"Maybe we should just assassinate that kid Itachi early and be done with it…"
Uchiha Sogen gritted his teeth inwardly, his thoughts dark and ruthless.
With Danzo as the perfect scapegoat, Sogen could pin the blame on him, and no one in the clan would suspect a thing. As for the fact that killing Itachi would mean Sasuke could never awaken the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in the future… well, that was a problem for later. If they couldn't survive the looming night of the clan's annihilation, the future wouldn't matter to Sogen anyway.
Walking down the streets of the Uchiha compound, Uchiha Sogen let out a silent sigh.
Assassinating Itachi? That was just talk.
Sogen's fighting style wasn't suited for stealthy kills. Taking out Itachi, who had already awakened his two-tomoe Sharingan, and framing Danzo for it… there were too many variables. Even if he managed to kill the ridiculously lucky Itachi, if it ever came out that *he* was behind it…
"Sogen!"
A shout from above snapped him out of his thoughts.
Uchiha Sogen stopped in his tracks.
His unreliable train of thought cut off, he looked up toward the source of the voice. It was a man with the rare, round "dumpling" nose, unusual for an Uchiha.
"…Shisui, you're back!"
"Just got back today."
Uchiha Shisui leapt down from the roof of a pancake shop. The shop's owner, Uncle Hand-Burn, didn't even glance up from the newspaper he was reading on his stool. Ninjas, right? Always ignoring perfectly good roads to scamper across rooftops and terraces. In a village as big as Konoha, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single roof tile that hadn't been stepped on by a ninja.
"Sogen, you look like something's eating you. What's wrong?"
Shisui naturally fell into step beside Sogen, walking shoulder to shoulder.
They were close friends, forged in the fires of the Third Shinobi War, where they'd fought tooth and nail against Mist ninjas on the eastern front. But…
"What else could it be? You know how things are with the clan!"
At those words, the faint smile on Shisui's face vanished, replaced by a shadow that crept over his eyes and brow.
"You weren't at the meeting the night before last, so let me fill you in. The clan's resentment is boiling over. Even some of the neutral folks are starting to side with the hardliners. More and more people are supporting an armed coup. And this time, the clan head didn't try to smooth things over. Even the two elders who usually oppose this kind of talk weren't as firm as they used to be…"
Sogen quietly relayed the details of the clan meeting to Shisui.
He, too, was against a coup. No, to be precise, he saw an armed uprising as a last resort—something to consider only when every other option was exhausted. A coup would hurt their enemies, sure, but it would cost the clan just as much. It was like drinking poison to quench thirst. Even if they succeeded, the losses would be catastrophic. And then what? How would they fend off the wolves circling the Land of Fire?
Worse, a coup wasn't even guaranteed to work.
The Uchiha clan wasn't weak by any means, but they weren't exactly at the height of their former glory either. They were still called Konoha's greatest clan, but how much of that was genuine respect and how much was mockery? That depended on who you asked.
The clan had plenty of jonin, but nowhere near as many as the combined forces of the village's other clans and civilian-born ninjas.
And to make matters worse, the only Uchiha known to have awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan—Shisui—was someone who'd transcended the clan's narrow-mindedness. Raised on the Will of Fire passed down from his parents, Shisui would never betray the village. He was a cut above people like Obito or Itachi—Shisui would rather take his own life than raise a hand against his clan.
As for Uchiha Fugaku, the clan head who was *suspected* of having the Mangekyo Sharingan… when faced with his own son's blade, he chose not to fight back, all to avoid a family bloodbath. Maybe that brought him peace, but it left the rest of the clan in misery.
With a clan this divided, how could they possibly pull off a coup?
Sogen saw no hope of success.
*Sigh… it all comes down to me being too weak. If I were stronger…*
Sogen clenched his fist, then let it go limply.
Becoming stronger wasn't something that happened overnight. During the Third War, he'd poured everything into just surviving the battlefield. When the war finally ended, the Nine-Tails' attack hit, pushing the Uchiha clan to the brink of a cliff.
In this stormy, treacherous world, just staying alive was exhausting enough.
"Things have gotten *that* bad?" Shisui's brow furrowed in pain. He cherished his clan, but he loved the village just as much. When the two were locked in an irreconcilable conflict, heading toward a fight to the death, the weight of it crushed him.
Later, when Shisui threw himself into the river, he left behind a note: *"I'm tired of these missions. If this continues, the Uchiha clan has no future, and I don't want to keep going down this path."*
At that point, Shisui had likely been broken by the deep, inescapable despair of a future he couldn't see.
Suicide was the choice of someone driven to utter desperation.
For someone as warm and cheerful as Shisui, to choose such a tragic end… it could only mean he'd been pushed to the absolute edge of despair.
"Sogen, is there really… no way to stop the clan's plans?"
"There is! If the village's higher-ups would stop deliberately suppressing and harassing us, the hardliners wouldn't have so much influence. There are actually plenty of clan members who oppose a coup. It's just… the endless mistreatment—it's hard to swallow, you know?"
"The Hokage is just…"
Shisui opened his mouth, trying to defend the Third Hokage.
"Shisui, I get it. The Nine-Tails incident left a mess, and if I were the Hokage, I'd probably be wary of the Uchiha too. But the thing is, that incident had *nothing* to do with us! Right now, you're the only one in the clan who's awakened the Mangekyo, and that was *after* the Nine-Tails attack."
"The clan isn't going to care how hard the Hokage's working for the village's peace. They—no, *we*—we only feel the village's endless hostility. You work in the Anbu, but you must know how bad the reputation of the clan members in the Police Force is, right?"
Ignoring Shisui's attempt to respond, Sogen glanced around, then pointed at a three-story building nearby. "Shisui, let's head over there. You just finished a mission, right? If you've got no plans… how about we sit down and talk?"
"Sure!"
Shisui nodded, not hesitating.
He had no reason to refuse.
Feeling heavy-hearted, Shisui needed someone to confide in too. It was kind of pathetic—despite being one of the Uchiha clan's top fighters, he didn't have many friends. Too many people saw him as an idol, not an equal.
Without Uchiha Sogen, the only person in the clan he could really connect with was Itachi, who was several years younger.
But Itachi was still a kid—not exactly the best person to vent to. In the original history, Shisui had no like-minded friend to share his burdens with. He bottled everything up, forcing a smile for Itachi's sake. That's probably how the pressure and despair piled up.
Fortunately, history had shifted a bit. With Uchiha Sogen as a friend, Shisui finally had someone he could open up to about his struggles.
Even if their views didn't always align perfectly.
(End of Chapter)