Chương 148: Fugaku's Thankless Burden

Given the naturally volatile temperament of the Uchiha, learning that the administration intended to evict them from the municipal core would have triggered an immediate explosion. They would have marched en masse to the Hokage Residence to demand an accounting. Fugaku couldn't allow that. The Nine-Tails incident had already poisoned public opinion; a riot at the administrative gates would permanently sever their future within the Leaf. But how to placate them?

The patriarch was caught between the hammer and the anvil—squeezed by the high council abroad and interrogated by his own blood at home. Being clan head was a thankless, miserable affair. The true anatomy of the Nine-Tails rampage remained a closely guarded secret, known only to a handful of souls who had stood beneath the canopy that night. Yet the fact that the Sharingan possessed the unique frequency to subjugate a Tailed Beast was a matter of common knowledge.

Following the disaster, and augmented by deliberate whispering from interested parties, this tactical reality had hardened into a pervasive public truth. The Uchiha were burdened with an original sin they could neither cleanse nor explain. If left unchecked, the chasm between the clan and the wider populace would continue to widen until the divide became entirely irreconcilable. To resolve this, he needed the ground truth of that night. Fugaku saw a narrow path.

The three shinobi who had contained the fox shared a warm affinity with his household; perhaps he could leverage that intimacy. During the post-midday clan assembly, the reaction was every bit as explosive as anticipated. The clansmen flatly refused to cede their ancestral lands. Fugaku was forced to employ a delicate mixture of placation and outright deception to simmer the fury, finally invoking his supreme patriarchal authority to decree the migration as an absolute mandate. It was indeed a deception.

He claimed all other noble houses had consented to the modern layout, and the Uchiha could not afford to isolate themselves as pariahs. In truth, only they and the Aburame were moving—and the Aburame had volunteered due to the ecological demands of their secret techniques, whereas the Uchiha were being systematically cleansed from the center. He had no alternative. Secure the relocation first; the future could untangle itself later.

Once the foundations were poured and the reality formalized, their indignation would fade into routine rather than fracturing into open rebellion against the state. Emerging from the ancestral shrine, he found his eldest son waiting by the threshold. Fugaku decided to use the boy as his bridge. Itachi harbored no grievances regarding the migration; though precocious beyond his years, he was too young to decipher the geopolitical malice behind the eviction.

He simply viewed the frontier with a child's curiosity, asking his father to tour the new estate. Fugaku consented. While surveying the training fields deeding to their compound, he relented to his son's petition, demonstrating the clan's signature heirloom technique. Then... the boy replicated it flawlessly on his first attempt. Staring at the blazing furnace of the Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu, Fugaku felt the oppressive weight lifting from his chest. A sudden pride pierced the gloom.

His son was an unmitigated prodigy.

"As expected of my flesh and blood. Itachi... I place the weight of our future upon your shoulders." Following the departure of the Sannin, Zhen prolonged his drills within the training sectors, returning home only as dusk began to bleed across the horizon. Though the structural ruin was concentrated at the core, debris had showered the outer wards, fracturing roofs and splintering walls. Work crews populated the avenues, working tirelessly to mend the masonry.

Along the thoroughfares, patrols of the Uchiha Military Police passed in silent intervals. The gazes from the civilian populace were no longer merely indifferent; they were distinctly hostile. Historically, the villagers had viewed the police force with mild friction, resentful of their rigid enforcement and lack of bureaucratic flexibility. Now, they shrank from them as though avoiding a plague, their eyes brimming with silent accusation—gazing upon them as primary suspects who had brought ruin to their doorsteps.

The terror and grief of the citizenry demanded a lightning rod. With Minato and Kushina surviving the crucible, no rumors regarding a demon fox reincarnate could take root; the Uchiha were left to inherit the absolute weight of the blame. This required no active orchestration from Danzo or the elders; they merely had to withhold the gag order. With the village's shinobi speculating freely on the unique properties of the Sharingan, public opinion naturally gravitated toward hostility.

It was a mathematical inevitability. Danzo required no active machinations; he merely had to let nature take its course. Nearing his threshold, Zhen encountered a remarkably peculiar vignette. Itachi Uchiha stood composed on the cobblestones, flanked by a young maiden of similar years. Most conspicuously, the boy was bound within an infant sling, a swaddled bundle cradled securely against his chest. The infant apparently harbored a primordial rivalry with the young girl.

The moment she drifted too close to Itachi, or whenever the boy prolonged his dialogue with her, the bundle would erupt into a volley of shrill wails, subsiding only when his elder brother offered a low, soothing murmur. Spying Zhen's approach, Itachi broke his posture and closed the distance.

"Brother Zhen, I have awaited your return." Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"Ah, Itachi," Zhen noted, mildly amused.

"Are you loitering here specifically on my account?"

"Yes. My father requests your presence at our table this evening, should your schedule permit." Zhen bypassed the query, his gaze dropping to the bundle.

"Is this the legendary Sasuke?" 原The mention of his brother derailed Itachi's administrative focus instantly; his features softened into a mask of pure fraternal pride.

"Yes. Is he not magnificent, Brother Zhen?"

"Remarkably so." Zhen leaned down and pinched the little fellow's cheek. The infant offered no resistance, his dark eyes wide with a pristine, innocent curiosity as he evaluated the stranger. The young maiden beside Itachi flushed with sudden excitement, her hands clasping against her chest.

"Zhen? Are you truly the Savior of the Leaf—the legendary Zhen Dongye?"

"Well... I believe the individual you describe is indeed myself."

"It is a supreme honor, Senior!" she chirped, executing a flawless, disciplined bow.

"I am Izumi Uchiha. I pray for your continued guidance."

"The pleasure is mine, Izumi. I shall remember the name." She was undeniably a striking child, her large eyes carrying an expressive, luminous intelligence. The beauty mark resting precisely beneath her right eyelid lent her an innate elegance. No wonder young Sasuke was waging a subconscious war against her from infancy; if left unchecked, this enchantress would steal his brother's devotion entirely. Itachi recalled his mandate.

"Brother Zhen, regarding my father's invitation...?" Zhen required no extensive calculation to decipher Fugaku's underlying strategy; the patriarch's gambit was transparent. After a brief deliberation, he replied, "Inform your father I shall attend."

"My profound thanks, Senior! We shall await your arrival." Itachi offered another respectful bow before departing alongside a jubilant Izumi. Though the geopolitical undercurrents eluded his full comprehension, the boy was perceptive enough to note the shifting malice in the villagers' eyes and the volatile fury that had characterized the afternoon assembly. He intuitively understood that Zhen Dongye's acceptance of his father's invitation at this critical juncture was a monumental victory for his bloodline.

Upon crossing his own threshold, a significant interval elapsed before his parents returned from their respective departments.

"Mother, omit my portion from the hearth tonight. I am dining abroad."

"Understood." She offered no tedious reminders on etiquette; such instructions were redundant. Her son possessed a social maturity that surpassed her own. Jiro Dongye looked up, his brow furrowing.

"Zhen, who is hosting you?"

"An invitation from Patriarch Fugaku." Jiro's expression hardened into gravity.

"Zhen, I must advise against associating with the Uchiha at this specific juncture."

"There is no cause for concern, Father. Should anyone harbor a grievance, they are welcome to voice it to my face." Jiro sighed, a trace of helplessness in his voice.

"Very well. You have carved your own path since infancy, and my words carry little leverage. Yet you must comprehend the sheer weight of your influence within this village. In the wake of the cataclysm, every breath the Uchiha take is heavily scrutinized. You understand the political optics of this alignment better than I."

"Precisely. Which is exactly why I intend to walk through that gate." Had Zhen been an ordinary eleven-year-old child—even one possessing the rank of Jonin—he would have demurred, and Fugaku would never have extended the olive branch in the first place. An ordinary soldier lacked the leverage to alter the balance of power. But Zhen was an absolute anomaly. He wielded sufficient sovereign authority to chart his own course, and enough raw force to dictate the political landscape of the Leaf.

Should any faction within the high council dare to dispute that authority, they were welcome to take it up with the Nine-Tails and see if the beast concurred. Shortly past six in the evening, Zhen departed his estate, directing his steps toward the Uchiha quarter. The clan still occupied their ancestral heartland, though the hourglass was draining; their forced migration to the desolate fringe loomed on the horizon.

That specific coordinate had been handpicked by Danzo, optimized to facilitate absolute, multi-angled surveillance from the shadows. As Zhen neared the perimeter threshold, a shadow detached itself from the gloom—an Anbu operative vaulting directly into his path. Evaluating the distinct geometric patterns scoring the porcelain mask, Zhen identified the agent instantly: a sentinel of the Foundation. The voice that echoed beneath the porcelain was laced with hostility.

"Halt. Access beyond this coordinate is restricted."

"This is the sovereign territory of the Uchiha, not a black-site archive," Zhen noted, his tone deceptively casual.

"On what authority is entry barred?"

"Return whence you came." The Foundation agent was a creature of sparse vocabulary, letting his anatomy complete the sentence as his palm came to rest firmly upon the hilt of his tantō. Had a civilian or an ordinary ninja attempted entry, the sentinels would have permitted passage, content to log the transaction in their archives. But the individual standing before them carried an entirely different weight. Zhen's lips curled into a cold smile.

"Draw that blade and see what manifests. Unprovoked violence against a fellow shinobi of the Leaf grants me absolute legal authority to terminate your existence—alongside your two companions lurking in the brush. Care to wager how many seconds the three of you survive against my hand?" The Foundation operative's grip froze on the hilt. They were conditioned to embrace mortality, but they possessed no appetite for meaningless suicide. As for the myth that Danzo's hounds were entirely devoid of human emotion?

A convenient fiction for the gullible.

"This transaction will be reported directly to Lord Danzo," the agent hissed.

"Be my guest. Should he harbor an objection, inform him he is welcome to address me in person." Leaving the sentinel in the shadows, Zhen marched unceremoniously into the Uchiha compound. The enclave was no mere military barracks; it was a sprawling, self-contained city-within-a-city, teeming with civilian tradesmen, commercial storefronts, and independent infrastructure that allowed its citizens to live their entire lives isolated from the wider village.

The grid was familiar territory to Zhen; he had frequented these streets in the past to confer with Shisui. Yet in the wake of the cataclysm, visible scars marred the architecture—shattered masonry and scorched wood that remained pointedly untouched by masonry crews. Why bother mending foundations slated for abandonment? No one knew which rival lineage would inherit the deed to these plots.

The Uchiha were nursing a volatile, simmering fury; they had absolutely no intention of leaving a pristine estate to benefit their successors. That they hadn't marched en masse to tear down the Hokage Residence was already a monumental concession to the state.