Actually, Fugaku was a little embarrassed to admit it now, even to himself.
The Fugaku from three days ago had actually not even realized it was a setup.
Not in the moment.
He had been too fresh in command, too caught up in everything surrounding the position.
For years now, he had heard the same complaints inside the clan.
The village respected the Uchiha less.
Police authority was being chipped away.
Root kept growing.
The Hokage faction kept taking more.
Then Fugaku finally received a serious case of his own, with four subordinates standing behind him and his father waiting to see what he would make of the opportunity.
He wanted to prove himself.
To his men.
To his father.
To everyone who thought his promotion came from his name.
Then two masked shinobi appeared, refused to identify themselves, obstructed his carefully proceeding investigation, and ordered him to leave.
In hindsight, the provocation was obvious.
At the time?
Fugaku had barely thought at all.
He had been irritated, proud, and unwilling to back down.
So he stepped forward.
Pure impulse.
That was probably the most embarrassing part.
It's no wonder he was not fully on his guard.
'But, not only did I get a chance to change my destiny...'
Fugaku almost smiled as he thought.
'This also takes the spotlight off me for a while, considerably.'
In a strange way, the whole disaster had aligned perfectly.
Root had tested him.
And, from their perspective, he had failed badly.
Good.
Let them think that.
Let Danzō conclude that the future Uchiha patriarch was overhyped, inexperienced, perhaps even spiritually defective.
Let the village leadership wonder whether his Sharingan was weaker than expected, or whether he had some unusual vulnerability to genjutsu and spiritual interference.
Anything was better than them realizing what had actually happened.
The enemy was in the dark.
Fugaku, meanwhile, knew far more about them than they could possibly imagine.
And after this embarrassment, Root was unlikely to test him again anytime soon.
Why waste resources confirming weakness they already believed they had found?
That gave him breathing room.
Time to understand the Mangekyō properly.
Time to push his strength much higher.
Time to test how far his new mind and spiritual growth could actually take him.
And, just as importantly, time to begin making changes inside the clan.
Small ones at first.
Nothing dramatic enough to attract attention.
But enough to start increasing the Uchiha's strength before anyone realized that the supposedly disappointing heir had become something very different.
Takehito watched him for a moment longer.
The change in Fugaku's demeanor was obvious now.
More thoughtful and composed in a strange way.
Yet also less defensive as well.
More willing to admit his own mistake without surrendering the point entirely.
Takehito attributed most of it to the promotion and what had happened afterward.
Perhaps nearly getting himself killed had finally forced some of the boy out of him.
Then he asked, "What do you think we should do about the village?"
Fugaku looked at him.
Takehito's expression turned serious again.
"We both understand now that this probably wasn't some kind of an assassination attempt."
"Probably."
"That doesn't make what happened acceptable."
Fugaku nodded.
Takehito continued.
"Root interfered with an active Police investigation. They refused identification. Refused authorization. Then one of their operatives attacked you."
"I stepped forward first."
"You stepped forward."
Takehito's tone sharpened.
"He struck first. Disproportionately."
Fugaku said nothing.
"And more importantly, they were the unreasonable party throughout the encounter."
That was harder to argue with.
Takehito leaned forward slightly.
"Now you've also confirmed that something else struck you spiritually."
Fugaku's eyes narrowed.
"Yes."
"Then Root has more to explain than one nervous operative misreading a movement."
Exactly.
Even if Fugaku had reacted unusually badly to the technique, that did not erase the fact that someone had used it on him.
Takehito continued.
"This is not only about you being my son."
His voice hardened.
"It is about the authority of the Military Police, as you said previously."
Fugaku understood where this was going.
"If unidentified Root operatives can obstruct our officers during lawful investigations, attack them, then hide behind the Hokage afterward, what exactly is our jurisdiction worth?"
"Not much."
"Precisely."
Takehito sat back.
"So I'm asking you."
A pause.
"How far do we push this?"
Fugaku thought for a moment, then answered plainly.
"First, identification of the operative who struck me and then disciplinary action. Even if they claim he misunderstood my movement, he still attacked a Police captain carrying out a lawful investigation."
Takehito nodded.
Fugaku continued.
"We could also use this case to demand a formal explanation of Root's authority whenever their work overlaps with ours."
"Not another vague reference to Hokage authority. Clear enough guidelines so that our officers know when Root can actually take control of a case, or at least a level of authorization required."
That part mattered more than punishing one operative.
Root benefited from ambiguity.
Its authority sat somewhere between official and unofficial, broad enough for Danzō to interfere and use Hokage's name whenever he liked, yet vague enough to avoid responsibility and oversight.
And Danzō was hardly becoming more restrained with time.
Since Root's founding, both the number of incidents involving Police work and the range of excuses used to justify that interference had slowly increased.
If the Uchiha could force even a modest clarification now, it would also make the future encroachment harder.
"And there should be formal acknowledgment that Root operatives cannot simply obstruct or attack Military Police officers performing lawful duties because they refuse to explain themselves ever again."
Takehito's expression remained serious, but a bit surprised, as if he realized something, and also full of approval toward Fugaku.
Fugaku added the last point.
"Then there's the spiritual attack."
"Which they haven't admitted."
"Exactly. So make them explain it."
Even if Root denied everything, forcing the denial into the dispute still had value.
Takehito was quiet for a moment.
Then he asked, "And if the Hokage refuses?"
'Of course he would refuse.'
Fugaku thought sarcastically as he looked at his father.
'But there is value in that too.'
That was the part Takehito had not fully internalized yet.
His father's central weakness was not stupidity.
Far from it.
Takehito was stern, disciplined, politically aware, and traditional without being blindly conservative.
He wanted the Uchiha to prosper.
He simply still wanted them to prosper within the existing order.
Strengthen the clan.
Protect the Police.
Negotiate carefully with the Hokage.
Give ground when necessary.
Push back when possible.
Preserve autonomy without breaking Konoha itself.
In that sense, he was disturbingly similar to the Fugaku of the original future.
Not fully assimilated into village ideology like Shisui would eventually become.
Not radical like Setsuna either.
Somewhere in the middle.
No wonder his future self had taken so long to finally reach the point of considering a coup.
Apparently, he had inherited more from his father than his appearance.
The thought made Fugaku slightly sad.
Because Takehito was not a bad patriarch.
Neither, perhaps, had his future self been one in ordinary circumstances.
That was the problem.
The circumstances were not ordinary.
Konoha was already around three to four decades old.
Decades of institutions hardening.
Factions accumulating power.
Root expanding.
The Hokage's authority becoming more entrenched.
And somehow, with every increase in village stability, the Uchiha became less secure rather than more.
That was not an accident.
Fugaku was increasingly certain Tobirama had designed it that way from the beginning.
Not necessarily with a written plan saying, "Destroy the Uchiha."
Tobirama was smarter than that.
The system itself was enough.
Contain them.
Separate them.
Turn their pride into an administrative role.
Make them useful.
Make them visible.
Make them increasingly isolated from the political center.
Then wait.
Fugaku's grandfather had still been able to survive with a controlled approach because the balance was different then.
Hashirama had remained alive for part of that period, and whatever his flaws, he had never shared Tobirama's instinctive hostility toward the Uchiha.
Then Tobirama became Hokage.
But the First Shinobi World War started right away and consumed the entirety of his short reign, and he died, by the end of it, before many of his designs could fully mature.
Afterward came Hiruzen.
Young.
Still consolidating power.
Still building his faction.
Still finishing institutions Tobirama had left behind.
Root itself had only just begun.
The Senju were still being absorbed into the broader village.
Konoha had not yet become the tightly controlled political machine it would later be.
So Takehito's generation could still mistake delay for balance.
The village had been patient.
That was what made the trap effective.
It never needed to openly announce that the Uchiha were being removed from relevance.
It only had to tighten things gradually.
One jurisdiction lost here.
One appointment denied there.
One new surveillance measure.
One Root interference.
One more reason why this particular Uchiha could not be trusted with that particular responsibility.
Slow enough that every individual step could be explained.
Reasonable.
Temporary.
Necessary for harmony.
That was why even people from Fugaku's previous life had often blamed the clan itself.
Why couldn't the Uchiha just integrate?
Why did they become so angry?
Why did they push toward a coup?
Because most people only looked at the final stage.
They saw the frog trying to jump out after the water was already boiling and asked why it had become so unreasonable.
Then came the Nine-Tails.
The perfect excuse.
By then the clan was isolated enough, feared enough, and politically weak enough that the final squeeze could begin quickly.
Relocation.
Total surveillance.
Exclusion.
Suspicion made policy.
And the Uchiha, including Fugaku himself, barely understood how little room remained until they were already trapped inside it.
Then came the desperate coup.
Too late.
Too obvious.
Too weak.
Fugaku looked at Takehito again.
That was what needed to change first.
His father was still patriarch.
Still the ultimate authority inside the clan.
Fugaku could plan whatever he wanted, but as long as Takehito remained convinced that every problem could eventually be solved through careful negotiation inside Konoha's existing framework, the clan would keep reacting instead of preparing.
So this dispute with Root had value beyond jurisdiction.
It was an example.
Small.
Clean.
Easy to understand.
The Police had followed the rules.
Root had not.
The Hokage would probably protect Root anyway.
And if that happened, Fugaku wanted his father to look at the result and finally ask the right question.
Not, "How do we negotiate this better next time?"
But:
"What kind of system keeps producing the same answer?"