Inside the illusion-shrouded mansion situated in the heart of the bustling capital.
Having sent away Kakuzu—who had brought En Oyashiro to receive his "interrogation"—the tea room fell into a brief silence.
Hikari Uchiha turned to Fugaku Uchiha, asking with a look of surprise:
"Fugaku, after the last clan meeting, you were supposed to stay and stabilize the clan interior. You were meant to oversee the temporary public distancing between Ren and the family to prevent certain ill-intentioned people in Konoha from stirring up trouble. Why have you suddenly appeared here today?"
Fugaku remained silent for a moment, letting out a long, weary breath.
The reason he was here was due to an extreme warning from his right eye. This was his Mangekyo ability: Uka-no-Mitama (倉稲魂命 - Kurainotamami).
Nearly a month and a half ago, after giving up the quest for the clan head position to Ren, he had stopped worrying about the clan's future every waking hour. No longer plagued by insomnia, he had enjoyed a period of peace—sleeping until noon, waiting for Ren to take over the Police Force, and looking forward to being a stay-at-home dad with Mikoto and their soon-to-be-born eldest son. It was supposed to be perfect.
Unfortunately, the peace was short-lived.
News arrived from the Valley of Hell: the young clan head, Ren Uchiha, had fallen from a cliff and gone missing, with a high probability of death.
That day, countless Uchiha members surrounded his house. Being pushed back into the spotlight made Fugaku feel as though he couldn't breathe. The heavy burden was thrust back onto his shoulders. To make matters worse, his best aides were ambushed and killed by an unknown force while hunting the leaders of the Bounty Station. With Mikoto's due date approaching, it felt as if the birth of the child named Itachi would coincide with an era of misfortune.
Bad news followed bad news, stretching his nerves to the breaking point. In that moment of panic and helplessness, he awakened those ominous eyes.
The Mangekyo Sharingan!
The left eye's technique, Tsukuyomi, was a Genjutsu born from his confusion and the feeling that time was too short to understand the world.
The right eye's technique, Uka-no-Mitama, was a passive, prophetic ability. Named after the god of harvests and the patron of foxes, it allowed him to catch the scent of a crisis amidst thousands of threads. It functioned like a fox hunting the "rats" that threatened the clan's prosperity.
This time, his right eye had given him a vision of a tragedy: Hikari Uchiha, Seiichiro Uchiha, and all the Uchiha members in Unraikyō who were preparing to support Ren would die this very day. In the aftermath of that vision, he saw a "vision-flash" of Ren Uchiha, who had also awakened the Mangekyo, standing on a grand battlefield, slaughtering everyone like a demon possessed.
The catalyst for it all was the guest who had visited today—En Oyashiro.
In the original timeline predicted by his eye, En Oyashiro, enraged by the news that his daughter had been taken by Hikari, would have slaughtered everyone in the mansion and immediately betrayed the Akatsuki to take revenge on Ren.
Hikari believed that with two pairs of three-tomoe Sharingan, a group of Uchiha Chunin, cat-nin, his own high-level swordsmanship, and the pressure of Kakuzu's Kage-level strength, they could suppress En Oyashiro and force his cooperation. He had no idea that En Oyashiro possessed a "forbidden eye" on the same tier as the Mangekyo. In a frenzy, the three of them would have been no match for him, paying with their lives.
This was why Fugaku had traveled thousands of miles, defying the pressure from the Third Hokage and the other clans to leave Konoha and come to the Land of Lightning.
Seiichiro had been right back in the underground cave. When faced with the fate of the entire clan, Fugaku was often too hesitant, leading to the loss of truly precious things. Recalling Ren calling him "Big Brother Fugaku" before leaving the village, he had made a silent vow:
This tragedy must not happen!
Now, under Hikari's questioning, Fugaku felt a bit dazed. Did I really change everything? he wondered. Does my reckless action actually help the clan? Is saving Hikari helping Ren, or hurting him? By preventing the tragedy, did I just rob Ren of the opportunity to awaken his own Mangekyo?
And... was the future seen by Uka-no-Mitama truly averted, or was it merely delayed?
"Hey!" Hikari nudged Fugaku, complaining half-jokingly, "Fugaku, even if you aren't the clan head, you'll still be an elder. Don't go slacking off on me! What's with that look? You're staring at me like I'm a dead man."
"Cough! Cough!!" Fugaku choked on his tea, waving his hands frantically. "Hikari-bro, don't make jokes like that!"
"Hmph!" Hikari rolled his eyes, his expression softening as he shook his head. "Well, it's good you're here. Ren is going to take his revenge on the Land of Lightning tomorrow. The Cloud Village has plenty of elites. With you here, Ren's safety is better guaranteed. Family is always more reliable than outsiders."
Then, his face darkened as he asked awkwardly, "By the way... once Ren comes home, have you thought about how to tell him about that matter?"
Fugaku's face froze. "That..."
Before he could answer, a flurry of footsteps approached from outside the tea room. Seiichiro's head popped in through the door.
"Elder Hikari, Lord Fugaku! A guest has arrived outside the barrier. I couldn't make the call, so you should see..."
"A guest?" Hikari was stunned. "Did Kakuzu come back? Only he should have the location of this mansion."
"No, it's not Kakuzu!" Seiichiro scratched his head, looking equally confused. "It's one of the Sannin. The one who came as part of the Konoha delegation for the Land of Fire... Lord Jiraiya!"
"And he looks like he's in a massive hurry."
Hikari and Fugaku stared at each other in total bewilderment.
"Jiraiya? Why is he looking for us?"
"And more importantly, how did he find this place?"