Itachi's target was Inabi, the one whose words were the most venomous and whose threats were the most blatant!
Inabi only felt a piercingly cold killing intent lock onto him in an instant!
He didn't even have time to form hand seals, only seeing a palm wrapped in a fierce gust of wind rapidly enlarging before his eyes!
The speed was so fast it caused a momentary lag in his proud Sharingan!
Bang!
A dull, heavy impact!
Itachi's right palm, imbued with violent Chakra and overwhelming rage, landed solidly on Inabi's chest!
The force was so great that Inabi's sternum let out a grating creak!
He was sent flying as if hit head-on by a high-speed carriage, his feet leaving the ground, a mist of blood spraying from his mouth, his body like a broken sack with its strings cut, hurtling backward!
"Inabi!" Tekka cried out in shock and anger, his kunai instantly drawn, streaking through the air with a sharp whistle aimed straight at Itachi's back!
However, Itachi seemed to have eyes on his back. Without the slightest pause from sending Inabi flying, his body twisted at an impossible angle.
Tekka's sure-hit thrust instantly found empty air!
Simultaneously, Itachi's left leg swept backward like a steel whip, tearing through the air with a shriek!
Bang!
The leg shadow struck Tekka's kunai-wielding wrist with pinpoint accuracy!
Intense pain flared… the kunai flew from his grasp! Tekka grunted, his body forced to stagger sideways by the immense force!
"Audacious!" Yashiro roared, finally reacting, his hands flying through hand signs!
Chakra gathered at his fingertips! He could not tolerate a junior acting so recklessly!
However, Itachi's movements were faster! More ruthless!
The instant he repelled Tekka, his form didn't hesitate, closing in on Yashiro who had just steadied himself like a persistent shadow!
Those usually calm, dark eyes now burned with a terrifying scarlet light!
Three pitch-black tomoes spun wildly, transforming into a cold and sinister complex pattern… the Mangekyo Sharingan!
Terrifying Ocular Power erupted like a tangible tide!
An intangible mental shockwave, accompanied by cold killing intent, slammed fiercely into Yashiro's consciousness!
Yashiro's hand seals froze instantly!
The pressure from Itachi's three tomoes pressed down on him like a mountain, making his own proud Three-Tomoe Sharingan ache and dizzy!
It felt as if his very soul was frozen by that crimson pattern! He stared in horror at those eyes, so close they were within reach, eyes that belonged to a legendary power,
For the first time, he felt the threat of death from this junior!
Just as Itachi's fist, charged with violent Chakra, was about to smash into Yashiro's face-
An even more immense, heavier, vast pressure descended upon the entire courtyard without warning!
The air seemed to solidify instantly!
The falling maple leaves halted mid-air!
This pressure carried the unquestionable authority of a clan head and an absolute suppressing force originating from the depths of their bloodline. Like an invisible giant hand, it instantly choked Itachi's violent movements and also froze the shocked and furious Yashiro and Tekka!
"Stop!"
A low, authoritative voice, brimming with thunderous rage, exploded at the entrance!
Fugaku's tall figure appeared at the end of the engawa.
He was dressed in dark clan head robes, his expression as still as water, his eyes like cold blades sweeping over the devastated courtyard.
Inabi, spitting blood and slumped on the ground, Tekka, wrist swollen and face pale, and Yashiro, locked in place by the Mangekyo Sharingan, standing rigid with horror on his face.
Finally, his own eyes, glowing with the same crimson light, a pinwheel pattern slowly rotating within them, the Mangekyo Sharingan, fixed unwaveringly on his son in the center of the courtyard, Uchiha Itachi, who radiated a violent aura, his fist still halted just before Yashiro's nose.
"Itachi!" Fugaku's voice was like ice, each word weighing a thousand pounds, carrying deep disappointment and fury, "Tell me! Why did you use such heavy force against your clansmen?!"
That Itachi had awakened the Mangekyo in such circumstances, as a father, he was pleased.
But that Itachi had used the Mangekyo against his clansmen, as the clan's head, he was disappointed.
Fugaku's pressure fell like a tangible hammer, striking hard at Itachi's heart.
His father's questioning was like another cold dagger, stabbing fiercely into Itachi's heart, which was still burning with rage.
'Disappointment?'
The undisguised disappointment in his father's eyes felt even more piercingly cold and suffocating than the others' venomous suspicions!
'Why?'
'Why couldn't even Father see his pain?'
'Can't he see the anger that had driven me to the brink?'
'Did he only see the result of my actions against the clansmen?'
Looking at the cold, heavy disappointment in his father's eyes, at the burning hatred in the eyes of the wretched Inabi and Tekka on the ground, at the lingering shock and humiliation on Yashiro's face-
An indescribable desolation and immense loneliness, like a cold tide, instantly drowned all the rage in Itachi's heart.
He slowly lowered the clenched fist that had been halted before Yashiro.
The violent Chakra around him receded like a tide, quickly withdrawn and calmed.
The Mangekyo Sharingan, which had just been burning with crimson fury and spinning sinisterly, also dimmed rapidly, returning to a deep, unfathomable jet black.
Only now, within that blackness, there was none of the usual calmness, only a thoroughly frozen exhaustion and a bone-deep alienation.
He looked around the familiar courtyard, at the faces of his clansmen… some angry, some shocked, some disappointed.
This place had once been the home he desperately wanted to protect.
Now, it felt so alien, so suffocating.
Suspicion coiled like poisonous vines, anger easily ignited conflict, and their narrow-mindedness could tolerate no dissent, no one trying to find a path through the cracks.
"Why?" Itachi's voice rang out, no longer angry, no longer agitated, calm as a frozen lake, yet carrying a chilling coldness that pierced to the heart.
"Father, you should ask them why they used the most venomous suspicions to tarnish my friendship with Shisui, to trample on my stance." He raised his head slightly, his gaze no longer on Inabi and Tekka on the ground, but passing over them, looking toward the sky outside the courtyard, which seemed exceptionally oppressive within the high walls.
His voice wasn't loud, but it clearly reached everyone's ears, carrying a decisiveness that seemed to sever the past:
"The Uchiha are too narrow-minded. So narrow that they cannot tolerate trust, so narrow that they only moves toward destruction through suspicion and internal strife."
He withdrew his gaze, taking one last, deep look at his father, Fugaku.
That gaze was extremely complex, pain, reluctance, bonds that were hard to sever, but ultimately, it all turned into a cold, unquestionable resolve.
"I will investigate Shisui's disappearance... in my own way!"
With these words, Itachi looked at no one else.
He turned, the hem of his deep blue clan robe sweeping in a cold, sharp arc.
His steps were steady, without the slightest hesitation, as he walked over the golden leaves covering the ground, heading straight for the estate's main gate.
His back cast a long, solitary shadow in the autumn sun.
He did not look back.
He left behind a deathly silence in the courtyard.
Fugaku watched his son's resolute departing figure, the pinwheel pattern in his Mangekyo Sharingan slowly rotating.
Beneath his composed and authoritative expression-
Unseen stormy waves surged.
"Those eyes-" Yashiro and Tekka struggled to their feet, exchanging shocked and uncertain looks with Inabi.
The heavy sound of the closing door echoed for a long time in the spacious and oppressive courtyard.