially obscuring his face. He didn't even look up. To the Hokage, Fugaku was a deposed, powerless patriarch—a political failure unworthy of his full attention.
"What is it?" Hiruzen asked, his tone dripping with dismissive indifference.
Fugaku, completely unfazed by the disrespect, did not waste time with diplomatic pleasantries.
"Recall Shisui and Itachi immediately," Fugaku demanded flatly.
"Impossible," Hiruzen lied smoothly. "They are currently outside the village on a classified mission."
"Do not insult my intelligence," Fugaku countered, his voice deadening. "If Shisui and Itachi are not removed from Danzo's operational roster, Jin will not walk into the Forest of Death. Killing his parents will yield you nothing, because the ambush will be aborted."
Hiruzen's hand paused on his pipe. His eyes narrowed as he finally looked at the man standing before him. "You have fully defected to Jin's radical faction?"
"I am doing what is necessary to protect my bloodline," Fugaku stated calmly. "The Uchiha will not kill Uchiha. That is our absolute boundary. We are willing to fight you politically, and we will even fight you militarily under standard parameters. But if you force my son and Shisui onto that battlefield, we will bypass conventional warfare and resort to absolute destruction."
Fugaku stepped forward, his killing intent flooding the room. "Do not mistake our desire for a functional village as an inability to burn it down."
With those chilling words, Fugaku opened his eyes. The standard three-tomoe Sharingan bled together, forming the intricate, terrifying pinwheel pattern of the Mangekyo Sharingan—a power he had kept hidden from the world for years.
Hiruzen froze. The pipe slipped from his teeth, clattering onto the desk.
Hiruzen's Internal Monologue: A second one? Fugaku has possessed the Mangekyo this entire time? The strategic balance is completely shattered. A civil war against one Mangekyo user would cripple the village. A war against two, backed by a fully mobilized, heavily armed Uchiha clan, is tactical suicide. Konoha would be erased from the map, leaving us utterly defenseless against the other Hidden Villages.
Hiruzen's face turned ashen. He had been utterly checkmated. The cost of calling Fugaku's bluff was simply too high. He sharply tapped his desk, summoning an Anbu operative from the shadows.
"Order Shisui and Itachi to return to my office immediately," Hiruzen commanded, his voice tight with suppressed panic. "They are to abort all current directives."
***
The Temporal Ambush
Twenty minutes later, deep within the Forest of Death, Shisui and Itachi received the Hokage's emergency recall.
Danzo, overseeing the ambush preparations, erupted in fury. "Hiruzen has lost his mind! You two are not leaving! You are essential to this operation!"
But Shisui and Itachi were officially Anbu under the direct command of the Hokage, not Root operatives. Bound by military hierarchy, they bowed apologetically to Danzo, utilized the Body Flicker technique, and sprinted back to the Hokage Tower.
Upon entering the Hokage's office, they immediately sensed the crushing tension. They saw Fugaku standing before the desk, and their expressions darkened, sensing a political disaster.
But before either prodigy could ask a single question, Fugaku locked eyes with them.
"Mangekyo...?" Shisui whispered. His elite combat instincts screamed at him to evade, but his reaction was inherently delayed; the Hokage's office was a presumed safe zone, completely dropping his guard.
Fugaku instantly activated the unique visual jutsu of his right eye: 'Tiwatakatsuhi'.
System Explanation: Fugaku's Mangekyo possesses temporal abilities. His left eye grants limited precognition—the ability to see seconds into the future. His right eye projects a localized time-dilation field. Within a specific radius, the flow of time is exponentially slowed for everyone except the caster.
Currently, Fugaku's mastery of the technique was limited; he could only decelerate time by a factor of twenty. But in the realm of high-level shinobi combat, a twenty-fold speed reduction was an overwhelming, insurmountable advantage.
Shisui, renowned across the ninja world as "Shisui of the Body Flicker" for his unmatched physical speed, instinctively attempted to draw his short blade. But trapped inside the localized temporal field, his lightning-fast reflexes were reduced to an agonizingly slow, suspended crawl.
Fugaku, moving at normal speed, stepped effortlessly toward the two paralyzed prodigies.