Colorless… tasteless… formless… traceless…
born only from heart-voices, and answering only to Roy.
Compared to the Aburame clan, who wield real insects as weapons to fight, these heart-worms were closer to something unreal—hazy, ethereal, almost mystical. They carried Roy's will, splitting from one into two, two into four, four into eight…
In the blink of an eye, they multiplied into thirty-two, matching the thirty-two Uchiha below. Their bellies tightened and wriggled, and along the bloodline bonds—those karmic threads—they slipped in everywhere, burrowing into each person's heart with no gaps left to block them.
Roy lowered his lashes slightly. Sitting close beside Uchiha Fugaku, he shut his eyes halfway. A thought stirred—
And instantly, images flooded his mind.
Every image was wrapped in dark, oppressive black mist. Just looking at them made your breath catch.
One belonged to a young Uchiha who had just lost his father—he was shouting at the top of his lungs, demanding justice.
Others had lost wives… sons… brothers and sisters… lovers… friends…
Roy's consciousness sank deep, becoming a detached onlooker. He drove the heart-worms to devour that black mist, and he himself walked calmly across the tape-like ribbon formed by the endless film of images—steady, composed.
Yet his heart, that tranquil heart, began to tilt—deliberately—toward warped, crazed, hysterical extremes.
Under the shadow of his bangs, a faint red bled into his eyes.
"Clan Head—"
"Fugaku—"
"Fugaku-sama—"
Demands for justice, cries of grievance, vented rage, pleas of vindication—at the peak, it became a full-blown storm of anger and resentment, surging toward Uchiha Fugaku.
Shisui knelt beside Roy. Gulp. He swallowed hard, and his small hand unconsciously clutched the corner of Roy's coat.
At the very edge of the hall, Obito sat cross-legged, slumped against a thick pillar. Even his big mouth stayed shut—he knew opening it now was begging to get himself killed—so he scooted closer to the doorway instead.
He was an orphan. He hadn't lost parents. He hadn't lost siblings. He hadn't even had the chance to lose someone he loved. He couldn't truly empathize—but even so, just one glance at the crowd ready to explode made him clamp his hands over his head.
"Being Clan Head is hard…"
"Then being Hokage is even harder!"
"Wouldn't you have to deal with even more crap every day?!"
Uchiha Obito—who dreamed of becoming Hokage, kicking Kakashi out of the way, marrying Nohara Rin, and reaching the peak of life—raked his fingers through his hair.
"Ahem…"
At some point, an old, rasping cough drifted out.
The shrine's main hall fell silent in an instant, the roaring noise snuffed out as if someone had slammed a lid on it.
Uchiha Setsuna leaned on his cane. From the Second War's prison into the Third War—more than a decade behind bars had bent his back and turned his hair white. Yet his blood-red eyes and the crushing authority of an elder hadn't diminished in the slightest.
He coughed once, then slammed his cane into the floor.
Thud.
He raised his head, staring up at Fugaku.
"Fugaku. You've heard them."
"Elder…"
Countless eyes converged.
Setsuna trembled as he stood, nodding slightly at Yashiro who moved to support him. The two of them shuffled, step by step, toward the line of coffins.
Setsuna's white beard looked wild and unkempt. He dragged his fingers along a coffin lid and rasped:
"Konoha lives are lives. Uchiha lives are lives too. In the Second War it was the same… but…"
He paused, voice thick with venom.
"I never thought that after all these years—after Uchiha died and died and died—it would still be the same damned story. So, Fugaku!"
Setsuna stopped, leaning on his cane, glaring at Fugaku like he could burn a hole through him.
"You've always known it. The people sitting in that Hokage tower don't want us to prosper. Ideally… they want us dead. All of us."
"Am I right—"
"Or am I wrong?"
Fugaku said nothing.
He wasn't naïve. He'd been Clan Head for years. He understood the policies. He understood exactly what the Third Hokage and the advisers' attitude toward the Uchiha really was.
This time, going to war, he'd done everything he could to preserve the clan's manpower. He'd forced the Third Hokage's hand—cutting the number from sixty to thirty.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be just a dozen coffins here. There'd be twice as many.
And then the Police Force couldn't function. Anbu would "help" by taking authority. Power would be stripped away.
That was the one outcome Fugaku could not accept.
"Why won't you answer?" Setsuna slammed his cane again.
Thud.
His eyes—hardened by prison but not broken—shifted from pale to blood-red. Three tomoe spun into place.
Yashiro supporting him, the clan's pillars Inabi and Tekka—everyone present, even Obito who didn't care about meetings and only wanted Rin—froze.
"Three tomoe!"
"That's a three-tomoe Sharingan!"
"The elder has three tomoe too!"
The once-silent hall exploded again—as if it had been a still pond and someone tossed in a bomb.
For the Uchiha, the Sharingan was everything.
An Uchiha without it and an Uchiha with it weren't even the same species.
It was emotion given form—love and hate fused into a single storm. It was the mark of transcendence. A direct, brutal jump in power. Genjutsu, dynamic vision, and the path to nightmares like Susanoo…
One tomoe could rival chūnin.
Two tomoe could rival special jōnin.
Three tomoe was jōnin—no question.
And beyond that… Mangekyō—susanoo prerequisites, Kage-level and beyond.
Now, after Fugaku, another three-tomoe had appeared.
Excitement surged through the clan. Voices rose.
Fugaku looked up, stunned—ten-plus years of imprisonment hadn't cooled Setsuna's hate. It had forged it into a third tomoe.
Shock and joy flashed through Fugaku… then a second later, he felt the wrongness of it.
This wasn't part of his calculation.
A gust of wind swept through, carrying the chill of early spring.
The Uchiha ancestral grounds erupted in adrenaline—hype, devotion, trembling ambition.
Roy kept his head lowered, seated quietly beside Fugaku.
Through the heart-worms, he walked through everyone's hearts—devouring their negative emotions—while watching how Setsuna's Sharingan sent shockwaves through everyone's loyalty and stance.
Even Fugaku's iron supporters—Yashiro, Tekka, Inabi—wavered, their convictions loosening.
Roy's internal timer kept running.
He still needed half again as much negative emotion—enough to fully match his visualization object: the sun.
A low hum echoed.
Red and white braided through Roy's pupils under his bangs. Shisui clutched his coat corner tighter, swallowing again.
Unnoticed by anyone, a tomoe formed… then the second tomoe began sprinting toward completion.
Setsuna stared Fugaku down. He raised his voice and slammed the cane again, sharp as a verdict.
"Look me in the eyes and answer!"
The hall went silent.
Shisui, Obito, Yashiro, Tekka, Inabi—everyone stared.
As Clan Head, Fugaku was drowned under the clan's collective gaze. He drew a breath and met Setsuna's eyes.
"If you already know," Fugaku said evenly, "why ask?"
He stood—calm, solid—placing his body in front of Roy, shielding him from the emotional tide.
Then he lowered himself, bowing to Setsuna.
"I admit my limits. I've been negotiating. If you have a way… teach me how to break this deadlock."
Fugaku's posture was honest. Humble. Almost too low.
And the clan's hearts shook again.
Roy moved through their hearts like a silent warden.
[Emotion turbulence accumulation: 50% → 60%]
Under his bangs, the second tomoe came into clearer shape.
Setsuna's pressure faltered.
For the first time, he went quiet.
Because Fugaku was right—what did Setsuna have, other than rage?
He had fought once. He had been jailed for it. The knife had become a slow grind. Now Hiruzen and Danzō used dull blades—cutting, cutting, cutting—pushing the Uchiha toward the edge.
Setsuna stared up at the shrine's beams. This building had survived the Warring States era, the First, Second, and now the Third War. It still held the clan's stone tablets.
Silence pooled.
Yashiro, Inabi, Tekka—every Uchiha who actually understood their situation—also fell silent.
They all knew the problem.
What they needed was the answer.
They looked to Setsuna.
He finally lifted his head, as if making a decision that would change everything.
He swept his gaze across the clan, then fixed on Fugaku.
"Only one way out."
He said it like a knife.
"Defection."
"Defection?!"
Yashiro's hand trembled. Inabi and Tekka froze. Obito, Shisui—everyone went blank with shock, then exchanged looks.
"Yes. Defection." Setsuna's voice turned hard as steel. "Stay and die, or leave and maybe live."
Setsuna narrowed his eyes. "We're Uchiha. We have the Sharingan. If we want to, we can carve out our own territory. Maybe not as big as Konoha—but at least we won't be weaker than some backwater village."
Fight for peace and you might keep it. Beg for peace and you lose it.
Setsuna's words were dynamite.
And they detonated a fresh wave of emotional collapse.
Roy walked through the storm inside their hearts.
[Emotion turbulence accumulation: 64% → 84%]
Roy stopped.
He followed the bloodline bond through Inabi, Tekka, Yashiro—straight into Setsuna's heart.
He saw the old man's past, painted in frames.
And he felt something rare: respect.
Setsuna truly wanted a way out for the Uchiha.
Maybe he'd seen it since the Second Hokage's time. Maybe that's why he rebelled in the first place.
But "defection" was easier said than done.
Konoha wasn't just Konoha. It had Fire Country behind it. Defecting meant treason. It meant being hunted by the village and the nation. It meant being used by external powers or crushed.
Success was uncertain.
Failure was certain death.
He thought of the Kaguya clan—wiped out by Kirigakure, leaving only Kimimaro.
Crunch… crunch…
85%… 86… 87… 90…
The heart-worms kept eating.
Inside the shrine, Fugaku stared Setsuna down.
After a long silence, he shook his head.
"Defection is death. I won't agree."
Voices rose.
"Isn't that too extreme?"
"It's not there yet, is it?"
"Elder, you just got out—and you awakened three tomoe. With you and Fugaku-sama here, we still have a chance…"
"No!" Setsuna snapped. "There's no chance. Staying is death!"
He tore his arm from Yashiro's grip and slammed the cane again.
Thud.
"Anyone who wants to leave—come with me. Starting today, the Uchiha split!"
He turned and pushed through the crowd, heading for the exit—
Then—
A sword rang.
A snow-white blade flashed.
Everyone—Fugaku, Yashiro, Inabi, Tekka, Obito, Shisui—went rigid as the air itself.
[Swamp · God Spear.]
A blade abruptly extended, space stretching with it, shooting out nearly a hundred meters in a single line and pinning into a corner pillar.
It cut across the shrine like a boundary line—blocking Setsuna's path.
Setsuna stopped dead.
He turned, and his pupils shrank.
Because in the next instant, a pair of scarlet eyes rose to meet him—
Three tomoe slowly spinning.
[Notice: Emotion turbulence accumulated… Sharingan unlocked!]
Roy rose to his feet.
Blood-red eyes. Three tomoe revolving with calm, cruel clarity.
He looked at Setsuna—and then over the whole hall—with absolute stillness.
"I didn't hear my father say we're leaving," Roy said flatly.
He lifted his gaze, voice unshaken, and it landed like a verdict:
"So I'd like to see who dares to walk out."
~~~
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